Hobbesian Absolutism and the Paradox of Modern Contractarianism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12717549 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Deborah Baumgold (University of Oregon, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 207-228 |
| Publication date | 2009-03-17 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Political Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-8851 • E-ISSN: 1741-2730 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885108100853 |
| OpenAlex | W2143824499 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Hobbes's defense of absolutism involves the dual claims that consent is the foundation of legitimate authority and that sovereignty is necessarily absolute. It is a paradoxical combination of claims: If absolute government is the product of choice how can it also be the sole possible constitution? While all of Hobbes's contractarian successors have rejected his preference for absolutism, his dual claims have become commonplace. Since Hobbes, contract thinkers routinely assert that people will choose their preferred constitution and that it is the only possible one. The essay examines the genesis of this paradoxical argumentation: Hobbes's genius lay in merging Grotius's contractarian rationale with Bodin's analytic view that sovereignty must be absolute. The final section discusses related criticisms of Rawls's contract theory. Rawls inherited a genre already flawed by the impluse to combine voluntarist with non-voluntarist reasoning
Absolute (philosophy · Absolute monarchy · Constitution · Epistemology · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Social contract · Sociology · Sovereignty · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Citations per year | 0.18 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2022 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |