De Cive

Quick Facts

• Title: De Cive, usually translated as On the Citizen
• Author: Thomas Hobbes
• First published: 1642 in Latin; revised Latin edition in 1647; English translation in 1651 as Philosophicall Rudiments Concerning Government and Society
• Context: written just before the English Civil War and published in the year the war began
• Structure: three parts called Liberty, Dominion, and Religion
• Main problem: how fearful, self-protective people can become citizens under a stable commonwealth
• Main labels: Social Contract, Political Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy

The Problem

De Cive asks what happens when people have no common power above them. Hobbes is not asking whether people can be friendly at dinner or helpful to neighbors. He is asking whether lasting civil peace can rest on goodwill alone.

His answer is no. Human beings need one another, but they also compete for scarce goods, fear attack, seek reputation, and disagree about religion and justice. If no public authority can settle disputes, even cautious people have reason to arm themselves, strike first, or refuse to trust promises.

The background matters. England was entering a crisis over royal power, Parliament, taxation, religious authority, and obedience. Hobbes thought arguments about who may judge the ruler were not harmless theory. In the wrong setting, they could become civil war.

In One Minute

De Cive argues that civil peace is an artificial achievement. People are not born ready-made citizens. They become citizens when they leave the state of nature, make covenants, and accept a sovereign power strong enough to enforce law.

The state of nature is Hobbes's picture of life without a shared judge, lawmaker, or enforcement power. In that condition, each person has a natural right to preserve himself by whatever means seem necessary. Since everyone has that same liberty, no one is secure.

Reason points toward peace. The laws of nature tell people to seek peace, give up the unlimited right to everything when others do the same, and keep agreements. But agreements are weak unless a common power can punish betrayal. So Hobbes defends sovereign authority as the human device that turns fear into order.

The Main Argument

Hobbes begins by rejecting a comforting idea inherited from Aristotle: that human beings are naturally political animals in the strong sense, already fit for civic life. People do gather together, but often for gain, safety, honor, trade, or advantage. A crowd is not yet a commonwealth. A commonwealth needs trust, rules, and a power able to make those rules count.

The first step is natural equality. Hobbes does not mean that everyone is equally wise, strong, or virtuous. He means people are equal enough to threaten one another. The weak can kill the strong by surprise, alliance, or tools. Because no one is naturally invulnerable, everyone has reason to worry about everyone else.

From equality comes mutual fear. If two people want the same field, weapon, office, or reputation, and there is no trusted judge, each may think attack is safer than waiting. This is the state of nature. It is a "war of all against all" because the threat of violence is always present, not because everyone is literally fighting every minute.

In the state of nature, each person has a natural right to everything he thinks necessary for survival. This right is a liberty, not a moral permission slip saying every action is admirable. It means there is no higher civil law stopping a person from using his own judgment for self-preservation.

Natural law is different. A law of nature is a rule discovered by reason about how to preserve life. The first rule is to seek peace when peace is possible. The next is to lay down the unlimited right to everything, if others will do the same. The next is to keep covenants, because peace collapses if promises mean nothing.

A covenant is an agreement that transfers or limits a right. For example, people may give up private revenge and agree to use courts instead. But Hobbes thinks covenants based only on trust are unstable when there is no common power. If betrayal is profitable and no one can punish it, fear returns.

The solution is the commonwealth. People covenant with one another to authorize a sovereign, meaning one person or assembly with final public authority. The sovereign's job is to make law, judge disputes, command defense, punish crime, and keep the peace. Hobbes allows monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy in theory, but he insists that sovereign power must be unified. If the army, courts, legislature, and church pull subjects in rival directions, the commonwealth begins to dissolve.

The third part, Religion, applies the same logic to church and state. Hobbes does not treat religious conflict as private decoration. He thinks claims made in God's name can move people to resist civil authority. So he argues that public religious teaching and interpretation must not become a rival sovereign power. His aim is civil peace, not modern religious liberty.

There is one important limit. No one can truly give up the natural right to preserve his own life. A subject may be obligated to obey the law, but a person threatened with death will still try to escape or resist. Sovereign power is broad because peace is fragile, but it is justified by protection.

Key Ideas With Examples

• State of nature: life without a common authority able to make and enforce law. Example: two families claim the same well, and there is no court both sides trust.
• Natural right: each person's liberty to use his power for self-preservation. Example: during a shipwreck, a person grabs floating wood because he thinks it is his only way to live.
• Law of nature: a rule of reason for avoiding destruction and seeking peace. Example: if everyone breaks promises whenever it helps, trade, alliance, and safety disappear.
• Covenant: an agreement that gives up or transfers some liberty. Example: neighbors stop settling injuries by revenge and authorize a magistrate to judge cases.
• Sovereign: the final public authority in a commonwealth. Example: if two courts issue opposite commands and each claims final power, subjects are pushed back toward faction.
• Civil peace: more than a quiet day. It is a stable condition where disputes can be handled by law instead of private force.
• Citizen: a person who lives under civil authority and owes obedience because the commonwealth provides public protection.
• Justice: for Hobbes, justice begins with valid covenants and public law. Before stable agreements, there is harm and danger, but no settled civil standard of mine and yours.
• Religion and politics: Hobbes thinks public religion becomes politically dangerous when clergy can command disobedience in God's name. Example: a preacher telling soldiers to ignore the magistrate can split the commonwealth.
• Social contract: the explanation of political authority through agreement. Hobbes does not need it to be a signed historical event. It is a way to show why people have reason to accept a common power.

Why It Matters

De Cive is the compact early version of Hobbes's political philosophy. Elements of Law had already sketched the move from human nature to political authority. De Cive turns that material into a focused civil treatise. Leviathan later expands the same basic argument with a fuller account of human psychology, representation, scripture, and the church.

The book matters because it makes order something that must be built. Law, property, rights, and justice do not simply float above political life. They need institutions that can interpret rules, settle disputes, and enforce judgments.

It also changes natural law. Older Natural Law Theory often tied law to a rich moral order, virtue, or the common good. Hobbes narrows the center of gravity toward self-preservation and peace. Natural law tells us how not to destroy ourselves.

That is why De Cive remains useful even for readers who reject its politics. It asks a hard question behind every legal order: what happens to rights, promises, and moral claims when no one can enforce them?

Proponents, Critics, and Opponents

Hobbes's strongest supporters are usually not people who love tyranny. They are readers who think civil war, religious violence, and collapsing authority are worse than strong government. Political realists use Hobbes because he begins with fear, power, and insecurity instead of ideal citizens.

John Locke is the classic contrast. In Two Treatises of Government, Locke also uses natural rights, consent, and a state of nature, but he makes government limited and conditional. If government attacks the rights it exists to protect, the people may resist.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau later keeps the language of contract but rejects Hobbes's fear-based solution. In The Social Contract, legitimate authority must express the people as a collective body, not merely protect isolated individuals from one another.

Religious critics objected that Hobbes put church authority too far under civil rule. Republican and liberal critics object that his sovereign has too much power and too few checks. Natural law critics object that he reduces moral law too sharply to survival and peace.

The lasting criticism is simple: Hobbes explains why authority is necessary, but may give too much power to the authority that is supposed to protect us.

Related Pages

• Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
• Elements of Law
• Natural Law Theory
• John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract