Hobbes in this excerpt of Chapter 21 of Leviathan, argues that the subjects have liberty to disobey the sovereign only when this disobedience does not detract from fulfilling the purpose of the covenants. In this paper, I will call into question Hobbes' argument by showing that Hobbes does not address the human nature of the sovereign and thus fails to consider a possible tragic outcome.
According to Hobbes, the purpose of the covenants is to protect the subjects from returning to the state of nature and thus prevent them from living in fear. In the state of nature, human beings have the rights to do anything, even attacking or killing others. In this state, people live in fear because they do not know who might attack or when. Therefore, in order to protect themselves from possible threats, people make covenants with each other; that is, they give up rights that threaten peace. Then, in order to assure that these covenants are kept, they transfer their rights to the sovereign. Upon receiving the rights from the subjects, sovereign enforces the laws which will ensure the subjects to live in peace, not in fear as they did in the state of nature. This gathering of a sovereign and the subjects is called the commonwealth.
In the commonwealth, sovereign is the decision maker. He decides what is necessary for the commonwealth, which action is to be taken for the subjects, and ultimately, what law is to be set to protect the subjects. Because these are the decisions made by the sovereign whom as mentioned, the subjects transferred every right including decision-making, the subjects are obligated to follow every law set by the sovereign. However, there are certain occasions in which the subjects may refuse to obey the orders of ...