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Originally Posted by tricky  Hobbes posited that the security of the population was reason to entrust leadership in one person (monarch) to provide that security. This was a shift from the machiavelli position of exerting power just to keep people in line. w way street... |
I tend to have the reverse opinion of the two. There was a duty going both ways with Hobbes but the king pretty much was the only one who really had any authority - the divine right of kings (see the Stuarts) and benign despotism were extensions of Hobbesian thinking or rather intertwined. Machiavelli was big on the notion of individual liberty and that those entrusted with the reins of government had a duty to protect that liberty.... but its been a long time since I did any serious reading on this