Answer:
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Explanation:
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
In 1642, a civil war broke out over who would rule England—Parliament or King Charles
I. After nine years, the civil war finally ended with Parliament victorious. Charles was
beheaded. Soon after, an English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, wrote Leviathan. In it he
made a defense of the absolute power of kings. The title of the book referred to a
leviathan. This is a mythological, whale-like sea
monster that devoured whole ships. Hobbes likened
the leviathan to government, a powerful state
created to impose order.
Hobbes began Leviathan by describing the state of
nature where all individuals were equal. Every
person did what he or she needed to do to survive.
As a result, everyone suffered from “continued fear
and danger of violent death” He thought that the
life of man in a state of nature would be “solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
In the state of nature, there were no laws or police
to restore order. The only way out of this situation,
Hobbes said, was for individuals to create a
supreme power to impose peace on everyone.
Hobbes based his idea about forming government
on English contract law. Hobbes said that the
people agreed among themselves to “lay down”
their natural rights of equality and freedom and give absolute power to a ruler, or
sovereign. The sovereign, created by the people, might be a person or a group. The
sovereign would make and enforce the laws to secure a peaceful society. This would
make life, liberty, and property possible. Hobbes called this agreement the “social
contract.”
Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the
sovereign could take. Placing all power in the hands of a king, Hobbes argued, would
mean more sure and consistent exercise of political authority. Hobbes also claimed that
the social contract was an agreement only among the people and not between them and
their king. Once the people had given absolute power to the king, they had no right to
revolt against him.
Hobbes warned against the church meddling with the king’s government. He feared
religion could become a source of civil war. He thought that the church should be a
department of the king’s government. That way the king could closely control all
religious affairs. In any conflict between divine and royal law, Hobbes wrote, the
individual should obey the king or choose death.
