Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
 
does not as such count as a philosopher of the Enlightenment in the full sense of the term. By him one does not yet find the principle that there are equal, unalienable rights for all men and women. Nevertheless, by reason of his philosophy of the state, he ranks as one of the pioneer thinkers on human rights.
 
According to Hobbes, every human being has the right to put into practice his talents for the sake of self-preservation and development. Writing in the wake of the English Civil War, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition, which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to do everything in the world. This inevitably leads to conflict, a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes).
 
To escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede their natural rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace. However, he also states that in severe cases of abuse, rebellion is expected. In particular, the doctrine of separation of powers is rejected: the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers. In such a state, the individual subject has no claim on the state as such. However, the sovereign must justify its exercise of power over against individual interests of its citizens. This “new” idea was to play a key role in the philosophers who followed him.