Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: When engaging a text in political theory, two basic issues to consider are the type of government and the theory of leadership advanced by the political theorist. However, the extensive secondary literature on Hobbes only adequately addresses the first of these questions. The problem is not that the secondary literature fails to note Hobbes’s statements about the qualities of the sovereign. The trouble is his comments on sovereign leadership are typically treated as anomalies in his theory that are, at best, advice. In general, the conventional reading leaves one with the impression that it is the sovereign institution, not the actual character and leadership qualities of the individual or group that is sovereign, which matters.
To balance out the institutional-oriented analyses, the focus of this essay is on Hobbes’s comments about the sovereign. Such a task has been particularly fruitful, as a three rather plausible and competing theories of sovereign leadership are uncovered. It is possible to read Hobbes as providing a) a rather democratic conception of leadership as open to any Hobbesian man so long as he rules, b) an elite theory of leadership that sees the sovereign as one of the ambitious members of the more exclusive aristocratic class, or c) there even is a more classical, Platonic view that the sovereign should be the most politically capable or qualified member of society, one who has mastered Hobbesian political science. While the work concludes with one attempt to determine which theory is most likely intended by Hobbes, it encourages the reader to make his/her own decision of who Hobbes intended to rule.