The definition of a “liberal thinker” depends greatly on the context in which it is examined. In Leviathan, Hobbes understands freedom as simply “the absence of external obstacles” (Hobbes, 21.1). However, classically, it is often used to describe people who favor more individual freedom while largely rejecting prevailing political norms of autocracy and excessive government control.[1] In this essay, the term “liberal thinker” will be associated with people who adhere to the defined characteristics presented above. I will object to the misconception that Hobbes is a "liberal thinker", but rather a proponent of absolutism, primarily based on the clear emphasis on securing the authority of the sovereign over his subjects, presented in his political doctrine, the Leviathan. Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Leviathan was written during the time of the English Civil War, a period of anarchy where Hobbes witnessed high death tolls and the dissolution of the monarchy. as the result of human passions, rather than on rational grounds. Hobbes believed that the citizens of England had been driven into a position of anarchy in the aftermath of the war, where "every man against every man...The notions of good and evil, of justice and injustice, have no place there. place” (Hobbes, 13.13) and thus his view of human nature was a series of inevitable cyclical wars. In the absence of a common power, survival was the key: everyone only cares about themselves. This view of human nature undoubtedly gives rise to tyranny, as it presents humans as naturally brutal creatures in need of absolutist government to keep warped human nature in check. However, almost every philosopher, before and since, has challenged this view and painted a more benevolent picture of human nature. As Tarlton puts it, “Hobbes's contemporaries, however, generally recognized the despotic nature of Leviathan's political theory. Many writers, from very disparate political beliefs, agreed in rejecting Hobbes' absolutist prescriptions” (Tarlton, 2002). Smith, for example, believed that all humans experience natural feelings of sympathy in what he called a "feeling of companionship".[2] Locke also disagreed with the Hobbesian view of humanity and its existence in a state of nature. “Promises and truck deals…and respect for faith belong to men as men, not as members of society” (Locke, 1983) shows how humans create peaceful relationships not through a centralized body but through transactions and exchanges. However, because Hobbes constructs a tyrannical view of human nature and how it works, he creates a political theory that is itself tyrannical. Hobbes writes “that there can be no breaking of alliance on the part of the sovereign; and therefore none of his subjects, under any pretense of confiscation, can be freed from their subjection” (Hobbes, 18.2.2). By prescribing an absolutist sovereign above the law, based on the idea that an alliance is created by subjects with a sovereign, is in itself a recipe for tyranny. Hobbes proposes the acceptance of a dictatorial and authoritarian government that can effectively do whatever it wants because any act or law instituted by the sovereign is supposed to require the implicit ratification of the people. Given the Hobbesian view of human nature, the resulting form of sovereign prescribed for..