CIVIL WAR, MORAL INDIVIDUALISM, AND LEGAL POSITIVISM IN HOBBES’ POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21680/1983-2109.2026v33n70ID36286Keywords:
Hobbes; Guerra Civil; Opinião; Individualismo Moral; Positivismo Jurídico.Abstract
This paper argues that the centrality of the concern with civil war in Hobbes’ political philosophy sheds light on the modern divide between moral individualism and legal positivism. For this purpose, it examines Hobbes’ understanding of civil war and, in particular, the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. In this connection, the role of private opinions, which he calls the “pretense of right, is decisive. In modernity, individuals understand themselves as moral agents entitled to decide what the good is. This moral pluralism leads to civil war. Then, it considers Hobbes’ absolutist answer to this predicament. It argues that his articulation of absolutism is radically different from previous theories of divine right and that it clarifies the genesis of the ideals of legal positivism and the liberal notion of state neutrality.
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