Question

How does the structure of Cicero’s argument in On the Commonwealth compare to the structure of Hobbes’ argument in Leviathan?

Answer 1

Whereas Hobbes’ argument is that the only way to achieve the establishment of a commonwealth is through a social contract, Cicero’s argues that the only way to achieve a perfect Commonwealth is trough an mixed form of government combining a free society, loyalty to monarchy and aristocracy’s wisdom.    

To Hobbes, it is important that a sovereign power protects the commonwealth and provide security to its citizens. In order to grant the defense of a society, a commonwealth shall have complete authority. Hobbes compares the commonwealth to an artificial person, as if it were a human body made up with the bodies of the citizens and establishing the sovereign in the head, and calls it ‘Leviathan’. Therefore, this Leviathan is the result of Hobbes’ perfect government.  

Cicero’s also explains that a mixture of different forms of government would make the perfect Commonwealth, and even when he says that a Republic is made for the people, his thought has nothing to do with a socialist state, in fact, he believes that there is a social contract between Law and society’s interests. In conclusion, both Cicero and Hobbes state that the government is responsible to seek social justice, by defending its citizens through the power conferred by them.