English Philosopher, Author of Social Contract Theory and Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English philosopher whose chief work Leviathan set out the classic statement of social contract theory: in a "state of nature" without the restraint of governmental authority, since resources are limited and each is self-interested, human society falls into "a war of every man against every man," and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." To escape this terrible state of nature, people rationally choose to make a contract with one another, ceding their natural rights to a sovereign of absolute authority (the "Leviathan," named for the monster in the Bible) in exchange for the guarantee of peace and security — and, unlike Locke, who held that government power must be strictly limited, Hobbes’s social contract theory provided precisely a theoretical justification for absolute monarchy, a stance that has long been the classic case in political philosophy for the question of "how contract theory can lead at once to two utterly opposed conclusions, liberalism and absolutism."
Hobbes painted the "state of nature" in the most pessimistic strokes: without governmental authority, each is in peril and suspicious of all, and the fruits of any hard labor may be seized by others through force, so that no one is willing to undertake production that requires long investment — "no industry… no society… and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Hobbes was born just as news of the coming of the Spanish Armada reached England, and by tradition his mother, taking fright, gave birth prematurely; in his later years he joked at his own expense that "fear and I are twins" — a half-joking remark that in a sense fits how his lifelong philosophical thought always circled the core concern of "how to tame the human fear of violent death and build a stable political order."
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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