engleski

State as legal person: the ambivalent nature of Leviathan

Paper focuses on the original conceptual interpretation of the state found in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. I will argue that Hobbes’s concept of state contains elements that weaken its apparent absolutist nature. In chapter XVI Hobbes uses theory of authorisation to define state as a legal person created through a process of representation binding the sovereign and the subjects. The fact that in the same chapter Hobbes lists church, bridge and hospital as examples of legal persons went unrecognized in the previous interpretations. These are typical medieval ecclesiastical legal persons that fall under higher generic term universitas. Even though the medieval canonists were advocates of the papal plenitudo potestatis at the level of the universal Church, their doctrine regarding legal personality of individual ecclesiastical legal persons was a substantially anti- absolutist one. By strengthening the rights of the body as opposed to the head within the various ecclesiastical corporations, they provided basic theoretical premises for disputation of the papal supremacy culminating in the conciliar movement. Given that it is conceived as a result of political representation while its legal personality is understood within the framework of canon law, we may question if Hobbes's Leviathan is an intrinsically ambivalent creature. Is it a legal person in which the will of the sovereign gains absolute supremacy only after accepting its direct dependence on the will of its subjects?

Thomas Hobbes ; State ; authorisation ; canon law ; legal person ; sovereign ; sovereignty ; universitas

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