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For what purpose did Thomas Hobbes believe that the first governments were formed?​

User SwankTheTank
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Answer:

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Step-by-step explanation:

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

In 1642, a civil war broke out over who would rule England—Parliament or King Charles

I. After nine years, the civil war finally ended with Parliament victorious. Charles was

beheaded. Soon after, an English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, wrote Leviathan. In it he

made a defense of the absolute power of kings. The title of the book referred to a

leviathan. This is a mythological, whale-like sea

monster that devoured whole ships. Hobbes likened

the leviathan to government, a powerful state

created to impose order.

Hobbes began Leviathan by describing the state of

nature where all individuals were equal. Every

person did what he or she needed to do to survive.

As a result, everyone suffered from “continued fear

and danger of violent death” He thought that the

life of man in a state of nature would be “solitary,

poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

In the state of nature, there were no laws or police

to restore order. The only way out of this situation,

Hobbes said, was for individuals to create a

supreme power to impose peace on everyone.

Hobbes based his idea about forming government

on English contract law. Hobbes said that the

people agreed among themselves to “lay down”

their natural rights of equality and freedom and give absolute power to a ruler, or

sovereign. The sovereign, created by the people, might be a person or a group. The

sovereign would make and enforce the laws to secure a peaceful society. This would

make life, liberty, and property possible. Hobbes called this agreement the “social

contract.”

Hobbes believed that a government headed by a king was the best form that the

sovereign could take. Placing all power in the hands of a king, Hobbes argued, would

mean more sure and consistent exercise of political authority. Hobbes also claimed that

the social contract was an agreement only among the people and not between them and

their king. Once the people had given absolute power to the king, they had no right to

revolt against him.

Hobbes warned against the church meddling with the king’s government. He feared

religion could become a source of civil war. He thought that the church should be a

department of the king’s government. That way the king could closely control all

religious affairs. In any conflict between divine and royal law, Hobbes wrote, the

individual should obey the king or choose death.

User Litisqe Kumar
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