Fisher Digital Publications

Title

Liberty, Rights, and Will in Hobbes: A Response to David Van Mill

Authors

John D. Harman, Saint John Fisher UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-1997

Keywords

Freedom

Abstract

David Van Mill recently argued in this journal that Hobbes's theory of freedom in Leviathan is fundamentally confused. Van Mill finds that this confusion arises from the supposed inconsistency between Hobbes's initial account of liberty as “the absence of external impediments” in Chapter 14 and subsequent uses of the term in contexts where he must necessarily have held a different concept. (This occurs most notably in Chapter 21, where he discusses the “liberty of subjects.”) According to Van Mill, the consequence of this confusion is nothing less than the disintegration of Hobbes's whole system. Against this account, I argue that Hobbes presents a consistent, if somewhat flawed, account of freedom sufficient to save him from the dire conclusions drawn by Van Mill and others.

DOI

10.2307/2998642

Comments

© 1997, Cambridge University Press. Original publication is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2998642

Publication Information

Harman, John D. (1997). "Liberty, Rights, and Will in Hobbes: A Response to David Van Mill." Journal of Politics 59.3, 893-902.

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