Eleanor Curran

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 events of the time. Hobbesian absolutism is understood to rule out rights of any strength or significance on the part of Hobbesian subjects and particularly, any rights held against the sovereign. The significance of defining subjects' rights as Hohfeldian liberty rights is that liberty rights lack any correlative duties on the part of others. The sovereign's authority and right to rule are made dependent on his ability and willingness to protect the subjects' aggregate right to self‐preservation.

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 threatened they are no longer obliged to obey the sovereign. Third, there is also a possible limitation on the absolute power of the sovereign in the form of restrictions Hobbes puts in place on what laws he may legitimately make. Finally, Hobbesian absolutism is compared to the absolutism of Carl Schmitt. This exercise demonstrates the limitations that Hobbes places on the power and authority of the sovereign.

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 sovereign's right to rule is dependent upon his ability to uphold the subjects' rights. It is further argued that Hobbes describes rights for individuals that are correlated with the duties of others, rights, therefore, that can be defined as claim rights. ;It is by examining the historical context of Hobbes's writing that the significance of his pronouncements on rights are brought to light. A comparison of contemporary political writers with Hobbes shows that on the subject of rights, what Hobbes has to say is closer to the arguments of the parliamentarians, than it is to those of the royalists. The assumption that Hobbes was a staunch royalist is questioned and an examination of what is known about Hobbes's personal actions and allegiances during the Civil War period is shown to add nothing more in the way of evidence for the truth of the assumption. ;Closely allied to the assumption that Hobbes is a royalist is the assumption that he is an absolutist. It is argued here that he makes the subjects the judge of whether their rights are being sufficiently protected by the sovereign. His theory of rights therefore provides a check on the power of the sovereign, and so it is argued that Hobbes does not defend absolutism. ;The new interpretation of the subjects' rights in Hobbes's theory is examined to see what underlying rights theory is being assumed. It is argued that while the rights in Hobbes's theory may be termed natural rights, they do not rely on a traditional theory of natural law

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 disagreement between Hobbes and leading royalists on equality. Second, that Hobbes believes in natural equality as well as using the arguments for equality instrumentally

'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, secular theory of rights, with something to offer current discussions in rights theory

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 the second part of the paper, I look at the Hohfeldian analysis of rights and at the tendency to see the notion of a claim as foundational for rights, which for some, is a legacy of that analysis. I argue that there are disadvantages to this and suggest that the notion of liberty may be a more useful one than that of a claim to ground our understanding of rights

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 individuals conform to thesecond law of nature and that they are genuine moral claim rights, thatis, rights that are the ground of the obligations of others to forebearfrom interfering with their exercise. This argument is defended againstboth Jean Hampton''s and Howard Warrender''s interpretations of rights inHobbes''s theory. The paper concludes that the theory of rightsunderlying Hobbes''s writing is not taken from Natural Law but isprobably closer to a modern interest theory of rights.

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 ‘reconstruct’ Locke’s theory of rights without the theological premises, cannot succeed. Locke’s theory of natural rights is thoroughly dependent on its theological premises. Third, I argue that Hobbes’s theory of rights is not dependent on theological premises. Finally, I try to illustrate the ways in which Hobbes’s theory is still relevant and useful for current debates within rights theory.