Thomas Hobbes

De Cive

(Dedication) “That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities”
(Preface) “There are no authentical doctrines concerning right and wrong, good and evil, besides the constituted laws in each realm and government”

Liberty
(De Cive I, 2) “For if by nature one man should love another (that is) as man, there could no reason be returned why every man should not equally love every man, as being equally man, or why he should rather frequent those whose society affords him honour or profit. We do not therefore by nature seek society for its own sake”
(De Cive I, 4) “All men in the state of nature have a desire and will to hurt”
(De Cive I, 7) Will can result in goodness
(De Cive I, 7-8) “Therefore the first foundation of natural right is this, that every man as much as in him lies endeavour to protect his life and members… if the right to the necessary means be denied him; it follows, that since every man hath a right to preserve himself, he must also be allowed a right to use all the means, and do all the actions, without which he cannot preserve himself.”
(De Cive I, 7-8) Everyone is a judge
(De Cive I, 10) that in the state of nature, profit is the measure of right.
(De Cive I, 12) “The natural state of man: War of all men against all men”
(De Cive, I. 13) “other nations have been in former ages, which now indeed are become civil and flourishing, but were then few, iierce, short-lived, poor, nasty, and deprived of all that pleasure, and beauty of life, which peace and society are wont to bring with them.”
(De Cive II, 2) “But the first and fundamental law of nature is, that peace is to be sought after, where it may be found; and where not, there to provide ourselves for helps of war.”
(De Cive II, 3) “but that some certain rights ought to be transferred, or relinquished. For if every one should retain his right to all things, it must necessarily follow, that some by right might invade, and others, by the same right, might defend themselves against them, (for every man, by natural necessity, endeavours to defend his body, and the things which he judgeth necessary towards the protection of his body). Therefore war would follow. He therefore acts against the reason of peace, that is, against the law of nature, whosoever he be,that doth not part with his right to all things.”
(De Cive II, 7) “although words alone are not sufficient tokens to declare the will”
(De Cive II, Rest) Concerns contracts and their validity in civil society, these are not morals but what Hobbes shows to be the best route to peace.
(De Cive III) Concerns other “laws” to provide peace such as forgiving and not being cruel
(De Cive III, 21) But from this ground, that an arbiter or judge is chosen by the differing parties to determine the controversy, we gather that the arbiter must not be one of the parties. For every man is presumed to seek what is good for himself naturally, and what is just, only for peace’s sake, and accidentally; and there- fore cannot observe that same equality commanded by the law of nature so exactly as a third man v/ould do. It is therefore in the sixteenth place contained in the law of nature, that no man must be judge or arbiter in his own cause.
(De Cive III, 29) The laws of nature are immutable and eternal: what they forbid, can never be lawful; what they command, can never be unlawful. For pride, ingratitude, breach of contracts (or injury), inhumanity, contumely, will never be lawful, nor the contrary virtues to these ever unlawful
(De Cive III, 32) The laws of nature therefore are the sum of moral philosophy, whereof I have only delivered such precepts in this place, as appertain to the preservation of ourselves against those dangers which arise from discord.
(IEP, Thomas Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy, 5.a.) Although he sets out nineteen laws of nature, it is the first two that are politically crucial. A third, that stresses the important of keeping to contracts we have entered into, is important in Hobbes’s moral justifications of obedience to the sovereign. (The remaining sixteen can be quite simply encapsulated in the formula, do as you would be done by. While the details are important for scholars of Hobbes, they do not affect the overall theory and will be ignored here.)
(De Cive, IV) Shows that laws of nature are laws of God, the name is “That the Law of Nature Is a Divine Law”
(De Cive V, 2) “It is a fond saying, that all laws are silent in the time of war, and it is a true one, not only if we speak of the civil, but also of the natural laws, provided they be referred not to the mind, but to the actions of men”
(De Cive V, 4) “somewhat else must be done, that those who have once consented for the common good, to peace and mutual help, may by fear be restrained, lest afterwards they again dissent, when their private interest shall appear discrepant from the common good”
(De Cive V, 6) Now the gathering together of many men who deliberate of what is to be done, or not to be done, for the common good of all men, is that which I call a council.
(De Cive V, 7) This submission of the wills of all those men to the will of one man, or one council, is then made, when each one of them obligeth himself by contract to every one of the rest, not to resist the will of that one man, or council, to which he hath submitted himself; that is, that he refuse him not the use of his wealth and strength against any others whatsoever (for he is supposed still to retain a right of defending himself against violence) and this is called union. But we understand that to be the will of the council, which is the will of the major part of those men of whom the council consists.
(De Cive V, 8-9) “yet he who submits his will to the will of another, conveys to that other the right of his strength and faculties… Now union thus made is called a city, or civil society, and also a civil person; for when there is one will of all men, it is to be esteemed for one person, and by the word one it is to be known, and distinguished from all particular men, as having its own rights and properties. “

Dominion
(De Cive VI) “Theft, murder, adultery, and all injuries are forbid by the laws of nature; but what is to be called theft, what murder, what adultery, what injury in a citizen, this is not to be determined by the natural, but by the civil law. For not every taking away of the thing which another possesseth, but only another man’s goods, is theft; but what is our’s, and whatanother’s, is a question belonging to the civil .”
(De Cive X, 7) But it is the fault of the ruler, not of the government. For all the acts of Nero are not essential to monarchy; yet subjects are less often undeservedly condemned under one ruler, than under the people.
(De Cive X, 10-11) Besides, there are many reasons why deliberations are less successful in great assemblies, than in lesser councils… what places are fit to make garrisons of; by what means soldiers are best to be raised and maintained; what manner of affections the subjects bear towards their prince or governors of their country;… because every one who delivers his opinion holds it necessary to make a long-continued speech; and to gain the more esteem from his auditors, he polishes and adorns it with the best and smoothest language.
(De Cive X, 12) because that thence arise factions in a commonweal, and out of factions, seditions and civil war.
(De Cive X, 17) But it is a manifest sign, that the most absolute mon#archy is the best state of government, that not only kings, but even those cities which are subject to the people or to nobles, give the whole command of war to one only, and that so absolute, as nothing can be more (wherein by the way this must be noted also, that no king can give a general greater authority over his army, than he himself by right may exercise over all his subjects).
(De Cive XII, 1) Before there was any government, just and unjust had no being, their nature only being relative to some com- mand, and every action in its own nature is indifferent; that it becomes just or unjust, proceeds from the right of the magistrate. Legitimate kings therefore make the things they com- mand just, by commanding them, and those which they forbid, unjust, by forbidding them Leviathan

Of Man
(Leviathan VI, 2) “This endeavour, when it is toward something which causes it, is called appetite, or desire… when the endeavour is fromward something, it is generally called aversion”
(Leviathan VI, 7) “But whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate, and aversion, evil”
(Leviathan XIII, 3) “From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their own conservation and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one another.”
(Leviathan XIII, 4) “…from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. This passage is summed up as “Men by nature (are) equal. From equality proceeds diffidence. From difference, war.
(Leviathan XIII, 8) “Without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. For war, consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war…”
(Leviathan XIII, 13) “To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequentl that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no unjustice. Force and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.
(Leviathan XIV, 3) “A law of nature (lex naturalis) is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved… right, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbearL whereas law, determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right, differ as much”
The first two laws of nature are discussed in Chapter XIV once more, in XIV 4-5
(Leviathan XIV, 6-7) “To lay down a man’s right to any thing, is to divest himself of the liberty, of hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the same. For he that renounceth, or paseth away his right, giveth not to any other man a right which he had not before… Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it; or by transferring it to another. By simply renouncing; when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By transferring; when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person, or persons. And when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his right; then he is said to be obliged, or bound, not to hinder those, to whom such right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and what he oughtm and it is his duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his own: and such hindrance is injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being before renounced, or transferred.”
(Leviathan XIV, 8) “For it is a voluntary actL and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. And therefore there be some rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signs, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his lifel because he cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any good to himself. The same may be said of wounds, and chains, and imprisonmentl both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded, or imprisonedL as also because a man cannot tell, when he seeth men proceed against him by violence, whether they intend his death or not.”
(Leviathan XVII, 1) “The final cause, end, or design of men, (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, (in which we see them live in commonwealths,) is the foresight of their own preservation… getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war, which is necessarily consequent”
(Leviathan XVII, 13-15) “Commonwealthl which (to define it) is one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expediant, for their peace and common defence. And he that carrieth this person, is called sovereign, and said to have sovereign power, and every one besides, his subject. The attaining to this sovereign power, is by two ways. One, by natural force; as when a man maketh his children, to submit themselves, and their children to his government, as being able to destroy them if they refuse; or by war subdueth his enemies to his will, giving them their lives on that condition. The other is when men agree amongst themselves, to submit to some man, or assembly of men, voluntarily, on confidence to be protected by him against all others. This latter, may be called a political commonwealth, or commonwealth by institution; and the former, a commonwealth by acquisition. ”
(Leviathan XVIII, 3) “And consequently, they that have already instituted a commonwealth, being thereby bound by covenant, to own the actions, and judgements of one, cannot lawfully make a new covenant, amongst themselves, to be obedient to any other, in any thing whatsoever, without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a monarch, cannot without his leave cast off monarchy, and return to the confusion of a disunited multitude; nor transfer their person from him that beareth it, to another man, or other assembly of men”
(Leviathan XVIII, 4) Justifies why sovereign power cannot be forfeited.
(Leviathan XVIII, 5) “Because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a sovereign; he that dissented must now consent with the restl that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the congregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will (and therefore tacitly covenanted) to stand to what the major part should ordain: and therefore if he refuse to stand thereto, or make protestation against any of their decrees, he does contrary to his covenant, and therefore unjustly. And whether he be of the congregation, or notl and whether his consent be asked, or not, he must either submit to their decrees, or be left in the condition of war he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man whatsoever.”
(Leviathan XVIII, 8) “has right to the means… to be judge both of the means of peace and defence; and also of the hindrances and disturbances…”
(Leviathan XVIII, 9) “Annexed to the sovereignty, to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse, and what conducing to peace” – judge of what doctrines are fit to be taught
(Leviathan XVIII, 12) “he that hath the sovereign power is always generalissimo”
(Leviathan XVIII, 13) “annexed to the sovereignty, the choosing of all counsellors, ministers, magistrates, and officers, both in peace and war. For seeing the sovereign is charged with the end, which is the common peace and defence, he is understood to have power to use such means.
(Leviathan XVIII, 13) “choosing all counsellors, ministers, migistrates, and officers
(Leviathan XVIII, 16) “A kingdom divided in itself cannot stand… If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England, that these powers were divided between the King, and the Lords, and the House of Commons, the people had never been divided and fallen into this civil war”
(Leviathan XVIII, 18) “This great authority being indivisible”
(Leviathan XIX, 5) “Secondly, that a monarch receiveth counsel of whom, when and where he pleaseth; and consequently may hear the opinion of men versed in the matter about which he deliberates, of what rank or quality soever, and as long before the time of action, and with as much secrecy… sovereign assembly… long discourses”
(Leviathan XIX, 6) “(Assemblies)… for the absence of a few/diligent appearance of a few of the contrary opinion, undoes to-day, all that was concluded yesterday.”
(Leviathan XIX, 7) “A monarch cannot disagree with himself, out of envy, or interest, but an assembly may; and that to such a height, as may produce a civil war.
(Leviathan XIX, 9) “Sovereignty may descend upon an infant, or one that cannot discern between good and evil… use of power, must be in the hand of another man, or of some assembly of man”