ABSTRACT
The value of a peaceful life, free of the fear of violent death, is a matter of consensus. No one needs to be convinced that his own peace and safety are valuable. For Thomas Hobbes, morality is a set of rules, the general following of which solves collective action problems. That is why he said that the laws of nature (morality) can be summed up in the idea that we should not do to others what we would not have them do to us. For morality to be in "force", however, there must be something that can guarantee that others are prepared to do their fair share in the cooperative (moral) solution to problems of collective action. Hobbes believed that, ultimately, it requires a sovereign with the authority and power to compel those who are not fair-minded to give those who are adequate reason to do their share.
