POL200Y1 Lecture Notes - Civil Society
Document Summary
The transfer of right, a covenant is made with the sovereign and another cannot be made to follow another. Once they gave their power to a sovereign, it cannot be taken back without the sovereign"s permission. A covenant with god cannot undo the sovereign"s power either. It is unjust to believe that a pact with god supersedes that of a sovereign. The sovereign is the high priest, because he controls religious practice. There is no free religious practice in leviathan. The state has to control the doctrine in all books before they"re published. Hobbes emphasizes that the sovereign cannot be punished because justice and justice derive purely by the sovereign"s will. He was authorized by the people and the font of law, he is not beholden to the people. There is no possibility of appealing to any bill or constitutional rights; ie religious freedom, no freedom of speech. The rights begin and end at the sovereign"s will.
