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When did Thomas Hobbes believe subjects could stop obeying a sovereign?
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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes, detail of an oil painting by John Michael Wright; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
According to the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, subjects are obligated to obey the sovereign because they have entered into a social contract to trade their liberty for physical safety and security.12
However, this obligation is not absolute. Hobbes argued that subjects may stop obeying the sovereign if the sovereign fails to provide that protection, specifically when subjects feel that their lives are directly threatened or that their condition has become so insecure that it is no better than the anarchy of the state of nature. In such instances, the subjects lose their obligation to obey, as the sovereign has failed to fulfill the primary purpose for which the power was delegated.132