Hobbes's Commonwealth

Before I look at the Social Contract and Hobbes' commonwealth under the sovereign, I think its important to briefly look at why he believed that a social contract had to be established and also why it came about. Hobbes obviously had a negative view on the human state of nature stating: "Men have no pleasure...on the contrary a great deal of grief...where there is no power able to over-awe them all... it is …

…mere power. The rights retained by the subject are the minimal rights of self-preservation the right to defend his person, not to testify against himself, not to assist in his own punishment. Ultimately the right of capital punishment exercised by the sovereign over the individual is no more than the last vestige of the right of nature, and the relationship between the sovereign and a condemned man is essentially that of the state of war.