Succession

2020 ◽  
pp. 110-143
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Corporate Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Territory Government ◽  
Identity Problems ◽  
Continuous Chain

This chapter examines issues of identity, such as whether changes in a state's population, territory, government, or constitution alter its personality and hence negate its responsibilities. According to Thomas Hobbes, the corporate identity of the state is created and sustained by representation. The state has a corporate identity because it has an authorized representative who speaks and acts in its name. This identity persists as long as the state has a continuous 'chain of succession', or an unbroken series of representatives. The chapter shows that this Hobbesian account of corporate identity solves many of the identity problems that arise in cases of revolution, annexation, secession, absorption, unification, and dissolution.

Homo homini tigris: Thomas Hobbes and the global images of sovereignty

2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372110330
Author(s):  
Sandro Chignola
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Global Space ◽  
Lines Of Force

This article addresses the modern concept of sovereignty as a multivocal and conflictual semantic field, arguing for the necessity to trace its genealogy based on the structural tensions that haunt its logical framework – as well as its representations – rather than on a linear historiographic reconstruction. In particular, the scrutiny I propose aims to examine a series of exchanges that have been characterizing this concept since the beginning: the global and the European, the maritime and the territorial, the colony and the state, the imperial and the proprietary. The problematic balance between ‘imperium’ and ‘dominium’ is indeed assumed here as the turning point of the rise of a sovereign power that appears to be originally rooted in the very production and governance of the global space, thus giving up all possible Eurocentric narratives of modernity. To illustrate my argument, I focus on the frontispieces to three of Thomas Hobbes’s most important books, that is, his translation of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, De Cive and Leviathan. A thorough analysis of these images enables us to understand how these lines of force traverse the very heart of modern European political concepts, along with the mirroring effects that constantly bounce their normative construction of subjectivity back and forth from the periphery to the centre and, ultimately, from the market to the state.

Leviathan on a Leash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World

States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, held liable for debts and reparations, bound by treaties, and punished with sanctions. But what does it mean to hold a state responsible as opposed to a government, a nation, or an individual leader? Under what circumstances should we assign responsibility to states rather than individuals? This book demystifies the phenomenon of state responsibility and explains why it is a challenging yet indispensable part of modern politics. Taking Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state as a starting point, the book presents a theory of state responsibility that sheds new light on sovereign debt, historical reparations, treaty obligations, and economic sanctions. Along the way, it overturns longstanding interpretations of Hobbes' political thought, explores how new technologies will alter the practice of state responsibility as we know it, and develops new accounts of political authority, representation, and legitimacy. The book argues that Hobbes' idea of the state offers a far richer and more realistic conception of state responsibility than the theories prevalent today and demonstrates that Hobbes' Leviathan is much more than an anthropomorphic “artificial man.” The book is essential reading for political theorists, scholars of international relations, international lawyers, and philosophers. It recovers a forgotten understanding of state personality in Hobbes' thought and shows how to apply it to the world of imperfect states in which we live.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Responsibility

This concluding chapter summarizes the implications of the Hobbesian theory of state responsibility and then looks to the future. There are three ongoing trends that are likely to alter both the nature and the scope of state responsibility: the development of international criminal law, the proliferation of treaties, and the replacement of human representatives with machines and algorithms. Although the practice of holding individuals responsible for acts of state might seem to render state responsibility redundant, the rise of international criminal law will not lead to the decline of state responsibility. The two forms of international responsibility are complementary rather than competitive. If anything, the domain of state responsibility will continue to expand in the coming decades because of the proliferation of treaties. New technologies pose the greatest challenge to current understandings of state responsibility. Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state, which is mechanistic to begin with, is well suited to the emerging world of mechanized states.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Feisal G. Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
John Milton ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Andrew Marvell ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Political Settlement

A modern politics attaching itself to the state must adopt a position sovereignty, by which is meant the political settlement in which potestas and auctoritas are aligned. Three competing forms are identified: unitary sovereignty, divided and balanced sovereignty, and the view that sovereign power must be limited by universal principles. Each of these forms can be divided into “red” and “black” varieties, depending on the imagined relationship between sovereign power and modern conditions of flux. A chapter outline introduces the figures who will be explored in the book as a whole: Thomas Hobbes; William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele; John Barclay and the romance writers of the 1650s whom he influences; John Milton; and Andrew Marvell. Also described is the book’s sustained engagement of Carl Schmitt, and the ways in which his thought on sovereignty is an example of the competition amongst the concept’s three competing forms.

1. The state of nature

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Wolff
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
State Of Nature

This chapter examines whether it is possible for human beings to live in a state of nature. Sometimes it is claimed that not only have human beings always lived under a state, but that it is the only way they possibly could live. On this view, which is often associated with Aristotle, the state exists naturally in the sense of being natural to human beings. In response, some theorists argue that human beings have been able to live without the state. To elucidate the issue further, this chapter analyses the views of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It also considers the arguments of anarchists and suggests that the gap between rational anarchism and the defence of the state is vanishingly small.

Grotius and the Origin of the Ruler's Right to Punish

Grotiana ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 396-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustaaf van Nifterik
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

AbstractAn important aspect of any constitutional theory is the state's power to punish transgressions of the law, or the ius gladii. Although Grotius never formulated a complete, comprehensive constitutional theory, traces of such a theory can be found in many of his writings not explicitly devoted to constitutional law. Punishment even plays an important role in his books on war (and peace), since to punish transgressions of the law is ranked among the just causes of war.Given the fact that a state may punish transgressions of the law – transgressions by individuals within and even outside the state, but also transgressions of the law by other states – the question may arise concerning the origin of such a right to punish. It will be shown that Grotius did not give the same answer to this question in his various works. As the right to punish is concerned, we find a theory that seems to be akin to the one of John Locke in the De iure praedae (around 1605), one akin to the theories of the Spanish late-scholastics in De satisfactione and De imperio (around 1615), and a theory coming close to what Thomas Hobbes had said on the ruler's right to punish in the De iure belli ac pacis (around 1625).Of course, Grotius can only have been familiar with the theory of the Spanish late-scholastics, since those of Locke and Hobbes were still to be written by the time Grotius had passed away.

The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian Human Nature and Moral Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Branstetter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Judgment ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Individual Judgment

Hannah Arendt claims that Thomas Hobbes was responsible for constituting modern people as apolitical subjects who can no longer make independent moral judgments. The refusal to think that Hobbes allegedly engendered was a major factor in twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst crimes. In her view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the architecture of the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people so incapable of exercising moral judgment that they stood idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name. I argue that Hobbes rejected the proto-totalitarian form of domination Arendt attributes to him and expressed hope about the human capacities for practical judgment and moral improvement. Instead of creating thoughtless subjects which authorize any crime the state might commit, he suggests that the Leviathan should cultivate the public’s capacity for reason and judgment to make violence unnecessary. Considering Hobbes’s accounts of reason and science in light of his materialism shows that the Leviathan requires the exercise of individual moral thought and judgment to function properly. I suggest that the primary duty of the Hobbesian sovereign might be understood primarily in terms of the cultivation of individual judgment and reason rather than its suppression.

International Update: a National Australian Statement on Mathematics

1993 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 486-487
Author(s):  
Janette Bobis
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Education Systems ◽  
National Statement ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
Australian Education Council ◽  
Australian Education ◽  
Government Education ◽  
Territory Government

A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools (Australian Education Council and the Curriculum Corporation 1991) wa released in July 1991. This document is the result of a collaborative project whose recommendations are to be implemented by the State and Territory Government education systems in Australia. It does not prescribe a panicularcurriculum but supplies a framework around which system and schools in the proces of planning can structure their mathematic curriculum.

Teaching in Vain

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
German State ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich

This chapter traces Carl Schmitt’s attempt, in his 1932 book The Concept of the Political, to quell the near civil war circumstances of the late Weimar Republic and to reinvigorate the sovereignty of the German state through a reappropriation of Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy. The chapter then examines Schmitt’s reconsideration of the Hobbesian state, and his own recent reformulation of it, in light of the rise of the “Third Reich,” with particular reference to Schmitt’s 1938 book The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes.

The Two Leviathans: R. G. Collingwood and Thomas Hobbes

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Unpublished Works

In this article I draw upon the published and unpublished works of R. G. Collingwood in order to discern the relation between the Leviathan of Hobbes, and that of Collingwood. First, an attempt is made to explain why Hobbes became important for Collingwood, having had no special status in the writings of the latter prior to the composition of The New Leviathan. Secondly, two misconceptions of the ostensible relation between the two Leviathans will be exposed. Thirdly, the two Leviathans are compared at the level of general intent. It is argued that Collingwood never meant merely to update Leviathan in a piecemeal fashion, but instead formulated an entirely different criterion of conduct from that offered by Hobbes. Finally, some of the arguments of the two Leviathans are compared. Principally, Collingwood found Hobbes deficient in failing to provide an adequate account of the perpetual transition from the state of nature to civil life. One of the aims of Collingwood was to make good this deficiency.

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