Hobbes Arguments Against Punishment

A criminal resisting punishment is usually considered a greater menace to society than one who obediently accepts his punishment. Further, it seems illogical that there be, both, a right to punish and a right to resist punishment. When punishment is legitimate, why should a criminal be allowed to resist it? Even more strange seems the concept of respecting criminals. Why must we respect them? Further, how can we incarcerate or execute them, and respect them, at the same time? This paper seeks to answer some of these questions. Primarily, it argues that there can be a simultaneous right to punish and to resist, and that acknowledging this right to resist means giving respect to criminals. It consists of four sections. Section one shows how,

To prevent disagreement arising from a plurality of ideas, individuals “confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will” (Hobbes, 77). Hobbes imagined that in such a commonwealth, every individual says to another, “I authorize and give up my right of governing myself, on this condition that you give up your right to him (the sovereign), and authorize all his actions in like manner” (77). Specifically, each person gives up his natural right, i.e., “to do absolutely anything and everything” that can contribute towards his self-preservation, on the condition that others make a similar promise, with the aim that the sovereign be the only one authorized to protect everybody (Ristroph, 609). In short, subjects give up the liberty to defend others who are being punished, they lay down their natural right to use force (mainly towards those who do not pose an imminent threat to them), and they become obligated to help the sovereign punish others (Green, 117). Thus, the right to self-preservation (particularly, using violence against a non-imminent threat), belonging to all natural mortals in the state of nature, turns

Thus punishment is only legitimate if it is inflicted by public authority. Accordingly, only the sovereign, or the sovereign’s political representatives—granted authority to punish via executive decree—can legitimately carry out punishment. Likewise, acts of private revenge cannot be considered punishment (Yates, The Right to Punish, 242). The sovereign, in the commonwealth, “bears the person” of the state, and “every-one of them (subjects) own and acknowledge himself to be author of whatsoever he…. shall Act, or cause to be Acted, concerning the common peace and safetie” (Hobbes, 77). Thus, the sovereign not only represents the subjects (bears the person), but is also authorized by them. “The words and actions of authorized representatives are owned by their authors, that is, the people they represent” (Green, 118). Based on this, when a sovereign punishes a particular subject, the subject rightly authorizes this act of the sovereign. However, even though a subject may authorize his own punishment, he cannot alienate the right or liberty to resist his own punishment (118). “For though a man may covenant thus, “Unless I do so, or so, kill me”; he cannot covenant thus, “Unless I do so, or