Hobbes on the power to punish

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hobbes’s account of the sovereign’s right to punish in Leviathan has led to a longstanding interpretive dispute. The debate is prompted by the fact that, prima facie, Hobbes makes two inconsistent claims: subjects (i) authorize all the acts of the sovereign, and are hence authors of their own punishment, yet (ii) have the liberty to resist such punishment. I argue that attending to Hobbes’s surprisingly neglected account of power yields a novel interpretation of his theory of punishment. Hobbes, it turns out, is working with two conceptions of power: potestas, a juridical power, and potentia, a factual power. Each power grounds one of the ‘inconsistent’ claims above: potestas founds the authorized condemnation by the legal system, and potentia the factual enforced penalty, which is not directly authorized and can be resisted.