Book contents
- Hobbes’s On the Citizen
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Hobbes’s On the Citizen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Excavating On the Citizen
- Chapter 2 Hobbes and Aristotle on the Foundation of Political Science
- Chapter 3 All the Mind’s Pleasure: Glory, Self-Admiration, and Moral Motivation in On the Citizen and Leviathan
- Chapter 4 The Right of Nature and Political Disobedience: Hobbes’s Puzzling Thought Experiment
- Chapter 5 Motivation, Reason, and the Good in On the Citizen
- Chapter 6 Property and Despotic Sovereignty
- Chapter 7 Sovereignty and Dominium: The Foundations of Hobbesian Statehood
- Chapter 8 Corporate Persons without Authorization
- Chapter 9 Hobbes on Love and Fear of God
- Chapter 10 “A Rhapsody of Heresies”: The Scriptural Politics of On the Citizen
- Chapter 11 On the Citizen and Church-State Relations
- Chapter 12 Sovereign-Making and Biblical Covenants in On the Citizen
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Chapter 8 - Corporate Persons without Authorization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2019
- Hobbes’s On the Citizen
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Hobbes’s On the Citizen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Excavating On the Citizen
- Chapter 2 Hobbes and Aristotle on the Foundation of Political Science
- Chapter 3 All the Mind’s Pleasure: Glory, Self-Admiration, and Moral Motivation in On the Citizen and Leviathan
- Chapter 4 The Right of Nature and Political Disobedience: Hobbes’s Puzzling Thought Experiment
- Chapter 5 Motivation, Reason, and the Good in On the Citizen
- Chapter 6 Property and Despotic Sovereignty
- Chapter 7 Sovereignty and Dominium: The Foundations of Hobbesian Statehood
- Chapter 8 Corporate Persons without Authorization
- Chapter 9 Hobbes on Love and Fear of God
- Chapter 10 “A Rhapsody of Heresies”: The Scriptural Politics of On the Citizen
- Chapter 11 On the Citizen and Church-State Relations
- Chapter 12 Sovereign-Making and Biblical Covenants in On the Citizen
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Summary
In Leviathan, Hobbes uses his new theory of authorization to explain the nature of corporate persons. While On the Citizen lacks the theory of authorization, it includes several accounts of corporate persons. In On the Citizen, Hobbes suggests that a group forms a corporate person when its members accept obligations to support a sovereign, when the members are all compelled to act in concert, or when the members of the group adopt voting rules for making decisions. Hobbes also uses his analysis of the commonwealth as a corporate person to argue for the sovereign’s immunity in On the Citizen much as he does in Leviathan. Generally speaking, the Leviathan account of corporate persons is superior to the ones in On the Citizen. However, Hobbes needs the voting rules account from On the Citizen in order to explain how democratic and aristocratic assemblies can serve as sovereigns. Since he tries to replace the voting rules account with the authorization account in Leviathan, this raises a problem for him that he does not appreciate.
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- Hobbes's On the CitizenA Critical Guide, pp. 145 - 160Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019