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10The Strength and Significance of Subjects' Rights in LeviathanIn Marcus P. Adams (ed.), A Companion to Hobbes, Wiley-blackwell. 2021.Hobbes says a great deal about the rights of subjects, particularly in Leviathan, and yet, despite his apparent insistence on the importance of the rights of the subject, the prevailing view amongst modern Hobbes scholars has been that rights of Hobbesian subjects are weak. The dominant view of Hobbesian rights as weak and insignificant is the view of modern Hobbes scholarship, which analyses Hobbes's political theory at great distance from his intellectual milieu and from the dramatic political…Read more
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14Re-Thinking Rights: Historical Development and Philosophical JustificationLexington Books. 2022.This book takes a new look at the history of individual rights, focusing on how philosophers have written that history. Eleanor Curran argues that the turn to jurisprudence, after the philosophical rejection of natural rights, has resulted in an impoverished notion of rights as no more than claims and entitlements.
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38Hobbesian Sovereignty and the Rights of SubjectsHobbes Studies 32 (2): 209-230. 2019.Hobbes, in his political writing, is generally understood to be arguing for absolutism. I argue that despite apparently supporting absolutism, Hobbes, in Leviathan, also undermines that absolutism in at least two and possibly three ways. First, he makes sovereignty conditional upon the sovereign’s ability to ensure the safety of the people. Second and crucially, he argues that subjects have inalienable rights, rights that are held even against the sovereign. When the subjects’ preservation is th…Read more
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Hobbes's Theory of RightsDissertation, City University of New York. 1998.Hobbes--champion of absolutism, arch-royalist, supporter of Charles I, relentless egoist. What could he have to tell us about the natural rights of individuals? Not much, would be considered a fair reply by most and yet it is argued in this thesis that Hobbes actually holds a strong theory of natural rights. It is argued that, contrary to the interpretations of most modern Hobbes scholars, Hobbes gives primacy to the rights of the subjects rather than to the right of the sovereign to rule. The s…Read more
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13Comments on Larry May’s Limiting Leviathan, Hobbes on Law and International AffairsHobbes Studies 27 (2): 178-184. 2014.
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52An Immodest Proposal: Hobbes Rather than Locke Provides a Forerunner for Modern Rights Theory (review)Law and Philosophy 32 (4): 515-538. 2013.In this paper I argue that we should look to Hobbes rather than to Locke as providing a philosophical forerunner of modern and current rights theories and further, that Hobbes’s theory has relevance to and ‘speaks to’ current philosophical and jurisprudential analysis of the foundations of rights, in a way that Locke’s theory cannot. First, I summarise the argument that Hobbes does have a substantive theory of individual rights. Second, I argue that the project undertaken by A. J. Simmons, to ‘r…Read more
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186Can rights Curb the Hobbesian sovereign? The full right to self-preservation, duties of sovereignty and the limitations of hohfeldLaw and Philosophy 25 (2): 243-265. 2005.
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106A very peculiar royalist. Hobbes in the context of his political contemporariesBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 10 (2). 2002.(2002). A VERY PECULIAR ROYALIST. HOBBES IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS POLITICAL CONTEMPORARIES. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 167-208. doi: 10.1080/096087800210122455
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80Hobbes on Equality: Context, Rhetoric, ArgumentHobbes Studies 25 (2): 166-187. 2012.It is often argued that Hobbes’s arguments for natural and political equality are used instrumentally. This paper does not argue against the instrumental arguments but seeks to broaden the discussion; to analyse aspects of Hobbes’s arguments and comments on equality that are often ignored. In the context of the anti-egalitarian arguments of leading contemporary royalist commentators, Hobbes’s arguments and remarks are strikingly egalitarian. The paper argues, first, that there is an ideological …Read more
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12Reclaiming the rights of the Hobbesian subjectPalgrave-Macmillan. 2007.'There are no substantive rights for subjects in Hobbes's political theory, only bare freedoms without correlated duties to protect them'. This orthodoxy of Hobbes scholarship and its Hohfeldian assumptions are challenged by Curran who develops an argument that Hobbes provides claim rights for subjects against each other and (indirect) protection of the right to self-preservation by sovereign duties. The underlying theory, she argues, is not a theory of natural rights but rather, a modern, secul…Read more
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71Blinded by the Light of Hohfeld: Hobbes's Notion of LibertyJurisprudence 1 (1): 85-104. 2010.Recent work in Hobbes scholarship has raised again the subject of Hobbes's notion of liberty. In this paper, I examine Hobbes's use of the notion of liberty, particularly in his theory of rights. I argue that in describing the rights that individuals hold, Hobbes is employing "liberty" to cover more than the famously restrictive definition of the "absence of external impediments" and that this broader understanding of liberty should not be put down to simple inconsistency on Hobbes's part. In th…Read more
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168Hobbes's theory of rights – a modern interest theoryThe Journal of Ethics 6 (1): 63-86. 2002.The received view in Thomas Hobbes scholarship is that theindividual rights described by Hobbes in his political writings andspecifically in Leviathan are simple freedoms or libertyrights, that is, rights that are not correlated with duties orobligations on the part of others. In other words, it is usually arguedthat there are no claim rights for individuals in Hobbes''s politicaltheory. This paper argues, against that view, that Hobbes does describeclaim rights, that they come into being when i…Read more
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University of KentRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |