Index

THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES OF
THOMAS HOBBES AND JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
OF
MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
BY
PERVĐN YĐĞĐT
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
IN
THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
NOVEMBER 2007
Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences
Prof. Dr. Sencer AYATA

Director
I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the
degree of Master of Arts.
Prof. Dr. Ahmet ĐNAM

Head of Department
This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is
fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of
Arts.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş. Halil TURAN

Supervisor
Examining Committee Members
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş. Halil TURAN (METU, PHIL)
Prof. Dr. Yasin CEYLAN (METU, PHIL)
Dr. Adnan AKÇAY (METU, SOC)

I hereby declare that all information in this document has been
obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical
conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I
have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not
original to this work.
Name, Last Name: PERVĐN YĐĞĐT
Signature:
iii
ABSTRACT
THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES OF

THOMAS HOBBES AND JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
YĐGĐT, Pervin
M.A., Department of Philosophy
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş. Halil Turan
November 2007, 142 pages
This thesis aims to examine the question of freedom in its relation to

political authority in social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In order to do that, discussions on
human nature, evolution into political association and the foundations of
legitimate governments are focused on. As the social contract theories of
Hobbes and Rousseau mainly seek for rational justification of political
obligation, the primary aim of this thesis is to analyze the nature of political
obligation in order to discuss the relation between subject and sovereign in
the framework of freedom.
Keywords: Political state, sovereignty, freedom, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-

Jacques Rousseau.
iv
ÖZ
THOMAS HOBBES VE JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU’NUN SĐYASET

FELSEFELERĐNDEKĐ ÖZGÜRLÜK PROBLEMĐ
YĐĞĐT, Pervin
Yüksek Lisans, Felsefe Bölümü
Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Ş. Halil Turan
Kasım 2007, 142 sayfa
Bu çalışma, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) ve Jean-Jacques Rousseau’nun

(1712-1778) toplum sözleşmelerindeki özgürlük problemini, siyasi otorite
ile ilişkisi çerçevesinde incelemektedir. Bu amaca yönelik olarak her iki
filozofun doğa durumu ile ilgili düşünceleri, siyasi örgütlenmeye geçiş
süreçleri ve bu örgütlenmeyi meşrulaştıran temelleri üzerinde durulmuştur.
Her ikisinin de toplum sözleşmelerinin temel amacı siyasi yükümlülüğü
meşrulaştırmak olduğundan dolayı, tezin başlıca amacı siyasi yükümlülüğün
doğasının analizidir; böylece siyasi toplumdaki egemen ve özne arasındaki
ilişki özgürlük çerçevesi içinde tartışılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Siyasi yapı, egemenlik, özgürlük, Thomas Hobbes,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
v
To My Father
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş.

Halil Turan, for his guidance, advice, criticism, encouragement and insight
throughout the research. I would also like to thank for his suggestions and
comments. Without his steady support, I could not complete this thesis.
I want to thank to the members of examining committee, Prof. Dr. Yasin

Ceylan and Dr. Adnan Akçay, for their suggestions and comments.
I deeply appreciate my mother Akile Yiğit, and my father Yılmaz Yiğit for
their never-ending support, and also love not only during the course of this
work, but also during my entire life.
Finally, my friends Özge Arcan, Seniha Arkut, Güven Baha, Nilay Derviş,
Seda Đlgen, Mediha Keskinköz, Münevver Özakalın, Emek Yıldırım, and M.
Onur Ertürk are gratefully acknowledged because of their help, support, and
encouragement during the thesis work.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLAGIARISM...............................................................................................iii
ABSTRACT..................................................................................................iv
ÖZ...................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................viii
CHAPTER......................................................................................................1
1. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................1
2. THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE IDEA OF POLITICAL

SOCIETY..........................................................................................15
2.1 Hobbes’ Conception of State of Nature……………..……15
2.2 Rousseau’s Conception of State of Nature……………….21
2.3 Justification of Setting up a Political Society…………….30
2.3.1 Hobbes’ Rationalization of “Leviathan”……………30
2.3.2 Rousseau’s Rationalization of Political Body………36
3. THE IDEA OF SOCIAL CONTRACT AND THE THEORY OF

OBLIGATION……………………………………………………..41
3.1 Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s Ideas on Social Contract……….42
3.2 Hobbes’ “authorization” and Rousseau’s “consent”……...49
3.3 Sovereignty for Hobbes and Rousseau…………………...53
viii
3.4 Obligation towards Sovereign Authority…………………59
3.5 Hobbes and Religion……………………………………...70
4. THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN LEVIATHAN AND SOCIAL

CONTRACT…..................................................................................83
4.1 Leviathan and Freedom…………………………………...84
4.2 The Social Contract and Freedom……………………....104
5. CONCLUSION………………………………………………...…129
REFERENCES……………………………………………………….138
ix
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This thesis aims to examine the question of freedom and its relation to
political authority in social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In order to do that, I will try to
find answers to questions such as ‘why natural man gives away his freedom
voluntarily and participate in a commonwealth’, ‘what their rights and duties
are in a political association’, and ‘whether they renounce their liberty when
obliging to the sovereign’.
The reason why I chose to study political philosophies of Hobbes and

Rousseau is that because the social contract tradition has begun with Hobbes
and took a new frame with Rousseau. They shared the belief that medieval
world could no longer provide an adequate framework to understand the
political life of their time. For Andrzej Rapaczynski this unifies their
thoughts.1 According to Hobbes and Rousseau there is a need of new
conceptualization of modern politics’ realities and they think that a
positivistic reading of modern science is possible.
1
Rapaczynski, Andrzej. Nature and Politics: Liberalism in the Philosophies of Hobbes,
Locke and Rousseau (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 6.
1
Hobbes thought that “political philosophy in the seventeenth century had to
be grounded in modern natural science, with its mechanistic approach,
rather than in outdated Aristotelian teleology”.2 Therefore, Hobbes replaced
Aristotle’s teleology and theological foundations of political philosophy
with mechanistic theory of nature. Additionally, Hobbes thought that
individuals are the basic elements of the society, thus, he tries to explain the
structure and function of social institutions by means of individuals.
According to Rapaczynski, this understanding substitutes the significance of
individual members in place of Aristotelian insistence on priority of society
over the individuals.3 In fact, the starting point of Hobbes’ philosophy is the
interest and will of individuals. Ronald Grimsley states that the question of
right is inseparable of question of interest in politics;4 hence Hobbes
constructs his political theory in order to provide some good to the
individuals.
In addition to this it will be useful to look at the political situation before the
Leviathan was published. Jonathan M. Wiener summarizes the situation in
1649 and claimed that:
The king had been executed, the House of Lords abolished, and
Cromwell declared head of the new Commonwealth; the new
government’s first task was to persuade moderate and hostile
groups that the revolution was really over. That is, Cromwell
needed a theory of political obligation which could persuade
Presbyterians and Royalists to abandon their sworn obligations
to protect the life of the king, take the oath of allegiance to the
Commonwealth, and obey what they considered to be a usurping
power.5
2
Ibid., p. 28.
3
Ibid., p. 8.
4
Grimsley, Ronald. The Philosophy of Rousseau (London: Oxford University Press, 1973),
pp. 95-96.
5
Wiener, Jonathan M. “Quentin Skinner’s Hobbes”, Political Theory, 2/3 (1974), p. 252.
2
According to F. S. McNeilly, Hobbes had lived in a period of social chaos
and political instability and for him these were the great evils which should
be avoided.6 The social situation can be considered as the reason of his
pessimistic view of human nature and his obsession of absolute control and
security. For Hobbes, men are naturally selfish and enemies to each other
therefore Arthur M. Melzer argues that “[g]iven their nature, men need to be
governed by an absolute monarch who rules with an iron hand”.7 To say it
differently, Hobbes’ account on repressive and absolute government seems
to be derived from his harsh view of human nature.
However, Rousseau was a passionate lover of liberty and individual

independence. Unlike Hobbes, he tried to challenge monarchical values and
social structures8 that is why Rousseau was seen as a precursor of the French
Revolution.
Rousseau focused on the realization of individual freedom in political

society, that is to say he tried to reconcile freedom and order with his
insistence on subject’s freedom. In this thesis, I will examine how Rousseau
reconciles individual freedom and political freedom in a commonwealth. In
his political state, Rousseau leaves room for freedom of subjects by making
them indivisible parts of the body politic. According to E. D. Watt,
Rousseau also introduces his state as a partnership in all sciences, in all arts
and in every virtue,9 therefore, he seems to unite all the subjects under the
common good, and he tried to give those subjects active roles and freedom
in a political state.
6
McNeilly, F. S. The Anatomy of Leviathan (New York: St. Martin’s Publications, 1968),
p. 3.
7
Melzer, Arthur M. The Natural Goodness of Man: on the System of Rousseau’s Thought
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 20.
8
Starobinski, Jean. Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 22.
9
Watt, E. D. “Rousseau Rechaufee- Being Obliged, Consenting, Participating, and Obeying
only Oneself”, The Journal of Politics, 43/3 (1981), p. 715.
3
Although Hobbes also appears to give freedom to subjects while they are
participating in a civil association, his authoritarianism leads him to be
illiberal and avoids him of being a defender of freedom. Hobbes makes the
sovereign a powerful agent which uses laws to secure advantages of a group
and subordinates the citizen. David P. Gauthier asserts the following:
Hobbes intends no totalitarian system, or arbitrary despotism,

but rather an enlightened monarchy, authoritarian but
benevolent, offering the subjects both ample opportunity to
make known their needs and grievances before the seats of
power and adequate freedom to engage in commercial and
mercantile activities.10
Consequently, it is possible to observe that most authors have different

arguments on the relation between subject and sovereign in Hobbes’ system.
In this thesis, different points of view on Hobbes’ sovereign,11 whether he
suggests a repressive government or enlightened monarchy will be discussed
by means of the concept of freedom since the relation between subject and
sovereign will be studied in the framework of freedom.
Since the main question is to discuss the concept of freedom in the social
contract theories of Hobbes and Rousseau, first I will look at the discussions
on their human nature and natural man. For Hobbes, men in the state of
nature cannot live sociably together because they are in competition for
honor and dignity, and the common good differs from their private goods. In
order to exist, man has right to preserve his life and his possessions by
means of his own power because there is no justice, law and authority to
secure him, but the intention and consciousness of the agents is the only
10
Gauthier, David P. The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral and Political Theory of Thomas
Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 139.
11
See Gauthier, D. P. The Logic of Leviathan; Rapaczynski, A. Nature and Politics; Gert,
Bernard. “Hobbes’ Psychology” in The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Wiener, J. M. “Quentin Skinner’s
Hobbes”.
4
judge in the state of nature.12 Therefore human beings having unlimited
passions, turn state of nature into state of war and this leads Hobbes to put
emphasis on self preservation in constructing his theory. Hobbes insists that
men in the state of nature cannot expect long preservation because of their
natural equality of strength and other faculties,13 and their willingness to
hurt each other.14 Therefore they should enter into society for living in
secure and peaceful society; in brief they become subjects to an authority for
their own sake.
In contrast to Hobbes who attributes an evil nature to men, Rousseau sees

natural man as naturally good due to the calmness of their passions.
According to Rousseau self love is the origin of all our passions, thus
Rousseau, unlike Hobbes, suggests that the root of life is not a negative
relation to the other but positive affection for oneself and for simply being.15
For Rousseau, man in the state of nature does not harm another one unless
he is in danger of losing his life16 and he also says that “since the state of
[n]ature is that in which care of our self-preservation is the least prejudicial
to the self preservation of others, that state was consequently the best suited
to Peace and the most appropriate for the Human Race”.17 That is to say
Rousseau makes natural men as agents who are good both for themselves
and for the others.
12
Hobbes, Thomas. De Cive, or on The Citizen, eds. Richard Tuck, and Michael
Silverthorne (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 54.
13
Ibid., p. 31.
14
Ibid., pp. 25-26.
15
Melzer. The Natural Goodness of Man, p. 38.
16
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Second Discourse);
Polemics; and, Political Economy, eds. Roger D. Masters, and Christopher Kelly (Hanover,
NH: University Press of New England, 1992), p. xvi.
17
Ibid., p. 35.
5
Despite their differences on natural man, both of these philosophers
introduce the necessity of a political society and a common authority in
order to enjoy a peaceful and secure life. Hobbes asserts that everyone seeks
peace and wants to live in a commonwealth guaranteed by a common power
due to the fear of losing their lives.18 Similarly, according to Rousseau the
aim of the political state is the preservation of the citizens,19 thus, natural
men want to avoid unsecured environment of the state of nature and enter
into a political association in order to live in safe conditions which are
guaranteed by means of a contract in a civil society. In Rousseau’s state,
there is an exchange of personal force for a right which is guaranteed by
social union20 therefore natural man prefers being a part of a civil
association for well being of himself and of the whole community.
In their theories, both Hobbes and Rousseau legitimize entering into a

society and the existence of a common power before justifying political
obligation which is the product of voluntary association. Both emphasize
implicit promise when discussing the transformation to the civil association
since the state is established for the sake of the individuals. As social
contract theories mainly seek rational justification of political obligation, it
is necessary to examine the role of authorization in Hobbes’ theory and the
role of consent in Rousseau's theory.
In Hobbes’ political state, the relation between subject and sovereign is the
relation between the author and the actor. Thus he gives subjects positive
role in the political society by means of introducing authorization. Similarly,
Rousseau thinks that man is the author of political society and it is his
18
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), p. 71.
19
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Social Contract; Discourse on the Virtue Most Necessary for a
Hero; Political Fragments; and, Geneva Manuscript, eds. Roger D. Masters, and
Christopher Kelly (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), p. 185.
20
Ibid., p. 150.
6
“consent”, which gives sovereign the authority for making orders and
commands. For both of these philosophers no political society can be
established without active roles of the subjects. Subjects voluntarily give
themselves to sovereign, renounce or transfer their rights; in short they leave
their complete freedom by their free will in order to enjoy their limited
liberty in safety. The method of consent protects the subjects of Hobbes and
Rousseau from injury by the state and makes the state an instrument for
serving the interests of its citizens.
Since men are equal and no one has natural authority over the others, it is
the convention or agreement, which gives sovereign the authority. Thus, to
give legitimacy to the authority means to create a commonwealth and it
makes the restraints on men their duties as well. In other words in both of
their theories, it is the consent which both confers legitimacy on a
government and establishes the principal ground of the obligation of the
citizen to conform to law. Specifically, it can be claimed that it is the man
who creates obligations by his free will, as Gauthier says all obligations are
self imposed in a civil association.21
Hobbes introduced the idea of representation, and argued that multitude is

made one person when they are represented by one man or one assembly
with the consent of every one of that multitude in particular. Therefore, in
his theory, “people both is and is not the sovereign”.22 Hobbes says that
people have right to participate in the actions of the sovereign through
authorization. However, Rousseau strongly rejects the idea of being
represented, and argues that having representative means to renounce
freedom.23 For him, subjects and sovereign are not two different parts of the
commonwealth, rather individuals are people as being subjects to the laws
21
Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, pp. 40-41.
22
Ibid., p. 175.
23
Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 194.
7
of the state, and they are also citizens due to their participations in the
sovereign authority.24 Furthermore, for him, each citizen puts his person in
common under the supreme direction of the general will, thus, each member
becomes an indivisible part of the whole body.25 Therefore, unlike Hobbes
who unites multitude by representatives, Rousseau thinks that multitude
turns to be one under the sovereignty, which is regarded as the exercise of
the general will.26
In both Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s view, since men freely established a

commonwealth and legitimized the authority through their consent, they
have obligation to obey that sovereign. Otherwise, men necessarily return
“to the undisciplined and irrational condition of state of nature”.27 For
Hobbes, subjects have to obey the sovereign power in order to be protected
because man’s main concern is self preservation. Whereas Rousseau argues
that people should obey it as long as the sovereign aims at justice and public
felicity because the citizens freely participate in the sovereign in order to
achieve common good. As a matter of fact, both claim that subjects have
obligation to obey sovereign and its laws, and they have incentive to obey
since obeying is favorable for them. But the difference is that Hobbes’
subjects obey only for security, and Rousseau’s subjects obey for common
welfare.
As long as authority is legitimized in their political philosophies, this means

that obligation to it and its laws are rationalized, and this leads to arguments
concerning individual freedom and political freedom. Put another way,
although they put emphasis on the significance of consent and authorization,
24
Ibid., p. 139.
25
Ibid., p. 139.
26
Ibid., p. 145.
27
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, p. 119.
8
still the existence of common force and the obligation to laws of the
sovereign lead to questions about freedom.
Indeed, Rousseau tries to construct a political association in which men are

not slaves but active citizens who are obeying themselves while obeying
sovereign, in other words, Rousseau's subjects become the sovereign by
giving consent and trust to the sovereign28. Conversely, Hobbes’ subjects
only authorize the sovereign. Hobbes insists on absolute power of sovereign
and limited rights of members. In contrast to Rousseau, in Hobbes’ system,
absolute character of sovereign power which is authorized by the subjects
makes the subjects passive beings in legislation. The subjects become abject
slaves as they do not have any right to resist the sovereign since the only
aim is the security not the common welfare in the commonwealth. Common
power is used in his theory for the justification of political obligation rather
than consent. Although he argues that sovereign “has as much power as the
citizens can confer upon him”29 his interest in establishing control rather
than expanding freedom is challenging for the concept of freedom.
In addition to this, since fear is the main motive of obeying laws, freedom of
Hobbes’ subjects seems to be problematic, therefore, in order to avoid
questions of their freedom, he tries to indicate the consistency between fear
and liberty in Leviathan. Authors like J. W. N. Watkins, D. V. Mill, D.
Herzog and McNeilly argue that in Hobbes’ theory, obeying the sovereign
authority out of fear or following his laws out of fear of punishment does
28
Watt, “Rousseau Rechaufee- Being Obliged, Consenting, Participating, and Obeying only
Oneself”, p. 714.
29
Hobbes, De Cive, p. 88.
9
not mean that these actions are not free.30 However, James Roland Pennock
and Rapaczynski claim that actions of an individual, who obeys the
sovereign and his laws because of fear, could not be free and he could not
become a subject voluntarily.31 Therefore, even though Hobbes asserts that
“in the act of our submission, consists both our obligation and our liberty”,32
the fear of the power of sovereign which is regarded as the only reason for
obedience, appears to eliminate the role of free will of the subjects in
Hobbes’s theory.
According to Hobbes, liberty of the subjects could only be possible in the

silence of the law.33 That is to say, what is not prohibited is permitted.
Unless the sovereign who retains full right of nature forbids something,
subjects are free to act in accordance with their judgments. Therefore,
Hobbes never defines liberty as exemption from subjection to laws, but
actually for him, liberty is the freedom from sovereign’s obligations.
Moreover, sovereign in Hobbes’ system have right to do whatever is
necessary to preserve peace,34 thus, it can be stated that naked absolutism of
Hobbes serves for absolute security in the political state and this also makes
the sovereign power as favorable to the individual. Hobbes says in
Leviathan that “[w]hensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounce it…
30
See Watkins, J. W. N. “Liberty”, in Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical
Essays, eds. M. W. Cranston, and R. S. Peter (New York: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 213-
232; Watkins, J. W. N. Hobbes System of Ideas; a Study in The Political Significance of
Philosophical Theories (London: Hutchinson, 1973); Mill, David Van. “Hobbes’ Theories
of Freedom”, The Journal of Politics, 57/2 (1995), pp. 443-459; Mill, David Van. “Civil
Liberty in Hobbes’s Commonwealth”, Australian Journal of Political Science, 37/1 (2002),
pp. 21-38; Herzog, Don. Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1989); McNeilly, F. S. The Anatomy of Leviathan.
31
See Pennock, J. R. “Hobbes’s Confusing “Clarity” - The Case of “Liberty””, The
American Political Science Review, 54/2 (1960), pp. 428-436; Pennock, J. R. Coercion, eds.
J. R. Pennock, and J. W. Chapman (Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972); Rapaczynski, A.
Nature and Politics.
32
Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 150.
33
Ibid., p. 151.
34
Ibid., pp. 124-145.
10
it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is
some good to himself”.35 Consequently, Hobbes tries to avoid questions on
the absolute character of the sovereign by making it, as the provider of the
security of political state, which also serves for the advantages of the
subjects.
However, people who give power to sovereign have no right of making

protestation against sovereign and his laws because once they make a
covenant they have to perform it, they cannot give up their agreements
without acting unjustly.36 Being authorized by the subjects, sovereign cannot
make injury to his citizens, thus for Hobbes, there is no need of resistance
and individuals could not have good reasons to break the covenant. Hobbes
thinks that if men want to be protected by an authority, “they should pay for
protection by forgoing whatever liberty it costs”.37 Furthermore, as long as
men laid aside his unlimited rights which they had in the state of nature and
transfer them to the sovereign in order to live in secure society, “[they are]
obliged or bound not to hinder those to whom such right is granted or
abandoned from the benefit of it”.38 Since Hobbes’ main aim is to provide
security, he gives more importance to protection than liberty and he believes
that freedom could be meaningful and possible only after achieving absolute
security in a political society.
However, the end of Rousseau’s state is not protection but justice and
common good, and for that reason, his aim is to conceive such a body politic
in which each person obeys his own will while obeying the will of the
commonwealth. Unlike Hobbes’ sovereign with absolute power and rights,
Rousseau’s sovereign provides equality of right and justice and becomes the
35
Ibid., p. 93.
36
Ibid., p. 123.
37
Watkins, “Liberty”, p. 213.
38
Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 92-93.
11
guarantor of freedom. Rousseau puts great emphasis on freedom and free
will of the subjects and he also argues that, for individual, in order to
recognize his true being and freedom, he should obey general will. Citizens
achieve civil freedom limited with general will and moral values after
entering into a society and becoming master of themselves which is possible
only “[by] obedience to laws”39. When citizens obey the laws that contribute
their liberty, they do not obey anyone but only their own free will.40
Rousseau claims that “each of us puts his person and his entire power under
the supreme direction of the general will”.41 As a result, it can be argued that
Rousseau tries to establish a commonwealth by reconciling individual
freedom and political freedom.
In Rousseau’s political theory, the state, consent and general will provide
freedom. According to Rapaczynski, even Rousseau’s paradox of forcing to
be free is understood as contributing freedom because when individuals are
forced to obey their reason in the civil state, they are forced by the
community, which makes their moral agency free.42 However, some authors
argue that individuals in Rousseau’s theory appear to be coerced by the
sovereign.43 In fact, like Hobbes, freedom in his theory does not mean to do
whatever you want to do but it means to control your desires and passions.
Furthermore, unlike Hobbes who considers rebellion as renewed war,44
Rousseau gives dominant power and right to subjects to revoke any
government. For him, the supreme power is the legislative will that is the
39
40
Ibid., p. 150.
41
Ibid., p. 139.
42
Rapaczynski, Nature and Politics, p. 262.
43
See Plamenatz, J. P. Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (London: Oxford
University Press, 1968); Hocutt, M. “Compassion without Charity, Freedom without
Liberty: The Political Fantasies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”, The Independent Review, 8/2
(2003), pp. 165-191.
44
12
will of the subjects. Grimsley claims that Rousseau holds a democratic view
of sovereign and defends that ultimate political authority can be safely left
in the people’s hands.45 That is to say, unlike Hobbes who argues that
subjects have obligation to obey the sovereign and cannot question the
absoluteness of its power, Rousseau as a defender of individual liberty tries
to eliminate the gap between sovereign and subjects. In his theory, sovereign
does not appear to be an independent, absolute, and repressive power like
that of Hobbes.
However some authors claim that when sovereign of Rousseau directs and
guides subjects to induce them to obey general will and common good,
individuals’ free will lose its importance. Therefore, Rousseau makes all
individuals as prototypes obeying the general will not their wills.46
In this thesis, opposing views on both Rousseau and Hobbes are discussed,
and especially arguments on freedom are limited to political theories of
Hobbes and Rousseau. This thesis is mainly an analysis of Hobbes’
Leviathan and De Cive, and Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of
Inequality and Social Contract.
The thesis is composed of five chapters. After the introduction, the second
chapter deals with Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s conceptions of state of nature
and their justifications of entering into a political state. The third chapter
aims to clarify the meanings of social contract, general will, authorization,
consent and sovereignty in political theories of Hobbes and Rousseau and
also the role of God in Hobbes’ theory. This chapter also discusses the
grounds of political obligation and tries to answer how Hobbes and
45
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 117-118.
46
See Hocutt, M, “Compassion Without Charity, Freedom Without Liberty: The Political
Fantasies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”; Riley, Patrick. “A Possible Explanation of
Rousseau’s General Will”, The American Political Science Review, 64/1 (1970), pp. 86-97;
Riley, Patrick. “Rousseau’s General Will: Freedom of a Particular Kind”, Political Studies,
39 (1991), pp. 55- 74.
13
Rousseau rationalize obligation toward common authority. The fourth
chapter focuses on the meaning of freedom in the sphere of submission by
comparing their theories. The last chapter gives a summary and a final
analysis of the possibility of individual freedom in both philosophers’
political theories.
14
CHAPTER 2
THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE IDEA OF

POLITICAL SOCIETY
In this chapter, the primary focus is the Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s respective
definitions of state of nature. Since the establishment of political society is
related with transformation and development of human nature, firstly, I will
analyze their accounts on natural state, the characteristics of natural man and
the conditions of that state before examining their views on political states.
Secondly, the need for a civil state will be analyzed, and their discussions on
legitimization of political authority will be examined in detail in order to
focus on their theories of obligation, which will be examined in Chapter 3.
2.1 Hobbes’ Conception of State of Nature
In the seventeenth century England, mechanistic science of nature and its

philosophical foundations leads to a new way of looking at nature and
society.47 Thus, Hobbes introduced his political philosophy within the
framework of mechanism.
47
15
As it is clear in Leviathan, Hobbes based his political theory on his account
of human nature and he gave a definition of natural state in terms of
passions of human beings. As Tom Sorell states that, for Hobbes, “the
principles of civil philosophy are accessible from a starting point in
acquaintance with the passions”.48 According to Hobbes, introducing state
of nature is essential in order to indicate the need for a commonwealth and a
common power. Thus when studying his political theory, we must take his
state of nature into account at first.
What is state of nature? Is it only a logical construction or a historical

period? According to Samuel I. Mintz, it is not a historical phase through
which men have passed but “[t]he state of nature is the logical extreme of
human society without law”.49 However, it can also be claimed that state of
nature is always a possibility.50 No matter it is conceived as a historical
phase or not, Hobbes gives great emphasis to state of nature and argues that
it is the man who is the measure of his own good in such a natural state:
[B]ut whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire,

that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his
hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and
inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil and contemptible,
are ever used with relation to the person that useth them, there
being nothing simply and absolutely so.51
In De Cive, he also adds that nature has given all things to all men and it can
be derived from this statement that measure of right in natural state is the
48
Sorell, Tom. “Hobbes’s Scheme of the Sciences” in The Cambridge Companion to
Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 55.
49
Mintz, Samuel I. The Hunting of Leviathan; Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the
Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1962), p. 33.
50
Jouvenel Bertrand de. Sovereignty; An Inquiry into the Political Good (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 232.
51
16
interest of human beings.52 Therefore, human individuality is the
cornerstone in his theory, and there is natural priority of individuality to
social interaction.53 It can be claimed that Hobbes successfully constructs
his theory on this individuality; “[i]t was Hobbes’s achievement to deduce
logically the necessary structure of political society from the characteristics
and needs of the ‘I’”.54
What does “I” mean for Hobbes? What are the general characteristics of an
independent human being living in state of nature? Firstly, he claims that
“NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind”,55
and he also adds that “there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal
distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share”.56
Consequently, this equality among mankind is the major cause of Hobbes’

famous war of all against all in state of nature; “if any two men desire the
same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become
enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own
conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or
subdue one another”.57 In other words, if “[a]ll men are equal-equal, that is,
in having desires, in desiring roughly the same things, and in having roughly
the same capacity to get them” the state of nature necessarily turns to be a
state of war with Hobbes.58
52
53
54
Jouvenel, Sovereignty, p. 196.
55
56
Ibid., p. 87.
57
Ibid.
58
Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan, p. 31.
17
Gert claims that “Hobbes did not deny people were ever motivated by love
and concern for others. What Hobbes does deny is that people naturally love
all other human beings”.59 Therefore, this war of every man against every
man is not based on innate hostility among mankind but Gauthier says that,
for Hobbes, it is based on hostility which is caused by the conflict between
man’s powers of self maintenance: “War is the consequence of natural
insecurity, and the natural desire to preserve oneself”,60 and this is the
reason why Hobbes puts emphasis to self preservation in constructing his
theory.
In state of nature, man has right to preserve his life and his possessions by
means of his own power because there is no justice, law and authority to
secure him but the intention and consciousness of the agents is the only
judge.61 It is clear that self preservation, for Hobbes, is a blind organismic
drive which aims at the perpetuation of natural existence of human beings.62
In such a state, “every one is governed by his own reason, and there is
nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving
his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man
has a right to every thing, even to one another's body”.63 What Hobbes tried
to put emphasis on is the unlimited liberty, as the right of primitive men in
state of nature.
Hobbes’ emphasis on the priority of self preservation can easily be seen in

his definition of natural right and natural law. For him, the right of nature “is
the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the
59
Gert, “Hobbes’s Psychology”, p. 167. See Hobbes, De Cive, chapters 1-2 and 6 for more
information.
60
Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 17. See also Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 87-88.
61
62
63
18
preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and
consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgment and reason, he
shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto”.64 Moreover, he defines law
of nature as “a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man
is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the
means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may
be best preserved”.65 In other words, for Hobbes, consciousness of man in
state of nature is the guide on all matters, and what is important for him is
only the self preservation of himself.
Hobbes’ definitions of rights and laws of nature especially emphasize

preservation of men but it sounds as if he gives priority to personal
preservation. Although Howard Warrender claims that natural laws of
Hobbes are rules for preservation of men in general.66 Johann P.
Sommerville argues that “the laws of nature are primarily rules for personal
preservation, and only secondarily principles for the preservation of
others”.67 According to Hobbes, man has right to do whatever necessary for
the preservation of his life, and this is based on the notion that, being
egocentric and self interested, man is motivated by his passions. His fear of
death is more important than others and the fundamental law of nature
commands man to use all helps and advantages, in order to avoid death,
when there is no hope for peace:68 “to seek peace when some hope of having
64
Ibid., p. 91.
65
Ibid.
66
Warrender, Howard. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, His Theory of Obligation
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 255.
67
Sommerville, Johann P. Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context
(Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1992), p. 79. See also Watkins, Hobbes’s System of Ideas, p.
119.
68
Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 33-34.
19
peace exists, and to seek aid for war when peace cannot be had, is a dictate
of right reason, i.e. a law of Nature”.69
According to Hobbes right is the liberty that every man could use his natural
faculties according to his right reason. Therefore, natural right allows men to
protect their lives and properties as much as they can70. It is clear that self
preservation is the ultimate motive of human behavior, and the practical role
of reason is to establish self preservation. McNeilly states that “[i]f self
preservation is my chief value, then the only security for my own life is the
exercise of power over others”.71 To be precise, in such a state without
justice, law or authority, man could only survive by means of his power. In
the state of nature “there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine
distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he
can keep it”.72 Therefore, for achieving means and protecting those means in
order to survive, man should have power. The concept of power as a basis of
his political theory is a very significant concept of Hobbes’ account of
human nature and his political society as well.
It is worth quoting him to clarify the meaning of power in state of nature for
his theory:
I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and

restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death,
because he cannot assure the power and means to live well,
which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.73
69
Ibid., p. 31.
70
Ibid., p. 27.
71
McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan, p. 168.
72
73
Ibid., p.70.
20
In other words, man in natural state is dominated by an insatiable desire for
power from birth to death. Man has little chance of promoting his objectives
in such a state and only power could make man achieve his objectives. If
men are naturally permitted to do whatever they desire, men turn state of
nature into state of war by means of their unlimited liberty to do whatever
necessary for their preservation.74
As was mentioned above, state of nature is a state of quarrel for Hobbes and
human beings are naturally bad, egocentric and self interested who are not
capable of living in peace without a common authority. However, some
authors like McNeilly claims that natural men are not necessarily so brutally
and exclusively selfish as Hobbes makes them out to be.75 Put another way,
making a logical construction about state of nature in order to understand a
state without political authority and social order does not necessitate
introducing human beings in state of war. Although Hobbes attributes an
evil nature to natural men, Rousseau introduces natural men as naturally
good due to the calmness of their passions.76 That is to say, state of nature is
a state of peace for Rousseau, which as the next topic, will be thoroughly
discussed in the following part.
2.2 Rousseau’s Conception of State of Nature
In contrast to Hobbes, Rousseau, in Emile, states that God makes all things
good and man is naturally good for himself, self sufficient and happy.77
Although natural state is a situation without an authority and social order,
primitive men of Rousseau are not necessarily enemies to each other like
74
Ibid., pp. 87-88. See also Hobbes, De Cive, p. 34.
75
76
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, p. xvi. See also, Rousseau, Jean-
Jacques. Emile, trans. B. Foxley (London: Everyman’s Library, 1992), pp. 212-213.
77
Rousseau, Emile, p. 5.
21
that of Hobbes’. In fact, Rousseau disagrees with Hobbes’ conception of
primitive men, thus, Melzer says that Rousseau wrote the Discourse on the
Origins of Inequality only for refuting, point by point, Leviathan’s argument
regarding the state of nature.78
Although Rousseau did not deny the importance of passions for human
beings, like Hobbes, he did not attribute an evil nature because of these
passions. “Our passions are the chief means of self preservation; to try to
destroy them is therefore is absurd as it is useless; this would be to
overcome nature, to reshape God’s handiwork”.79 That is to say, he stressed
that passions are necessary for survival of mankind but different from
Hobbes, Rousseau thought self love as the origin of all our passions: “The
source of our passions, the origin and the principle of all the others, the only
one born with man and which never leaves him so long as he lives is self
love, the goal of which is self preservation”.80 Therefore, unlike Hobbes,
Rousseau suggests that the root of life is not a negative relation to the other
but positive affection for oneself and for simply being.81 This makes
Rousseau conceive of naturally good agents who are good both for
themselves and for others.
Concerning their theories, it can be claimed that Rousseau followed the

form and method of Hobbes in his reasoning.82 Both of them defined state of
nature before constructing their political theories on it, and both argued that
man is a solitary individual by nature, “[he] is not the political and civilized
78
Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, p. 20.
79
80
Ibid., pp. 212-213.
81
82
Jouvenel, Sovereignty, p.231.
22
animal that Aristotle teleologically assumed him to be”.83 In other words, for
Hobbes and Rousseau, primitive man does not live in political societies but
in primitive prepolitical states. Hobbes states in De Cive that all men are
born unfit for society, and they are made fit for it by training.84 Similarly, in
Social Contract, Rousseau claims that social order as a sacred right does not
come from nature but it is based on conventions.85 In addition to this, in the
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, which he introduced his claim that
humans had evolved from an asocial, animal-like state of nature, he stated
that nature did not prepare sociability for man and it did not contribute
anything to establish social bonds.86 Sociability is not a fundamental
characteristic of human beings but it is an artificial product of men’s will,
therefore, exercise of will and freedom of agents are responsible in the
formation of commonwealth.
However, for Aristotle, “man was by nature social, since only a beast or a
God could live alone”.87 But, what does Aristotle mean by “living alone”? It
can be claimed that living alone is a condition which expressed a certain
kind of perfection as it implied self sufficiency.88 Nevertheless, Rousseau
asserts that self sufficiency and happiness of human are the results of their
natural state and this is the reason why natural man existing as a unity can
live alone, in other words, unlike Aristotle, Rousseau’s man is able to live
by himself as he is fundamentally a satisfied being.
83
Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, p.50.
84
85
86
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, p. 33.
87
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, trans. and ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, N.
J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 1253.
88
23
When Rousseau said that society is anti natural, he also implied the relation
between society and nature, in fact “[s]ociety is an anti nature that grows out
of nature”.89 It is worth paying more attention to goodness of Rousseau’s
men. Starobinski argues that for Rousseau primitive man is good since he is
not yet active enough to do wrong.90 There is not any distinction between
truth and falsehood in state of nature, thus, natural man lives in an amoral
world; “The solitary and independent existence of primitive man in the state
of nature precludes any possibility of moral relations, because it rests
entirely on physical and instinctive impulses”.91
Rousseau adds that human beings as amoral and sub-rational may not be
good for each other, but still they cannot be enemies like that of Hobbes.92
“Man in the state of nature was not a ‘wicked child’ but a ‘good’ animal
who never harmed another unless his own preservation was at stake”.93 As
both Hobbes and Rousseau argued that there is not any kind of moral
relationship in natural state, it can be argued that there could be neither vices
nor virtues in it. Therefore, Rousseau suggests: “let us not conclude with
Hobbes that because man has no idea of goodness he is naturally evil”.94
Still Rousseau does not deny that a natural man may have occasionally
harmed another if it is necessary for his life but he adds in The Preface to
the Narcissus that natural man could not be evil and could not have any
habit of harming others because in no way it will be useful to him.95 As was
89
Starobinski, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction, p. 305.
90
Ibid., p. 25.
91
92
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, p. xiv.
93
Ibid.
94
Ibid., p. 35.
95
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Sciences and Arts and Polemics, eds. Roger D.
Masters, and Christopher Kelly (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992), p. 194.
24
mentioned above, for Rousseau, man is motivated by self love, and this is
also the reason of his neutral or innocent attitude towards others. Melzer
thinks that being in conflict with others could only trouble inner repose of
man rather than being useful for himself.96 Grimsley agreeing with Melzer
claims that man as a creature of instinct is at peace with himself and with
other beings as well and he is faithful to his own nature,97 therefore, nothing
can drive him into conflict with others. Briefly, for Rousseau, man’s true
nature is inclined to the well being of others as well.
So far, it is discussed that self sufficiency of natural man is one of the most
important characteristic of Rousseau’s human being, as it implies goodness
and happiness before formation of political body. It can also be regarded as
the reason of unlimited liberty in state of nature. Rousseau’s ideas
concerning independence of natural man clearly contributes to his accounts
of human nature, and his criticisms to Hobbes related with natural state of
man.98
As it is mentioned above, Rousseau agreed with Hobbes in denying

primitive man the moral sense and sociability but what he criticized in
Hobbes’ theory was his emphasis on passions and his account of human
beings based on his theory of passions. According to Rousseau, Hobbes’
error was to overestimate the power of natural man; to illustrate Hobbes
attributed a number of qualities such as foresight, pride and fear of violent
death which could only be products of society.99 Yet, Rousseau thinks that
natural man could only will, desire and fear as his soul is not capable to
96
97
98
Ibid., p. 117; Starobinski, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction, p. 25.
99
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, pp. xiv-xvi.
25
have other passions of Hobbes’ man.100 Explicitly, Rousseau’s natural man
could not have unlimited passions like man of Hobbes:
With the sole exception of the Physically necessary, which

Nature itself demands, all our other needs are such only by habit,
having previously not been needs, or by our desires; and one
does not desire that which he is not capable of knowing. From
which it follows that Savage man, desiring only the things he
knows and knowing only those things the possession of which is
in his power or easily acquired, nothing should be so tranquil as
his soul and nothing so limited as his mind.101
Similarly, in Leviathan, Hobbes claims that “[f]elicity is a continual

progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former
being still but the way to the latter”102, and in The Elements of Law, he says
life is a race without a finish line, in which “continually to out go the next
before, is felicity. And to forsake the course, is to die”.103 Additionally,
Melzer thinks that man, due to his unlimited passions “feels himself only in
pressing against what is other. He exists only in moving ever forward,
opposing or appropriating what is not him”.104 Rousseau, by criticizing
passions of Hobbes’ man, “replaces the aggressive or rational egoism of
Hobbes with the more passive and instinctive self-preservation of isolated
animals”.105
As was mentioned, Rousseau thought that man’s first care is that of his
preservation and for him the state of nature is a state, in which the care of
100
Ibid., p. 27.
101
Ibid., p. 74.
102
103
Hobbes, Thomas. The Elements of Law, in Body, Man, and Citizens: Selections from
Thomas Hobbes, ed. Richard S. Peters (London: Collier Macmillan, 1962), p. 225.
104
105
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, p. xxiv.
26
our self preservation is the least prejudicial to the self preservation of other
people, for that reason, it is the best state which is suited to peace.106
However, for Hobbes, self preservation is not caused by the attraction of self
love of one’s being because life has no positive content in Hobbes’ system;
rather self preservation is for overcoming of death for him. According to
Rousseau, Hobbes included the need to satisfy a multitude of passions
which are the products of society in man’s care of self preservation.107 Thus,
for Rousseau, Hobbes turned the most suitable state for peace into state of
quarrel.
Actually, for Rousseau, Hobbes’ state of war is the result of political

society. According to him natural man was:
Wondering in the forests, without industry, without speech,

without domicile, without war, without liaisons, with no need of
his fellows, likewise with no desire to harm them, perhaps never
even recognizing anyone individually, Savage man, subject to
few passions and self sufficient, had only the feelings and
intellect suited to that state; he felt only his true needs, saw only
what he believed he had an interest to see; and his intelligence
made no more progress than his vanity.108
But, after becoming sociable, men are deteriorated. Although everything

was good in state of nature, those deteriorated men make them evil.109 In
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Rousseau tries to clarify his account
by giving example from animals and says that animals like horse, cat and
bull are taller, stronger and courageous in the forest than in our houses.
“They lose half of these advantages in becoming domesticated, and it might
be said that all our cares to treat and feed these animals well end only in
106
Ibid., p. 35.
107
Ibid.
108
Ibid., p. 40.
109
27
their degeneration”,110 and the situation is same for man, while he is
becoming sociable, he becomes weak, fearful and servile, in short he is
degenerated. In other words as Starobinski says that “[t]he distance between
man and nature- a distance created by the artifice to which man restored in
order to dominate his environment- was increased”.111
Unlike Hobbes who argues that people kill, rape and steal from each other
because they have not been civilized enough in state of nature,112 Grimsley
says that the state of mutual enmity, which Hobbes attributed to natural man
exists in civil state of Rousseau because “[t]he inequality created by
property produced anxiety, insecurity, and conflict, as each man struggled to
become as rich and as powerful as possible and to put himself above
others”.113 Moreover, after being civilized “men hid behind their masks in
order to satisfy their hidden desire to achieve their own profit at others’
expense”.114 Although the natural man is incapable of pride, hatred or vice,
society, by developing their faculties, causes corruption in main
characteristics of natural man. Society “brings men to hate each other in
proportion to the conflict of their interests, to render each other apparent
services and in fact do every imaginable harm to one another”.115 In Social
Contract, Rousseau wrote that all are born equal,116 and he added in
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality that although nature had established
equality among men, it is the men who instituted inequality.117 Differences
110
111
Starobinski, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction, pp. 26-27.
112
Hocutt, M. “Compassion without Charity, Freedom without Liberty: The Political
Fantasies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”, p. 173.
113
114
Ibid.
115
116
117
28
in age, strength and wit do not matter in the state of nature but they become
important characteristics in society since society creates a desire in men to
surpass others. Therefore, in politic bodies, inequality is inevitable and this
is the reason why state of mutual enmity which Hobbes attributed to natural
state exists, for Rousseau, in civil state.
Rousseau criticized Hobbes’ account of freedom in primitive state as well.

Another difference in their theories, which Rousseau criticized Hobbes is
the account of freedom in natural state. In Discourse on the Origins of
Inequality, Rousseau argues that, for Hobbes, “man is naturally intrepid and
seeks only to attack and fight”.118 However, Rousseau thinks that natural
man has the option of accepting, leaving or fighting,119 and this is the main
difference between animal and man in the state of nature, and it is also the
indication of freedom of choice of natural man. Rousseau’s natural man is
slave of his passions but still he has free will of his own. An animal chooses
or rejects something by its instinct whereas man chooses by an act of
freedom. As Grimsley suggests, Rousseau’s primitive man “is not a merely
static being obeying fixed laws, like the physical world, for he chooses the
meaning and direction of his life; it is his freedom which is his distinctive
attribute”.120 Rousseau emphasizes the importance of free will:
Nature commands every animal, and the Beast obeys, Man feels
the same impetus, but he realizes that he is free to acquiesce or
resist; and it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom
that the spirituality of his soul is shown. For Physics explains in
some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of the
ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in
the sentiment of this power are found only purely spiritual acts
about which the Laws of Mechanics explain nothing.121
118
Ibid., p. 21.
119
Ibid., p. 22.
120
121
29
In this part, I tried to discuss their accounts on human nature by comparing
them and stressing their differences concerning natural man. Unlike Hobbes
who attributed an evil nature to natural man, Rousseau emphasized natural
goodness of primitive man, and he tried to explain corruption and
degeneration among man by means of the formation of the civil association.
In the next part, I will focus on their justifications of setting up a civil
association and the reasons for transformation into political state.
2.3 Justification of Setting up a Political Society
In his Politics, Aristotle maintained that “men’s deepest and most powerful
aspirations can be fulfilled only in and through political association”,122
similarly Hobbes and Rousseau think that human nature necessitates the
establishment of a political society. However, they claim that men are not
political animals, and society is not natural. They think that political society
is not against human nature, rather it is an artificial product created by
human beings as an essential agent for them in order to survive. Men in the
state of nature having unlimited freedom choose to enter into a political
society because of their needs. Although natural men of both of these
philosophers are different, they introduce the necessity of political society
and a common authority in order to enjoy a peaceful and secure life.
2.3.1 Hobbes’ Rationalization of “Leviathan”
Rapaczynski states that “the immediately presocial condition of man is that

of a struggle for survival that makes security the paramount concern of each
individual”.123 Similarly, Hobbes as being concerned with the safety of the
society claims that security is the most important element of his
commonwealth, and accordingly Hobbes justified the formation of society
122
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, p. 499.
123
30
by means of his concepts of security and fear, which is clear in his works
Leviathan and De Cive.
Like his descriptions of the state of nature, Hobbes’ political conclusions are
based on his account of passions. In Leviathan, he asserts that “[t]he
passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as
are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain
them”.124 As Hobbes did not pay much attention to self love like Rousseau,
he gives emphasis to self interest, apart from fear of death in formation of
the society. McNeilly argues that, for Hobbes, “when we seek society, it is
either for profit or for glory- that is, not so much for the love of others as for
the love of ourselves”.125
According to Alan Ryan, Hobbes spent much of Leviathan “trying to

persuade readers to keep their eyes on the object of fear as the main motive
to keep covenant”,126 and that can easily be realized that the object of fear in
his theory is strongly related with self interest because he based his theory
on the principle of self preservation and since formation of a society through
fear serves for self preservation, consequently, it serves for self interest of
the agents. In other words, Hobbes grounds political obligation on fear and
says that it is for subjects’ interest to participate in a society and to obey the
law. People “who subject themselves to another through fear either submit
to the person they fear or submit to some other whom they trust for
protection,127 therefore obeying one because of fear also serves for man’s
124
125
126
Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 71-72. See also Ryan, Alan. “Hobbes’s Political Philosophy” in
The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), p. 225.
127
Ibid., p. 74.
31
interest since the only alternative to obeying a sovereign is state of war in
which man has the risk of losing his life.
Hobbes rationalizes the formation of a political society by depending on self

interest and passions of man. For him, man should enter into society for his
own sake. As men in the state of nature cannot expect long preservation
because of their natural equality of strength and other faculties,128 and their
willingness to hurt each other,129 Hobbes treats the establishment of society
as man’s rational attempt to find peace and security. For Hobbes, fear is a
major motive to drive natural man to set up a sovereign that is to say “[f]ear
of oppression disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek aid by society: for
there is no other way by which a man can secure his life and liberty”.130
It will be useful to stress Hobbes’ fear due to its importance in his obligation
theory, which is the primary focus of this thesis. As Hobbes had lived in a
period of political disturbance, he introduces fear as the main motive in
order to justify the formation of society for reaching civil peace. In addition
to this, for him, “fear is what guarantees that people perform their
obligations”,131 therefore, fear is essential both before formation of society
and for the continuance of it.
Hobbes says that a commonwealth by acquisition “differeth from

sovereignty by institution only in this, that men who choose their sovereign
do it for fear of one another, and not of him whom they institute: but in this
case, they subject themselves to him they are afraid of. In both cases they do
128
Ibid., p. 31.
129
Ibid., pp. 25-26.
130
131
Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 38, 84. See also Medina, Vicente. Social Contract Theories:
Political Obligation or Anarchy? (Savage: Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1990), p.
18.
32
it for fear”,132 simply we enter into political society only because we are
afraid of others. At this point, lots of objections are made to his views on
fear. Hobbes in De Cive answers them as follows:
The following objection is made: it is not true that men could

combine into society through mutual fear; to the contrary, if they
had been so afraid of each other, they could not even have borne
the sight of each other. The objectors believe, I think, that
fearing is nothing but being actually frightened. But I mean by
that word any anticipation of future evil. In my view, not only
fight, but also distrust, suspicion, precaution and provision
against fear are all characteristic of men who are afraid.133
Sommerville asserts that Hobbes uses fear to “denote a reasonable, well-

grounded fear”,134 and his conception of fear seems to be consistent with his
theory of obligation. For Hobbes, if man did not enter into a society for fear,
there would not be any ground for political obligation in a commonwealth.
No man could be obliged to obedience without using fear as the motivating
force of human action; in fact, fear of death explains most of people’s
behavior in Hobbes’ theory. This is the reason why he insistently argued that
we are obligated by the agreements which we entered for fear as well.135 In
other words, despite the objections, Hobbes thought that such agreements
could not be invalid simply because the covenant was motivated by fear:
“Covenants entered into by fear, in the condition of mere nature, are
obligatory. For example, if I covenant to pay a ransom, or service for my
life, to an enemy, I am bound by it”.136 Otherwise, there would not be any
room for obligation in Hobbes’ political theory and the formation of the
transformation from state of nature to civil state would be impossibility.
132
133
134
Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes, p. 33.
135
136
33
Furthermore, it is important to discuss Hobbes’ views on natural rights and
natural laws and their meanings in state of nature and their effects on the
formation of a society. Hobbes claims in De Cive that, “[t]he Natural Law is
the dictate of right reason about what should be done or not done for the
longest possible preservation of life and limb”.137 Similarly, in Leviathan, he
argues that reason suggests us convenient articles of peace which are called
the laws of nature.138 Hobbes’ laws of nature command us to seek peace or
perform covenants since; “[a]ll these natural precepts are derived from just
one dictate of reason, that presses on us our own preservation and
security”.139
The laws of nature contribute to social order and secure environment in a

political society, and if man finds these laws by his reason it is practical for
him to be a part of a commonwealth for his own sake. Otherwise, man could
never obtain a peaceful society to enjoy his life and liberty, and when he
tries to satisfy his needs and desires he unavoidably causes war of all.140
After the justification of setting up a society, it will be useful to mention

Hobbes’ account on the justification of power in a society. For him, man
should obey a common power due to his desires of ease, sensual delight and
fear of death.141 Since our passions avoid us of obeying a common authority
and being a part of a commonwealth, a coercive authority is essential in
order to provide security and order in a civil state. “No accord or association
based on agreement can give the security required for the practice of natural
justice, without some common power to control individuals by instilling a
137
138
139
140
See also McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan, p. 140; and Mintz, The Hunting of
Leviathan, p. 32.
141
34
fear of punishment”.142 Hobbes also says that only a common authority ties
people by fear of punishment and forces them to the performance of their
covenants.143 Briefly, in De Cive, Hobbes explains the necessity for a
common power that “something is needed, an element of fear, to prevent an
accord on peace and mutual assistance for a common good from collapsing
in discord when a private good subsequently comes into conflict with the
common good”.144
Hobbes defines state of nature without a common force as a state of

insecurity in which men are enemies to each other. Having unlimited
passions, Hobbes’ natural man has to use his power in order to survive. He
argues that:
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit

thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no
navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by
sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and
removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of
the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no
society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of
violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short.145
Consequently, it is reasonable and practical for man to enter a society since

“[o]utside the commonwealth is the empire of the passions, war, fear,
poverty, nastiness, solitude, barbarity, ignorance, savagery; within the
commonwealth is the empire of reason, peace, security, wealth, splendour,
society, good taste, the sciences and good-will”.146
142
143
144
145
146
35
To sum up, there is absolutely the need for a commonwealth and a common
power since men could not rule themselves individually, in other words they
can not live according to natural laws.147
2.3.2 Rousseau’s Rationalization of Politic Body
Like Hobbes who introduces fear of death as the main passion which
inclines men to peace,148 Rousseau also draws attention to death as an
important element for setting up a society. “An animal will never know what
it is to die; and knowledge of death and its terrors is one of the first
acquisitions that man has made in moving away from the animal
condition”,149 that is to say man realizes his being and tries to preserve
himself from death, and this is the reason why he wants to enter into a
society.
Rousseau says that when:
[M]en have reached the point where obstacles to their self-

preservation in the state of nature prevail by their resistance over
the forces each individual can use to maintain himself in that
state, then that primitive state can no longer subsist and the
human race would perish if it did not change its manner of
living.150
In other words, in order to survive, man has to enter a commonwealth.

Grimsley states that this argument of Rousseau sounds as if man enters into
a society only because of the pressure of external circumstances not through
147
148
149
150
36
his own free will.151 But, it cannot be denied that natural men of Rousseau
voluntarily choose to unite their forces and form an aggregation mainly for
their preservation. For Rousseau, “[t]he end of political association is the
preservation and prosperity of its members”.152 Thus, people want to avoid
unsecured environment of the state of nature and they leave aside their
unlimited advantages and give promises in order to gain other advantages in
return which are guaranteed by means of a contract in a civil society.
According to Rousseau, private interests in state of nature and their

opposition is one of the important reasons for the establishment of
societies.153 Therefore, in order to eliminate oppositions and realize the
transition from state of nature to civil state, men should disregard their
private interests and unite under a common good. For Rousseau, the group
of men becomes an association, not an aggregation, only by common good
or body politic.154
As he claims in Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, the idea of social

contract emerges in order to protect the weak from oppression and to secure
the possessions of the rich and poor by uniting them:
[Men] institute regulations of justice and peace to which all are

obliged to conform, which make an exception of no one, and
which compensate in some way for the caprices of fortune by
equally subjecting the powerful and the weak to mutual duties.
In a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us
gather them into one supreme power which governs us
according to wise Laws, protects and defends all the members of
151
152
153
Ibid., p. 145.
154
Ibid., p. 137.
37
the association, repulses common enemies, and maintains us in
an eternal concord.155
In other words, political society is inevitable for Rousseau as the idea of

social contract is remedy for the problems in the state of nature. Common
good, not the common fear of Hobbes, is the main motive in entering into a
society and it is the natural law which makes all men agree among
themselves for the common utility.156 Similar to Hobbes, whose laws of
nature contribute to social order and lead man to be a part of a
commonwealth, Rousseau’s laws of nature direct natural man to unite under
a commonwealth for their own sake.
Rousseau maintains that in order to obtain social order, the nature of man
should be improved by the society. Both Hobbes and Rousseau claim that
primitive man is an instinctive creature without intellectual and moral
attributes but what differentiates their thought is that Hobbes asserts that
man’s aggressive and self seeking nature could not be changed and people
can be moral only by the constraints to which they are subjected; explicitly
his inner nature is not capable of change and he remains just as selfish and
aggressive as before.157 However, Rousseau thinks that men have capacity
for development and improvement, society has such a role that it develops
their rationality and provides freedom for human beings who were
dominated by their feelings and passions in the state of nature. For
Rousseau, there is a new nature created by a deliberate act of will and it
provides transformation into civil society:
This passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a
remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in
155
156
Ibid., p. 14.
157
38
his behavior and giving his actions the morality they previously
lacked.158
Therefore, natural man without moral sense or social feeling acquires a

moral outlook and knowledge of right or wrong in the civil state.159 As
Jouvenel suggests, for Rousseau, man cannot become a real human being
with moral values in state of nature, and he realizes his being only in a
commonwealth, that is to say although man is naturally a solitary individual,
he is an impossibility without the group.160
In the formation of a commonwealth man renounces his unlimited freedom

and accepts subjection to laws and authority in order to attain advantageous
conditions. After its establishment “[h]is faculties are exercised and
developed, his ideas enlarged, his sentiments ennobled, his entire soul is
elevated”.161 In other words, for Rousseau, people do not act according to
their appetite or physical impulsions in a political state but they consult their
reason and they act out of duty and right.
Although it can be argued that natural freedom of people are destroyed and
people meet their chains by means of a political establishment, there is an
exchange in the formation of the society:
[T]hey have only exchanged to their advantage an uncertain,

precarious mode of existence for another that is better and safer;
natural independence for freedom; the power to harm others for
their personal safety; and their force, which others could
overcome for a right which the social union makes invincible.162
158
159
160
Jouvenel, Sovereignty, p.56.
161
162
Ibid., p. 150.
39
In short, the transformation from state of nature to civil society in
Rousseau’s political theory is the history of liberation.
Like Hobbes, Rousseau asserts that political society is established because

of the needs of human beings and it wholly depends on the human will. For
that reason, Rousseau agrees with Hobbes and thinks that a universal and
compulsory force is necessary to provide social order and the harmony
between individuals.163 According to these philosophers, the existence of an
authority is essential for the preservation and prosperity of the members of
the commonwealth. Although both Hobbes and Rousseau emphasize the
advantages of subjects, Hobbes focuses on self interest more than Rousseau.
McNeilly says that “[a]ccording to the egoist all human action, if motivated
at all, is motivated by the agent’s desire to promote his own advantage or
interest”.164 Therefore, it can be claimed that Hobbes, unlike Rousseau,
appears to be egoistic and it is clear that he pays more attention to self
interest than Rousseau.
In this chapter, I discussed Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s accounts on human

nature and their rationalizations of political society. In the next chapter, my
aim is to answer questions such as how commonwealth is formed, in other
words, how individuals unite under a commonwealth by means of a single
will and common good, what their duties and rights are and how they are
obliged and become subjects of a sovereign.
163
Ibid., p. 141.
164
40
CHAPTER 3
THE IDEA OF SOCIAL CONTRACT AND THE THEORY OF

OBLIGATION
As it was analyzed in the second chapter, Hobbes and Rousseau focus on the
evolution into civil state. In modern philosophy, the Social Contract
tradition has begun with Hobbes and developed by Rousseau. This chapter
aims to explain the meaning of social contract in order to discuss the
rationalization of political obligation.
“Why does the citizen have a duty to obey the laws of the State? This is the
problem of the grounds of political obligation”.165 The answer to this
question is that the citizen is obliged to obey the laws of the State because
the State has sovereign authority. Since political theories of Hobbes and
Rousseau try to justify political obligation by an implicit promise which is
the product of a voluntary association, their accounts on the formation of
political society should be discussed. In order to understand political
obligation to the sovereign authority, I will try to explain Hobbes’ concept
of authorization and Rousseau’s notion of consent.
165
Raphael, David D. Problems of Political Philosophy ( New York: Praeger Publishers,
1970), p. 78.
41
3.1 Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s Ideas on Social Contract
Hobbes states that “the skill of making and maintaining Commonwealths

consisteth in certain rules, as doth arithmetic and geometry”.166 He
introduces his ideas on renunciation of rights and authorization and then he
justifies political obligation within a commonwealth. “[A]uthorization,
rather than covenant, is the dominant metaphor in Hobbes’ political thought,
and that authorization is a much more adequate and illuminating metaphor
for the formulation and discussion of political relationships”167 because he
explains all his theory by means of authorization, and he gives men positive
role in the political society. Similarly, Rousseau thinks that man is the
author of his life, namely he is the author of political society and it is his
“consent” which gives sovereign the authority for making orders and
commands. For both of these philosophers, no political society can be
established without active role of the subjects.
According to Hobbes, an individual member voluntarily alienates himself

totally from the whole community together with all his rights except from
the right to live, that is man cannot hurt, accuse or kill himself and his right
of living cannot be transferred to the sovereign.168 Moreover, he adds that
“though a man may covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me; he cannot
covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you when you come to
kill me”.169 Thus, subjects still retain some elements of their natural liberty,
they do not voluntarily give away the rights on their lives. The subjects
166
167
Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 171.
168
Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 98, 151.
169
Ibid.
42
could not be obligated to kill themselves or to kill another man and they
have right to refuse to perform dangerous duties for his life.170
It was explained in the former chapter that man becomes a part of a

commonwealth in order to live in secure conditions.171 Hobbes claims in
Leviathan that when man performs an act voluntarily, it is strictly
determined by the individual’s assessment of his own best interest.172 That
is to say, being in a commonwealth is the man’s decision and he does it for
his own sake.
Hobbes introduces natural laws to justify the transformation into a civil

state. For Hobbes, the first of the natural laws is that “the right of all men to
all things must not be held on to; certain rights must be transferred or
abandoned”.173 One who does not give up his right to all things is acting
contrary to the reason and to the ways of peace. Therefore, laws of nature
instruct necessary means of securing peace to make a reciprocal transfer of
their certain rights.174
Man in Hobbes’ theory lays down his right to all things to achieve peace and
to defend himself, and he is “contented with so much liberty against other
men as he would allow other men against himself”.175 In short, man prefers
enjoying his limited rights in security to unlimited rights in state of war.176 It
170
Ibid., p. 151. See also Goldsmith, M. M. “Hobbes on Law” in The Cambridge
Companion to Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.
286.
171
See Chapter 1 at the pages 6-7. See also Hobbes, De Cive, p. 31; Hobbes, Leviathan, p.
71; and Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 185.
172
Hobbes, De Cive, p. 28. See also Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan, p. 103.
173
174
Ibid., p. 44.
175
176
43
can be argued that man gives up his rights with an intention of some good to
himself, because if one gives up something voluntarily, Hobbes says, his
aim is his own good in return.177 Thus, the main motive for renouncing or
transferring of his rights is security of his life and the means for preserving
it.
Political society begins when the natural rights of citizens end. In fact, in the
formation of a political society, mutual transferring of natural rights is
essential because, as Gauthier argues, “[w]hat Hobbes intends is that each
party to the covenant agrees not to oppose the exercise of some right by the
other, and this is achieved by laying down his own corresponding right”.178
Each man in the state of nature should renounce their policy of violence as
the natural right of each and Hobbes calls this “contract”.179
Except for the sovereign, all individuals renounce or transfer their rights to
live in a society.
To lay down a man’s right to anything is to divest himself of the

liberty of hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the
same. For he that renounceth or passeth away his right giveth not
to any other man a right which he had not before, because there
is nothing to which every man had not right by nature, but only
standeth out of his way that he may enjoy his own original right
without hindrance from him, not without hindrance from
another.180
As a matter of fact subjects, voluntarily allow for the sovereign to do

anything, for this is his pre-existing right, his natural right. It is worth
177
178
179
Martin, Rex. “Hobbes and the Doctrine of Natural Rights: The Place of Consent in his
Political Philosophy”, The Western Political Quarterly, 33/3 (1980), p. 382.
180
44
quoting Riley to make this point clear: “Giving rights to a sovereign, then, is
rather like tearing down everyone’s walls except the ruler’s; in a transfer we
allow the sovereign his full natural right while curbing our own”.181 To sum
up, Hobbes introduces renunciation or transferring of rights for the
individuals and for him the only agent remains with his unlimited rights in
state of nature is the sovereign.
Like Hobbes, Rousseau talks about voluntary participation in a political

body and the renunciation of rights for the sake of individuals. For
Rousseau, mankind has an impulse to preserve himself not as a resistance to
death but as a positive love of his life namely as a desire to exist.182
Therefore, he defends giving or transferring rights to a sovereign and
enjoying a secure life under an authority. Rousseau agrees with Hobbes that
complete liberty does not serve advantages to men and he argues that men
voluntarily give themselves to chiefs, in fact to sovereign, for defending
their freedom and their lives. For Rousseau, this is the fundamental maxim
of all political right.183
As was mentioned above, Hobbes says that man renounces his rights in
order to obtain some good to himself, and Rousseau also thinks in the same
way and argues that “it is only in society that man can be transformed from
a stupid and limited animal into a free intelligent being and so escape from
the bondage of appetite to enjoy the experience of justice and right”.184 Man
gives up his rights only for the sake of himself. Rousseau says “[t]o say that
181
Riley, Patrick. Will and Political Legitimacy: A Critical Exposition of Social Contract
Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1982), p. 51.
182
Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, p. 40. See also Rousseau, Discourse on the
Origins of Inequality, pp. xiv-xvi, xxiv.
183
Rousseau, Discourse on The Origins of Inequality, p. 56.
184
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, p. 92. See also Rousseau, Social Contract, pp.
135, 141-142, 150.
45
a man gives himself gratuitously is to say something absurd and
inconceivable. Such an act is illegitimate and null”.185 He also adds that:
[I]f some rights were left to private individuals, there would be

no common superior who could judge between them and the
public. Each man being his own judge on some point would
soon claim to be so on all; the state of nature would subsist and
the association would necessarily become tyrannical or
ineffectual.186
Explicitly men renounce all of their rights except the right of defending
them and they establish a commonwealth.
Hobbes claims that “[t]he action of two or more persons reciprocally

transferring their rights is called CONTRACT”.187 What is important here is
the mutual transferring of rights that is to say each individual should
participate in it and say “I transfer my right to this man on condition that
you transfer your right to him also”.188 By means of this, Hobbes’
government is secured by a double obligation on the part of the citizens; one
is the obligation to their fellow citizens and other one is the obligation to the
ruler.189 The multitude unites themselves under a sovereign by a covenant
which is the covenant between all independent individuals. At this point
Hobbes says that a commonwealth becomes the greatest of human powers
since all the powers of individuals are gathered under the authority of the
sovereign.190 In other words, the rights of strength of all individuals are no
longer the rights of themselves since these rights are renounced in order to
be united; this means that the commonwealth turns out to be the greatest
185
186
Ibid., p. 138.
187
188
Ibid., p. 90.
189
Ibid.
190
46
power, which is called, by Hobbes, Leviathan.191 For him, “[t]his is the
generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather, to speak more reverently,
of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and
defense”.192
Rousseau defines social contract in the following terms: “Each of us puts his
person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the
general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of
the whole”.193 He claims that social contract replaces physical inequality
which nature has placed among mankind by moral and legitimate equality,
in other words men who are unequal in force or in genius became equal by
means of convention and right.194 Everyone gives himself to the community
and since the situation is same for all “what everyone ought to do can be
prescribed by everyone, whereas no one has the right to require another to
do what he himself does not do”.195 According to Rousseau, the existence of
an authority is legitimized because every member of the commonwealth
becomes an indivisible part of it. He asserts that when these individuals
obey the authority, he remains as free as before.196
In addition to this, in Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s political theories sovereign

has the very essential role in formation and maintaining the political
association. Both agree that the establishing of a sovereign means creating
of a commonwealth; “[t]he existence of a sovereign is both a necessary and
191
Ibid., p. 9.
192
Ibid., p. 120.
193
194
Ibid., p. 144.
195
Ibid., p. 194.
196
Ibid., p. 137.
47
a sufficient condition of an ordered society”.197 Since men are equal and no
one has natural authority over others, it is the convention or agreement
which gives sovereign the authority.198 Thus, to give legitimacy to the
authority means to create a commonwealth and it makes the restraints on
men their duties as well.
According to Hobbes and Rousseau, it is the subjects who create a

commonwealth and acknowledge an authority in order to get “practical
advantage of seeing himself protected and assured in his individual life”.199
For Gauthier, Hobbes tries to give active roles to the subjects as he thinks
that “society is a real union, a union expressed in the person of the
sovereign, which contains that of each member of the society”.200 Hobbes
thinks that the wills of the subjects should be expressed in the
commonwealth. In addition, Rousseau puts more emphasis on the active
roles of subjects in civil state, and he argues that “[t]hrough the social
compact we have given the body politic existence and life; the issue now is
to give it movement and will through legislation”.201 That is to say, although
agents should transfer or renounce their unlimited rights existing in state of
nature and become subjects to an authority in order to enjoy their limited
rights in a secure environment, still they have positive roles which are
clearly explained by the concepts of authorization and consent. Consent is
the foundation of covenants and has central position in commonwealths. It
197
198
See Hobbes, De Cive, p. 26; Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 86; and Rousseau, Social Contract,
p. 134.
199
200
201
48
provides political legitimacy of sovereign, gives active roles to subjects, and
rationalizes obligation of citizens.202
3.2 Hobbes’ “authorization” and Rousseau’s “consent”
According to Martin, the notion of consent is identified with Hobbes’ theory

in the history of political philosophy,203 and Hobbes provides involvement
of subjects in the actions of sovereign and rationalizes political obligation by
means of it. Clifford Orwin argues that consent, in fact authorization, is an
illuminating political metaphor and a main step forward in Hobbes’ political
theory.204
In Hobbes’ system, the relation between subject and sovereign is the relation
between author and actor “which is neither natural nor social, but the basis
for converting natural relationships into social relationships”.205 As a matter
of fact, men are naturally equal; no one could have an authority over others,
however in social state one gets power and becomes an authority
legitimately, and for Hobbes this alteration is possible only by the concept
of authorization. La Boetie says that:
If we led our lives according to the ways intended by nature and

the lessons taught by her, we should be intuitively obedient to
our parents; later we should adopt reason as our guide and
become slaves to nobody.206
202
See also Martin, “Hobbes and the Doctrine of Natural Rights: The Place of Consent in
his Political Philosophy”.
203
Ibid., p. 380.
204
Orwin, Clifford “On the Sovereign Authorization”, Political Theory, 3/1 (1975), p. 28.
205
206
La Boetie, E. The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (New
York: Black Rose Books, 1997), p. 55.
49
That is to say decision of becoming subject to an authority includes the act
of his will and it could only be possible through authorization.
In Hobbes’ vocabulary, person is an actor and “to personate is to act or to

represent [someone who is the author]”.207 Put another way when men,
namely the authors, give up their rights of doing any action, sovereign as an
artificial person “have their words and actions whom [he] represents”.208 It
bears other men, and acts in their name. Hobbes also says that “[b]y
authority is always understood a right of doing any act; and [when an action
is] done by authority, [it means that it is done] by commission or license
from him whose right it is”.209 By authorization, men make the plurality of
their voices one and reduce their wills to the will of the sovereign.210
Commonwealth turns to be a real unity of the subjects as they say “I

authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this
assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and
authorise all his actions in like manner”.211 All subjects renounce or transfer
their rights and authorize the sovereign in other words this authorization
involves the exercise of all subjects that is all authors.212 It is useful to
mention that according to Hobbes, “the transfer of a right depends not on
words but on a declaration of will”213. Therefore, his emphasis on the
deliberate act of “will” of the subjects could be realized in his theory.
207
208
Ibid. See also Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 124.
209
Ibid.
210
Ibid., p. 114.
211
Ibid., p. 120.
212
See also Harman, John D. “Liberty, Rights, and Will in Hobbes: A Response to David
Van Mill”, The Journal of Politics, 59/3 (1997), pp. 899-900.
213
50
Although the right of nature is unlimited before establishment of an
association, it does not give one the right to act for another person. “[Only]
authorization does confer upon the actor a right which he did not previously
possess”.214 And at this point, it is worth focusing on this right to clarify
Rousseau’s criticisms to Hobbes’ representation which will be discussed
when analyzing freedom of subjects in the next chapter.
In introducing authorization, Hobbes’ main aim is to involve subjects in the

sovereign. He thinks that subjects are the sources of all decisions but it is
clear that such a decision making is practically possible only by
representatives.215 The will of the representative is not only one will but also
“an authorized, representative will whose right to make law is derived from
a previous obligation of subjects to obey”.216 If sovereign as an artificial
person has the right and power to conclude an agreement on the behalf of
subjects, then that artificial man represents all subjects who authorized
him.217
Individuals give power and rights to the sovereign by authorizing him and as
a consequence this actor which is acting by authority obtains the rights of
making laws and obliging his authors:
In every commonwealth, the Man or Assembly to whose will

individuals have subjected their will is said to hold Sovereign
AUTHORITY or SOVEREIGN POWER or DOMINION. This
Authority, this Right to give Commands consists in the fact that
each of the citizens has transferred all his own force and power
to that man or Assembly.218
214
Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 124. See also Orwin, “On the Sovereign
Authorization”, p. 26.
215
216
Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 48.
217
Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 112. See also Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 124.
218
51
Furthermore, it can be claimed that Hobbes’ man is not obligated by a
covenant of which he is not the author.219 He is obliged only if the covenant
arises from his act of will.220 That is to say, in Hobbes’ system, man
willingly participates in a covenant and acknowledges an authority by his
own free will.
In fact, Hobbes thinks that power alone is not sufficient to substantiate

political authority because if power is exercised unjustly by usurping power,
people will never recognize it as a legitimate authority, for that reason, all of
the subjects as the sources of decisions should acknowledge the
sovereign.221 As a result of this, it can be claimed that, apart from the force,
Hobbes’ political authority rests on legitimacy by authorization as well.
In agreeing with Hobbes, Rousseau defends the necessity of consent in

legitimization of an authority. In Social Contract, he affirms that “the
strongest is never strong enough to be the master forever unless he
transforms his force into right and obedience into duty”.222 What he implies
is that force does not make right unless it is acknowledged by the subjects.
For him, the right of the conquest has no basis other than the law of the
stronger.223 To put it in another way, the conqueror’s power would not be
legitimate when it wholly depends on force and if individuals do not give
consent to it, the conqueror could not have any right or authority.
Furthermore, like Hobbes, Rousseau claims that one is obligated to obey

only legitimate powers. Therefore, it is necessary for the people “to be
219
220
221
See also Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy; and Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom
and Political Obligation, p. 170.
222
Rousseau, Social Contract, p.133.
223
Ibid., 36.
52
master of its acceptance or rejection”.224 Since every man is born free, he
cannot be subject to anyone without his own consent.
Actually all of Rousseau’s arguments are based on the idea that all men are
born free and equal.225 In order to put emphasis on free will and equality, he
defines family as the first model of political society and claims that children
are “naturally united”226 to parents for preservation until they become “the
judge of the proper means of preserving [themselves, therefore they become
their] own master[s]”.227 Thus, after becoming independent beings, the
society among family members endures if and only if they voluntarily agree
to maintain it. In other words, “the family itself is maintained only by
convention”.228 By means of the relation between children and parents,
Rousseau indicates that human beings having reason cannot have subjection
to any other being naturally, and he also introduces the importance of
consent in the formation and maintenance of societies.
3.3 Sovereignty for Hobbes and Rousseau
In addition to “authorization” of Hobbes and “consent” of Rousseau, the

united body and sovereign which the subjects voluntarily generate must be
discussed. The important point is that the sovereign authorized by the
subjects should unite its parts under a body and represents all of them
without exception. For the creation of a united body the sovereign must be
one and the only single will of the commonwealth. The unity of Hobbes’
commonwealth serves for Hobbes’ main aim, in fact he focuses on this unity
in order to avoid anarchy and provide security. He says that the concept of
224
Ibid., pp. 134-135.
225
226
Ibid., p. 132.
227
Ibid.
228
Ibid.
53
authorization differs from concord; it is more than consent because it
constitutes a real unity of men in one body and one person.229 In Leviathan
Hobbes says that by authorization:
[Covenantors] confer all their power and strength upon one man,
or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by
plurality of voices, unto one will: which is as much as to say, to
appoint one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person; and
every one to own and acknowledge himself to be author of
whatsoever he that so bears their person shall act or cause to be
acted in those things which concern the common peace and
safety, and therein to submit their wills everyone to his will, and
their judgments to his judgment.230
Therefore, disorderly multitude is made one person when they are

represented by one man or one assembly with the consent of every one of
that multitude in particular.231
Hobbes asserts in De Cive that “a crowd cannot make a promise or an

agreement, acquire or transfer a right, do, have, possess, and so on, except
separately or as individuals, so that there are as many promises, agreements,
rights, and actions, as there are men”.232 The multitude could not make
agreements since each man in the crowd has his own will and his own
judgment about every proposal. However, the union or the civil person has a
single entity with a single will after the covenant is made:
In every commonwealth the People reigns; for even in

Monarchies the People exercises power; for the people wills
through the will of one man. But the citizens, i.e. the subjects,
are a crowd. In a Democracy and in an Aristocracy the citizens
229
230
Ibid.
231
Hobbes, De Cive, p. xl. See also Winch, Peter. “Man and Society in Hobbes and
Rousseau” in Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds. Maurice
Cranston & Richards S. Peters. (Garden City, New York.: Anchor Books, 1972), p. 250.
232
Ibid., p. 75.
54
are a crowd, but the council is the people; in a Monarchy the
subjects are a crowd, and the King is the people.233
In other words, Hobbes claims that a people is a civil person or a united will
while a crowd is a body of individuals which has natural division among
themselves.234 In Leviathan, the person in this sense becomes the Leviathan
itself, and this submission of the wills of the multitude to the will of
“person” is called “union” in his theory.235
In a monarchic form of government, a monarch or a tyrant has only two

eyes, only two hands, and only one body, but he borrows so many arms and
eyes from the multitude; he gets the arms and eyes that subjects owe.236 This
is exactly the picture of mortal God, Leviathan whose body is different from
all people. Leviathan having absolute power unifies all people within its
body thus, even a tyrant could not have power independent from subjects, he
could not represent the united will of the crowd by excluding wills of his
subjects rather, he represents the words or actions of the multitude as he is
authorized by the covenant.237
Gauthier thinks that for Hobbes the people as the multitude of the subjects
is the agent of the people as well, that is to say this crowd is the sovereign in
Leviathan: “Just as the sovereign both is and is not the people, so the people
both is and is not the sovereign”.238 Warrender argues that due to the
relationship between subjects and sovereign in Hobbes’ political theory, he
233
Ibid., p. ii.
234
Ibid., p. xxxii.
235
Ibid., p. 72.
236
Ibid., p. 143.
237
Ibid., pp.73, 88, 137; Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 114.
238
55
seems to have foreshadowed Rousseau’s theory of General Will.239 At this
point it will be useful to mention Rousseau’s unified political body and his
general will to compare them and clarify their differences.
Like those of Hobbes, Rousseau’s subjects and sovereign are not two
different parts of the commonwealth. For Rousseau, individuals are people
as being subjects to the laws of the state and they are also citizens due to
their participations in the sovereign authority.240 In the Social Contract
political society depends on the relation between each and all and this is the
reason why these terms always exist together in Rousseau’s theory.
Grimsley says that “Rousseau’s conception of sovereignty establishes this
link between each and all by presupposing a complete reciprocity and
equality of commitment”.241 It can also be said that Rousseau tries to bring
individual powers together and he gives them a collective expression that is
why there is radical collectivism in his theory.242
In the Social Contract Rousseau asserts that in the formation of a political

society all men alienate themselves entirely to the whole community.
Therefore, there are lots of people as the parts of the sovereign and variety
of opinions and interests in the society. This situation necessitates a base
where all interests agree in order to govern a society and this is general will
for Rousseau.243
239
Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, His Theory of Obligation, p. 129.
240
241
242
See Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, for more information.
243
56
In political philosophy the idea of general will first appears in Rousseau’s
work.244 General will makes citizens combine their interests and duties
towards politic society for the sake of themselves and for the sake of society
as well. The relation between body and subjects should be discussed in order
to understand general will and the role of common good. Rousseau asserts
that when body politic is formed people become parts of the body without
exception since no one has privilege and all are bound under the same
conditions having the same rights. Each puts his person in common under
the supreme direction of the general will, therefore, each member becomes
an indivisible part of the whole body.245
Like Hobbes, Rousseau regards multitude of man as disorganized plurality

which he calls herd. For him, that multitude cannot be an association
without general will; therefore, each man dedicates himself to the fatherland
for achieving common good.246 In other words, multitude turns to be one
under sovereignty which is regarded as the exercise of the general will.247
Consequently they serve for achieving common good.
In Rousseau’s theory, general will is the most significant concept and it is

the only necessary reason to achieve common good. Iain Hampsher-Monk
argues that “[t]he assumption behind the general will is that there is an
objective common good, distinct from the particular interests or wishes of
the individuals composing society”.248 The aim is the preservation of
common good for achieving social order. In politic body the individual
realizes that he is no longer an isolated being, rather he is a part of the great
244
Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy, p. 97.
245
246
Ibid., p.137.
247
Ibid., p.145.
248
Iain Hampsher-Monk, A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers
form Hobbes to Marx (Oxford; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992), p. 181.
57
whole, and he, as an element of the society, understands that common good
is for his own interest.249
In Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Rousseau claims that it is the self

interest of each citizen which encourages the subjects to agree for the
common good,250 and the agreement of their interests made the
establishment of society possible: “It is what these different interests have in
common that forms the social bond, and if there were not some point at
which all the interests are in agreement, no society could exist”.251 In other
words, what generalizes the will in Rousseau’s political thought is the
common interest that unites them.252
After the formation of a single body, the single will aims at the well-being
of the people and society. In such a united body, there could not be
contradictory interests because special interests are replaced by the general
will.253 Although an individual’s private will can be contrary to the general
will, the citizen, by means of his reason, realizes that he owes his well-being
to the common interest since “general will is always right and always tends
towards the public utility”.254 Therefore, his special interest no longer
remains in the politic body.
So far, Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s concepts like authorization, consent,

multitude, sovereignty and general will are discussed. Now the obligation in
the commonwealth which the subjects owe to sovereign can be examined.
Grimsley suggests that “a truly unified society, like a truly unified
249
250
251
Ibid., p. 145.
252
Ibid., p. 149.
253
Ibid., p.199.
254
Ibid., p. 147.
58
individual, will have succeeded in combining the two principles of freedom
and order”.255 In order to deal with the question of freedom in the context of
submission to the sovereign, now I would like to analyze political obligation
to the sovereign in Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s theories
3.4 Obligation toward Sovereign Authority
Actually, in Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s political theories, political actions and

obedience become absurd and tyrannical without consent and authorization.
According to Warrender what validates law or covenant validates obligation
as well.256 That is to say, consent, promise or agreement are the foundations
of covenants and they are the fundamental elements in explaining political
obligation.
As explained in the second chapter, the judge is one’s conscience in the state
of nature, since there is no human authority. For Hobbes “[i]n the judgment
of the person actually doing it, what is done is rightly done, even if it is a
wrong, and so is rightly done”.257 There is no just or unjust; man is the
measure of his interest. Subsequently, people assemble and agree upon a
sovereign in order to set up a commonwealth and the combination of several
wills under the form for a government is required. However, Hobbes claims
that “a combination of several wills in the same end is not adequate to the
preservation of peace and stable defense, it is required that there be a single
will among all of them in matters essential to peace and defense”.258 In other
words, the original assembly of the people becomes itself the sovereign; for,
the decisions of the assembly bind everyone and it unites the wills of all into
a single will. From now on, the single will is the only judge and sovereign is
255
256
257
258
Ibid., p. 72.
59
the only authority to whom men owe obedience. Hobbes clarifies this point
in Leviathan:
Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it, or by

transferring it to another. By simply renouncing, when he cares
not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By transferring,
when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person or
persons. And when a man hath in either manner abandoned or
granted away his right, then is he said to be obliged, or bound,
not to hinder those to whom such right is granted, or abandoned,
from the benefit of it: and that he ought, and it is duty, not to
make void that voluntary act of his own: and that such hindrance
is injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being before
renounced or transferred.259
It can be argued that in Hobbes’ theory the unity among people, namely the
sovereign as the only legitimate authority is essential in the preservation of
commonwealth and individuals, and, consequently, that obedience to
sovereign is necessary. In 1633, divine Thomas Adams claims that “[a]ny
King is better than no King, Tyranny is better than Anarchie”.260 Even a
despot king is better than being in a state of nature as the state of quarrel.
According to Herzog, men without a leader or a chief are uncontrollable,
disorderly and threat to harmony in commonwealths.261 In fact, mankind
could not achieve social order only by depending on laws of reason thus
common power is necessary. Hobbes puts this as follows: “covenants,
without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at
all”.262
259
260
Adams, Thomas. A Commentary or, Exposition upon the Divine Second Epistle
Generall, written by the blessed apostle St. Peter, 1633, quoted by Sommerville, Thomas
Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context, p. 83.
261
Herzog, Happy Slaves, p. 161.
262
60
In Hobbes’ political theory power enables people to live in a secure
environment, and it serves for the formation of a society. Jouvenel states
that “were men deaf to all authority, they would have among them neither
cooperation nor security-in short no Society”.263 For Hobbes, the right of
government could not be meaningful without obedience.264 Hobbes thinks
that rationalization of the political obligation in a commonwealth depends
on the idea that if one lives under an authority within a territory and uses all
the advantages of it, this means that everyone in that territory is subject to its
rules.265
As explained in the second chapter, Hobbes thinks that what encourages

people to unite under a commonwealth is the fear among them. However,
Raphael argues that for Hobbes fear alone does not make subjects oblige
“unless there is the intermediate link of moral obligation created by a
promise”.266 According to Raphael, Hobbes’ citizens have to obey the law
both because they give promise to obey and because the alternative state to a
political one is the state of nature in which men have risk of losing their
lives.267 For Raphael it can be argued that in Hobbes’ theory there is both
prudential obligation because of fear and moral obligation because of
authorization.
In Hobbes’ theory, although the consent of subjects is grounded in fear, for

Rapaczynski their fear of force is mediated by the ruler’s right to
command.268 For that reason, the main motive behind the subject’s
263
264
265
Ibid., p. 84; Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 123-124. See also Raphael, Problems of Political
Philosophy, p. 43.
266
267
Ibid., p. 87.
268
61
obligation could not only be the fear of the common power, but also their
consent to the authority provides moral obligation to obey the sovereign.
Warrender, one of the most important commentators on Hobbes’ theory of

obligation, claims that covenant is obligatory both because it is the essential
step for the maintenance of peace and because the principle of keeping
covenant has a moral status.269 At this point, it can be claimed that
individual has an obligation to obey the commands of the sovereign because
it is the sole judge of legitimacy. Once it is established, no further questions
can be raised about his legitimacy.270 So, when the sovereign obtains such
an authority which makes him able to get his own proposals accepted then
people should obey his commands and accept his decrees.
Once people authorize the actions and words of the sovereign they have
obligation of non resistance to him. For Warrender, they “indemnified the
sovereign from accountability to himself”.271 Consequently, due to the fact
that people had formerly obliged to obey the sovereign, they should obey his
laws as well,272 since the laws necessarily aim at common welfare.273
Like Saint Thomas Aquinas who told that “[j]ustice is a habit of mind which
maintains in us a firm and unceasing determination to render to every man
his due”,274 Hobbes says that justice is a kind of equality which suggests that
269
270
Winch, “Man and Society in Hobbes and Rousseau” p. 253. See also Watkins, Hobbes
System of Ideas, p.162.
271
272
273
Simon, Yves Rene Marie. Freedom and Community, ed. Charles P. O’Donnell, (New
York: Fordham University Press, 1968), p. 27. See also Raphael, Problems of Political
Philosophy, p. 64.
274
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Quaestio, LVIII, quoted by Jouvenel,
Sovereignty, pp. 139-140.
62
one should not take more rights than others unless he acquires that right by
an agreement.275 That is to say, since all are equal by nature, they should
have the same rights and they should act according to their duties towards
the sovereign for living in a just and peaceful society. However, as was
mentioned before, maintaining such a just society is impossible without a
coercive power which makes a covenant valid.276 Power compels men to
perform their covenants by means of the terror of punishment.277 Agreeing
with Hobbes, Steve Beackon and Andrew Reeve argue that “covenants
without a coercive power do not lead to a change in behavior but where
there is a common power above them, the situation is different because the
rational calculation is different”.278 According to Riley, although Hobbes
emphasizes that fear is not sufficient condition of political justice, he
introduces it as a necessary condition279 since for Hobbes terror constrains
people who has intention to violate their faith and it directs them to be
just.280
In other words, the common power provides a motive to keep the law for
anyone who lacks a sufficient motive, and also it is a guarantee that the law
will not be broken with impunity.281 Additionally, even though man has
unlimited rights before an authority is established, sovereign redistributes
these rights by guaranteeing them. Therefore, if there is no force which
guarantees the rights of the subject, he will not have any more rights, they
275
276
277
Ibid., p. 100; Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 71-72.
278
Beackon, Steve & Reeve, Andrew. “The Benefits of Reasonable Conduct: The
Leviathan Theory of Obligation”, Political Theory, 4/4 (1976), p. 434.
279
280
281
63
cease to be; “he must either submit to [sovereign’s] decrees or be left in the
condition of war he was in before”.282
It is obvious that the main aim of Hobbes’ civil power is protection. It

provides civil order and protects the subjects from foreign forces invasion:
“Security is the End for which men subject themselves to others”.283 In
brief, men’s subjection to some man or assembly is necessary for their
preservation. Safety, for Hobbes, is not only the preservation of the lives of
the citizen but it also implies protection of all other contentment of life
which men attain without danger.284 In short, obedience to political authority
is the best means to their own preservation and men’s security necessitates
subjection of their wills.285 In Hobbes’ theory the nature and maintenance of
commonwealth depend on this subjection.
As explained above, although force and fear are always in the background of
all covenants,286 they are not sufficient conditions for preservation and well-
being of commonwealth. Power alone makes people obliged to obey but it
does not give a right or authority to the ruler. In other words, if there is only
power, individuals obey because they are compelled by a coercive power
but if they give their consents as well, this means that subjects have
accepted the cause of fear, namely the authority. Raphael suggests that “[if]
we give the citizen moral instead of prudential reasons for obedience, these
can take the form of showing that he is not only obliged but is under
obligation to the State, which correspondingly has a right to his
282
283
284
285
286
64
obedience”.287 Therefore, moral reasons for obedience are necessary as well
as the civil power.
Moral obligation means to abide by one’s promises. In other words the

answer to the question why am I morally bound to obey the will of the
sovereign is because I authorized the sovereign and avouched his actions,
that is to say I am bound by my own act.288 As long as man gives consent,
he accepts that obeying the laws of sovereign is right for himself. Raphael
says “[t]o acknowledge the claim from the thought that it is right to do so, is
to admit a moral obligation”.289 Therefore it can be argued that by
consenting someone’s authority, you put yourself under an obligation to do
what it requires of you.290
Subjects have obligation to obey the laws of the authority and they have
incentive to obey them as well because obeying is favorable for them; it is
the self interest which provides them a motive for obedience. If subjects do
not obey the laws, these laws could not protect interests of the people. That
is, according to Hobbes if obligation is explained from the standpoint of self
interest, it can be argued that people obey the laws otherwise it will be
worse for them.291
Warrender also claims that, for Hobbes, “all obligatory actions must be at
least capable of being regarded by the individual concerned as in his best
personal interest”.292 For the individual to be obliged, he must be motivated
287
288
Oakeshott, M. Joseph, “Introduction to Leviathan” in Leviathan (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1946), p. lx.
289
290
291
292
65
to secure the greatest good for himself, that is to say duty and self interest
are reconciled and this can be followed that self interest can be regarded as
the ground of Hobbes’ theory of obligation. However, Gauthier argues that
what is reasonable and what is advantageous, explicitly duty and self
interest could not be completely coincident in Hobbes’ theory.293 When
someone is morally obliged, this means that he ought to do it no matter it is
to his advantage or not.294 Therefore, Gauthier criticized Hobbes’ system
and claims that having a moral obligation to something which is to his
disadvantage is impossible for Hobbes because the individual could not
have sufficient motive to do it. Since men create all obligations for the sake
of themselves, it is meaningless to be morally obliged to do what is to one’s
disadvantage.
In short according to Gauthier, morality is impossible in Hobbes’ theory;295

rather his system is a system of common prudence. He adds that Hobbes’
definition of state of nature and his psychology destruct his ethics and his
mechanistic point of view prevents him from dealing with the metaphysical
side of human existence. Since self interest is the main motive of human
action, Hobbesian men are wholly bent on their preservation and advantage.
Therefore, there cannot be a moral system in such a theory dominated by
self interest and also moral values could not be possible due to Hobbes’
mechanistic point of view. However, for Richard Tuck, morality is possible
in Hobbes’ system and its aim is to avoid quarrels and breaches of peace
because of the diversity in human behavior. According to Tuck, Hobbes’
moral philosophy is to indicate the limits to diversity in morality and he
suggests that “human beings of all times and places do agree about certain
293
294
Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation, p. 94.
295
66
things” for achieving order in commonwealths.296 Although Hobbes is
criticized for arguing that human nature is identified with egoism and all
actions of men are motivated selfishly, and as a result of this he could not
achieve a moral system,297 still authors like Macpherson and McNeilly state
that psychological egoism used in Hobbes’ political theory does not forbid
him from achieving theory of obligation. They think that Hobbes starts from
egoism in order to describe the characteristics of natural man and the state of
nature.298
Up to this point Hobbes’ theory of obligation is discussed and now it is time

to consider Rousseau’s account of obligation in order to compare and
indicate their differences. Like Hobbes, Rousseau also believed that political
association could come into existence only by a voluntary act of the
individuals and only the freely agreed contract has legitimate basis:
Since every man is born free and master of himself no one,

under any pretext whatever, can subject him without his consent.
To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that
he is not born a man.299
Therefore, in Rousseau’s social contract, political legitimacy cannot rest on

the threat of force but it must be derived from a moral right to command.
Although Hobbes and Rousseau have similar views on active participations
of subjects, still Hobbes is often criticized as he gives more importance to
power than Rousseau.
296
Tuck, Richard, “Hobbes’s Moral Philosophy” in The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes,
ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 187.
297
Kavka, Gregory S. Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (N. J.: Princeton University
Press, 1986), p. 29.
298
Ibid., p. 152. See also McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan; and Macpherson, C.
Brough, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1962) for more information.
299
67
Both Hobbes and Rousseau claim that individuals establish a
commonwealth for their preservation since “[s]overeignty is a collective not
a particular form of self preservation”.300 Rather than trying to guarantee
self preservation in isolation, each person makes a complete surrender of his
power and chooses a political association to be protected by united strength.
According to Rousseau, each person thinks of himself when he participates
in a society.301 This is the reason why the state is to consider their interests.
Grimsley thinks that, for Rousseau, interest is defined in a social and not in
a selfish way.302 Rousseau claims that what the interests of the individuals
have in common forms the social attachment and provides maintenance in
societies and society should be governed by depending on this common
interest.303
Like Hobbes, Rousseau claims that members of the civil state owe some
duties to the political state and sovereign by which they gain secure and safe
conditions to live. Both agree on the idea that anyone within the borders of a
commonwealth must be subject to its rules, whether he likes it or not, a
citizen could not have a chance not to be subject to its rules.304 Therefore
like Hobbes, Rousseau also tries to justify obligation in societies. Both
philosophers are in agreement that people should accept the absolute power
of the sovereign and obey its rules for the common welfare. For Rousseau,
the sovereign must be absolute and cannot be limited by anything other than
itself because sovereignty is the ultimate source of authority.
300
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, p.99.
301
Rousseau, Social Contract, pp. 148-149.
302
303
Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 145. See also Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 112.
304
Ibid., p. 84; Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 123-124. See also Raphael, Problems of Political
Philosophy, p. 43.
68
As emphasized in the former part, for Rousseau, the subjects are the
sovereign itself at the same time since each has autonomy as the active
participant of the sovereign. The concept of Rousseau’s autonomy has very
significant role for his theory and the moral quality of a political community
consists in that autonomy.305 Autonomy makes people author of all laws, in
fact even the most evil ones are the products of the citizens. It is the citizens
who create them and owe obedience to them. Thus having a sovereign and
obeying to civil laws are desirable than obeying a best master; “If we have a
Prince, it is so that he may preserve us from having a Master”.306
Unlike Hobbes who reduces morality to self interest, Rousseau puts morality
on rational grounds. He thinks that rationality imposes obligation on us.
Reason, for him, forbids us to want what we cannot get; it teaches us to
know what is good and evil307 and conscience can be defined as an
involuntary moral feeling. Man by his conscience and reason, becomes a
moral being. Hampsher states that, according to Rousseau, moralization can
only be possible through socialization; men realize their true human
potential only after entering into a common wealth, since morality has
relation with obeying general will towards the good of all society.308
Rousseau asserts in Emile that “[s]ociety must be studied in the individual
and the individual in the society; those who desire to treat politics and
morals apart from one another will never understand either”.309 Therefore,
being a moral being depends on being a subject of a political society in
Rousseau’s political theory. Moral values depend entirely on the other
people and they can be derived only from the conditions of being an
individual in a body. In short, morality serves for maintaining the unity
305
306
307
308
Hampsher, A History of Modern Political Thought, p. 186.
309
69
among the members of the society and creates a harmonious, equal, secure
and peaceful environment.
In contrast to Hobbes, Rousseau does not think that moral interest includes
selfish material interest. Man cannot be morally bound only because he
authorizes the actions of the sovereign which serves for his own interest like
Hobbes. Although Rousseau draws attention to self interest or self
preservation as important motives to enter into society, he does not identify
morality with self interest. It will be nonsense to expect men to enter into
society if this that does not bring them positive advantages. The citizens will
always seek to follow the principle of self preservation, but when they are
assured of their own security, they seek the common good. That is to say for
Rousseau, society is not a pragmatic creation but a moral creation310 since
man realizes the necessity of a civil society by his moral development.311
3.5 Hobbes and Religion
Hobbes and Rousseau have different views concerning obligation. In

contrast to Rousseau who explains concepts of general will, rationality and
common good in order to discuss the ground of political obligation, Hobbes
puts emphasis on self interest, self preservation and fear as the ground of
obligation. Now I will discuss the place of God in Hobbes’ theory since
there are some arguments which replace self interest with God on the issue
of obligation. Although Leviathan supports an extremely powerful theory of
310
311
70
obligation,312 still some authors like Warrender considers God as the only
basis of both moral and political obligation in Hobbes’ theory.313
First let us examine the origin of laws of nature and obligation in state of
nature. In De Cive Hobbes claims that natural laws are moral laws,314 and
they are called divine laws as well, because God gives reason to every man
as a rule for his actions and because the principles for living which are
derived from reason and the principles of God are the same.315 This means
that natural laws are laws because the same laws are promulgated by God.316
However, although natural laws could be regarded as God’s laws, this does
not indicate that there is moral obligation in state of nature because Hobbes
thought that natural laws turns to be laws only as commanded and enforced
by the sovereign.
Since obligation is the consequence of a contract which means mutual

transfer of rights, it is reasonable to say that the laws of nature cannot create
obligations in Hobbesian sense. As a materialist Hobbes derives obligation
from facts and for him transfer of right is the only foundation of obligation
therefore his state of nature is a “moral vacuum” and moral obligations
come out only in civil society.317 That is to say, in his theory natural laws
become morally obligatory after the formation of political society, not
because they are God’s dictates, but because sovereign has willed its
dictates in civil state. Warrender strongly argues that moral distinctions
312
Leviathan Theory of Obligation”, p. 424.
313
See Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, his Theory of Obligation and
Taylor, A. E. Thomas Hobbes (London: Oxford University Press, 1938) for more
information.
314
315
Ibid., p. 58.
316
Ibid., p. 56.
317
71
become valid only after establishing a sovereign but what he supports is not
the idea that sovereign provides an obligation to keep covenants but he
draws attention to the difference of circumstances between state of nature
and civil society. In other words, for Warrender moral principles exist in
both states but sovereign turns suspended obligations into full obligations
through his manipulation of circumstances, therefore ineffectual moral
obligations become operational by the conditions which the sovereign
provides.318
However, if it is true that moral laws are laws from eternity as laws of God
and moral obligations exist in state of nature as well, Hobbes’ statements
about unlimited natural liberty would be contradictory since there cannot be
such a state of absolute liberty in which man has obligations due to the laws
of nature or God. Although in De Cive Hobbes defines natural laws as the
laws which God gives men by natural reason,319 that is man innately has
those natural laws, he does not say that these commands of God create
obligations in state of nature.
Hobbes states that:
Law of Nature gives rise to an obligation in the internal court [in

foro interno] or in conscience always and everywhere; but in the
external court [in foro externo] it gives rise to obligation only
when it can be kept with safety.320
In other words, if man is forced to keep his covenant by a civil power, his
obligation in foro interno becomes an obligation in foro externo and this is
the picture of a political society.321 In fact, the laws which oblige individuals
318
Ibid., 144.
319
320
321
Leviathan Theory of Obligation”, p. 436.
72
are both the civil laws and natural laws in a society which contain each
other, as Hobbes claims that civil and natural laws are not two distinct kinds
of laws but they are different parts of law. The only difference is that civil
law is written whereas natural law is unwritten. Since men achieve them by
reason, there is no need of writing or publishing them.322 Although natural
laws are found by reason, they become laws in Hobbesian sense only after
the sovereign is established.
Concerning the argument about laws of nature as the commands of God, it

can also be argued that if natural laws are the commands of God, they must
exist even in infants but Hobbes claims in the preface of De Cive that infants
are not born with moral sense. Thus, Hobbes does not completely seem to
give support to the idea that natural laws are the laws of God. In medieval
thought natural law is God’s law for governance of mankind which can be
known through natural reason, whereas in Leviathan Hobbes defines laws of
nature as the dictates of reason which establish the means of preservation
and the conditions of peaceful environment.323 For that reason, Gauthier
argues that the role of reason for Hobbes is not to discern the rationally
incomprehensible will of God.324 For Gauthier, dictates of reason and divine
law do not appear to be necessarily connected in Hobbes’ theory: “[w]hat is
important to Hobbes’ moral and political theory is natural law qua dictate of
reason, not qua command of God”.325
However, Warrender argues that if these laws are not the principles of God
and if there is no moral obligation before or apart from the institution of
civil law, we could not derive moral obligation to obey the civil law from
322
323
Ibid., p. 111.
324
325
Ibid., p. 70.
73
such a system.326 According to him, in order to provide moral obligation to
obey the sovereign, there should be moral obligation to something before
sovereign is established.327 Warrender also adds that this prior obligation
before covenant guarantees the obligatory character of the covenant in civil
society.328 For him, this prior obligation is caused by natural law which
makes the basis for political obligation as well because the only reason for
obedience in Hobbes’ theory is God. Again, according to Warrender, all
obligations including the political obligation due to civil laws are based on
the obligation to obey God, for, otherwise the civil laws would be
ineffective without a former obligation to obey the sovereign; indeed laws of
nature affect the subject’s obligation by supplementing the civil law.329
As was explained before, Hobbes’ system is constructed on the claim that

self preservation is a duty however Warrender defends the idea that it is a
right; and if it is duty it is so only because of being a command of God.330 If
it is conceived as a right, self preservation or self interest in general could
not be the basis of Hobbes’ theory of obligation, and only God remains as
the ground of obligation.
Like Warrender, Sommerville also claims that in Hobbes’ system

obligations to obey laws of sovereign necessarily presuppose a prior
obligation to keep contracts that “stems from the law of nature, which is
prior to all man-made laws”.331 In addition to this, Stuart Brown holds that
without such an obligation in state of nature, obligation caused by covenant
326
327
Ibid.
328
Ibid., p. 248.
329
Ibid., p. 150.
330
Ibid., p. 206. See also Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical
Context, p. 26.
331
Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context, p. 54.
74
will be absurd since it could not be guaranteed.332 Gauthier opposing this
view argues that “[t]he claim that covenants imply obligation to perform is
just the claim that covenants do not require a prior and independent
obligation in order to oblige”.333
Oakeshott, another important commentator on Hobbes, agrees with Gauthier

that only the commands of the sovereign can make moral obligations
possible and he adds that the obligations prior to the establishment of
political society are not moral obligations but rational obligations. He
explains what rational obligation is in the “Introduction to Leviathan”:
A man may be prevented from willing a certain action because

he perceives that its probable consequences are damaging to
himself. Here the impediment is internal, a combination of
rational perception and fear, which is aversion from something
believed to be hurtful. In a sense, such a person is obliged, but
this is a case of fear and reason limiting his power and not a
moral obligation.334
Therefore, for Oakeshott man could only have rational obligations not moral
obligations in Hobbes’ state of nature. It seems that Oakeshott like Gauthier,
thinks that it is not necessary to have a prior obligation in order to guarantee
the compulsory character of the covenant in civil society. That is to say, the
ultimate source of obligation could not be considered as God. If it is so,
Hobbes would make a distinction between believers and atheists, and he
would say that atheists are not obliged to obey the laws, both natural and
civil because such a claim regarding non believers is necessary in a theory
based on God.335
332
Pennock, “Hobbes’s Confusing “Clarity” - The Case of “Liberty””, p. 434.
333
334
Oakeshott, M. J. “Introduction to Leviathan” in Leviathan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1946), p. lx.
335
Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context, pp. 76-77.
75
According to Grimsley, even Locke who is a liberal thinker excludes
atheists from his state, but we cannot consider such an argument about
atheists in Hobbes’ theory.336 However, in De Cive, Hobbes claims that man
knows that God exists by his natural reason and if there are still non
believers, God will punish them.337 Yet, acknowledging laws of nature does
not necessitate to be a believer of God, since what is related with laws of
nature is related with reason as well. As Hobbes does not make a distinction
between believers and non believers on the issue of obedience, it can be
argued that Hobbes does not believe that laws of nature are derived from
God, but they are products of reason.
Unlike Warrender who criticizes Hobbes that his political theory rests on
medieval theological foundations, Medina argues that Hobbes grounds
obligation in self interest rather than in a Divine Will, and that God plays a
secondary role in Hobbes’ moral and political obligation.338 Since political
obligation could only be defined by self interest of the subjects it can be
argued that he constructs his theory without relying on God. In Leviathan,
Hobbes claims that God is the first cause of the universe.339 He clearly
affirms the existence of God, but still it can be argued that religion has very
little role in his moral and political system.340
Hobbes says the following:
Curiosity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from

consideration of the effect to seek the cause; and again, the
cause of that cause; till of necessity he must come to this thought
at last, that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause,
336
337
338
Medina, Social Contract Theories, p. 23.
339
340
Kavka, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, p. 21.
76
but is eternal; which is it men call God. So that it is impossible
to make any profound inquiry into natural causes without being
inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal; though they
cannot have any idea of Him in their mind answerable to His
nature.341
McNeilly says that Hobbes actually believed in the existence of God as a

first cause that is why he never admitted atheism.342 According to Hobbes,
although men cannot have an idea or image of God in their minds, still they
can understand it as the first cause. However, Gauthier holds that Hobbes
could be an atheist because “[i]t is impossible to know that something is
without knowing what it is”.343 So, for Gauthier if Hobbes denies all
knowledge about what God is, he must be an atheist. It is worth quoting
Hobbes:
Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or

conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have in his
mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite
swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power. When
we say anything is infinite, we signify only that we are not able
to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named, having no
conception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore
the name of God is used, not to make us conceive Him (for He is
incomprehensible, and His greatness and power are
unconceivable), but that we may honor Him.344
This means that man is not able to comprehend God as he cannot be

perceived by sense. For Hobbes, whatever man conceives is perceived by
senses at first; man could have no idea about anything which is not subject
to senses.345 Sense impressions are the movements in the organs of sense
which are caused only by external objects, and they lead movements in brain
341
342
McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan, p.23.
343
344
345
Ibid., p.13.
77
which are called ideas.346 Hobbes’ account of nature is considered as the
main root of atheism; since Hobbes constructs his system on the basis of a
nominalistic account of knowledge and a materialistic account of the
universe, it can easily be stated that he is irreligious, that his nominalism and
materialism are instruments for his skepticism about divine providence,
good, evil and immortal soul.347
Similarly, Rapaczynski thinks that Hobbes attacked the Aristotelian

teleological conception of the state, weakened religious ground of political
obligation and ignored the importance of religion in civil societies.348
However, he claims that religion was still an important element in
preservation of Hobbes’ political society. But he argues that religion has
significance only as a tool in the hands of the authority. Rapaczynski thinks
that, for Hobbes, the legitimacy or stability of a government does not
depend on religious justification but authority could use religion as an
instrument in order to provide maintenance of the society.349
Medina argues that Hobbes replaces the authority of the Bible with absolute
power of the sovereign and he claims that the authority of the Bible could
not make sense unless sovereign commands his subjects to accept its
authority.350 So, like civil laws which originated in the decrees of the
sovereign, scriptural laws derive their authority from the power of the
sovereign as well.351
346
Ibid., p. 13.
347
348
349
Ibid., p. 28.
350
Medina, Social Contract Theories, p. 24.
351
Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan, p.28.
78
It can also be argued that the origin of Leviathan itself is not divine. This
mortal God is the sovereign which obtains its power from its subjects. For
Hobbes, the moral or political obligations could not be grounded in God’s
will rather they depend on subjects. In other words, Hobbes does not aim to
persuade people to believe in God and to make them obey the rules of the
sovereign as the laws of God. What he tries to justify is the obedience to
sovereign itself and for that reason he uses religion as an instrument in the
hands of the absolute power. For him, even the authorities of church or the
Bible do not have independent power from sovereign since the only power
in political society is the sovereign. Thus, Sommerville states that although
these statements do not prove that Hobbes is an atheist, still his system has
atheistical consequences and particularly his materialism seems to be
necessarily atheistic.352
As was mentioned, Hobbes attributes unlimited power to the sovereign to

provide absolute security for the subjects. This is the most critical point in
his theory, since the sovereign exists as a supreme power and although
individuals have duties towards the sovereign, the sovereign is not under
any obligation to them.353 However, for Ryan, having no obligation to any
authority, earthly or divine, the sovereign’s power is questionable in
Hobbes’ theory, and it appears that he makes the sovereign accountable to
God in order to avoid any negative criticisms towards himself. In Leviathan,
he holds that sovereign is subject to the laws of nature which are divine,354
therefore sovereign could not act unjustly and it inevitably promotes well-
being of its subjects. However, it cannot be derived from this statement that
sovereign has obligation to God, since he is accountable only to natural
laws. Hobbes seems to decrease unlimited power of the sovereign by
making this earthly authority accountable to divine authority. However, he
352
353
Ryan, “Hobbes’s Political Philosophy”, p. 231.
354
Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 224; and Hobbes, De Cive, p. 82.
79
only seems to try to avoid criticisms about the absolute power of the
sovereign. Although natural law will bind the sovereign both in conscience
and in action, it cannot be argued that these laws are originated from God
and the power of God restricts the power of the sovereign in Hobbes’
theory.355
Apart from the arguments about his views on God, it must be mentioned that
Hobbes can also be considered as a threat to Christianity. In his theory the
citizen of a commonwealth must accept the religion imposed by the
sovereign and enforced by the laws of the commonwealth regardless of his
private beliefs because his security wholly depends upon the absolute and
effective power of civil authority. Mintz argues that the uniform religion
imposed by the sovereign does not include the guarantee that this religion
must be Christianity.356 As was explained above, although Hobbes defines
religion as the fear of invisible but true power,357 his accounts on
materialism prove that he does not believe in Christianity in fact this proves
that he does not believe in any other religion. What Hobbes does is to use
religion as a tool for providing stability in a political society. He seems to
restrict the sovereign by introducing Divine Will, while in fact he guarantees
the absolute power of the sovereign without restricting it with the divine
power.
In brief, it can be said that, if there were God at the ground of obligation in
Hobbes’ theory, then he would not need to insist on consent or authorization
in discussing political obligation. He would put God at the foundation of
both natural obligation in state of nature and political obligation in society,
and would easily provide obligation of subjects without engaging in the
discussions about the absolute power of the sovereignty. However, Hobbes
355
356
357
80
prefers introducing authorization, self interest or unlimited power of
sovereign on the issue of political obligation, and as a result of this he is
criticized by many authors since he limits freedom of the subjects while
guaranteeing absolute security in civil state.
It will be useful to talk about Rousseau’s ideas on religion and God as well.
Rousseau, in his state, sees religion as an instrument and he also says that
“Gods would be needed to give laws to men”.358 For Rousseau, politics and
religion do not have one common object but “at the origin of nations,
[religion] serves as an instrument of the [politics]”.359 The legislators use the
authority of the religion in order to persuade people to participate in an
ordered society. Rousseau also thinks that having a religion dispose the
people to love their laws as citizens and to love justice.360 In other words, in
Rousseau’s theory, religion has an important role as it provides social unity:
“[By] this saintly, sublime, genuine Religion, men -children of the same
God- all acknowledge one another as brothers, and the society that unites
them is not even dissolved by death”.361 In short, unlike Hobbes, who is
criticized whether he believes in God or not and whether he puts God at the
ground of his obligation theory, Rousseau seems to believe in God and to
use religion as an instrument for maintaining political order in his state.
It is necessary to mention that there could be a comparison between Hobbes’

and Rousseau’s accounts on religion in order to analyze the meaning and the
importance of religion in Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s theories. But this could
be a topic of another thesis because the primary aim of this thesis is not to
draw attention to their views on religion and its role and to compare them on
that issue; rather their social contract theories and their theories of political
358
359
Ibid., p. 157.
360
Ibid., p. 222.
361
Ibid., p. 220.
81
obligation will be studied in this thesis. Therefore the role of religion and
their accounts on God especially that of Rousseau’s are not discussed.
In this chapter, I discussed the establishment of commonwealth and

sovereign by emphasizing the importance of authorization and consent and I
examined Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s theories of obligation. In the next
chapter, I will first deal with the question of freedom in Hobbes’ political
theory by focusing on the relation between subject and sovereign, and then I
will try to discuss that question in Rousseau’s theory in a comparison with
Hobbes. My objective is to discuss whether they could reconcile individual
freedom and political freedom in their political theories, and if so, how.
82
CHAPTER 4
THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN LEVIATHAN AND

SOCIAL CONTRACT
It is clear that Hobbes provides us a picture of modern political states; there

are individuals at the ground, there is obedience to laws for social order and
there are representatives, but freedom and rights of subjects are
problematical in his political society. As was mentioned in the former
chapters, the main motive for entering into society is fear in Hobbes’ theory.
For him, subjects seek peace and want to live in a commonwealth
guaranteed by a common power due to the fear of losing their lives;
therefore individuals renounce their rights and authorize the sovereign in
order to attain a secure and peaceful society. As a matter of fact, in Hobbes’
society, peace and security could only be achieved by the resignation of the
private conscience of the citizen to the public conscience of the sovereign,362
and this leads to the question of private will of the subjects. In addition, the
concept of fear as the cause of obeying laws makes the freedom of Hobbes’
subjects problematic. Whereas Rousseau replaces fear of Hobbes with
common good and he tries to remove the distinction between the supreme
sovereign and poor subjects. In fact Rousseau unites subjects under the
362
Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, His Theory of Obligation, pp. 129-130.
83
sovereign by making them the legislative will of political body and he tries
to solve the question of individual freedom in commonwealths.
In this chapter I will first try to analyze the question of freedom in Hobbes’
commonwealth and examine the freedom of subjects in its relation to
absolute power of the sovereign. Next I will discuss freedom in Rousseau’s
political theory by looking at the relation between individual freedom and
political freedom, and I will try to indicate differences in Hobbes’ and
Rousseau’s discussions on freedom.
4.1 Leviathan and Freedom
For Hobbes, if political body is formed without the consent or free choice of
people, such an authority could not be legitimate; legitimacy could only be
achieved by means of freedom of individuals. Therefore Hobbes implies that
the main reason for obedience is consent and fear is what insures obedience
but “man is not obligated because he is afraid”.363 In fact, although fear is
the main intention in entering into a society it does not appear to be the only
reason of submission. It can be argued that the concept of fear does not
eliminate freedom of subjects which is the point almost all authors had
discussed.
Put another way, despite his ideas on the formation of state out of fear,
Hobbes also talked about the relation between fear and liberty of subjects. It
can be claimed that Hobbes valued security more than liberty and defined
liberty in such a way that it has little importance.364 However, Hobbes did
not remove freedom in his theory, rather he made fear consistent with liberty
and some authors like Mill states that Hobbes’ fear “is not a cringing type of
fear and allows, rather than curtails, freedom for most members of the
363
364
Pennock, “Hobbes’ Confusing ‘Clarity’- The Case of ‘Liberty’”, p. 429.
84
commonwealth”.365 It will be useful to quote Hobbes to indicate the
consistency of fear and liberty in his theory:
[W]hen a man throweth his goods into the sea for fear the ship
should sink, he doth it nevertheless very willingly, and may
refuse to do it if he will; it is therefore the action of one that was
free: so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for fear of
imprisonment, which, because no body hindered him from
detaining, was the action of a man at liberty. And generally all
actions which men do in Commonwealths, for fear of the law,
are actions which the doers had liberty to omit.366
Therefore, Herzog claims that in Hobbes’ theory “fear and liberty are
consistent means that no one can complain that his assenting to sovereign
authority out of fear of civil war, or his following the law out of fear of
punishment, shows that his action was not free and so try to dodge
responsibility”.367 In addition to this, McNeilly states that for Hobbes when
a man performs an action from fear of the law, he is free to omit it at the
same time; “[s]o where there is an obligation I act freely if I keep it and
freely also if I break it, for there is nothing hindering me from keeping or
breaking it at will”.368 Therefore as Mill argues that it is reasonable for
Hobbes to assert that agreements done out of fear do not take away liberty
since Hobbes defines liberty without introducing rationality or choice.369
However Rapaczynski states that in Hobbes’ theory the only reason for
obedience is fear,370 and it is more important than consent or free choice of
people, and men obey the laws of the sovereign because of fear. It can be
argued that Hobbes’ arguments concerning fear does not make sense, since
365
Mill, “Civil Liberty in Hobbes’s Commonwealth”, p. 37.
366
367
Herzog, Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory, p. 103.
368
McNeilly, The Anatomy of Leviathan, p. 171. See also Watkins, “Liberty”, p. 229.
369
370
85
he claims that individuals are free to choose to be subjects to a sovereign.
But he also implies that if this individual does not choose to become a
subject, he goes in fear of losing his life in other words, he chooses to die.
Certainly this means that this individual is not free to be a subject.
According to Pennock “[i]f the motive, or the last appetite or aversion is
fear, we do not call the act free. If you influence my action by a threat, it
would generally be said that I am not free with respect to the behavior in
question”.371
In De Cive Hobbes claims that subjects “have nothing to fear but penalties
which they can anticipate or expect”,372 but in fact penalties are not so
different from fear of sovereign or fear of the laws. Although it is not
difficult to break the laws which bind us to the society, the only reason not
to break them is danger or fear. Moreover, in Leviathan he asserts that it is
the power of the sovereign which obliges men to obey, and he adds that one
arm of a commonwealth is force and the other one is justice.373 What he
implies is the significance of the power of the sovereign in his theory of
obligation. Even tough he introduces the role of authorization and
consequently the role of the subjects and asserts that “in the act of our
submission, consists both our obligation and our liberty”374 still the power of
the sovereign seems to be problematic as it is regarded as the only reason for
obedience.
After stating the importance of authorization and giving an active role to the
subjects, Hobbes legitimizes every act of the sovereign which is the one of
the most criticized points. For Hobbes, since the sovereign has enough
strength to protect his subjects, he has enough power to oppress
371
372
373
374
Ibid., p. 150.
86
everybody.375 Although this looks like a tyrannical sovereign, for Hobbes
this is the typical right of a sovereign. Clearly, if one acknowledges a
sovereign who has such a great power for Hobbes, the subject must obey his
laws as whatever the sovereign tells him is just and good. In other words if
one accepts the judgment of an authority, its laws having final authority
cannot be contrary to his liberty: “[t]he law is made by the sovereign power,
and all that is done by such power is warranted and owned by every one of
the people”.376
Like the commonwealth which is created by man for achieving peace and
conservation of themselves, civil laws as artificial chains are also created by
mankind.377 Mintz states that laws established by an arbitrary institution
represent a positive injunction, prohibition, or command which provides
justice by means of the sovereign.378 That is, laws are to provide the
citizen’s safety and they are for the good of the people.379 Gauthier argues
that authors of the sovereign and of the laws as well, have obligation not to
oppose the sovereign in any way which is incompatible with the
continuation of their authorization.380 Therefore, the obligation on the
subjects to maintain their authorization determines the meaning of freedom
in civil society.381
What Hobbes puts emphasis on is that the civil laws limit freedom of the
subject as they are authorized by the subject himself because he covenanted
to obey these laws. In other words, for Hobbes, civil law as an obligation
375
376
377
Ibid., p. 147.
378
379
380
381
Ibid., p. 133.
87
restricts freedom of the subjects and takes their liberty which they have in
the state of nature.382 So far, we have seen that political laws are inseparable
from freedom and natural rights of the subjects. Although civil and natural
laws are different as the former one is created by human will, still they
cannot be contrary to human nature because they are created for serving
human beings and providing them a more secure and peaceful society. Since
the exercise of right is the exercise of will and they are tied to the exercise
of freedom, “right, liberty and the exercise of will are coextensive”.383
Hobbes thinks that liberty should be understood as the part of natural right
but he also adds that, that part of natural right is left by the civil law.384
Therefore, it can be said that the concept of right is linked to the concept of
obligation in his theory. Although in Leviathan, law and right, liberty and
obligation, in one and the same matter are inconsistent, “[this] does not
preclude the existence of some connection between them”.385 In other
words, civil laws of the sovereign and subjection to them must be
understood well in order to discuss liberty in Hobbes’ theory.
For Hobbes, right which consists in liberty to do or to forbear and law that
means obligation386 are so different from each other that liberty could only
be possible in the silence of the law.387 What he means is that subjects have
liberty to do or to forbear in accordance with their judgments if and only if
the sovereign has not in fact forbidden the action in question.388 If a man is
382
383
Harman, “Liberty, Rights, and Will in Hobbes: A Response to David Van Mill”, p. 897.
384
385
386
387
Ibid., p. 151.
388
88
free to do something, precisely if he is not obliged to act otherwise, then he
does not have an obligation not to do it.389
As a result of this, Hobbes argues that “the liberty of a subject lies only in
those things which, in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath
pretermitted”.390 Therefore, in political society, rights are defined with
reference to the absence of the sovereign’s disapproval; put another way
what is not prohibited is permitted in Hobbes’ theory. Unless sovereign
forbid something, the subjects are free to act according to their discretion, in
fact right could only imply freedom from sovereign’s obligations.391
After clarifying the meaning of rights of subjects in their relation to

obedience to laws of the sovereign, Hobbes asserts that “liberty or freedom
signifies properly the absence of opposition”.392 Impediments outside the
man’s body like laws. McNeilly thinks that prison walls are external
impediments for a prisoner but what Hobbes implies as impediments are the
obligations since when someone is under an obligation to do something; all
paths except one are blocked for that person.393
It is necessary to talk about internal impediments as well since Jouvenel

states that liberty could be studied in discussing the relations of man with all
of the obstacles which he encounters.394 In Hobbes’ theory, there is a
distinction between internal and external impediments and Hobbes claims
that the internal one is related to what we can do and the external one is
about what we may do: “when the impediment of motion is in the
389
390
391
Ibid., p. 148.
392
Ibid., p. 145.
393
394
89
constitution of the thing itself, we use not to say it wants the liberty, but the
power, to move; as when a stone lieth still, or a man is fastened to his bed by
sickness”.395 Only external impediments have relation with freedom of
individuals and for Hobbes, only they can limit their liberty as a necessary
condition for living in a commonwealth.
Furthermore, for Hobbes, liberty is not the liberty of isolated individuals but
of the commonwealth.396 This is not the liberty which every man has a right
to everything. From Hobbes’ theory it cannot be derived that the only thing
which a person is free to do is what he chooses. McNeilly states that for
Hobbes we act by necessity but that necessity does not exclude freedom.397
The relation between necessity and liberty could be seen in the following
words of Hobbes:
Liberty and necessity are consistent: as in the water that hath not
only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the channel; so,
likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which,
because they proceed their will, proceed from liberty, and yet
because every act of man's will and every desire and inclination
proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a
continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God, the first
of all causes), proceed from necessity.398
Hobbes also defines liberty as doing everything of man’s own free will and
with impunity. But this definition is possible only before a civil state
because sovereign having right and power to coerce in the commonwealth
changes the definition of liberty. From now on liberty becomes an absence
of obstacles. To illustrate this, Hobbes says that water in a vessel is not free
395
396
Ibid., p. 149.
397
398
90
since the vessel is an obstruction for its flowing.399 Similarly, individuals
who are subject to laws are not free in the way which the state of nature
presupposes. According to Hobbes, if we define liberty as exemption from
subjection to laws, there cannot be security to live and liberty would be
impossible in such a situation as men will turn to state of nature.400 Put
another way, if all citizens get complete liberty then man returns to the state
of nature in which he can do all things rightly. But Hobbes thinks that such a
situation is worse than any civil subjection.401 Therefore, men should admit
the restrictions of civil laws on their liberty, since men become subjects who
do not harm but help each other and join for living in a secure society only
by means of laws.402
Concerning civil laws, Hobbes does not claim that they coerce people to
behave in limited ways but what he implies is that laws are to regulate or
guide the actions of men. “[J]ust as nature ordained banks not to stop the
flow of the river but to direct it”,403 sovereign establishes laws not to
extinguish human actions and bind them from all deliberate actions but they
are to direct them. In Leviathan Hobbes also states that laws are like hedges
which are set not to stop the people but to maintain them in the way.404
Therefore he tries to explain the possibility of freedom in the actions which
the laws pretermitted, and states that subjects can enjoy their liberty and can
do what their reasons suggest on the condition that there is not any law
forbidding this action.405
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
Ibid., p. 147.
91
According to Hobbes, like civil laws, the power legislating laws does not
harm the liberty of individuals. Although he attributes absolute power to the
sovereign, he justifies this by saying that it is inevitable in order to prevent
anarchy and procure safety. Rapaczynski states that for Hobbes absolute
power and absolute security coincides and any commonwealth could be
dissolved without unlimited power of the sovereign.406 In fact, for his theory
he should create such a powerful ruler that no one could disobey him:
“sovereign power, the greatest power that men can confer, greater than any
power that an individual can have over himself. The greatest power that men
can transfer to a man we call ABSOLUTE power”.407
Hobbes is criticized since his conception of absolute power of sovereign

could not be reconciled with freedom of the subjects. In fact the main
question in his theory is whether the existence of an authority harms
individual freedom or contributes to it? William Connoly argues that the
individual of Hobbes is a domesticated human who is the subject of constant
control.408 Victoria Kahn also claims that “the ideal Hobbesian subject is the
docile, effeminized political subject of an absolute sovereign that leads to
appropriate subordination and reverence rather than insubordination and
emulation”.409 Nevertheless, according to Mill to jump from the fact that
Hobbes is concerned with peace and order to the conclusion that he wants to
make people servile and subordinate is a mistake.410 Hobbes thinks that the
loss of power entails the loss of right411 therefore he tries to provide absolute
power for securing the rights of the sovereign. In fact his justifications of
406
407
408
Connoly, William E. Political Theory and Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993), p. 34.
409
Kahn, Victoria. “Hobbes, Romance, and the Contract of Mimesis”, Political Theory,
29/1 (2001), p. 24.
410
411
92
absoluteness of sovereign power could be reasonable for his theory since it
is obvious that he lived in a period of political instability and he is obsessed
with the security of a commonwealth. Precisely, he legitimizes the sovereign
when he was explaining the necessity of a civil state and he claims that the
absolute power of the sovereign is essential for politics, but what is
challenging in his theory is that his concept of power in political context is
used with enforcement. That is why this sovereignty seems harsh and
insensitive to all his critics.
Starobinski claims that after entering into a commonwealth what is mine is

sharply distinguished from what is yours and this necessitates the
determination of rights of both subjects and sovereign.412 As was mentioned
in the third chapter sovereign retains the full right of nature and as the right
of nature is unlimited then it is reasonable for Hobbes to say that sovereign’s
right is also unlimited.413 Although Hobbes states that the rights of
sovereign are inseparable and without one they will produce no effect in
achieving peace and justice,414 in this thesis all of these rights are not
mentioned except the one which is criticized as preventing freedom of the
subjects.415 Hobbes rationalizes all of the rights of the sovereign by stating
that sovereign which has right to the end has right to the means.416 For him
the end of the association is defense of the subjects. According to Hobbes,
the right of judging the opinions and doctrines is one of the most important
right of the sovereign. He or the assembly being the judge of good and evil
can examine even the doctrines of books before they are published because
“the actions of men proceed from their opinions, and in the well governing
of opinions consisteth the well governing of men's actions in order to their
412
Starobinski, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Transparency and Obstruction, p. 27.
413
Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 214. See also, Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. 109.
414
Ibid., p. 127.
415
See Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 18 for detailed explanation of sovereign’s rights.
416
Ibid., p. 124.
93
peace and concord”.417 It is obvious that this right of sovereign is criticized
since Hobbes curtailed the freedom of expression and suggests that subjects
should abandon his own private judgments. Mill argues that Hobbes is
correct to note that no society could survive for very long if its members did
not abandon the right of judgment on certain issues.418
Hobbes also talks about the right of punishment for the sake of maintenance
of the society. For him, this right cannot come from people since it seems
unreasonable because the primary aim of people is to be protected from
being killed, nor can it come from God. Therefore, the sovereign does not
receive it from anywhere. In fact, unlike the individuals who renounce their
rights, the sovereign retains this right like all of his rights. Hobbes says the
following in Leviathan:
[B]efore the institution of Commonwealth, every man had a

right to everything, and to do whatsoever he thought necessary
to his own preservation; subduing, hurting, or killing any man in
order thereunto. And this is the foundation of that right of
punishing which is exercised in every Commonwealth. For the
subjects did not give the sovereign that right; but only, in laying
down theirs, strengthened him to use his own as he should think
fit for the preservation of them all: so that it was not given, but
left to him, and to him only; and, excepting the limits set him by
natural law, as entire as in the condition of mere nature, and of
war of every one against his neighbour.419
What is more, in Hobbes’ theory the interpretation of all laws depends on

the authority even the moral laws could not be laws without the
interpretation of the sovereign,420 this means that the judgments of what is
417
Ibid.
418
419
420
Ibid., p. 190.
94
reasonable and that of what should be abolished belong to the absolute
power.421
Similar to civil laws, power could be understood positively in his system; to

be precise from Hobbes’ point of view, it can be considered as an instrument
to provide justice. Although punishment is an indication of power it can also
be understood as a force directing individuals to obey the civil laws. While
power makes people obey the sovereign, for Hobbes people obey the rules
not only because the makers of the rules have power, but also they have
authority. Authority exists if and only if people voluntarily accept it;
“[a]uthority ends where voluntary assent ends”.422 Thus there can be no
supreme power without right and sovereign as an ultimate authority is
possible only through consent of people. In other words sovereign cannot
have power independent from his subjects but what confers power on him is
the act of authorization. Leviathan becomes the most powerful agent only
because men voluntarily give their powers to that mortal god, explicitly
Hobbes did not say that authority should be acknowledged only on power.
Since Hobbes puts authorization at the heart of his political theory it can be
claimed that his absolute power does not limit individual freedom and what
creates obligation is the authorization of subjects. However for Orwin
authorization is important in Hobbes’ theory not because Hobbes implies
positive involvement in the sovereign’s will but because authorization, in his
system, indemnifies the subject against the charges of impiety originating in
himself.423
Conversely, Jouvenel introduces that different from regarding sovereign as

an absolute power enforcing constrains on people, Hobbes’ sovereign can
421
Ibid., pp. 184-185.
422
423
Orwin, “On the Sovereign Authorization”, p. 38.
95
also be seen as a concept which is essentially favorable to the individual.424
This is the reason why Hobbes emphasizes that the freedom is same in
monarchy or in democracy,425 and monarchy does not harm the individual
liberty since similar to other forms of government a monarch has nothing
more than the power that people confer upon him.
If men no longer give support to monarch, monarch loses his power. In fact
Hobbes’ subjects do not have the right to overthrow the monarch, but I want
to emphasize that in all forms of government freedom is same for Hobbes
since all depends on the will of the individuals and this is the reason why
Hobbes thinks that monarchy serves for the preservation and well being of
the members as much as democracy. It is hard to believe that there is same
freedom, same equality of rights, and same justice in a country where every
decision belongs to one master426 but Hobbes writes in favor of monarchy as
he sees no good in having more than one master. Sommerville says that
Descartes comments on De Cive in 1643 and remarks that the only aim of
Hobbes is to write in favor of monarchy.427 Hobbes developed a logical
theory of absolutism and without in any way trying to defend Hobbes, it can
be argued that he seems to be consistent in all his views because the reasons
he gave for monarchy and the possibility of freedom are logically connected
in his whole system. However, although he introduces consent as a crucial
concept when people are deciding to enter into a commonwealth and he
legitimizes authority and rationalizes obligation by means of authorization
and free will of the individuals, still his emphasis on absolute power of
sovereign seems to be the only reason in justifying political obligation. In
other words, Hobbes’ defense of absolute sovereignty which is an
424
Jouvenel, Sovereignty, p. 197. See also Rapaczynski, Nature and Politics, p. 59.
425
426
See Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 19 for defense of monarchy in greater detail.
427
Sommerville, Johann P. “Lofty Science and Local Politics” in The Cambridge
Companion to Hobbes, ed. Tom Sorell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.
247.
96
acknowledged weakness in his theory and his defense of monarchy lead
Hobbes to be criticized as eliminating freedom of subjects.428
Jean Hampton states that the absoluteness of sovereign is invalid, because

individuals have liberty to defend life, body and the means of life, that is to
say deciding whether something is favor to their lives depends on
individuals.429 Agreeing with him, Ryan also claims that apart from
suggesting a conscientious obedience, Leviathan also leads people to ask
whether the sovereign can secure their safety or not.430 In other words,
Hobbes leaves room for liberty of individuals and gives them a right to resist
if the authority cannot provide security. Therefore, it can also be claimed
that authorizing an absolute power does not restrict natural liberty of man
because Hobbes argues that by allowing the sovereign to kill me does not
bind me to kill myself when he commands me; “[i]t is one thing to say, ‘Kill
me, or my fellow, if you please’; another thing to say, ‘I will kill myself, or
my fellow’”.431 In other words, people can say “if I do not perform, kill me”
but they cannot say that “I will not resist if you try to kill me”.432
The subject’s obligation does not mean that the citizen should sacrifice to
the sovereign’s authority. Hobbes states that the citizen can resume a policy
of violence against the sovereign only if there is an active threat to his life
and limb. If men agree to obey the conqueror to guarantee their lives, this
means for Hobbes, this contract is binding only on the condition that
sovereign protects their lives. Hobbes claims that “a man cannot lay down
the right of resisting them that assault him by force to take away his life,
428
Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context, p. 2; Hobbes,
Leviathan, pp. 148, 190, 219; Hobbes, De Cive, pp. 84, 116. See also Hobbes, Leviathan,
chapter 18, for more information.
429
Goldsmith, “Hobbes on Law”, p. 281.
430
Ryan, “Hobbes’s Political Philosophy”, p.241.
431
Hobbes, Leviathan, p.151.
432
97
because he cannot be understood to aim thereby at any good to himself”.433
This right of subject seems to remain from the first right of nature and
Hobbes does not renounce that right in the civil state since no one could
give away his right of self defense.434
However, Hobbes seems to disallow all active resistance to the sovereign

when he states that “[w]hat I lawfully covenant, I cannot lawfully break”.435
Sommerville argues that although Hobbes makes people defend themselves
even against the king,436 he also adds that if the individual has the power to
resist the king whenever they thought they were unjustly attacked, then the
king’s power will lose its importance. Therefore those individuals were
obliged not to defend themselves against the king namely the sovereign. It
will be useful to keep in mind that, as Warrender states, in Hobbes’ political
theory the right to resist should not be exaggerated since “a valid pretext for
resistance can arise only from a bona-fide plea of personal insecurity”.437 So
far it is clear that the right to resistance is an important question for Hobbes;
he not only claims that “failure to defend one self [is] a sign of insanity” but
also he argues that self defense should be limited “not to lead anarchic
consequences”.438
In fact Hobbes tries to avoid resistance to sovereign or overthrowing it since

for him individuals surrender their powers of resistance to sovereign in order
to be preserved.439 In brief, his statements about sovereign which disallow it
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
Buchanan, James M. The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press), p. 130.
98
to be unjust are also serving for preventing resistance towards it in his
theory.
Hobbes says that once people make a covenant, then making protestation
against sovereign and its rules is to act unjustly.440 Therefore individuals
cannot break the covenant and become free from subjection to the authority
in any way, similarly the covenant cannot be broken by the sovereign.441 If
injustice and injury by the sovereign are not possible then there is no need of
resistance, and, for individuals, there will be no good reason to break the
covenant.
Hobbes also says that “he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign
complaineth of that whereof he himself is author, and therefore ought not to
accuse any man but himself; no, nor himself of injury, because to do injury
to oneself is impossible”.442 This means that whatever the sovereign does is
just and he cannot be accused by his subjects as making injury against them.
In addition to this, Hobbes introduces limits to the power of the sovereign in

order to strengthen his arguments on justness of the sovereign. As the role of
God is discussed briefly in the former chapter, it could be claimed that
Hobbes seems to make sovereign accountable to God. Whether the
sovereign is responsible to God and subject to natural laws as divine laws or
not, it is reasonable to say that Hobbes’ sovereign is subject to the
fundamental laws of the state because sovereign “should use sovereignty
according to its own nature and under the powers and conditions on which it
440
441
Ibid., p. 122.
442
Ibid., p. 124. See also Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, his Theory of
Obligation, p. 109 and Sommerville, “Lofty Science and Local Politics”, p. 256.
99
is established”.443 In other words as Hobbes affirms in De Cive, absolute
power of the sovereign could not make the subjects miserable, because it
could not violate natural laws.444
Jouvenel says that the monarch can do whatever he wills in theory but he is
not allowed to will what is unreasonable and unjust.445 Natural laws exist
and can be found by reason and it is the duty of the sovereign to apply these
laws and act justly. Despite the fact that sovereign is absolute, still it is
subject to natural laws and reason, so he cannot act according to his private
will in order to maximize common good among subjects. Since the power of
the citizens is the power of the commonwealth,446 inevitably the private
interest, even in monarchy, is the same with the public.447 The power of the
sovereign cannot be exercised for the disadvantages of people. The
sovereign cannot act contrary to the common good. As a result of this,
sovereign will could not have complete liberty to do what he desires and act
unreasonably.
Nonetheless it is the sovereign who makes the rules that define what is to be
called just or unjust, right or wrong. Therefore subjects should obey the laws
no matter they are really just or right. Goldsmith affirms that as long as
these definitions depend on the sovereign, the subjects could not have an
independent criterion to declare actions of the sovereign as wrong or unjust.
Therefore to say that the sovereign cannot be unjust does not make sense in
such a theory.448 Moreover Jouvenel states that the sovereign could not be
443
444
445
446
447
448
Goldsmith, “Hobbes on Law”, p. 280.
100
unjust only because whatever he does, wants and invades becomes just at
the moment he does it.449
There are statements in Hobbes philosophy which give chance for resistance
and which appear to make citizens more active in the establishment. But
such a resistance to sovereign is impossible in his whole theory. In this
chapter I tried to indicate that, in Hobbes’ theory, subjects, since they
authorize the sovereign, have to obey him and cannot resist him because
there is no need in resisting him for he is always just and right. When one
gives authority to the representer and makes him sovereign, he has to obey it
as he gives the sovereign authority without stint.450 Once they participate in
civil society by giving consent to it, their past consent towards him
guarantees future consent as well. That is to say people cannot decide to
stop serving for the commonwealth and become free.
At this point it will be useful to talk about his concept of authorization again
in order to understand his arguments concerning resistance. Hobbes claims
in A Dialogue between a philosopher and a student of the common laws of
England that he who transfers his power to one has deprived of that power
but if he commits his power to one in order to be exercised in his name, still
he is the owner of that power.451 This seems to be that for Hobbes
authorization does not avoid subject of being the owner of the right.
However Harman argues that for Hobbes once rights are given away then
the original possessor of them has no longer owns them otherwise it should
be possible for Hobbes to give up being a subject to a commonwealth and
449
450
451
Hobbes, Thomas. A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student, of the Common
Laws of England, ed. Alan Cromartie (Oxford: Clarendon; New York; Oxford University
Press, 2005), p. 52.
101
renounce authorizing the sovereign to act in their names.452 Therefore, while
Hobbes claims that authorization is simply giving the use of your right to
another it seems that subject gives up being owner of his right and he no
longer has a chance to retake it. In other words, for Hobbes, it seems that
there is no room for resistance. It is worth quoting Hobbes to reinforce this
point: in De Cive he states that “[t]he truth is that agreements are universally
valid once the benefit has been accepted, and if the act and the content of the
promise are licit”.453 Moreover, in Leviathan Hobbes argues that:
[Subjects] cannot lawfully make a new covenant amongst

themselves to be obedient to any other, in anything whatsoever,
without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a
monarch cannot without his leave cast off monarchy and return
to the confusion of a disunited multitude; nor transfer their
person from him that beareth it to another man, other assembly
of men: for they are bound, every man to every man, to own and
be reputed author of all that already is their sovereign shall do
and judge fit to be done.454
Briefly, as all men covenant with each other to escape from miserable
conditions of state of nature and enter into political society, they are obliged
to obey this covenant as a law of nature since no one can have a right to
resist or protest against the sovereign; “if someone has a right to something
others have a duty not to behave in such a way as to violate that right”.455
Just once citizens authorized the sovereign they have to perform it since
their authorization means giving consent to whatever the government might
do in future, in fact they give their consent to everything the government
does.
452
Harman, “Liberty, Rights, and Will in Hobbes: A Response to David Van Mill”, p. 900.
453
454
455
Hospers, J. Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow, (Los Angeles: Nash
Publications, 1971), p. 51.
102
To sum up, it is explicit that security lies at the heart of Hobbes’ theory of
obligation. When he discusses the benefits of a civil state, he puts emphasis
only on things related to security:
Outside the commonwealth anyone may be killed or robbed by

anyone; within a commonwealth by only one person, outside, we
are protected only by our own strength, within by the strength of
all. Outside, no one is certain of the fruits of his industry, within
all men are.456
In conclusion, Hobbes’ main aim is to provide security and for that reason
he gives more importance to protection than liberty. Gauthier claims that in
all writings of Hobbes he insists that liberty is good but what he emphasizes
is that sovereign can deprive men of their liberty for a greater good and that
greater good is security for Hobbes.457 He is ready to pay whatever is
necessary for protection and this is the basis of subjects’ limited liberty in
his theory. For him security comes before liberty and liberty depends on
security because he believed that freedom could only be meaningful and
possible after achieving absolute security in a political society. As he
realizes subjects’ natural love of liberty, he introduces a sovereign with
unlimited power and rights and by means of such a coercive government, he
tries to achieve absolute security for a commonwealth. In short, for him the
aim of obedience is protection458 and subjects should obey the sovereign and
accept their limited liberty and rights only for getting protection from him
and living in a secure society.
456
Hobbes, De Cive, 116.
457
458
103
4.2 The Social Contract and Freedom
After analyzing the place of freedom in Hobbes’ theory, in this section I will
try to examine freedom in Rousseau’s political society by comparing
Hobbes and Rousseau at points where necessary. As Rousseau’s main
concepts such as consent, sovereign and general will are analyzed in the
former chapters now I will discuss the relation between these concepts and
freedom in Rousseau’s theory. Do these concepts contribute to freedom of
subjects or do they limit individual freedom? These are the main questions
of this section.
Rousseau’s main concern is to find a body politic in which each person

obeys his own free will while obeying to general will of the commonwealth.
He says the following in the Social Contract:
Find a form of association that defends and protects the person

and goods of each associate with all the common force, and by
means of which each one, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys
only himself and remains as free as before. This is the
fundamental problem which is solved by the social contract.459
In contrast to Hobbes who tried to make ground for political obligation,

Rousseau tried to reconcile the legitimate exercise of freedom with the valid
demands of order.460 For him, to indicate the possibility of freedom, the
most noble of man’s faculties, while obeying general will is the main task of
an ideal political society.461
It can be said that Rousseau and Hobbes agree on the equality and freedom
of human beings before analyzing the establishment of political society. It is
no doubt that men are naturally free. Rousseau claims that “[i]f there are
459
460
461
104
slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves contrary to nature”.462
In other words, there cannot be a natural right of slavery since right and
slavery are contradictory. Therefore, any political society could come into
existence only by free participation of the subjects. Since all is born free463
they will alienate their freedom and renounce their unlimited rights only for
their utility.
Melzer says that, in Rousseau’s state of nature “once a man begins to

acquire means, he cannot stop; he is drawn into a self perpetuating quest for
ever more power.”464 Hobbes thinks in the same way and asserts the
following:
I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and

restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
And the cause of this, is not always that a man hopes for a more
intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he
cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot
assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present,
without the acquisition of more.465
Therefore, it can be argued that men should renounce their power and rights
in order to be one under a sovereign, otherwise they return to the state of
nature in which all seek more power by hurting each other. In other words,
if some rights remained in individuals, each as his own judge tries to
preserve himself by his own power. But after submitting themselves to a
common force they will enjoy security and protection provided by the total
strength of all individuals.
462
463
Ibid., p. 131.
464
465
105
It can be said that both Hobbes and Rousseau have similar views regarding
the characteristics of that common power; like Hobbes, Rousseau states that
sovereign has a supreme authority which cannot be limited without
destroying it.466 That is to say, the sovereign is ultimate and has indivisible
power as Hobbes thought. But Rousseau does not reach Hobbes’ conclusion
about the absoluteness of its power. Hobbes introduces absolutism for the
remedy for the condition in the state of nature, whereas Rousseau suggests
the creation of common good and constructs his system by depending on it.
Therefore, in contrast to Hobbes who regards security as the ground of
political obligation, for Rousseau the political obligation of subjects
“depend[s] on pursuing the ends of justice and the common good, they are
not obliged unless the State’s laws are effectively directed towards these
ends”.467
Like Hobbes, Rousseau thinks that the sovereign could not have a contrary
interest to the subjects and will not harm its members since it is composed
of all individuals in the commonwealth.468 Although the sovereign has
supreme character, it should not be feared since it would be illogical to
expect it to act against its main interest, that of self preservation of the
whole community. Rousseau also thinks that even though there is natural
freedom in the state of nature, true freedom can emerge only when man has
obtained the ability for deliberate choice which is possible in a Body
Politic.469 In other words, the supreme power which is the guarantor of
legitimate and secure society also provides equality of right and justice, and
as a result of this it becomes the guarantor of freedom in Rousseau’s
political philosophy.
466
Rousseau, Social Contract, pp. 194-195.
467
468
469
Ibid., pp. 141-142, 150. See also, Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, p. 90.
106
Hence, the existence of a common power does not force human beings to
quit their freedom completely, it can only be mentioned that men’s freedom
by nature within the limits of the law of reason becomes freedom under the
laws of society and under the force of the common power after entering into
a body politic. Rousseau clarifies this argument by arguing that:
[W]hat man loses by the social contract is his natural freedom

and an unlimited right to everything that tempts him and that he
can get; what he gains is civil freedom and the proprietorship of
everything he possesses.470
In fact, Rousseau holds that there is conventional freedom in a civil state

since natural freedom is limited with individual forces, and it becomes civil
freedom limited with general will and moral values. According to Grimsley,
the act of will brought sovereignty into being, and that is why the sovereign
is inseparable from the activity of will.471 Rousseau also puts emphasis on
this difference and affirms that general will is inspired by common interest
whereas the particular will considers only private interest and is motivated
selfishly.472 Moreover, the will of all for Rousseau does not mean general
interest because the will of all is the physical sum of particular desires of
individuals, whereas general will “presupposes a deliberate attitude of mind
and a firm determination to seek the common good”.473
In Rousseau’s social contract theory, general will has a very significant role
because for him when individual reason operates with general will, the
individual will recognizes his true being and his true freedom. Grimsley
suggests that the natural freedom of the unthinking savage is replaced with
470
Ibid., p. 141.
471
472
473
107
the moral freedom of the mature man.474 That is to say, man realizes his true
being after entering into a society and he becomes master of himself and
gains true freedom. This is possible only “[by] obedience to laws”.475
According to Steven G. Affeldt, in Rousseau’s philosophy active general

will among people differentiates a society from what Rousseau names as
herd or aggregation of men.476 For him this herd of natural man becomes a
society with free subjects if and only if the subjects obey general will. Since
everyone engages in the common cause, each should act according to the
general will in order to be free and as a result of this civil freedom gains its
meaning in this framework. Because the general principle is based on the
common good, individuals instinctively act how society requires and their
selfishness is subordinated to the general will of the civil state.477
Unlike Hobbes who regards civil war as the origin of all evils, Rousseau
thinks that all evils are caused by the dependence on one human being upon
another human being. This is what Rousseau calls personal dependence,478
and he thinks that only the laws based on the idea of common interest could
abolish that private dependence among man.479 It is important not to ignore
the significant role of sovereign in achieving impersonal dependence.
Grimsley suggests that Rousseau tries to replace dependence on people with
dependence on sovereign by locating supreme political authority in all
members of the community.480 In Emile he says the following:
474
Ibid., p. 163.
475
476
Affeldt, Steven G. “The Force of Freedom: Rousseau on Forcing to be Free”, Political
Theory, 27/3 (1999), p. 305.
477
478
479
Riley, “A Possible Explanation of Rousseau’s General Will”, p. 88.
480
108
There are two kinds of dependence: dependence on things,
which belongs to nature; dependence on men, which belongs to
society. Dependence on things, having no morality, is not
harmful to freedom and does not engender vices; dependence on
men, being uncontrolled, engenders them all.481
Therefore when Rousseau says that “[m]an is born free, and everywhere he
is in chains”482 he does not mean those chains harm the liberty of subjects
and make men live in slavery. Clearly Rousseau says that dependence on
things do not limit freedom whereas dependence on another man harms the
liberty of the individual. It can be argued that Rousseau’s natural chains are
comparable to Hobbes’s impediments within the body and social chains are
similar to external impediments in Hobbes’ theory. In brief, despite the
social chains or external obstacles man could be free in a political society.
Since liberty means for Rousseau being free from all private dependence, he
tries to strengthen the unity of the civil association and makes the citizens
depend on the state in order to free them from dependence on all other
subjects. Thus, being dependent on the city does not harm the liberty but
only the laws and state constitutes the liberty of its members.483 When
citizens obey the laws that contribute to their liberty, they do not obey
anyone but only their own free will.484 In the Social Contract he claims that
“[e]ach of us puts his person and his entire power under the supreme
direction of the general will; as a body, we receive each member as an
indivisible part of the whole”.485 Unless this political body involves all the
citizens without exception it cannot be effective, as a result of this, each
481
482
483
Ibid., p. 58.
484
Ibid., p. 150.
485
Ibid., p. 139.
109
associate obeys his own will while obeying general will and each considers
his interests as well, but they are in conformity since every member is a part
of the sovereign.
Furthermore, Rousseau asserts that when one gives himself to all in fact he
gives himself to no one because each individual is a member of the
sovereign and a member of the state at the same time.486 According to
Grimsley this reciprocal engagement guarantees that the activity of
sovereign is always right.487 The decrees of the general will or the sovereign
inevitably become the decrees of the citizens and as a result of this, subjects
as rational beings become the authors of these laws with Rousseau. That is
to say, it is the people who are responsible in making laws which are
nothing but the “records of our wills”.488 Subjects are passive beings
obeying laws as the parts of the state and at the same time they are active
beings as parts of the sovereign participating in the formation of them.
In the political theory of Rousseau, subjects become the sovereign itself

whereas subjects in Hobbes’ theory only authorize the sovereign and turn to
be passive beings on the issue of obligation.489 In other words, for Hobbes
the sovereign power seems to be independent from subjects and a superior
power over them, but Rousseau gives active and significant role to subjects
in both establishing and maintaining the civil association. That is why
Rousseau’s statement concerning generality of laws contributing to freedom
is reasonable. As Grimsley argues, while primitive man respects the laws of
nature, the citizen should also respect the laws of society and realize the
interdependence of freedom and political order since “without the law there
486
Ibid., pp. 138-139.
487
488
489
Watt, “Rousseau Rechaufee- Being Obliged, Consenting, Participating, and Obeying
only Oneself”, p. 714.
110
can be no equality of right, and without equality of right, there can be no
true political freedom”.490
Thus it can easily be said that for Rousseau freedom is a voluntary self
restriction.491 In fact, men should restrict their passions which lead them to
act and conform to their conscience in order to be free, since passions and
freedom could not exist together. Being free means to be social and in order
to be social men should hide their passions and act according to reason.
Rousseau’s individuals should separate themselves from their own egos and
passions and conform to reason. For Rousseau, it is the law which liberates
mankind, but Hobbes thinks that obligation to laws puts limit on man’s
freedom. In other words, although laws are created by consent in Hobbes’
theory they terminate individual’s freedom. However, since Rousseau
constructs his theory on the idea of general will and leads individuals to
partake in the freedom of the sovereign, he rationally states that the
individuals could become free only through civil laws.
It can be claimed that Rousseau, by means of general will, makes physical

beings of Hobbes moral creatures. As Komaruddin Hidayat argues, the
approach of Hobbes to human activity is like his approach to physical world
and physical science and consequently there cannot be proper place for
morality in his theory.492 However, Rousseau puts morality on rational
grounds and asserts that being virtuous or being good means to be free. If
men obey natural laws which are written in the depths of his heart, by
conscience and reason, he will be free.493 Rousseau thinks that morality
490
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau, p. 161. See also Shklar, J. N. “Rousseau’s
Images of Authority”, in Hobbes and Rousseau: A Collection of Critical Essays, eds. M. W.
Cranston, and R. S. Peter (Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books, 1972), p. 341.
491
Rousseau, Emile, p. xix.
492
Hidayat, Komaruddin. The Concept of Freedom within the Theory of Social Contract,
Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis (Middle East Technical University: Ankara, 1990), p. 10.
493
111
presupposes freedom and the actions of an individual could not be moral if
he surrenders his freedom.494 Rapaczynski claims that for Rousseau
“[f]reedom is not simply a necessary condition of virtue in a man; it is also
its sufficient condition”.495 Rousseau says that everyone in a political society
should obey the general will and each member has to respect other people,
have moral responsibility of being a part of society, realize moral and civil
rights of others as much as his rights and do what he must do in order to
achieve the supreme moral value, that is freedom. Rousseau adds that
“[l]iberty is not to be found in any form of government, she is in the heart of
the free man, he bears her with him everywhere”.496 This means that when
Rousseau talks about being virtuous or being free, he refers to conscience
and reason, not only to any form of the government and its laws.
Different from Hobbes, Rousseau thinks that virtue is above self interest in a
political constitution; “only the man has learnt to become master of himself
will become a worthy and responsible member of society”.497 Consequently
their ideas of free will are different since Hobbes’ will is only the last act of
the judgment in a conflict between fear and hope and for that reason a
voluntary act is determined only by the individual’s assessment of his own
best interest.498 Therefore Hobbes’ emphasis on self interest never lets him
to define the meaning of “free will” and therefore that of morality.
Conversely, Rousseau tries to construct his moral philosophy by considering

all people in general not by means of an individual, his own beliefs and
values or interest. It can be argued that Rousseau is more successful than
494
495
496
497
498
112
Hobbes in constructing a moral theory since Rousseau’s theory seems to be
practically effective and morally binding, while in Hobbes’ theory apart
from the fear of consequences subjects do not have the desire to keep the
covenant they made freely.499 Moreover Kavka asserts that the fundamental
rule of Hobbes’ moral theory is to seek peace and his establishment of
commonwealth explicitly rests on this fundamental rule.500 In other words,
Hobbes’ main concern is to seek peace and establish control without
expanding freedom. He makes a summary of natural laws by claiming that
“[w]hatsoever you require that others should do to you, that you do to
them”.501 Hobbes seems to provide common good for the sake of the
commonwealth by which all people can achieve the best results for them
and appears to foreshadow Rousseau’s general will.502 But, because of his
obsession with safety and control we cannot regard Hobbes as the defender
of general will. Therefore, Hobbes could not construct a moral theory like
Rousseau and he could not bind obligation to stronger causes apart from self
interest or fear of the common power. Unlike Rousseau who claims that it is
rationality which imposes obligation on us, Hobbes, by making man an
egoistic, self interested and passionate animal, never achieved such a
successful conclusion concerning morality in his obligation theory.
Rousseau claims that “whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be
constrained to do so by the entire body; which means that he will be forced
to be free”.503 For Affeldt this means that as human freedom could only be
achieved through obeying general will, all individuals participating in the
constitution of a general will, should constrain each other to obey the
499
500
Kavka, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, p. 26.
501
502
503
113
general will.504 Although this appears to be a paradox, it does not eliminate
freedom in Rousseau’s theory. Rapaczynski claims that “by being forced to
obey my reason I am forced by the community that embodies my own moral
agency to be free”.505 By giving each individual to politic body, Rousseau
makes general will their wills. Therefore, obeying general will only means
obeying the wills of the citizens. “Forcing to be free” should not be regarded
as a statement eliminating freedom of the subjects.506
It is a matter of fact that freedom in Rousseau’s political philosophy does

not mean to do what you want to do but to control over desires and passions.
“That man is truly free who desires only what he is able to perform, and
does what he desires”.507 In fact freedom in Rousseau’s sense means to have
self-control and obedience to self imposed laws and thus, his statement of
“forcing to be free” should be understood in this framework. According to
Raphael, Rousseau thinks that if men act according to common good, they
will achieve harmony among themselves and they would not need to be
compelled.508
Hocutt argues that Rousseau’s concept of general will is not something

conceivable therefore what Rousseau defends is not the general will but the
will to general.509 He adds that political perfection, which is possible
through general laws and subjects’ consent to them, could only be achieved
504
Affeldt, “The Force of Freedom: Rousseau on Forcing to be Free”, p. 315.
505
506
Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 115. See also Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and
Political Obligation, p. 26; and Hocutt, “Compassion without Charity, Freedom without
Liberty: The Political Fantasies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”, p. 187 for the discussions on
Rousseau’s liberty.
507
Rousseau, Emile, p. xix.
508
509
Hocutt, “Compassion without Charity, Freedom without Liberty: The Political Fantasies
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”, p. 94.
114
by will to the general not by general will. Actually Rousseau claims that
general will is the union of will and understanding in the political body, but
Hocutt and Riley argue that if this understanding is provided by authority,
then the idea of will which is autonomous authorizing faculty in Rousseau’s
theory is weakened.510 In other words the will could not be both morally
autonomous and subject to the influence of authority. Hocutt thinks that
Rousseau never solved this question since “even Emile, the best educated of
men, chooses to continue to accept the guidance of his teacher”.511
According to Riley, Rousseau’s general will is a rationalized will by the

standards and conditions of idealized political body.512 Thus, for Riley,
Rousseau by means of general will, did not allow freedom and could not
construct a political body with free members but Rousseau transformed
independent and free human beings to miserable slaves and eliminated their
main characteristics which make men truly human.
However, Rousseau says that “[t]he sovereign can only be considered

collectively and as a body but each individual, as a subject, has his private
and independent existence”.513 In other words, Rousseau does not ignore the
significance of individual wills and he also thinks that man chooses a
particular attitude towards the world by means of deliberate act of will.514 In
fact man’s behavior is directed by his will and reason which provides a
proper place for individual freedom in his theory. Therefore it can easily be
realized that different from Hobbes’ theory, there is realization of individual
freedom and free will in Rousseau’s theory, since Hobbes’ vocabulary
510
Ibid., p. 97 and Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 123.
511
Ibid.
512
513
514
115
concerning the formation of society only consists of self interest, passions
and fear, not free will.
By means of the general will Rousseau makes the citizens think and act
according to common good and this is the reason why they are no longer
interested in their particular wills which seek their own advantages. Yet,
Grimsley suggests that in Rousseau’s system “there is a deeper sense in
which the citizen also seeks his interest, but he relates it to the preservation
and well being of the community as a whole rather than to the pursuit of his
own petty advantage”.515 Therefore although general will is important for
Rousseau, still the individual exists and has importance as much as general
will.
According to Rousseau, subjects do not lose their active roles in the civil
society since it is the subjects who became sovereign. Clearly, subjects are
active as legislative will of the political body and they are also passive
having obedience to obey the laws. He also insists that, for a perfect
legislation, all parts and institutions should work in harmony; the sovereign
gives laws, government is responsible for execution and subjects obey these
laws.516 Hence, it can be seen that general will of people is the only
determinant of the perfect legislation, because citizens make laws as the
actors of the sovereign, they give existence to government and they are the
subjects who have to obey these laws as well. Subjects never give up their
legislative power and they continue to exist both as a sovereign and as a
state agent. According to Grimsley the government as the executive
instrument exists between the whole and the whole and facilitates
communication between them, it transmits orders of people as sovereign to
people as subjects.517
515
Ibid., p. 103.
516
517
116
Thus, what is supreme in Rousseau’s system is not the law but the
legislative will. In fact, the whole system of Rousseau is saved for the
individual will by the fact that people always have a right to change the
laws, even the best ones:
[I]n the State, there is no fundamental law that cannot be

revoked, not even the social compact. For if all the citizens were
to assemble in order to break this compact by common
agreement, there is no doubt that it would be very legitimately
broken.518
In other words, when political body does not preserve common good and
serve for public’s safety, the people will have right of breaking the social
contract; “it would be very legitimately broken” as it was done legitimately
before.519
What Rousseau emphasizes is the resistance to a sovereign as a legal act. In

Emile, he asserts that “[t]he uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a
Sultan is as Lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of
the lives and goods of his Subjects”.520 For Rousseau, force can both
maintain the sovereign and overthrow it.521 Unlike Hobbes who regards
rebellion only as a renewed war522 and considers it as an act against
reason523 Rousseau thinks that dominant power of the subjects have right to
revoke any government and to change the form of it.
This means that for Rousseau the main determinant in political society is
518
519
Ibid.
520
521
Ibid.
522
523
Ibid., p. 103.
117
people and no institution like government can be superior to the subjects and
independent from the members of the community. In his system no monarch
or prince can be above the laws since only the general will is responsible for
making laws. However, the sovereign power in Hobbes can be regarded as
superior to the subjects and its absoluteness contributes to his theory of
obligation as it is clear in these words:
[B]enefits oblige; and obligation is thraldome; and unrequitable

obligation, perpetual thraldome; which is to ones equal, hateful.
But to have received benefits from one, whom we acknowledge
for superior, enclines to love; because the obligation is no new
depression; and cheerful acceptation (which men call Gratitude)
is such an honour done to the obliger, as is taken generally for
retribution.524
In contrast, Rousseau emphasizes that state is not a supreme and self-

governing being but it is the product of people and everyone is a part of that
whole body.525
As a matter of fact Rousseau holds a democratic view of sovereign and he

defends that ultimate political authority can be safely left in the people’s
hands.526 Since he introduces state of nature differently from Hobbes, he
does not make the sovereign so harsh an agent, whereas due to his
pessimistic view of human nature, Hobbes insists on the absoluteness of
sovereign and makes it necessary for individuals transfer all of their rights
and power to the sovereign. Hobbes knows that authorizing such a great and
unlimited power will have evil consequences but he adds that no matter they
will be evil, it cannot be worse than the consequences in state of war. Since
the end of Hobbes’ commonwealth is only security, subjects have to pay
whatever it costs, in other words they have obligation to obey the greatest
524
Ibid., p. 71.
525
526
118
power and they cannot even question the absoluteness of its power.
Unlike Rousseau whose subjects are able to regulate the conditions of the
association in a political society, Hobbes’ subjects do not have any right of
determining the conditions in which they live, they have no right of breaking
any covenant and organize another form of government by their own will.
Although both philosophers have similar views regarding obedience to laws
for the sake of the citizens, their discussions on freedom of subjects differ.
While Hobbes attributes absoluteness and superiority to the sovereign,
Rousseau as a defender of individual liberty tries to eliminate the gap
between the sovereign and subjects.
In order to secure the idea of common good in his theory Rousseau strongly
rejects Hobbes’ monarchic government and claims that monarchic form is
the most vigorous government in which private will easily dominates the
others. He claims that everything could easily move towards the same goal
in a monarchy, and adds that it could not aim at public utility.527 He also
declares that everything is used to obtain common good in free states,
whereas monarchs make subjects miserable in order to govern them since
the force of monarch is increased by the weakening the force of the
subjects.528 Rousseau regards the monarch as master and sees him as a
danger for civil state; “the very moment there is a master, there is no longer
a sovereign and the body politic is destroyed”.529
Rousseau is also against the idea of representation in Hobbes’ system.

Although his idea of consent seems to make representative government and
government by consent one and the same, he strongly rejects the idea of
representation. For him, sovereignty could not be represented since
527
528
Ibid., p. 182.
529
119
sovereignty is the exercise of will and the will could not be represented.530
Due to the fact that sovereign is a collective being, any part of it cannot
transfer his will to a representative; Rousseau thinks that not will but only
the power can be transferred.531
Like him Hobbes also thinks that the will cannot be transmitted to a
representative. For Winch what is transmitted to Hobbes’ sovereign is
power.532 However, unlike Rousseau, Hobbes is the supporter of the idea of
representatives since he thinks that a representative or representatives are
necessary in order to unite the multitude of men.533 In his system, artificial
man which subjects had created, has right to represent those subjects
because it has right and power to conclude an agreement on the behalf of his
subjects. In other words, as multitude transfers their power, rights and their
names to the sovereign, the sovereign has the right to represent them and
make decisions according to those made by the majority. This is the reason
why, unlike Rousseau, Hobbes allowed sovereignty to be transferred to an
all powerful ruler without destroying the existence of the commonwealth.
Concerning Rousseau’s ideas on representatives, it can also be mentioned

that in his theory representatives are needed to deal with public affairs only
when private interests of people become superior to public good and when
they do not realize that the sum of common good contributes to their
individual good. However, as a matter of fact public service is the main
business of citizens and people should not admit to be represented, since
Rousseau argues that if there is represented there is no need of
530
531
Ibid., p. 145.
532
Winch, “Man and Society in Hobbes and Rousseau”, p. 249.
533
120
representatives.534 In short, for Rousseau, legislative power is the primary
duty of citizens; laws are the main acts of the sovereign and no law can be a
law without being ratified by the public; accordingly, deputies or
representatives cannot participate in public affairs in the name of citizens.535
Moreover Rousseau argues that “the instant a [p]eople chooses

[r]epresentatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists”,536 therefore having
representatives is same with renouncing one’s status as a man. According to
Grimsley, in Rousseau’s society “the citizens can never transfer their
supreme power or authority to anybody else” since the citizens cannot do it
without destroying and dividing the political association.537
In fact, Rousseau’s emphasis on government by consent stands in the same

way as the representative government but he prefers participatory
democracy rather than the representative one. He adds that it is
impracticable and cannot be applicable to mankind: “If there were a people
of Gods, it would govern itself Democratically. Such a perfect Government
is not suited to men”.538 Grimsley argues that democracy in Rousseau’s
sense is obviously different from the modern idea of representative
government because “he uses the term democracy in the ancient sense to
mean a government by the people acting as a body and exercising both
legislative and executive functions”.539
In addition, since Rousseau’s political principles rest on popular consent,

they are democratic in their implications. However Rousseau doubts men’s
534
535
Ibid.
536
Ibid.
537
538
539
121
ability to put them into operation, therefore for him there must be great
legislators to help the citizens.540 In Rousseau’s words:
The general will is always right, but the judgment that guides it
is not always enlightened. It must be made to see object as they
are, or something as they should appear to be; shown the good
path it seeks; safeguarded against the seduction of private wills;
shown how to assimilate considerations of time and place;
taught to weigh the attraction of present, tangible advantages
against the danger of remote, hidden ills.541
In Rousseau’s philosophy only consent can create duties and great

legislators guide men on that issue since men do not know what they should
consent to.542 Grimsley asserts that the lawgiver has a very significant role
in Rousseau’s contract theory as it is the lawgiver who is responsible for the
radical transformation of isolated natural man into moral beings in the
political association.543
According to Winch, Rousseau’s individual “must be taught what his true

needs are and the conditions under which they can be fulfilled”.544 That is to
say, the individuals are led to see what is good for them and in fact
Rousseau thinks that men’s whole nature is created by education.545
Furthermore in Emile Rousseau claims that man needs only education
540
Ibid., p. 107.
541
542
543
544
Winch, “Man and Society in Hobbes and Rousseau”, p. 236.
545
Ibid., p. 234.
122
because, “all that [he] lack[s] at birth is the gift of education”.546 If he were
not educated, he would become a monster.547
Rousseau regards political education as a solution to inequality and thus he

thinks that it contributes to common good. If the sovereign is considered as
the agent responsible for political education, it can be claimed that unlike
Hobbes whose sovereign seems to coerce subjects as a force, Rousseau’s
sovereign appears to direct and guide subjects in order to provide common
good.
Rousseau believes that through education, Emile who is the best educated
man learns how to obey his reason. That is to say, he obeys his own free will
and by means of education he understands that no one other than himself
can become the master of his will.548 For that reason, Rousseau thinks,
subjects should be educated in order to learn to be free. He reinforces this
point by claiming in A Discourse on Political Economy:
There can be no patriotism without liberty, no liberty without

virtue, no virtue without citizens; create citizens, and you have
everything you need; without them, you will have nothing but
debased slaves, from the rulers of the State downwards. To form
citizens is not the work of a day; and in order to have men it is
necessary to educate them when they are children.549
Although Rousseau puts emphasis on liberty of subjects while suggesting

the necessity of education, some authors criticize him and claim that
Rousseau ignores liberty of subjects and only suggests a political education.
Riley argues that “Rousseau is speaking not of consent or will but of a kind
546
547
Ibid., p. 5.
548
Ibid., p. 298.
549
Rousseau, Jean- Jacques. A Discourse on Political Economy. Available from
http://www.constitution.org/jjr/polecon.htm.
123
of political education that will promote a sense of the common good”,550 and
Hocutt makes a similar argument and claims that what is important in
Rousseau’s theory is not consent but political education which directs
people to serve for public good.551 For these authors, if children are
educated according to the laws which serve only for the common good, their
private interests will never contradict public and a common morality.
However, it can be argued that such an education eliminates the free will of
subjects and makes all men prototype citizens. Thus Riley thinks that
sovereign obtains a right to deceive people by means of education.552 In
other words, Riley believes that men are misled by sovereign and they could
not be free after political education but they will only be in a position to say
“I have decided to be what you made me”.553
However, after education Emile says that “I have decided to be what you
made me; of my own free will I will add no fetters to those imposed upon
me by nature and the laws”.554 It is obvious that Rousseau puts emphasis on
Emile’s “own free will”. According to Rousseau the student makes
decisions by his free will. Although the student learnt everything from his
teacher, he has the right to make decisions on his own, but the impacts of his
teacher and education could not be ignored since the student evaluates and
thinks everything in this framework. Yet, it could be improper to argue that
such an education removes freedom of subjects and makes them wholly
depend on teacher and his values. In Emile, Rousseau claims that student
could never take a step that the teacher has not foreseen and he adds that the
550
551
552
553
Ibid., p. 118.
554
124
student could only do what the teacher wants him to do.555 What Rousseau
tries to imply in these words is that it is the teacher who taught what is
reasonable to the student, and from now on the student acts according to his
reason. Moreover he claims in the same book that “[t]he truly free man
wants only what he can do and does what he pleases”.556 This is Rousseau’s
fundamental maxim. Still he refers to what is reasonable, and it can be
argued that there is nothing contradictory in Rousseau’s theory, since he
equates doing what conforms to common good and being free. In other
words, since man learns to obey his reason and to be free, Rousseau’s
statements in Emile do not eliminate freedom of the subjects and turn them
to miserable slaves.
Rousseau says that children are taught to obey their reason and to behave
according to the laws only in order to achieve public felicity and morality.
However, this does not mean to prevent people from legislating laws or
make them slaves of the sovereign. Rapaczynski argues that Rousseau’s
subjects are free even in making injury to themselves and legislating bad
laws because “the practical harm that they might cause to themselves could
never be greater than the moral damage they would suffer by being deprived
of their freedom”.557
Although Rousseau tried to give rights to subjects by generalizing the will

Hocutt argues that such an attempt is impossible because the ideas of
generality and of will are mutually exclusive. He adds that the will is a
concept of individuality and it is not possible to insure that this individual
will would want only what the common good requires.558 For him,
555
Ibid., p. 85.
556
Ibid., pp. 83-84.
557
558
125
individual wills are molded not to appear in contradiction to society, but
Rousseau makes the subjects think and act like the rest. Moreover, Grimsley
argues that the establishment of a society reduces self sufficient primitive
men to the status of mere puppets. Thus man loses his personal reality and
can never be truly himself in a political association.559 In other words,
Grimsley thinks that there is contradiction between the freedom of natural
man and the enslavement of modern society. In Discourse on the Origins of
Inequality Rousseau claims that people ran to meet their chains by
transforming into a political society, therefore Rousseau sees general will as
a solution and introduces it as a necessity in achieving freedom in a civil
association.560 In brief, Rousseau does not construct his system resting on
suppressed individual wills; rather he makes his subjects social and moral
beings who are enjoying their free lives in a secure society.
As a matter of fact, freedom does not mean unlimited freedom in

Rousseau’s theory since discussing individual freedom is nonsense in a
political society. Hence, for Rousseau what is discussed is the political
liberty, not the personal liberty as “[m]aintain a sense of political belonging
and autonomy is more important than personal freedom”.561 Rousseau thinks
that subjects do not have complete liberty in commonwealths, and that it is
impossible for the sovereign to have complete authority even in monarchy.
However, according to Hobbes “every Commonwealth, not every man, has
an absolute liberty to do what it shall judge, that is to say, what that man or
assembly that representeth it shall judge, most conducing to their benefit”.562
As it is obvious, authoritarianism and absolute rights of the sovereign avoid
subjects of Hobbes to have freedom as much as that of Rousseau’s.
559
560
561
Hampsher, A History of Modern Political Thought, p. 191.
562
126
In addition to this, fear as one of the most important concepts of Hobbes
leads his subjects to appear to have less freedom than Rousseau’s, since
subjects in Rousseau’s theory do not obey the sovereign only because they
fear but they become subjects to him only because they give consent to him.
Unlike Hobbes, for Rousseau “a man enslaved in war or a conquered people
is in no way obligated toward his master, except to obey for as long as he is
forced to do so”.563 Unless they voluntarily choose the conqueror as their
leader they do not have obligation to obey him because the central axiom of
Rousseau is that political obligation is only the product of personal will and
only consent ties individuals to the sovereign.564
What is more, unlike Hobbes who thinks man as a physical being without
moral aspect, Rousseau deals with man’s metaphysical side as well. Hobbes
analyzes freedom in its relation to authority and deals only with personal
existence whereas Rousseau discusses freedom from ethical approach and
he successfully constructs an ethical theory unlike Hobbes.
It can also be mentioned that Hobbes is criticized for he does not take
attention to the situation of human beings and only establishes control aimed
to provide social order. In other words, for Hobbes, being a limited animal
or being an intelligent being does not matter as long as there is security in
the political society. However, Rousseau asserts that “[l]ife is tranquil in jail
cells, too”.565 Thus, in contrast to Hobbes, Rousseau does not only deal with
protection or calmness of society but he also discusses the question of
happiness with morality. For him obeying laws creates freedom and makes
563
564
Schochet, G. J. “Intending (Political) Obligation: Hobbes and the Voluntary Basis of
Society”, in Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, ed. Mary G. Dietz (Lawrence, Kan.:
University Press of Kansas, 1990), p. 57.
565
127
the subjects virtuous and as being virtuous produces an inner satisfaction it
also makes them enjoy happiness.566
As mentioned earlier, Hobbes suggests that private interests of men should

be directed to one common benefit to escape from state of war. Hence
Warrender argues that Hobbes foreshadowed Rousseau’s theory of general
will.567 In De Cive Hobbes also claims that “FREE MAN is one who serves
only the commonwealth”.568 Thus it can be claimed that Hobbes and
Rousseau made similar arguments regarding the relation between acting
according to common good and freedom, but it is clear that they did not
achieve similar conclusions on the possibility of individual freedom.
Rapaczynski asserts that unlike Hobbes, “Rousseau sets out to explore the
possibility of reimposing some limitations on human acquisitiveness and
proposes a revolutionary alternative to the system established on liberal,
individualistic assumptions”.569
In conclusion, although there are liberal voluntarist foundations in Hobbes’

theory, he constructs an authoritarian political theory.570 Put another way, as
Gauthier claims, Hobbes “constructs a political theory which bases
unlimited political authority on limited individualism”,571 however
Rousseau constructs his theory by means of reason and conscience and he
turns natural men into social and moral beings living freely under a
sovereign as being indivisible parts of it.
566
567
568
569
570
571
Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan, p. vi.
128
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
The basic aim of this thesis was to examine the concept of freedom in the
political theories of Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau by an
integral analysis of their major works, namely Leviathan, De Cive, Social
Contract and Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. The focus of the thesis
was to compare their accounts on freedom in their social contract theories.
In this work, I investigated the accounts of evolution into political societies,
active participations of subjects in the sovereign’s will, the rights and duties
of both the subjects and the sovereign, and the role of free will of the
individuals in commonwealths. In order to do that, I investigated the
meanings of general will, consent, authorization and sovereignty by
concentrating on the major works of Hobbes and Rousseau.
Hobbes thinks that an investigation of the state of nature is essential in order

to indicate the need for a commonwealth and a common power. For
Gauthier, Hobbes’ primary aim is to indicate the way to security, therefore
Hobbes emphasized order and security as the significant functions of the
state rather than focusing on welfare and justice.572 His stress on fear as the
main motive in entering into society and as the cause of obeying laws of the
sovereign lead to questions about free will of the subjects. However
Rousseau replaces Hobbes’ fear with common good and sees the sovereign
572
129
and the subjects as equal agents by giving the subjects the legislative will
and uniting them under the exercise of the general will.
Hobbes, by authorization, tries to rationalize political obligation and he

claims that no authority could be legitimate without the consent or free
choice of people. That is to say, he argues that the main reason for
obedience is consent and not the fear of the sovereign. As he indicates the
consistency between fear and liberty and defines will as the last appetite
without introducing rational consideration, he easily asserts that agreements
done out of fear or obeying the sovereign out of fear do not take away
liberty of the subjects. Reason for Hobbes is not to will, to think or to
choose but it can only calculate facts and decides whether something is for
one’s interest or not. Therefore, subjects by their reasons decide to obey the
sovereign and its laws for their own sake. This means that unless the
individual chooses to become a subject, he chooses to die in Hobbes’ natural
state therefore it can be argued that such an action with a threat cannot be
free.
The absolute power of Hobbes’ sovereign is another challenging point in his

theory as he legitimized every act of the sovereign by claiming that the end
of the authority is the preservation and well being of its subjects. Practically,
in political affairs, authority should be backed by coercive power, but what
is problematic about Hobbes’ power is its absoluteness and superiority to the
subjects. For him, whatever the sovereign does is for the sake of peace and
security of the people and his actions are the actions of the subjects as well.
In other words, Hobbes prepares the ground for absolute character of the
sovereign and he tries to make freedom of subjects possible by resting on
the importance of authorization. It is necessary to reemphasize that for
Hobbes liberty is not the liberty of isolated individuals but of the
commonwealth.573 Therefore, liberty could not be defined as exemption
573
130
from subjection to laws, on the contrary, for him, liberty becomes
impossibility.574 Briefly Hobbes tries to justify the absolute power of the
sovereign, and he, by means of stressing its necessity in preventing anarchy,
aims to show that such a power does not harm the liberty of the subjects. In
other words Hobbes sees absolute power necessary for achieving absolute
security among self interested and aggressive individuals.
Hobbes rationalizes the existence of a common power and defines it as a

tool for achieving justice, but he is criticized because of his great emphasis
on the necessity of the threat of force behind the laws of the state. The
subjects having authorized the sovereign, act as if the will of the sovereign
is their own will but in fact they obey the sovereign authority and accept the
constraints on them only because of the threat of the force, that is to say
freedom of the subjects and their obedience towards absolute power cannot
be reconciled in Hobbes’ theory. As a result he is criticized as defending a
supreme sovereign and eliminating the freedom of subjects.
Another point which makes his critics believe that Hobbes tried to put
restraints on the freedom of the subjects in writing in favor of monarchy is
his views on the resistance to the sovereign. In order to prevent anarchic
consequences, Hobbes disallows all active resistance to the sovereign and
argues that although people legally make a covenant, they cannot break it
without acting unjustly.575 Once individuals authorize the sovereign, they
cannot break the covenant and become free from subjection to the authority
in any way. Since Hobbes asserts that injustice and injury is not possible by
the sovereign, it is reasonable for him to say that there is no need of
resistance. Hence for the individuals, there will be no good reason to break
the covenant. Therefore, the subjects have to obey the sovereign as they give
themselves to the sovereign authority without stint and cannot resist it for he
574
Ibid., p. 147.
575
Ibid., p. 126.
131
is always just and right.576 Their past consent towards it guarantees future
consent. In other words, if men give consent to whatever the government
might do in future, they can never decide to stop serving for the
commonwealth and become free.
It is clear that Hobbes’ great aim is to provide security, and that therefore he
puts much more emphasis on security than liberty. In Hobbes’ theory,
freedom could be possible only after achieving absolute security in a
political society. In other words, freedom cannot be meaningful without a
coercive power which guarantees the lives of the subjects. The power of the
sovereign, obedience to it, restrictions on the subjects’ rights are all
necessary for protection of the subjects and of the commonwealth.
Therefore, for Hobbes, subjects, regardless of their liberties, should obey the
sovereign and accept limited liberty and rights for getting protection from
the authority and living in a secure society.
Unlike Hobbes, Rousseau’s main concern is freedom. According to

Grimsley, Rousseau thinks that freedom is a valuable attribute which alone
makes the realization of personal existence possible.577 Therefore,
renouncing freedom for whatever reason means degrading human existence.
In fact, Rousseau tries to conceive a body politic in which each individual
still obeys his own free will when he is obeying the general will. He never
disregards the role of “free will” of the subjects since he thinks that an
individual cannot become a truly human being without the activity of his
own free will.578 In other words, in contrast to Hobbes, for Rousseau the
main task of a political society is to reconcile order and security with
freedom.
576
Ibid., p. 114.
577
578
Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 135; and Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, pp. 82, 117.
132
Like Hobbes, Rousseau states that men should renounce their rights and
power in order to be one under a sovereign. If some rights remain in
individuals, everyone as his own judge cannot enjoy security provided by
the total strength of all individuals. Therefore, they choose to submit
themselves to a common force. However, Rousseau does not agree with
Hobbes about absolutism as the remedy for the condition in the state of
nature because of his different conception of the state of nature. Rather,
Rousseau emphasizes the creation of the common good in a political
association and thinks that subjects have obligation to obey the sovereign as
long as laws are directed to the ends of justice and the common good.
Explicitly, the sovereign of Rousseau as the guarantor of peaceful society
also provides equality of right and justice; consequently, it becomes the
guarantor of freedom in Rousseau’s political philosophy.
Natural freedom limited with individual forces turns to be civil freedom

limited with general will and moral values with Rousseau. Clearly, man
realizes his being after entering into the political society and gains true
freedom by means of obeying the laws of the state. Since each individual
engages in the act of the sovereign, all subjects should act according to the
general will and conventional freedom gets its meaning in this framework.
Furthermore, for Rousseau liberty means being free from all private
dependence and being dependent to the state only. That is why Rousseau
tries to strengthen the unity of the civil association and to make subjects free
from dependence on all other subjects. It can be argued that in his society,
being depended on the city does not harm liberty but only the laws and state
constitute the liberty of its members.579
Since without exception all citizens, are involved in the political body, each
associate obeys his own will while obeying the general will. What Rousseau
puts emphasis on is that subjects are both parts of the state and the
579
133
sovereign; they obey the laws as parts of the state and they participate in the
formation of them as parts of the sovereign. At this point, the difference
between Hobbes and Rousseau is clearly seen: individuals in Rousseau’s
theory are both superior to and subject to their obligations. Subjects do not
have an obligation to obey an independent sovereign which is superior to
them; rather it is the people who create the laws and obligations. In Hobbes’
political society sovereign power seems to be an independent agent from
subjects, and subjects appear to be passive beings who are only obeying
what the sovereign commands, nevertheless in the political body of
Rousseau, subjects as the parts of the sovereign gain active and significant
roles in both establishing and maintaining civil association.
In addition to this, Rousseau, different from Hobbes, argues that virtue is

above self interest in a political constitution. Due to his emphasis on self
interest Hobbes could not define the meaning of “free will” and therefore
that of morality. However, it seems that Rousseau was able to make physical
beings of Hobbes moral creatures. Rousseau asserts that being virtuous
means to be free and he puts morality on rational grounds. His emphasis on
freedom could also be seen in his accounts on morality; he thinks that
morality presupposes freedom and that the actions of an individual could not
be moral if he surrenders his freedom.580 Actually as Rapaczynski argues,
for Rousseau, freedom is the necessary and sufficient condition of virtue in
man.581
The principal aim of Hobbes was to seek peace and establish security and
not to expand freedom of the subjects. Although he seems to provide
common good for the sake of the commonwealth by which all people can
achieve the best results for them, his obsession with security never lets him
to give a higher value to common good or justice than security. It can be
580
Ibid., p. 135.
581
134
argued that Hobbes could not bind obligation to stronger causes apart from
self interest or fear of the common power and he was not able to construct a
moral theory like Rousseau, rather he tried to establish control among
egoistic and passionate animals by introducing the necessity of supreme
power with an iron hand.582
Some authors focus on Rousseau’s paradox of “forcing to be free” and stress

the significance of political force in Rousseau’s society like Hobbes’. Hocutt
and Plamenatz argue that force is a necessary element to avoid political
disunity, and that Rousseau’s liberty is also attained by coercion. Hence,
they think that freedom does not make sense and cannot be considered as
true freedom in Rousseau’s system therefore Rousseau’s philosophy
becomes closer to that of Hobbes.583 In addition to this, Hocutt opposes
Rousseau’s account on general will as the union of wills and understanding
and argues that the idea of general will weakens the idea of individual will
as the autonomous authorizing faculty.584 Therefore, individual will could
not be autonomous, since it is influenced by the authority and by general
will in a political society. In fact authors like Riley and Hocutt claim that
general will does not allow freedom of the subjects but it transforms them
into miserable slaves obeying general will only.
Nevertheless, it is clear that freedom in Rousseau’s sense means to have

control over desires and passions and to be obedient to self imposed laws. If
subjects, for him, act according to common good, they will be free and need
not to be compelled by general will. Thus, his statement of “forcing to be
582
Hobbes, De Cive, p. 84; Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical
Context, pp. 2-3, 49.
583
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”, p. 187; and Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and Political
Obligation, p. 26.
584
Ibid., p. 97.
135
free” and accounts on freedom should be understood in this context as one
cannot do what one wants to do in political associations.
Moreover, Rousseau never ignores the role of individual will while

defending the general will and the common good. Although the sovereign is
considered as a collective body, still the subjects have independent and
private wills.585 It is the subjects who become sovereign and they, being
legislative will of the body, are the only determinants of the perfect
legislation. That is to say, subjects never give up their legislative power and
they continue to exist both as parts of the sovereign and as parts of the state.
Thus, unlike Hobbes’ theory which is focused on self interest, passions, fear
and supreme power of the sovereign, there is realization of individual
freedom as well as that of general will in Rousseau’s political society.
Furthermore, it could also be claimed that, unlike Hobbes, Rousseau’s

system is saved for the individual will; subjects have the right to change
laws and even they have the right to break the social contract. When the
political body does not serve for the common good and public’s safety, the
social contract could legitimately be broken by its subjects.586 Although
Hobbes considered rebellion as a renewed war587 and argued that resistance
or rebellion is against reason, Rousseau gave power and right to the subjects
to revoke any government. It is clear that for Rousseau the main determinant
in a political society is people and no institution, government or monarch
can be superior to the members of the community.
Since Rousseau understands the state of nature differently from Hobbes, he

does not make the sovereign the supreme and the independent being,
however Hobbes insists on the absoluteness of sovereign due to his
585
586
587
136
pessimistic view of the human nature and makes it necessary for individuals
to transfer all of their rights and power to the sovereign. As the end of
Hobbes’ commonwealth is security, subjects have to pay whatever it costs,
in other words they have obligation to obey the absolute power
unconditionally in order to get protection from it. Therefore it can be argued
that while Hobbes attributes absoluteness and superiority to the sovereign,
Rousseau as a defender of individual liberty tries to eliminate the gap
between the sovereign and the subjects and leaves room for individual will
and freedom.
It will be useful to reemphasize that freedom does not mean unlimited

freedom in Rousseau’s theory, since individual freedom is nonsense in a
political society. Thus, it is clear that what is discussed is not the personal
freedom but the political freedom which is considered as more important
than the personal one. In Rousseau’s political theory, subjects do not have
complete liberty; similarly the sovereign cannot have absolute liberty or
authority. This means that, unlike Hobbes’ theory, in which authoritarianism
and absolute rights of sovereign avoid subjects having freedom, in
Rousseau’s theory there is room for individual freedom. Lastly, it can be
argued that Hobbes constructed his political theory on limited individualism
and introduced the necessity of unrestricted political power because of his
pessimistic view of human nature and consequently he is considered as a
defender of repressive governments which make people slaves. However,
Rousseau constructed his theory on the idea of “freedom” of the subjects
and turned physical beings of Hobbes into social and moral beings who
actively participate in the political body and enjoy their lives as indivisible
parts of it.
137
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THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES OF

THOMAS HOBBES AND JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

Prof. Dr. Sencer AYATA

Prof. Dr. Ahmet ĐNAM

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş. Halil TURAN

Examining Committee Members

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş. Halil TURAN (METU, PHIL)

Prof. Dr. Yasin CEYLAN (METU, PHIL)

Dr. Adnan AKÇAY (METU, SOC)

Name, Last Name: PERVĐN YĐĞĐT

THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES OF

This thesis aims to examine the question of freedom in its relation to

Keywords: Political state, sovereignty, freedom, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-

THOMAS HOBBES VE JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU’NUN SĐYASET

Bu çalışma, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) ve Jean-Jacques Rousseau’nun

Anahtar Kelimeler: Siyasi yapı, egemenlik, özgürlük, Thomas Hobbes,

I want to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ş.

I want to thank to the members of examining committee, Prof. Dr. Yasin

2. THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE IDEA OF POLITICAL

2.1 Hobbes’ Conception of State of Nature……………..……15

2.2 Rousseau’s Conception of State of Nature……………….21

2.3 Justification of Setting up a Political Society…………….30

2.3.1 Hobbes’ Rationalization of “Leviathan”……………30

2.3.2 Rousseau’s Rationalization of Political Body………36

3. THE IDEA OF SOCIAL CONTRACT AND THE THEORY OF

3.1 Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s Ideas on Social Contract……….42

3.2 Hobbes’ “authorization” and Rousseau’s “consent”……...49

3.3 Sovereignty for Hobbes and Rousseau…………………...53

3.5 Hobbes and Religion……………………………………...70

4. THE QUESTION OF FREEDOM IN LEVIATHAN AND SOCIAL

4.1 Leviathan and Freedom…………………………………...84

4.2 The Social Contract and Freedom……………………....104

The reason why I chose to study political philosophies of Hobbes and

However, Rousseau was a passionate lover of liberty and individual

Rousseau focused on the realization of individual freedom in political

Hobbes intends no totalitarian system, or arbitrary despotism,

Consequently, it is possible to observe that most authors have different

In contrast to Hobbes who attributes an evil nature to men, Rousseau sees

In their theories, both Hobbes and Rousseau legitimize entering into a

Hobbes introduced the idea of representation, and argued that multitude is

In both Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s view, since men freely established a

As long as authority is legitimized in their political philosophies, this means

Indeed, Rousseau tries to construct a political association in which men are

According to Hobbes, liberty of the subjects could only be possible in the

However, people who give power to sovereign have no right of making

THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE IDEA OF

2.1 Hobbes’ Conception of State of Nature

In the seventeenth century England, mechanistic science of nature and its

What is state of nature? Is it only a logical construction or a historical

[B]ut whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire,

Consequently, this equality among mankind is the major cause of Hobbes’

Hobbes’ emphasis on the priority of self preservation can easily be seen in

Hobbes’ definitions of rights and laws of nature especially emphasize

I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and

2.2 Rousseau’s Conception of State of Nature

Concerning their theories, it can be claimed that Rousseau followed the

As it is mentioned above, Rousseau agreed with Hobbes in denying

With the sole exception of the Physically necessary, which

Similarly, in Leviathan, Hobbes claims that “[f]elicity is a continual