Political obligation: of subjects and men
Simon Bogojevic-Narath's (2006) 'Leviathan'
In forming his theory of political obligation, Thomas Hobbes deliberately distinguishes between men and subjects. For example, Hobbes argues that a man can resist any attempt by the sovereign to kill him and any command issued by the sovereign that he kill or injure himself (Leviathan, ch. XXI). This seems to contradict the point Hobbes makes in the same chapter that it is not unjust for a sovereign to put an innocent subject to death. The apparent contradiction is resolved, however, when one understands that there is a distinction between men and subjects, just as there is between a man as a man and that man as sovereign. The political status attributed to men in the ‘subject’ and ‘sovereign’ cases are human fabrications—ones that Hobbes argues are required for peace and civil society.
