According to Thomas Hobbes, the liberties subjects have in a political system they operate under include all liberties to exercise sovereign power. According to Hobbes, liberty is freedom to act in accordance to one’s will without being physically hindered. He argues that, subjects have the liberty to choose the form of leadership they need through voting or developing civil laws. Subjects have the liberty to create the civil laws and get the leaders they need under a sovereign system. In this case, nothing hinders subjects from changing the law or the system that they operate under even when the system looks as it hinders their free will to take some action. The argument here is that subjects have the liberties to form civil laws and systems in operation.
In addition, Hobbes argues that subjects have liberties to create civil laws through their participation in the formation of the social contract. Through exercising their civil freedoms, they become actors who shape the sovereign’s power. In other words, subjects have liberties to create their own freedoms and responsible for their own hindrances through their actions. In this case, subjects under a sovereign state have the liberties to choose the way they would want to be led and one to be their leader (Sreedhar, 2010). They have the liberties to choose the form of leadership they would want and the way it should be responsible over them. Subjects have the power to choose the civil laws that they would want to govern their lives regardless of the fact that the civil laws they create may bring hindrances to their own actions.
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Reference
Sreedhar, S. (2010). Hobbes on Resistance: Defying the Leviathan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
