ABSTRACT
Hobbes, in Leviathan, at least apparently comes down on the side of something edging up toward the welfare state, something that seems rather antithetical to the general tone of his Laws of Nature. He appeals, however, to two sources: Law Five, which calls for “Compleasance,” and then to the Chapter XXX discussion regarding the “Office of the Sovereign Representative.” The general drift of the Laws of Nature, certainly, is toward what we now call “negative rights”: we are to refrain from war (= to “seek Peace and follow it”) which opening Law is claimed to imply all the others. Negative rights do not obviously sanction extracting the “superfluity” from those who make a lot of money on the open market. And the Chapter XXX discussion does appear to call for Workman’s Compensation, courtesy of the Sovereign’s “Representative.” Apart from ascribing this function to the government, it looks to be a straight insurance proposal. But the Law V discussion is another matter. Is Hobbes misconstruing his own theory? Is he bringing in surreptitious extra moral premises? Or what? This essay will explore these questions, with a tentative conclusion.
