MOCKING HOBBES: FLORIDA’S STAND YOUR GROUND LAW AS IMAGINING A STATE OF NATURE

Author

• Mumbi Ngugi

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Njambi, Wairimũ

Abstract

In his 1651 Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argues that without systems of law and formal government, people live a state of nature wherein there is a “war of all against all”. “The right of nature... jus natural,” Hobbes writes, “is the liberty each man has to use his own power... for the preservation of his own nature- that is to say, of his own life.” The war of all against all is concomitant of the absence of law. People’s lives are “nasty, brutish and short”. Consequently, laws, through reason, regulate the subjective basis of all action in such a state of nature.

Comments

Includes bibliography.

Recommended Citation

Ngugi, Mumbi, "MOCKING HOBBES: FLORIDA’S STAND YOUR GROUND LAW AS IMAGINING A STATE OF NATURE" (2018). Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019. 362.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_honors_2/362

Extent

94 p.

Identifier

FAUHT00034