Bobbio Hobbes’ reader: sovereign power and natural law

Abstract

The central question of this article was to elucidate the relationship between sovereign power and the maintenance of law, that, by nature, men have to defend and preserve their lives. The relation between sovereign power and natural law can be explained from the following questions: does natural law and man have to preserve his life and the integrity of the members of his civil enterprise with the institution of the State? On the other hand, the sovereign power instituted as absolute power has been limited by the natural right that men have of self-preservation? Our Goal is to verify if the natural right that man has to preserve his life and an integrity of the members of his body disappears with the institution of the State. It is also tried to undertake whether the sovereign power instituted as absolute power is limited by the natural right that men have to self-preservation. The hypothesis of work that we elaborate is that of a measure in the sovereign power like absolute power and the natural right that the men possess, not civil state, of self-preservation. What is proposed is to verify, by what ways Norberto Bobbio, reader of Hobbes, contributes to the clarification of the problem posed, recurrent and central in the theory and philosophy of law.