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    Spinoza's account of sovereign authority differs fundamen... — Carmelics
    Home/Democracy & Governance
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    Spinoza's account of sovereign authority differs fundamentally from Hobbes's account, in which the sovereign is always vested with nearly absolute legislative authority.

    Democracy & GovernanceSocial Contract
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.For Spinoza, the sovereign loses its right when it fails to secure the conditions for collective self-preservation, making authority intrinsically revocable.
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    • 2.For Hobbes, subjects alienate their natural right entirely to the sovereign, who retains authority even when governance is harmful, as in Leviathan Ch. 18.
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    • 3.This structural asymmetry—conditional versus alienated authority—marks a fundamental, not merely gradational, difference between the two theories.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Spinoza grounds sovereign legitimacy in conatus: the state's right extends only as far as its actual power to sustain collective striving, per the Tractatus Politicus 3/2.
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    • 2.Hobbes grounds legitimacy in covenant: the sovereign's authority derives from a one-time act of consent that cannot be revoked by subsequent popular dissatisfaction.
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    • 3.Grounding authority in ongoing natural power rather than historical covenant produces a categorically distinct theory of political obligation, not merely a weaker Hobbesian one.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.For Spinoza, sovereign right is conditioned on and limited by the collective power of the people.
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    • 2.For Hobbes, sovereign legislative authority is nearly absolute and not contingent on the people's ongoing power to resist.
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    Democracy & GovernanceSocial Contract

    Related

    For Hobbes, sovereign legislative authority is nearly absolute and not contingen...For Hobbes, subjects alienate their natural right entirely to the sovereign, who...For Spinoza, sovereign right is conditioned on and limited by the collective pow...For Spinoza, the sovereign loses its right when it fails to secure the condition...
    +4 moreShow less
    Grounding authority in ongoing natural power rather than historical covenant pro...Hobbes grounds legitimacy in covenant: the sovereign's authority derives from a ...Spinoza grounds sovereign legitimacy in conatus: the state's right extends only ...This structural asymmetry—conditional versus alienated authority—marks a fundame...

    Similar

    For Hobbes, sovereign legislative authority is nearly absolute and not...83%The sovereign is the sole civil and religious authority80%The sovereign power in a State has right over a subject only in propor...80%Divine and civil authority converge in the form of the sovereign79%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: spinoza-political
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    By adhering to a strict naturalism about right and obligation and maintaining that “the sovereign power in a State has right over a subject only in proportion to the excess of its power over that of a subject” (Epistle 50), Spinoza, unlike Hobbes, places the burden of political stability on the sovereign rather than the subject (see Wernham 1958, 27). The commonwealth must be structured so as to promote compliance; when there is excessive vice or non-compliance, the blame must be “laid at the do
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit