A good sign that Hobbes's justification of sovereignty fails is that it is rare to see someone walk away from a reading of Leviathan a convinced absolutist. Ever since they were first published, Hobbes's political writings, though often evoking admiration (Skinner 1972), have generally aroused intense opposition from conservative and liberal thinkers alike. As one scholar of the seventeenth century notes, Hobbes was regarded as the “Monster of Malmesbury,” the “bug-bear of the nation” (Mintz 1969, vii), and another scholar of the period relates that when Clarendon decided to spend his time during his banishment in France refuting Leviathan, he was embarking upon a “reputable and well-thought-of task” (Bowle 1951, 33). Twentieth-century readers, although intrigued by the power of Hobbes's argument, are even more opposed to instituting any of Hobbes's ideas than his contemporaries. What these attitudes indicate is that Hobbes's argument, compelling and sophisticated though it is, fails to justify its conclusion, and in this chapter we will explore exactly where and how it fails.

The arguments I will be discussing do not attack the truth of the premisses of Hobbes's argument; that is, they do not challenge the argument's soundness, only its validity.