Hobbes on Keeping the Contract

 For Hobbes, why does he think that we will keep the contract that we make to leave the state of nature?  If it is motivated entirely by our pursuit of our own benefit, won’t we have reasons to violate it in any case in which adhering to it is not to our own benefit?  If so, won’t the contract fail?  His answer to the “Foole” seems to be crucial to his response to such challenges.

 

Defined by Hobbes, covenants are the foundation of cooperation and society, requiring individuals to trust one another despite the risk of betrayal. Hobbes’ answer to the Fool focuses on the idea that notions of right and wrong (justice and injustice) arise only with this establishment of covenants to leave the state of nature. That is to say, to break a covenant is to create injustice as doing so would undermine the very foundation of the society that was created for mutual benefit.

Hobbes goes further by highlighting how, if motivated by our pursuit of our own benefit, we attempt to violate these covenants that led us out of the state of nature, the observance of our creation of injustice would lead other individuals who stuck to the covenant to criticize and unite in anger / displeasure / strength against us. This means that, even from the perspective of self-interest, it is rational to adhere to the covenant as it is to our benefit to do so (Hobbes 90). 

However, Hobbes also states that covenants entered into by fear are valid, but covenants not to defend oneself from force by force are always void (imprisonment, death, etc) (86). This raises the question: What happens when an individual is sentenced to death by a sovereign? Shouldn’t covenants be rationally voided (and broken) if the sovereign’s actions threaten an individual’s self-preservation (i.e. imprisonment or sentencing to death)? Given that Hobbes champions the right to self-preservation in a way that seems to trump all else, it seems to me that a person sentenced to death could (and should) rationally break the covenant.