Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) interpreted the problem of the relationship between law and law from a pronounced statist (statist) position. Significant importance in the development of this topic, as in the entire political and legal doctrine of Hobbes, is attached to the fundamental opposition of the state of nature to the state (civil state).

Hobbes proceeds from the fact that "nature has created people equal in terms of physical and mental abilities" 5c. In any case, the possible natural difference between people is not so great that one of them could claim for himself some good that the other could not claim with the same right.

58 Hobbes T. Leviathan or Matter, Form and Power of the Church and Civil State. M., 1936, p. 113. Hereafter, for brevity, this work will be referred to as Leviathan. See also: Hobbes T. Philosophical foundations of the doctrine of the citizen. M., 1914, p. 22 et seq.

Such equality of people, meaning their equal opportunities to harm each other, in combination with the three main causes of war rooted in human nature (rivalry, distrust, love of glory), leads, according to Hobbes, to the fact that the state of nature turns out to be a universal ongoing war .. " From this it is obvious, he writes, that as long as people live without a common power that keeps them all in fear, they are in that state which is called war, and precisely in the state of war of all against all.

In the state of nature portrayed by Hobbes, there is no general authority. And where there is no common power, he notes, there is no law, and where there is no law, there is no justice. There is also no property, no possession, no distinction between mine and yours. Everyone in the state of nature has the right to everything - this is his natural right and natural freedom.

Hobbes defines natural law as follows: "Natural law, usually called jus naturale by writers, is the freedom of every man to use his own forces at his discretion for the preservation of his own nature, that is, his own life, and, consequently, the freedom to do whatever, in his own judgment and understanding, is the most suitable means for this” eo.

By freedom in his teaching is meant the absence of external obstacles to do what a person desires, since he, according to his physical abilities, is able to do it. In this sense, according to Hobbes, man is free precisely in the state of nature.

Natural law, according to Hobbes, should not be confused with natural law (lex naturalis) - a prescription or a general rule found by reason, according to which a person is forbidden to do what is harmful to his life or what deprives him of the means to preserve it, and to miss what what he considers the best way to save life.

Hobbes emphasizes: “It is necessary to distinguish between jus and lex, between right and law, although those who write on this subject usually confuse these concepts: for right consists in the freedom to do or not to do, meanwhile

™ Hobbes T. Leviathan, p. 115. 60 Ibid., p. 117.

how the law determines and obliges to this or that member of this alternative, so that law and right differ from each other in the same way as obligation and freedom, which are incompatible with respect to one and the same thing.

Man is a rational being, and the general rule and prescription of reason, according to Hobbes, sounds like this: "... all" man must strive for peace, since he has a hope of achieving it, but if he cannot achieve it, then he can use any means that give an advantage in war” e2.

This prescription of reason, testifying to Hobbes's peculiar rationalistic (appealing to reason) approach to the topic under discussion, contains both the rules of behavior in the state of nature (in the second part of the above form, we are talking about natural law sanctioned by reason), and the rule of exit from the state of nature of the universal war to peace (the first part of the formula). The first part of the Hobbesian maxim of reason acts as the first and fundamental natural law: one should seek the world and follow it.

From this basic natural law, Hobbes, resorting to deduction, derives a number of other natural laws that specify the rule for the search for civil peace between people63.

Thus, the second natural law says that if other people agree to it, a person must agree to renounce the right to all things to the extent necessary in the interests of peace and self-defense, and be content with such a degree of freedom in relation to other people as he would admit other people towards him. Hobbes notes that the requirement of this law is already presented in the well-known gospel formula: act towards others as you would like others to act towards you.

In its other formulation, summarizing, according to Hobbes, the basic meaning of all natural laws, this rule says: do not do to another what you would not like to be done to you.

"Ibid. vg Ibid., p. U8.

63 See: Ibid., p. 118-138; He is. Philosophical Foundations of the Doctrine of the Citizen, p. 30-59.

8 V. S. Nersesyants 225

The third natural law requires people to keep the agreements they make. This law, according to Hobbes, contains the source and beginning of justice. Injustice is the failure to fulfill the contract, and everything that is not unjust is just.

However, agreements based on trust are not valid where there is fear of non-fulfillment (ie, in the state of nature). “That is why,” he writes, “before the words just and unjust can take place, there must be some kind of coercive power, which, by the threat of punishment outweighing the good expected by people from their violation of the agreement, would force people to the same extent to fulfill their agreements and would strengthen the property that people acquire by mutual agreements in return for the renunciation of universal law. And such a power can come with the founding of the state.

Hobbes interprets the widespread definition of justice as an unchanging will to give (repay) to each his own in the spirit of his concept: justice presupposes one's own (property), and the latter is possible only where there is a state and coercive civil power.

The rest of the natural laws formulated by Hobbes require observance of the rules of gratitude, gratitude, modesty, mercy, forgiveness, inviolability of peace mediators, impartial and impartial settlement of disputes, etc.65

Natural laws are immutable and eternal. “For,” Hobbes explains, “injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, hypocrisy, partiality, and other vices can never become legitimate, since it can never be that war saves life, and peace destroys it” v6.

64 Hobbes T. Leviathan, p. 127.

85 One of the natural laws forbids drunkenness and everything that diverts the mind from its natural state, thereby destroying or reducing the faculty of reasoning. The basis for the formulation of this law is as follows: natural law is the command of right reason (recta ratio), and the latter in the state of nature is “an act of reasoning, i.e. s. own and true reasoning of each individual person about his actions, which can lead to benefit or harm to other people ”(Hobbes T. Philosophical Foundations of the Doctrine of a Citizen, p. 30, 53-54).

66 Hobbes T. Leviathan, p. 137.

He characterizes the science of natural laws as the only and true philosophy of morality, as the science of good and evil in human actions and in social life.

Hobbes notes the inaccuracy of applying the name law to the prescriptions of reason, which are the "natural laws" he formulates. “For,” he continues, “these precepts are only conclusions or theorems about what leads to the preservation and protection of human life, while the law in the proper sense means the precept of one who rightfully commands others. However, if we consider these very theorems as proclaimed by a god who commands but by right all, then they are correctly called laws”67.

The presence of natural laws alone does not yet lead to peace and security. Only a general power can guarantee the observance of these laws, keeping people in fear and directing their actions to the common good. Such a common power, according to the Hobbesian contractual theory of the emergence of the state, can only be established by concentrating all power and all strength in one person or a meeting of people who reduce all the wills of the parties to the contract into a single will. The multitude of people united in this way in one person (sovereign) is the state (civitas).

Describing the process of the formation of the state, Hobbes writes: “Such is the birth of that great Leviathan, or rather (to put it more respectfully), that mortal god, to whom, under the dominion of an immortal god, we owe our peace and our protection. For by virtue of the powers given to it by every single person in the state, the said person or collection of persons enjoys such an enormous strength and power concentrated in him that the fear inspired by this strength and power makes this person or this collection of persons capable of directing the will of all people to peace within and to mutual aid against an external enemy. And in this person or collection of persons is the essence of the state, which can be defined as a single person, responsible for the actions of which a huge number of people made themselves responsible by mutual agreement among themselves, so that this person could use the strength and means of all of them in such a way that

Ibid, p. 138.

as it deems necessary for their peace and common defense.” 6 The bearer of this face, the sovereign, has supreme power over his subjects. “Sovereign power,” Hobbes emphasizes, “is the soul of the state” 69.

Among the powers of the sovereign, Hobbes specifically highlights such rights as the establishment of laws, the punishment of violators of laws, the declaration of war and the conclusion of peace, the administration of justice, the establishment of a system of organs, the prohibition of harmful teachings leading to a violation of peace, etc. However, the powers of the sovereign are not limited to this, for the enumerated rights, according to Hobbes, imply other rights that are necessary for the fulfillment of the tasks of the state.

The supreme power in any form of state (democracy, aristocracy or monarchy) is, according to Hobbes, absolute: it is "as vast as one can imagine" 70.

Concerning the question of the duties of the sovereign, Hobbes remarks: “The duties of the sovereign (whether it be a monarch or an assembly) are determined by the purpose for which he was invested with supreme power, namely, the purpose of ensuring the security of the people, to which he is obliged by natural law and for which he is responsible before God, the creator of this law, and to no one else.

At the same time, Hobbes writes that “there are certain rights that cannot be thought of, so that someone could cede or alienate them with words or signs” 72. Among these inalienable (natural) human rights, he names the right of resistance to those who encroach on his life and health, who wants to put fetters on him or imprison him.

AT general view Hobbes notes that "every subject has freedom in respect of all that the right to which cannot be alienated by contract"73. Thus, no contract can oblige a person to accuse himself and confess to the accusation, to kill or injure himself or another, to abstain from food, use

water and air, the use of medicines and other things necessary for life. The subject is free to disobey the orders of the sovereign to do such things, if, Hobbes emphasizes, our refusal to obey in such cases does not undermine the purpose for which the sovereignty was established.

The rest of the freedoms of the subjects "flow from the omissions of the law." 74 Where the sovereign has not prescribed any rules, the subject is free to do or not to do anything at his own discretion. The measure and scope of such freedom of subjects in different states depend on the circumstances of place and time and are determined by the supreme power, its ideas about expediency, etc.

The inalienable rights of the subject recognized by Hobbes as a whole concern questions of his personal self-preservation and self-defence. According to the meaning of the Hobbesian concept, within these limits, the subject can resist civil authority. Therefore, the subsequent actions of the criminal, dictated by the motives of self-defense (for example, the armed resistance of the rebels who are facing the death penalty; the prisoner's escape from prison or from the place of execution, etc.) are not a "new illegal act" 75.

But no one, Hobbes emphasizes, has the right to resist the “sword of the state” in order to protect another person (guilty or innocent), since such a right deprives the sovereign of the ability to protect the safety of his subjects and destroys the very essence of power.

About the laws issued by the sovereign, Hobbes writes: “These rules about property (or about mine and yours) and about good, evil, regular and illegal in human actions are civil laws, i.e., special laws of each individual state ...” 7b

He calls civil laws artificial chains for subjects whose freedom consists only in what is passed over in silence by the sovereign (legislator) in regulating the actions of people.

However, such freedom in no way abolishes or limits the power of the sovereign over life and death.

74 Ibid., p. 178.

76 Ibid., p. 151.

subjects. The only limitation of the sovereign is that, being himself a subject of God, he must obey the laws of nature. But if the sovereign violates them, thereby causing damage to his subjects, he, by. sense of the Hobbesian concept of sovereignty, will only commit a sin before God, but not injustice towards his subjects.

In the civil state, we can actually talk only about the freedom of the state, and not private individuals. The purpose of civil laws is precisely to "restrict the freedom of individuals" 77. In this matter, the main meaning of Hobbes' distinction between law (natural) and law (civil, positive) is clearly manifested. “For law,” Hobbes emphasizes, “is freedom, precisely the freedom that the civil law leaves us. The civil law, on the other hand, is an obligation and takes away from us the freedom that natural law grants us. Nature grants to every man the right to ensure his safety by his own physical strength, and in order to prevent attack on himself, to attack any suspicious neighbor. The civil law deprives us of this freedom in all those cases where the protection of the law provides security.

And this is the case in all forms of the state: freedom is the same in a monarchy as in a democracy. From these positions, Hobbes throws sharp reproaches to ancient authors (especially Aristotle and Cicero), who associated freedom with a democratic form of government. To these views he ascribes dangerous and destructive consequences: “And through the reading of Greek and Latin authors, people from childhood acquired the habit of favoring (under the false guise of freedom) rebellions and reckless control of their sovereigns, and then control of these controllers, as a result of which so much blood was shed, that I consider myself entitled to assert that nothing has ever been bought at such a high price as the study of Greek and Latin by Western countries.

When characterizing civil laws, Hobbes emphasizes that only the sovereign is in all states

the legislator, and the freedom of the sovereign is of a supra-legal nature: the sovereign (one person or assembly) is not subject to civil laws.

Concerning the issue of customs, he notes that the basis for recognizing the long practice of the force of law is not the duration of time, but the will of the sovereign (his tacit consent). From these positions, he objects to lawyers who consider only reasonable customs to be law and propose to abolish bad customs. The decision of questions about what is reasonable and what is subject to abolition, Hobbes notes, is the business of the legislator himself, and not of jurisprudence or judges. The law must conform to reason, but precisely to the reason of the sovereign.

With regard to laws established under former sovereigns, but continuing to operate under the present sovereign, Hobbes formulates the following rule: the legislator is not the one by whose authority the law was first issued, but the one by whose will it continues to be the law. “The legal force of the law,” he emphasizes, “consists only in the fact that it is an order of the sovereign” 8 °.

The essential feature of civil laws, according to Hobbes, is that they are brought to the attention of all those who are obliged to obey them, either by oral or written publication, or in any other form known to come from the supreme authority.

The interpretation of all laws (both civil and natural) is the prerogative of the supreme power, therefore only those to whom it is entrusted by the sovereign can interpret them.

Only with the establishment of the state do natural (moral) laws become actual laws (“orders of the state”, “civil laws”), due to the fact that the supreme power obliges people to obey them. With this in mind, Hobbes says that “natural and civil laws are the same in content and have the same scope”, that “natural law is in all states of the world part of the civil law, and the latter, in turn, is part of the prescriptions of nature”81. Further, he explains that civil and natural laws are "not different kinds, but different parts of the law,

80 Ibid., p. 214.

81 Ibid., p. 209.

of which one, the written part, is called the civil law, the other, the unwritten part, is called the natural law. Obedience to civil law is one of the requirements of natural law.

In general, Hobbes gives the following definition of civil law: “The civil law is for every subject those rules that the state orally, in writing, or by means of other sufficiently clear signs of its will, prescribed to him, so that he uses them to distinguish between right and wrong, ... i.e. between what agrees and what does not agree with the rule” 83.

Among civil laws (that is, positive human laws), Hobbes singles out distributive and criminal laws84. Distributive laws are addressed to all subjects and determine their rights, indicating the ways of acquiring and maintaining property, the procedure for claims, etc. This is essentially a question of private law (substantive and procedural).

Criminal laws, according to Hobbes, are addressed to officials and determine punishments for violations of laws. Although every person should be informed in advance about these punishments, however, the command here, according to Hobbes, is not addressed to the criminal, from whom he cannot be expected to honestly punish himself.

In addition, he divides the laws into basic and non-basic. "He refers to the main laws that oblige subjects to support the power of the sovereign, without which the state will perish. Here Hobbes includes laws on pre-

82 Ibid., p. 210. Therefore, current customs as unwritten

Hobbes considers a natural law to be a natural law (i.e., not a position

civil, non-civil law). However, these contradictions

in the judgments of Hobbes are not removed, because he repeatedly

recognizes the possibility of an oral form of civil law,

in the light of which the latter cannot be characterized as

"written part" of all laws. By the way, Hobbes should have

speak of natural and civil laws as different

parts of laws (legislation), and not law, since

law in his teaching (unlike law) is only natural

military law, moreover, interpreted by him as a right in the subjective

nom, not in an objective sense.

83 Ibid., p. 208.

"Ibid., pp. 221-222. 85 Ibid., p. 224.

horns of the Supreme Power (the right of war and peace, the administration of justice, the appointment of officials and, in general, the right of the sovereign to do whatever he deems necessary in the interests of the state). Non-basic laws include laws (for example, on litigation between subjects), the abolition of which does not entail the disintegration of the state.

Along with civil laws (in their difference from natural laws), Hobbes also singles out divine laws - God's commandments addressed to a certain people or certain persons and declared as laws by those who were authorized by God to do this.

The rationalism of the Hobbesian approach to divine laws is clearly manifested in the fact that he recognizes them only to the extent that they do not contradict natural laws; it is only in this sense and scope that they are binding. As if compensating for his rationalistic reduction of theonomic rules to rational ones, Hobbes readily recognizes the divine character of natural laws, but this does not change the essence of the matter - their autonomous rationalistic meaning.

The secular, anti-theological orientation of Hobbes' statement that “faith and secret thoughts of a person are not subject to orders” is also obvious. 86 This means that faith in general (including faith in divine laws) is not an object of legislative regulation.

But, as they say, a holy place is never empty, and Hobbes - in striking accordance with this proverb - puts the state ("mortal god", Leviathan) in the place of the "immortal god" as a legislator. “I therefore conclude,” he writes, “that in all things that do not contradict the moral law (i.e., natural law), all subjects are obliged to obey as divine laws that which will be declared as such by state laws” 87.

Legislation, therefore, becomes an instrument for the implementation of important spiritual and ideological attitudes and views. This, however, also follows from Hobbes' judgments about managerial, control, and

88 Ibid., p. 223.

87 Ibid., p. 223-224.

the powers of the sovereign regarding scientific doctrines and public opinion.

Proceeding from the fact that "the actions of people are determined by their opinions"88, Hobbes sees in the good management of opinions the way to the good management of the actions of people in order to establish "peace and harmony" among them. And although he notes that he recognizes the truth as the only criterion for the suitability or unsuitability of a particular doctrine, he believes that this does not contradict the verification of this doctrine from the standpoint of the "cause of the world", which in his word usage means, strictly speaking, the highest, absolutely uncontrolled statist interests.

Thus, he believes that “it is within the competence of the supreme power to be a judge as to which opinions and teachings hinder and which contribute to the establishment of peace, and, therefore, in what cases, within what limits and to what people can be granted the right to speak to the masses of the people, and who should consider the doctrines of all books before they are published” 8E. People who are ready to take up arms to defend and put into practice this or that opinion are in a state of suspension of hostilities for the time being, in a state of discord and incessant preparations for civil war. Hobbes solves this struggle of opinions and teachings with the help of censorship - "judges of opinions and teachings" 90 appointed by the sovereign.

The anti-democratic, anti-liberal and anti-individualist nature of the Hobbesian concept of sovereignty is obvious. Its essential consequence is the interpretation of the law (all positive human legislation) as an order of the sovereign. Moreover, law (civil, state) and law (natural) are contrasted in such a way that the law summarizes in itself only lack of freedom, lack of rights and obligations of subjects in relation to the sovereign and freedom, sovereignty and powers of the sovereign in relation to subjects.

Freedom in the interpretation of Hobbes is a synonym for the natural

88 Ibid., p. 150-151. French materialists and enlighteners

then they will say that the world is ruled by opinions.

89 Ibid., p. 150.

90 Ibid., p. 151.

rights and evidence of the state of war of all against all. Taking into account the fact that with the establishment of the state, the natural rights and freedoms of subjects pass to the sovereign, who thus turns out to be the only real bearer of freedom and rights, it can be said with full justification that even in the state constructed by Hobbes, the peace he sought was not achieved and the war continues. Only its front and character have changed: instead of a war of all against all (and along with its insurmountable remnants), a war (internal and external) is unfolding, the source of which is the right and freedom (according to the Hobbesian concept - natural) of the sovereign.

Hobbes himself recognizes the natural-legal (and, consequently, military) nature of the relationship between various sovereigns (and sovereign states). Consequently, in this regard, the establishment of civil power leads to a transition from sporadic and chaotic small-scale (individual and group) skirmishes to organized (at the national level and scale) war between sovereigns.

Paralyzed by the fear of revolution and civil war and busy searching for internal harmony, Hobbes, in fact, completely loses sight of the problem of peace and war between states. Throughout by "peace" he means the inner world, namely the state of obedience of the subjects to the authorities. But even here, in the sphere of the Hobbesian construction of the civil state, overcoming the war and achieving peace is very illusory, since the free sovereign in his relations with unfree subjects is essentially (and according to the specific natural-legal meaning of the Hobbesian interpretation of freedom) is in a state of nature (is not bound by anything , has the right to everything, etc.).

The dialectic of the process of the contractual establishment of the state depicted by Hobbes is, therefore, such that the exit of people from the state of nature is accompanied by such a renunciation of their rights and freedoms in favor of civil power, that the latter, taking into its own hands the forces and possibilities of the state of nature, turns into a new and only subject of natural law and freedom. In this exclusivity of power as a subject of natural law in conditions of civil status - the essence of sovereignty in Hobbes-

Russian interpretation and the meaning of his understanding of positive law as an order of the sovereign.

Such legal understanding, proceeding from the statist concept (uncontrolled freedom of the state, sovereign, civil power in general), makes Hobbes the founder of bourgeois legal positivism. The leading representatives of this trend (J. Austin, S. Amos, K. Gerber, P. Laband, G. F. Shershenevich and others) accept and defend (in one or another modification and variation) the main idea of ​​the Hobbesian interpretation: positive law ( Hobbes - positive law) - this is the order of the sovereign.

Thus, J. Austin characterized law as “an aggregate of rules established by a political leader or sovereign” and emphasized: “All law is a command, an order”91. Similarly, according to S. Amos, “law is an order from the supreme political authority of the state in order to control the actions of individuals in a given community”92. G. F. Shershenevich held similar views. “Every rule of law,” he wrote, “is an order” °3. Law, according to him, is “a product of the state”, and state power is characterized by him as “that initial fact from which the norms of law proceed, clinging to each other” 94.

The main difference between the approaches of Hobbes and the named positivists to law is that Hobbes, while admitting a state of nature, recognizes natural law within its framework, while his followers deny both. But Hobbes, as we have seen, denies natural law (though only among subjects) in the civil state.

Essentially common in their positions is that in the conditions of statehood, only positive law (positive law), understood as an imperious order, is recognized as law. Rejection of meaningful

91 Austin J. Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Positive Law. L., 1873, vol. 1, p. 89, 98.

For a detailed critical analysis of these and other similar provisions of J. Austin, as well as S. Amos, G. F. Shershenevich and a number of other positivists, see: Zorkin V. D. Pozitivist theory of law in Russia. M., 1978, p. 60 et seq.

n Amos Sh. A systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence. L, 1872, p. 73.

93 Shershenevich G.F. General theory of law. M., 1910, no. 1, p. 281.

4 Ibid., p. 314.

(including value-content) features of law is accompanied by the substitution legal properties law (and so-called positive law in general), its authoritative source and character. By its order, state power generates law - such is the credo of this type of legal understanding, the true essence of which is manifested in the statement: everything that state power orders is law (law). The difference between law and arbitrariness, therefore, in principle, loses its objective and meaningful meaning and has only a subjective and formal character for adherents of the legal-positivist approach: an explicit arbitrariness sanctioned by a certain subject (state) in a certain form (in the form of one or another act - a law, a rescript , decree, etc.) is unconditionally recognized as law.

Legal positivism thus signs for its complete helplessness to establish any scientifically significant objective criteria for distinguishing law as a special social phenomenon from other phenomena (both from arbitrariness and lack of rights, and, say, from morality) and is limited to pointing to the authority of power as the only criterion for this difference. In the positivist interpretation, magical possibilities are recognized behind the order of state power. It turns out that the order solves problems not only of a subjective nature (formulation of legislative norms), but also of an objective plan (formation, creation of law itself), as well as a scientific profile itself (establishment and clarification of the difference between law and arbitrariness and non-legal phenomena in general). In all this, the etatist roots and attitudes of legal-positivist views are clearly manifested.

In modern times, the theories of natural law and the social contract are freed from their previous theological justification. At the same time, they become the basis for a rational understanding of society and the state. The acceptance of the social contract theory by legal thought creates the possibility for various political concepts - in favor of monarchical power and against it (in favor of society). G. Grotius, a prominent representative of the school of natural law in early modern times, shared its general theory of the emergence of the state from the contract. Grotius and Hobbes stood together at the head of that school of natural law, which, in accordance with the general trends of the age, sought to construct a complete edifice of law by rational deduction from a fictitious state of nature, followed by the conclusion of a social contract.

Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) - English philosopher, derived the state from the idea of ​​the natural state of people. According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a war of all against all, which leads to mutual destruction. The way out of this situation is a social contract that provides for the restriction of the rights and freedoms of individuals in favor of the state. State power appears in this concept as an expression of the common good and has an absolutist character.

J. Locke, starting from the pessimistic Hobbesian theories, began to lean towards interpreting the state of nature as the equality and freedom of individuals. In France, Montesquieu believed that natural laws are a do-social phenomenon, and therefore stand above religion and the state, and Rousseau argued that it is the savage who is the bearer of virtue due to his isolation from civilization. Therefore, the ideas of Hobbes are the source of various interpretations of the social contract. Hobbes's theory, which had a significant impact on the philosophy of law of the 20th century, has a number of common features with its individual movements, in particular, with systems theory and the structural-functional school in explaining society and the state, which, in particular, explains the particular interest in this thinker in modern science. Hobbes presented his teachings in three main works - "Fundamentals of Philosophy" (1642), "Leviathan, or Nature, Form and Power of Government" (1651), and "Behemoth" (1668). They gave a philosophical theory, which is largely the result of an analysis of the events of the English Revolution and the dictatorship of Cromwell. We can say that the teachings of Hobbes are the anatomy of the revolution, written by its staunch opponent.

The main problem that the philosopher seeks to solve is the emergence and nature of civil unrest, as well as ways to overcome it, the reasons for the emergence of an authoritarian regime from its depths. The starting point of Hobbes' reflections is the nature of the individual as the primary element of community life. Man is a creature with a dual nature: on the one hand, he is a physical body (and in this respect serves as an object of study of the natural sciences), on the other hand, he is part of the state, a political body in which he acts as a citizen. This second side of his nature is studied by special sections of philosophy - ethics and politics. According to the logic of the nominalist approach, which Hobbes consistently justifies, he sees his task in creating on this basis a unified concept of society, from which the basic concepts are derived by deduction - "state of nature", "social contract" and "state".

Another strand of social contract theory goes back to Locke and the political thought of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It used the theory of the social contract to justify the restriction of monarchical power by society, creating the theoretical prerequisites for liberal democracy and constitutionalism.

Locke's contribution lies in the fact that he gave a holistic and systematic concept of the social contract, understood as a transitional stage from the state of nature to civil society, substantiated the thesis of consent (consensus) as the main condition of such an agreement, pointed to property relations, political freedom and human rights as the fundamental principles of civil society, finally expressed these ideas in a clear and accessible form, which contributed to their dissemination and transformation into ideological postulates during the American and French revolutions, as well as in the subsequent liberal tradition of European political thought. Locke's work "Two Treatises on Government" (1660), on which he worked for more than ten years, is devoted to socio-political problems. The first treatise appeared as a polemical response to the conservative monarchist writer R. Filmer and came out shortly after the publication of his main work - "Patriarch: a defense of the natural power of kings against the unnatural freedom of the people." The second treatise was written between 1679 and 1689. and contains a detailed positive presentation of the thinker's philosophy of law. If the teachings of Hobbes can be regarded as the result of a theoretical understanding of the first English revolution, then, from the standpoint of the philosophy of law, Locke is the ideologist of the second or "glorious" English revolution of 1688-89, when, as a result of the removal of James II Stuart from the throne and the proclamation of William III as king Oransky, the rights of the crown were significantly limited and the foundations of the parliamentary system were laid. His concept was the theoretical basis for the struggle of parliament against the absolute power of the monarch. Locke is not embarrassed even by the reproach that this theory leads to civil war. In his opinion, those who, by their actions, led to it, should be blamed, and not those who defend their rights in it. In this regard, the royal power becomes the object of his criticism. In his doctrine of forms of government, Locke distinguishes several basic types according to who holds the supreme or legislative power. This is a perfect democracy, an oligarchy, a monarchy (which is divided into hereditary and elective) and, finally, a mixed form of government, which the thinker prefers. Locke himself leans towards the form of government that has traditionally existed in England: the king, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Thomas Hobbes made a huge contribution to science and philosophy. In his work “On the Body”, the English thinker managed to reveal his understanding of the subject of philosophy with the greatest completeness. Answering the question "what is philosophy", Hobbes, like other advanced thinkers of his era, opposed scholasticism, which existed as the official philosophy of the Christian church in most Western European countries.

Philosophy is divided by Hobbes into two main parts: the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of the state. The first is concerned with natural bodies, which are the products of nature. The second explores the phenomena of social life, and first of all the state, which forms an artificial, political body, created on a contractual basis by the people themselves. In order to know the state, it is necessary to first study the person, the inclinations and customs of people united in civil society. This is what moral philosophy does. Thus, the philosophical system of Hobbes consists of three interrelated parts: the doctrine of natural bodies, the doctrine of man, and the doctrine of the political body, or state.

The most important are the socio-political views of T. Hobbes, which are contained in his works "On the Citizen", "Leviathan". T. Hobbes puts a certain idea of ​​the nature of the individual at the basis of his philosophical system. The starting point of his reasoning about the social structure and the state is the "natural state of people." This natural state is characterized in him by "the natural tendency of people to harm themselves mutually, which they derive from their passions, but most importantly, from the vanity of self-love, the right of everyone to everything."

The philosopher believes that although initially all people are created equal in terms of physical and mental abilities, and each of them has the same “right to everything” as the others, however, a person is also a deeply selfish being, overwhelmed by greed, fear and ambition. Surround him only envious, rivals, enemies. "Man to man is a wolf." Therefore, the philosopher believes that in the very nature of people there are reasons for rivalry, mistrust and fear, which lead to hostile clashes and violent actions aimed at destroying or subjugating others. Added to this is the desire for fame and differences of opinion, which also cause people to resort to violence. Hence the fatal inevitability in society "... the war of all against all, when everyone is controlled by his own mind and there is nothing that he could not use as a means of salvation from enemies" T. Hobbes. Works in 2 T. T2. / compiler editor V.V. Sokolov, translated from Latin and English. - M.: Thought. 1991 p.99. To have the "right to everything" in the conditions of such a war means "... to have the right to everything, even the life of every other person." T. Hobbes decree op. 99 In this war, according to Hobbes, there can be no winners, it expresses a situation in which everyone is threatened by everyone - “... as long as the right of everyone to everything is preserved, not a single person (no matter how strong or wise he may be) can be sure of that he can live all the time that nature usually provides for human life ”T. Hobbes decree op. With. 99. During such a war, people use sophisticated violence to subjugate others or in self-defense.

One way or another, but “... people are naturally subject to greed, fear, anger and other animal passions”, they seek “honor and benefits”, act “for the sake of benefit or glory, i.e. for the sake of love for oneself, and not for others”, therefore everyone is the enemy of everyone, relying in life only on their own strength and dexterity, resourcefulness and ingenuity. Thus, selfishness is declared to be the main stimulus of human activity. But Hobbes does not condemn people for their selfish inclinations, does not consider that they are evil by nature. After all, it is not the desires of people themselves that are evil, the philosopher points out, but only the results of actions arising from these desires. And even then only when these actions harm other people. In addition, it must be borne in mind that people "by nature are devoid of education and are not trained to obey reason."

It is precisely about the state of general war and confrontation that Hobbes writes as the “natural state of the human race” and interprets it as the absence of civil society, i.e. state organization, state-legal regulation of people's lives. In a word, in a society where there is no state organization and control, arbitrariness and lack of rights reign, "and a person's life is lonely, poor, hopeless, stupid and short-lived." However, in the nature of people, according to Hobbes, there are not only forces that plunge individuals into the abyss of the “war of all against all”, people are eager to get out of this miserable state, they strive to create guarantees of peace and security. After all, a person is also inherent in the properties of a completely different plane; they are such that they impel individuals to find a way out of such a disastrous state of nature. First of all, it is fear, death and the instinct of self-preservation, which dominates over the rest of the passions "... the desire for things necessary for a good life, and the hope of acquiring them with one's diligence." T. Hobbes Decree Op. With. 98 Together with them comes natural reason, i.e. the ability of everyone to think rationally about the positive and negative consequences of their actions. Feelings and reason dictate to people the need to abandon the state of nature and transition to civil society, to a state system. As a result of such aspirations, natural law - “i.e. the freedom of every man to use his own powers as he sees fit for the preservation of his own life” ibid., p. 98 gives way to the natural law, according to which “it is forbidden for a person to do what is harmful to his life or what deprives him of the means to preserve it” ibid p.98. The instinct of self-preservation gives the first impulse to the process of overcoming the natural state, and the natural mind tells people on what conditions they can carry out this process. These conditions (the prescriptions of natural reason express them) are what are otherwise called natural laws.

Hobbes notes that one should distinguish between jus and lex - right and law, "for the right consists in the freedom to do or not to do something, while the law determines and obliges one or the other." Thus, natural law is not the result of the agreement of people, but is a prescription of human reason. According to Hobbes, natural laws proceed from human nature itself and are divine only in the sense that reason "is given to every man by God as a measure of his actions," and the moral principles of Holy Scripture, although announced to people by God himself, can be deduced regardless of him "by means of inferences from the concept of natural law", i.e. with the help of the mind. The main general prescription of reason according to Hobbes is that every man must seek peace if he has any hope of achieving it; if he cannot achieve it, then he can use any means that give advantage in war.

Therefore, the first part of the basic natural law, derived by the philosopher, says: one should seek the world and follow it. The second part is the content of natural law, which is reduced to the right to defend oneself by all possible means. From the basic law, Hobbes derives, relying on his synthetic method, the rest of the natural laws. The most important among them is the renunciation of each of his rights to the extent that this is required by the interests of peace and self-defense (the second natural law). The renunciation of a right is made according to Hobbes, either by a simple renunciation of it, or by transferring it to another person. But not all human rights can be alienated - a person cannot give up the right to defend his life and resist those who attack him. It is also impossible to demand the renunciation of the right to resist violence, attempts at deprivation of liberty, imprisonment, etc. The mutual transfer of rights is carried out by people in the form of an agreement - “A contract is the action of two or many persons transferring their rights to each other.” In the event that an agreement is concluded about something that relates to the future, it is called an agreement. Agreements can be concluded by people, both under the influence of fear and voluntarily.

A third natural law follows from the second natural law: people are obliged to fulfill the agreements they have made, otherwise the latter will have no meaning. The third natural law contains the source and beginning of justice.

In Leviathan, Hobbes, in addition to the three indicated, indicated 16 more natural (immutable and eternal) laws. Most of them are in the nature of demands or prohibitions: to be fair, merciful, compliant, unforgiving, impartial and at the same time not to be cruel, vindictive, arrogant, treacherous, etc. Thus, for example, the sixth natural law says: if there is a guarantee regarding the future, a person must forgive past offenses to those who, showing repentance, wish it. Hobbes Decree Op. 177 The ninth law states that each person must recognize others as equal by nature. Violation of this rule is the pride of Hobbes, decree op. 118. The eleventh law (impartiality) obliges.. if a person is authorized to be a judge in a dispute between two people, then natural law prescribes that he judge them impartially. For otherwise disputes between people can be resolved only by war. T. Hobbes decree op. p.119 The sixteenth law states that in the event of a dispute, the parties must submit their decision to the arbitrator. there with 121

Thus, Hobbes reduces all natural laws to one general rule: "do not do to another what you would not like to be done to you."

As Doctor of Law L.S. Mamut, the real socio-historical prototypes of those natural laws that T. Hobbes talks about - the relationship of commodity owners, private owners, mediated by acts of exchange and formalized by contracts. Thus, in the end, it is the exchange and the contract that, according to the concept of T. Hobbes, are the prerequisites for establishing peace in the human community. History of Political and Legal Doctrines: A Textbook for High Schools. 4th ed., ed. professor V.S. Nersesyants. - M: Publishing group NORMA-INFRA * M, 2004 p.263.

No matter how impressive the role of natural laws, however, they themselves are not binding. Only force can turn them into an unconditional imperative of behavior. For Hobbes, the natural law, as we have already noted, is the freedom to do or not do something, and the positive law is the command to do or, conversely, not to do something. Natural laws oblige the individual to desire their implementation, but cannot make him practically act in accordance with them. We certainly need a force that can severely limit the right of everyone to everything and decide what belongs to whom, what is a right, and what is not.

The absolute power of the state is, according to T. Hobbes, the guarantor of peace and the implementation of natural laws. It compels the individual to fulfill them by issuing civil laws. If natural laws are associated with reason, then civil laws are based on force. However, their content is the same. Any arbitrary inventions of legislators cannot be civil laws, for the latter are those natural laws, but only backed up by the authority and power of the state. They can neither be canceled nor changed by the simple will of the state. Putting civil laws in such a strict dependence on natural laws, T. Hobbes probably wanted to direct the activities of the state to ensure the development of new, bourgeois social relations. But it is unlikely that he had the intention of subordinating state power to law.

NATURAL STATE

NATURAL STATE

a concept that characterizes the original natural of human life on Earth before it took any organized forms. Theories of the state of nature first arose in the Middle Ages, and there were significant variations from some idyllic-paradise interpretation of primitive life to concepts according to which people at that time lived disunitedly and were in a state of “war of all against all” (Hobbes), leading either to complete mutual destruction, or to the conclusion of some kind of social contract - the forerunner of the future state structure. For Hegel, the state of nature was associated exclusively with the factor of violence and natural cruelty, since, according to him, law can be instituted and guaranteed only within the framework of an organized society and state.

Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2010 .

NATURAL STATE

NATURAL (lat. naturalis) - legal and political consciousness, found in the Cynics and Aristotle, but acquired importance in the writings of thinkers of the 17th-18th centuries. T. Hobbes considered the “war of all against all” to be a characteristic feature of the state of nature, to stop which people seek to enter into a “civilian state” and conclude. For J. Dhaka, this is a state of “complete freedom in relation to their (people. -TD) actions and in relation to the disposal of their property and personality” (Two treatises on government. - Soch., vol. 3. M., 1988 , p. 263). This is not yet a state of war, but only one, the prevention of which also requires the conclusion of a social contract. J.-J. Rousseau saw in the state of nature the “golden age” of humanity, which is characterized by the absence of political, legal and property inequality: “... in the primitive state there were no houses, no huts, no property of any kind” (Discourse on the origin inequalities, in the book: Rousseau, Treatises, Moscow, 1969, p. 58). According to Rousseau, in the state of nature there was no war between people, because they have an innate benevolence and compassion. Only later do the quotient and inequality appear. The idea of ​​the state of nature as the "initial stage" of human history and at the same time a prototype of the future ideal state played an important role in the struggle of the ideologists of industrial civilization with feudal-estate institutions.

T.B.Dpugach

New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by V. S. Stepin. 2001 .

See what "NATURAL STATE" is in other dictionaries:

- (state of nature) The state of mankind before some (certain) event, invasion or artificiality. The natural state (regardless of whether it was understood as a historical reality or as the result of a mental ... ... Political science. Dictionary.

Encyclopedia of Sociology

NATURAL STATE- English. state of nature; German Naturzustand. The supposed initial era of the development of society, depicted either as a state of war of all against all (T. Hobbes), or as an idyllic state of unlimited freedom and universal equality (J. J. ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Sociology

Natural State- see State of Nature... Philosophical Dictionary of Sponville

NATURAL STATE- (state of nature) see Locke ... Big explanatory sociological dictionary

natural state- ♦ (ENG natural condition) (lat. status naturalium) the situation of people in the absence of Divine grace ... Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms

Natural (Natural) State- Natural ((Natural) State ♦ État de Nature The position of human beings before the establishment of common power, common laws, even before the emergence of social life. A purely hypothetical state, apparently unsatisfactory ... Philosophical Dictionary of Sponville

- (Latin jus naturale, French droit naturel, German Naturrecht) - a concept contained in the dobourg. and bourgeois philosophical and political doctrines of an ideal legal code, which is allegedly prescribed by nature itself and imprinted in man. mind. For theories... Philosophical Encyclopedia

NATURAL LAW- [lat. jus naturale], a concept used in political and legal theories to refer to a set of fundamental principles and rights that do not depend on social conditions and stemming from the very nature of man. In theistic theories, E. p. his ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

Rocks (a. rock natural state of stress; n. naturlicher Spannungszustand der Gesteine, Spannungszustand im unverritzten Gebirge; f. etat naturel de contraintes du massif; i. estado de tension natural de las rocas) set ... ... Geological Encyclopedia

Books

• The Biology of Enlightenment, U. Krishnamurti. Unpublished Conversations with U. G. Krishnamurti - After He Entered the State of Nature (1967-1971). W. G. Krishnamurti (1918-2007) - the most radical and shocking teacher, not ...

II. The Natural Laws of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes made a huge contribution to science and philosophy. In his work “On the Body”, the English thinker managed to reveal his understanding of the subject of philosophy with the greatest completeness. Answering the question "what is philosophy", Hobbes, like other advanced thinkers of his era, opposed scholasticism, which existed as the official philosophy of the Christian church in most Western European countries.

Philosophy is divided by Hobbes into two main parts: the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of the state. The first is concerned with natural bodies, which are the products of nature. The second explores the phenomena of social life, and first of all the state, which forms an artificial, political body, created on a contractual basis by the people themselves. In order to know the state, it is necessary to first study the person, the inclinations and customs of people united in civil society. This is what moral philosophy does. Thus, the philosophical system of Hobbes consists of three interrelated parts: the doctrine of natural bodies, the doctrine of man, and the doctrine of the political body, or state.

The most important are the socio-political views of T. Hobbes, which are contained in his works "On the Citizen", "Leviathan". T. Hobbes puts a certain idea of ​​the nature of the individual at the basis of his philosophical system. The starting point of his reasoning about the social structure and the state is the "natural state of people." This natural state is characterized in him by "the natural tendency of people to harm themselves mutually, which they derive from their passions, but most importantly, from the vanity of self-love, the right of everyone to everything."

The philosopher believes that although initially all people are created equal in terms of physical and mental abilities, and each of them has the same “right to everything” as the others, however, a person is also a deeply selfish being, overwhelmed by greed, fear and ambition. Surround him only envious, rivals, enemies. "Man to man is a wolf." Therefore, the philosopher believes that in the very nature of people there are reasons for rivalry, mistrust and fear, which lead to hostile clashes and violent actions aimed at destroying or subjugating others. Added to this is the desire for fame and differences of opinion, which also cause people to resort to violence. Hence the fatal inevitability in society "... the war of all against all, when everyone is controlled by his own mind and there is nothing that he could not use as a means of salvation from enemies" T. Hobbes. Works in 2 T. T2. / compiler editor V.V. Sokolov, translated from Latin and English. - M.: Thought. 1991 p.99. To have the "right to everything" in the conditions of such a war means "... to have the right to everything, even the life of every other person." T. Hobbes decree op. 99 In this war, according to Hobbes, there can be no winners, it expresses a situation in which everyone is threatened by everyone - “... as long as the right of everyone to everything is preserved, not a single person (no matter how strong or wise he may be) can be sure of that he can live all the time that nature usually provides for human life ”T. Hobbes decree op. With. 99 . In such a war, people use sophisticated violence to subjugate others or in self-defense.

One way or another, but “... people are naturally subject to greed, fear, anger and other animal passions”, they seek “honor and benefits”, act “for the sake of benefit or glory, i.e. for the sake of love for oneself, and not for others”, therefore everyone is the enemy of everyone, relying in life only on their own strength and dexterity, resourcefulness and ingenuity. Thus, selfishness is declared to be the main stimulus of human activity. But Hobbes does not condemn people for their selfish inclinations, does not consider that they are evil by nature. After all, it is not the desires of people themselves that are evil, the philosopher points out, but only the results of actions arising from these desires. And even then only when these actions harm other people. In addition, it must be borne in mind that people "by nature are devoid of education and are not trained to obey reason."

It is precisely about the state of general war and confrontation that Hobbes writes as the “natural state of the human race” and interprets it as the absence of civil society, i.e. state organization, state-legal regulation of people's lives. In a word, in a society where there is no state organization and control, arbitrariness and lack of rights reign, "and a person's life is lonely, poor, hopeless, stupid and short-lived." However, in the nature of people, according to Hobbes, there are not only forces that plunge individuals into the abyss of the “war of all against all”, people are eager to get out of this miserable state, they strive to create guarantees of peace and security. After all, a person is also inherent in the properties of a completely different plane; they are such that they impel individuals to find a way out of such a disastrous state of nature. First of all, it is fear, death and the instinct of self-preservation, which dominates over the rest of the passions "... the desire for things necessary for a good life, and the hope of acquiring them with one's diligence." T. Hobbes Decree Op. With. 98 Together with them comes natural reason, i.e. the ability of everyone to think rationally about the positive and negative consequences of their actions. Feelings and reason dictate to people the need to abandon the state of nature and transition to civil society, to a state system. As a result of such aspirations, natural law - “i.e. the freedom of every man to use his own powers as he sees fit for the preservation of his own life” ibid., p. 98 gives way to the natural law, according to which “it is forbidden for a person to do what is harmful to his life or what deprives him of the means to preserve it” ibid p.98. The instinct of self-preservation gives the first impulse to the process of overcoming the natural state, and the natural mind tells people on what conditions they can carry out this process. These conditions (the prescriptions of natural reason express them) are what are otherwise called natural laws.

Hobbes notes that one should distinguish between jus and lex - right and law, "for the right consists in the freedom to do or not to do something, while the law determines and obliges one or the other." Thus, natural law is not the result of the agreement of people, but is a prescription of human reason. According to Hobbes, natural laws proceed from human nature itself and are divine only in the sense that reason "is given to every man by God as a measure of his actions," and the moral principles of Holy Scripture, although announced to people by God himself, can be deduced regardless of him "by means of inferences from the concept of natural law", i.e. with the help of the mind. The main general prescription of reason according to Hobbes is that every man must seek peace if he has any hope of achieving it; if he cannot achieve it, then he can use any means that give advantage in war.

Therefore, the first part of the basic natural law, derived by the philosopher, says: one should seek the world and follow it. The second part is the content of natural law, which is reduced to the right to defend oneself by all possible means. From the basic law, Hobbes derives, relying on his synthetic method, the rest of the natural laws. The most important among them is the renunciation of each of his rights to the extent that this is required by the interests of peace and self-defense (the second natural law). The renunciation of a right is made according to Hobbes, either by a simple renunciation of it, or by transferring it to another person. But not all human rights can be alienated - a person cannot give up the right to defend his life and resist those who attack him. It is also impossible to demand the renunciation of the right to resist violence, attempts at deprivation of liberty, imprisonment, etc. The mutual transfer of rights is carried out by people in the form of an agreement - “A contract is the action of two or many persons transferring their rights to each other.” In the event that an agreement is concluded about something that relates to the future, it is called an agreement. Agreements can be concluded by people, both under the influence of fear and voluntarily.

A third natural law follows from the second natural law: people are obliged to fulfill the agreements they have made, otherwise the latter will have no meaning. The third natural law contains the source and beginning of justice.

In Leviathan, Hobbes, in addition to the three indicated, indicated 16 more natural (immutable and eternal) laws. Most of them are in the nature of demands or prohibitions: to be fair, merciful, compliant, unforgiving, impartial and at the same time not to be cruel, vindictive, arrogant, treacherous, etc. Thus, for example, the sixth natural law says: if there is a guarantee regarding the future, a person must forgive past offenses to those who, showing repentance, wish it. Hobbes Decree Op. 177 The ninth law states that each person must recognize others as equal by nature. Violation of this rule is the pride of Hobbes, Decree op. 118. The eleventh law (impartiality) obliges.. if a person is authorized to be a judge in a dispute between two people, then natural law prescribes that he judge them impartially. For otherwise disputes between people can be resolved only by war. T. Hobbes decree op. p.119 The sixteenth law states that in the event of a dispute, the parties must submit their decision to the arbitrator. there with 121

Thus, Hobbes reduces all natural laws to one general rule: "do not do to another what you would not like to be done to you."

As Doctor of Law L.S. Mamut, the real socio-historical prototypes of those natural laws that T. Hobbes talks about - the relationship of commodity owners, private owners, mediated by acts of exchange and formalized by contracts. Thus, in the end, it is the exchange and the contract that, according to the concept of T. Hobbes, are the prerequisites for establishing peace in the human community. History of Political and Legal Doctrines: A Textbook for High Schools. 4th ed., ed. professor V.S. Nersesyants. - M: Publishing group NORMA-INFRA * M, 2004 p.263.

No matter how impressive the role of natural laws, however, they themselves are not binding. Only force can turn them into an unconditional imperative of behavior. For Hobbes, the natural law, as we have already noted, is the freedom to do or not do something, and the positive law is the command to do or, conversely, not to do something. Natural laws oblige the individual to desire their implementation, but cannot make him practically act in accordance with them. We certainly need a force that can severely limit the right of everyone to everything and decide what belongs to whom, what is a right, and what is not.

The absolute power of the state is, according to T. Hobbes, the guarantor of peace and the implementation of natural laws. It compels the individual to fulfill them by issuing civil laws. If natural laws are associated with reason, then civil laws are based on force. However, their content is the same. Any arbitrary inventions of legislators cannot be civil laws, for the latter are those natural laws, but only backed up by the authority and power of the state. They can neither be canceled nor changed by the simple will of the state. Putting civil laws in such a strict dependence on natural laws, T. Hobbes probably wanted to direct the activities of the state to ensure the development of new, bourgeois social relations. But it is unlikely that he had the intention of subordinating state power to law.

III. Origin, essence, purpose, forms of the state.

The doctrine of state sovereignty

Hobbes developed the idea of ​​legitimizing and justifying the state through reason and consciousness with the help of the concept of the contractual origin of political power.

The state, he believed, arises on the basis of an agreement. The basis of the state lies in the reasonable desire of people for self-preservation and security. T. Hobbes believes that in order to comply with natural laws, you need confidence in your safety, and to achieve security there is no other way than to connect a sufficient number of people for mutual protection. Thus, the state is established by people in order to use it to end the "war of all against all", to get rid of the fear of insecurity and the constant threat of violent death - companions of the "unbridled state of anarchy". By mutual agreement among themselves (everyone agrees with everyone), individuals entrust a single person (an individual person or a collection of people) with the supreme social power over themselves.

But in both cases, the power of the state is one and inseparable, it reduces the will of all citizens "into a single will" - "Such a common power that would be able to protect people from the invasion of foreigners and from the injustices caused to each other, and, thus, deliver them that security, in which they could be fed from their labors and from the fruits of the earth and live in contentment, can be erected in only one way, namely, by concentrating all power and strength in one person or in an assembly of people, which, by a majority of votes, could bring together all the wills of citizens into a single will” T. Hobbes Decree Op. With. 132. .

Such power must be based on a voluntary renunciation of the right to own oneself, - “I renounce my right to own myself and give this right to such and such a husband or such and such an assembly of husbands, if you also give them your right and just like me, empower them to do everything and recognize their actions as yours. When this happens, then the multitude of people, united in this way in one person, is called the state, in Latin sivitas. Such is the birth of that great Leviathan, or rather that mortal God, to whom, under the dominion of the immortal God, we owe our peace and our protection. from 133 . This is how a state emerges with supreme power, using the strength and means of all people in such a way as it considers necessary for their peace and common protection.

In Leviathan, Hobbes gave a detailed definition of the state: “The state is a single person, responsible for the actions of which a huge number of people have made themselves responsible by mutual agreement among themselves, so that this person can use the power and means of all their peace and common defense” People who created the state by mutual agreement, not only sanction all its actions, but also recognize themselves as responsible for these actions.

It should be noted that the contractual doctrine of the state was directed against feudal and theological interpretations (patriarchal, monarchy by the grace of God, etc.) and generally corresponded to capitalist relations, the universal legal form of which, as is known, is a contract, a contract. The halo of mysticism was removed from the state; it came to be regarded as one of the many results of a legal agreement - a contract, as a product of human actions.

Thus, the contract as the basis for the emergence of the state in the theory of Hobbes is a kind of consent of the subject, recognizing political power. Another system-forming feature of the state, singled out by Hobbes, is political power, organized as a single entity. “The one who is the bearer of political power is called the sovereign, he is said to have supreme power, and everyone else is his subject.” Thus, relations of domination and subordination arise, i.e. political state. Thus, according to Hobbes, a "political body" is formed.

From the point of view of T. Hobbes, states can arise not only through the voluntary consent of individuals to form a single person and obey him in the hope that it will be able to protect them against everyone. Another way is the acquisition of supreme power by force. For example, the head of the family forces the children to submit to him under the threat of destroying them in case of disobedience, or someone subjugates enemies to his will by military means and, having achieved their obedience, grants them life on this condition (states with “paternal”, paternalistic and despotic power). T. Hobbes calls the states arising as a result of a voluntary agreement based on the establishment or political states. States that come into being with the help of physical force, the thinker refers to those based on acquisition, see Hobbes' decree op. 133; He doesn't show much respect for them. It is worth noting that in this classification of states, T. Hobbes' dislike for the English pre-revolutionary feudal-monarchist orders is visible.

Hobbes considered a normal, healthy state to be one in which the right of a person to life, security, justice and prosperity are ensured. From this point of view, the qualities of political power, its rights and abilities were determined.

The criteria for determining the powers of the supreme power for Hobbes was, first of all, its ability to overcome the "war of all against all", the extreme states of society. So the sovereignty must be "as vast as can be imagined." The one to whom the supreme power (sovereign) is handed over (transferred) is not bound either by civil law or by any of the citizens. The sovereign himself issues and repeals laws, declares war and makes peace, resolves and resolves disputes, appoints all officials, etc. The Sovereign may use the forces and means of his subjects as he deems necessary for their peace and protection. At the same time, the supreme power does not bear any responsibility for its actions to its subjects and is not obliged to account for these actions to them.

The prerogatives of the sovereign are indivisible and not transferable to anyone. “To divide the power of the state means to destroy it, since the divided powers mutually destroy each other.” Thus, Hobbes strongly rejected the concept of separation of powers. This separation of powers is for him the only reason for the civil war then raging in England.

State power, according to Hobbes, in order to fulfill its main purpose - ensuring peace and security for citizens - must be indivisible and sovereign. She should stand above all and should not be subject to anyone's judgment or control. She must be above all laws, for all laws are established by her and only from her receive their strength. Whatever its form, it is inherently limitless. In a republic, the popular assembly has the same power over its subjects as the king has in monarchical government, otherwise anarchy will continue. The denial of absolute power comes, according to Hobbes, from ignorance of human nature and natural laws. It follows from the nature of sovereignty that it cannot be destroyed by the will of the citizens. For, although it proceeds from their free contract, yet the contracting parties have bound their will not only in relation to each other, but also in relation to the supreme power itself; therefore, without the consent of the supreme power itself, they cannot withdraw from their obligation.

Defending the unity of supreme power and the indivisibility of sovereignty, Hobbes at the same time recognized another aspect of the theory of separation of powers, namely: the need to distribute competence in the exercise of power and control, a kind of division of labor in the state mechanism as a guarantee of order and control. Hobbes put forward the concept of political (state) absolutism, based on the "rational-bureaucratic" principles of power and control. Hobbes considered the indicated properties of political power (sovereignty, unity, absolutism) to be common and essential for all forms of the state, both monarchical and republican.

The state has the highest possible power and it "can do whatever it pleases with impunity." The state, according to Hobbes, is a great and powerful force, a kind of "mortal God", who reigns supreme over people and rises above them. This means that the power of the sovereign is in fact his monopoly on the life and death of his subjects; moreover, "whatever the supreme representative does to a subject under any pretext, cannot be considered injustice or lawlessness in the proper sense." Citizens have no rights in relation to the supreme power, and therefore it cannot be rightfully destroyed by people who agreed to establish it.

At the same time, the author of Leviathan, while subordinating the individual to the absolute power of the state, nevertheless leaves him the opportunity to oppose the will of the sovereign. This opportunity is the right to revolt. It opens only when the sovereign, contrary to natural laws, obliges the individual to kill or maim himself or forbids him to defend himself against the attack of enemies. The protection of one's own life is based on the highest law of all nature - the law of self-preservation. The sovereign has no right to transgress this law. Otherwise, he risks losing power.

The goal of the state is to abolish the natural state of man, and establish an order in which people would be provided with security and a peaceful existence. But in order to maintain a state of security, state power must be armed with appropriate rights.

These rights are as follows: Hobbes calls the first right "the sword of justice" - that is, the right to reward and punish with such measure as the sovereign himself considers reasonable. The sovereign is granted the right to bestow wealth and honour, and to impose corporal and pecuniary punishments, as well as the punishment of dishonor, on any subject, in accordance with the law previously issued by the sovereign. And if there was no such law, then the sovereign is given the right to reward and punish, as he thinks reasonable, to encourage people to serve the state or to keep them from harming it.

The second right of the sovereign is the "sword of war," that is, the right to declare war and make peace, according to what he finds useful. This also includes the right to determine the number of armed forces and funds necessary for waging war, because the security of citizens depends on the existence of troops, the strength of the troops depends on the unity of the state, and the unity of the state - on the unity of the supreme power.

The third right is the right of jurisdiction. The sovereign has judicial power and the right to decide disputes. An integral part of the supreme power is the right of jurisdiction, i.e. the right to consider and resolve all disputes that may arise regarding the law, both civil and natural, or regarding this or that fact. For without the solution of disputes, there can be no defense of the subject from the insults of another.

The fourth right is the right to establish property laws, because before the establishment of state power, everyone had the right to everything, which was the reason for the war against everyone, but with the establishment of the state, everything must be determined what belongs to whom.

The fifth right is the right to establish subordination to the authorities, with the help of which it would be possible to carry out a balanced regulation of all functions of state power. The sixth right is the right to prohibit harmful teachings that lead to a violation of peace and tranquility within the state, as well as aimed at undermining state unity. The seventh right is the right to give honorary titles and to determine the position in society that each person should occupy, and those signs of respect that subjects should show each other in public and private meetings. All other rights, according to Hobbes, are contained in the above or can be logically derived from them.

It is worth noting that Hobbes understood that the approach he proposed to determining the size of the powers of the sovereign, the volume of the content of absolute power, could turn people away from it. However, he assures: “There is nothing painful in absolute power, except for the fact that human institutions cannot exist without some inconvenience. And these inconveniences depend on the citizens, not on the authorities.” T. Hobbes peculiarly rejects the opinion that unlimited power should lead to many bad consequences. His main argument is that the absence of such power (turning into a continuous "war of all against all") is fraught with much worse consequences. As the theoretician of political absolutism T. Hobbes, the possibility of tyrannical use of the unlimited and uncontrolled power of the state worries much less than unbridled conflicts of private interests and the confusion of social anarchy they generate.

If the state power is armed with all the rights that belong to citizens in the state of nature, then it also bears those duties that follow from natural laws. All of them, according to the thinker, are contained in one provision: the good of the people is the highest law.

The duty of the sovereign, according to T. Hobbes, is to manage the people well, because the state was established not for its own sake, but for the sake of citizens. Since this good of the people is, first of all, peace, anyone who violates the peace, thereby opposes the prescription of state power. However, it must be added that peace is a blessing in so far as it contributes to the preservation of human life; but people strive not just for life, but for a happy life. Consequently, the task of the authorities is, therefore, to ensure not just life, but the happy life of citizens. But what is a happy life?

Happiness, says the philosopher, consists in enjoying the various benefits of life, and in order to be able to enjoy all these benefits of life, the following is necessary: ​​protection from external enemies, maintaining peace within the state, raising welfare and wealth, and granting the right to every citizen to enjoy freedom without prejudice to other citizens. The state power, therefore, must ensure these four conditions necessary for the happiness of the citizens living in the state. And in order for the state power to fulfill its duties, it must have certain rights, which were mentioned above.

But the state endowed with absolute power must perform, according to Hobbes, not only police and security functions. Its task: "to encourage all kinds of crafts, like shipping, agriculture, fishing, and all industries that demand labor"; to force physically healthy people who shirk from work to work.

He should be engaged in educational and educational activities (in particular, suggesting to his subjects how unlimited the power of the sovereign is and how unconditional their obligations to him are).

The state guarantees its subjects freedom, which is (according to T. Hobbes) the right to do everything that is not prohibited by civil law, in particular “to buy and sell and otherwise conclude contracts with each other, choose their place of residence, food, lifestyle, instruct children at their own discretion, etc.”

The active role of the state is manifested in the vigorous struggle against those teachings that weaken or lead states to disintegration. However, Hobbes called for the use of the power of the state "not against those who are mistaken, but against the errors themselves."

As a theoretician of political absolutism, who advocated the unlimited power of the state as such, T. Hobbes does not pay much attention to the problem of state forms. In his opinion, "power, if only it is perfect enough to be able to protect subjects, is the same in all forms."

According to T. Hobbes, there can be only three forms of the state: monarchy, democracy and aristocracy. The first type includes states in which the supreme power belongs to one person. To the second - states in which the supreme power belongs to the assembly, where any of the citizens has the right to vote. Hobbes calls this type of state the rule of the people. The third type includes states in which the supreme power belongs to the assembly, where not all citizens, but only a certain part of them, have the right to vote.

According to the thinker, these forms of the state differ from each other not in the nature and content of the supreme power embodied in them, but in differences in suitability for the implementation of the purpose for which they were established.

As for other traditional forms of government (tyrannies and oligarchies), Hobbes does not consider them independent types of state. Tyranny is the same monarchy, and the oligarchy is no different from the aristocracy. At the same time, Hobbes' sympathies belonged to the monarchy, he is convinced that it expresses and implements the absolute nature of the power of the state better than other forms; in it, the general interests coincide very closely with the private (i.e., with their own, special) interests of the sovereign. It is more convenient for the supreme power to be precisely monarchic, since "the state is personified in the personality of the king."

Interstate relations, according to Hobbes, can only be relations of rivalry and enmity. States are military camps, defending themselves from each other with the help of soldiers and weapons. Such a state of states, Hobbes emphasizes, should be considered natural, "because they are not subject to any common authority, and the unstable peace between them is soon broken." It is obvious that the era in which he lived gave great attention to the views of Hobbes. At that time, continuous and bloody wars were waged by European states. Despite this, there were thinkers who, under the same historical conditions, considered war not a natural, but an unnatural state of mankind.

Conclusion

Thus, the political and legal doctrine of Hobbes is in line with the theories of natural law and the contractual origin of political power. As we have seen, Hobbes associated the implementation of the laws of nature about the world, equivalent, equality, contract, justice, property with the transition of a person to a political state. They are all summed up in one general rule: Do not do to another what you would not like to be done to you. According to his theory, state power is needed in order to force people to comply with agreements. In juridical terms, the transition to a political state is expressed in the fact that natural laws are concretized in the form of positive (“civil”) legislation issued by state power. Natural laws, according to Hobbes, are not only outwardly binding prescriptions for actions and deeds. They indicate what in human action corresponds to reason, and what contradicts it. Consequently, natural laws contain judgments of good and bad, just and unjust. In other words, these laws are the interconnection of the legal and moral spheres.

The concept of Hobbes about absolute state power is the price of an open and clear expression of a very typical idea for a certain kind of ideology about the main dignity of the state. Its exponents believe that the state has such a dignity if it reliably protects (by any means at the same time) order - the order of relations pleasing to them in society. But such cardinal questions as: does the state become a self-sufficient force, alien to society and opposing it, is it controlled by society and is it responsible to it, is the state built and functioning on democratic and legal principles - are either ignored by supporters of political absolutism, or recognized as unimportant and relegated somewhere into the background.

In the writings of Hobbes, much is said about the "duties of the sovereign." All of them are contained in one provision: the good of the people is the highest law. The duty of the sovereign, according to T. Hobbes, is to manage the people well, because the state was established not for its own sake, but for the sake of citizens. These formulas are full of political wisdom and humanism. But within the framework of the teachings of T. Hobbes on the state, they look more like decorative inserts. The fact is that according to T. Hobbes, people who already exercise supreme power are not in any real dependence on the people and therefore do not bear any obligation to them. Rulers experience only something subjective "in relation to reason, which is a natural, moral and divine law, and to which they must obey in everything, as far as possible." Since Hobbes does not allow the creation of appropriate social and legal institutions that would guarantee such obedience to the sovereign from the outside, it generally seems chimerical. It is worth noting that this is completely in the spirit of the ideologists of absolutism - to entrust the care of order in society to the apparatus, civil laws, to all the real physical power of the state, and to leave care for the well-being of the people at the mercy of the "good will" of the rulers.

It should be noted that the merit of T. Hobbes lies in the fact that he began to consider the state not through the prism of theology, but to derive its laws from reason and experience. The desire to put the study of the state and law on the rails of an objective scientific analysis, lead T. Hobbes to apply the analogy of the state with the human body. The main role is played by the approach to the state as an "artificial person", i.e. as to expediently, skillfully constructed by people from various springs, levers, wheels, threads, etc. automatic mechanism. At the same time, he likened the structure of the state to the structure of a living organism: the sovereign - the soul of statehood, secret agents - the eyes of the state, etc. He compared civil peace with health, and rebellions, civil wars - with the disease of the state, entailing its collapse and death. It was with T. Hobbes that the understanding of the state as a machine was established in Western European political theory, which then had a long and difficult fate.

In general, Hobbes's theory had a great impact on the development of political and legal thought both of his time and later periods. We can say that the concepts of state and law of the XVII-XVIII centuries. developed largely under the sign of the problems raised by Hobbes. The powerful mind of Hobbes, his perspicacity allowed Hobbes to construct a system from which all bourgeois thinkers, not only of the seventeenth, but also of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, up to the present, drew, as from a rich source.

List of used literature

1. Hobbes T. Works in 2 T. T2. / compiler and editor V.V. Sokolov, translated from Latin and English. - M.: Thought. 1991

2. Zorkin V.D. "Political and legal doctrine of Thomas Hobbes" // "Soviet State and Law", 1989, No. 6.

3. History of political and legal doctrines: Pre-Marxist period: Textbook, edited by O.E. Leistva - M: Legal Literature, 1991

4. History of political and legal doctrines: Textbook for universities. 4th ed. under general. ed. professor V.S. Nersesyants. - M: Publishing group NORMA-INFRA * M, 2004.

5. History of philosophy in brief / translated from Czech I.I. Baguta - M: Thought, 1994

6. History of philosophy: a textbook for universities / V. P. Yakovlev - Rostov-on-Don Phoenix 2004

7. History of philosophy: a textbook for universities / V.V., Ilyin - St. Petersburg: Peter 2005

8. Meerovsky B.V. Hobbes. - M., Thought 1975

9. Radugin A.A. Philosophy: A course of lectures - M. Center. 1997