What problem does political authority solve, and what do we give up when we create it? In the second of three conversations, Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson read Hobbes’s account of conflict, covenant and sovereignty in Leviathan. They ask why people might consent to a common power and where the obligation to obey meets the need for self-preservation.
Read alongside us:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, chapters 13–14; Part II, chapters 17 and 21: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm
Beyond the Text: https://beyondthetext.co.uk/
