Leviathan

Liberty Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan, during the course of his argument about the social contract we make to surrender our rights of nature a sovereign in exchange for order and peace touches the subject of liberty. Hobbes defines liberty as “the absence of opposition( by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion).” (Ch 21, p.136). In his argument, Hobbes claims that this state of liberty is man’s natural state in which man fully …

…the Sovereign retains all his rights to nature and is accountable only to God. Why does the sovereign retain his liberty, while we only retain that which the sovereign has decided not to regulate? because the sovereign uses his liberty to act on our behalf. We in theory are the author of every action decided by the sovereign who in theory acts only in our interest because it would benefit the sovereign to do so.