This paper argues that throughout his intellectual career, Hobbes remains unsatisfied with his own attempts at proving the invariant advisability of contract-keeping. Not only does he see himself forced to abandon his early idea that contractual obligation is a matter of physical laws. He also develops and retains doubts concerning its theoretical successor, the doctrine that the obligatoriness characteristic of contracts is the interest in self-preservation in alliance with instrumental reason - i.e. prudence. In fact, it is during his work (...) on Leviathan that Hobbes notes the doctrine's main shortcoming, namely the limitation of its dialectical potential to cases in which contract-breakers are publicly identifiable. This essay shows Hobbes's doubts about his Leviathan's treatment of contractual obligation by way of a close reading of its central 15 th chapter and an analysis of some revealing shifts between the English Leviathan and the Latin edition. The paper ends by suggesting that Hobbes's awareness of the flaws at the heart of his political philosophy helps account for some striking changes in his latest writings. (shrink)

In deriving his moral code, Hobbes does not appeal to any mind-independent good, natural human telos, or innate human sympathies. Instead he assumes a subjectivist theory of value and an egoistic theory of human motivation. Some critics, however, doubt that his laws of nature can be constructed from such scant material. Hobbes ultimately justifies the acceptance of moral laws by the fact that they promote self-preservation. But, as Hobbes himself acknowledges, not everyone prefers survival over natural liberty. In this essay (...) I show that Hobbes can argue that the desire for self-preservation is rationally required by modifying his subjectivist theory of the good to equate what is good for an agent only with the satisfaction of desires (for her own life) that she has at the time that they are satisfied. It is thus irrational to prefer postmortem glory over survival since an agent must be alive for glory to have any value for her. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo analiza la relación entre religión y política en el Leviatán de Hobbes. Primero, se recuerda la idea de religión en Hobbes y su lugar en su filosofía política; esto es, que sea una teología política. En segundo lugar, se examina la conformación de una república cristiana y su fundamento en las Escrituras. En tercer lugar, se explica por qué la mejor forma de gobierno para Hobbes es el absolutismo de los soberanos en la tierra, similar al de (...) Dios en los Cielos. Para terminar con una crítica a la recepción del cristianismo en Hobbes.Palabras clave: política; reino; Escrituras; poder absoluto; Leviatán. (shrink)