Upon the earth there is not its like-- ? : Thomas Hobbes’s natural law theory of morality and politics

Abstract

Thomas Hobbes insisted that he had set forth the "true and only moral philosophy" and that he was the founder of civil science. Yet, the character of Hobbes's moral and political theory and its role in his civil doctrines has been the subject of much controversy. In this dissertation I defend an interpretation as a properly natural law theorist in his accounts of the foundations of moral philosophy and civil science, morality, commonwealth, and positive law. I juxtapose Hobbes's thought to the Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law tradition and argue that Hobbes's novelty flows chiefly from his doctrine of the human good.