Abstract
For he alone [the head of state] is not a member of the commonwealth, but its creator or preserver, and he alone is authorised to coerce others without being subject to any coercive law himself … For if he too could be coerced, he would not be the head of state, and the hierarchy of subordination would ascend infinitely. But if there were two persons exempt from coercion, neither would be subject to coercive laws, and neither could do to the other anything contrary to right, which is impossible.
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Notes
Immanuel Kant, ‘On the Common Saying: “This May be True in Theory, but it does not Apply in Practice’”, Part II (‘On the Relationship of Theory to Practice in Political Right’), in Political Writings 2nd ed., edited by Hans Reiss, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 75.
Leibniz, ‘Caesarinus Furstenerius’ (1677), in Political Writings, edited by Patrick Riley, 2nd ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1988, 118–19.
Benito Mussolini, The political and social doctrine of Fascism, (authorized translation by Jane Soames), (London: Hogarth Press, 1933), 11–12.
Richard Tuck, Hobbes, in Quentin Skinner et al., Great Political Thinkers. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 211–12.
Steven Lukes, Individualism. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).
Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics. (London: Routledge, 1967 and 1995), 139.
For example, Kenneth Minogue, ‘Hobbes and Political Language’, paper presented at the APSA meeting, Atlanta, 31 August–3 September 1989.
All reference are to Albert Camus, The Plague, translated by Stuart Gilbert, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960).
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© 2000 Gabriella Slomp
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Slomp, G. (2000). The Ideology of Political Geometry. In: Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333984437_13
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