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Showing posts with label Hobbes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hobbes. Show all posts

Friday, August 21, 2009

Hobbes on Civil Disobedience?

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter XIV

A covenant to accuse oneself, without assurance of pardon, is
likewise invalid. For in the condition of nature, where every man
is judge, there is no place for accusation: and in the civil state,
the accusation is followed with punishment; which being force, a man is not obliged not to resist. ... Also accusations upon torture, are not to be reputed as testimonies. For torture is to be used but as means of conjecture, and light, in the further examination, and search of truth: and what is in that case confessed, tendeth to the ease of him that is tortured; not to the informing of the torturers: and therefore ought not to have the credit of a sufficient testimony: for whether he deliver himself by true, or false accusation, he does it by the right of preserving his own life.

Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/585 on 2009-08-21

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Hobbes on Rights and Liberty

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter XIV

The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is
the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.

By liberty, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments: which
impediments, may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his judgment, and reason shall dictate to him.

Source: Online Library of Liberty, Liberty Fund, Inc.