Hobbes on law

Abstract

Discussions of law occupy a prominent place in all three of Hobbes's principal works on political philosophy: The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, De cive, and Leviathan. He also wrote a Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England Remarks on law sometimes occur in other works by Hobbes. Discussions of law recur in his writings because law and legal theory are deeply involved in his moral and political philosophy through his conceptions of sovereignty and the state. THE DEFINITION OF LAW In Leviathan Hobbes defines law as a command "addressed to one formerly obliged to obey" the commander. A command addressed to someone not obligated is not law. Nor is advice or counsel law, since its recipient is not obligated to follow it.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 26 citations exist upstream.