Comparing Mores Utopia, Machiavellis The Discourses, and Hobbes The

Relationship Between the Sovereign and the Subjects inMores Utopia, Machiavellis The Discourses, and Hobbes The Leviathan Thomas More, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes crack cocaine models for the relationship between the sovereign and the people in their works Utopia, The Discourses, and The Leviathan. each argues that ensuring the common good of the people should be the primary goal of the sovereign. However, they differ in the specifics of their descriptions of this relationship and in their explanations of the sovereigns motivation for valuing the successfulness of the people. An examination of the specified passages in each of these works will mop up the comparison of their models for this relationship. Mores discussion of the sovereign occurs in the circumstance of the discussion of a monarch as the trustee of the welfare of the people. The king is a common citizen who has been invested with the authority or majesty of sovereignty. He is then(prenominal) distingui shed from the rest of the population by the responsibilities he has to them and the powers that are entire in these responsibilities. He is bound to fulfill these responsibilities and not to abuse the privileges by the threat of rebellion from the poor and, therefore, discontented people that would result from clumsy or misused sovereignty. He is also constrained by his testify natural desire for prestige, and his prestige is dependent on his subjects wealth and comfortably being. To desire this kind of prestige, he must be a stainless man. Without this virtue, his vices of pride and laziness are likely to reduce him to taking his subjects property in order to serve his greed and to attempt their pacification by reducing them to abject poverty. If his own prid... ...larly influenced by the monarchs take of incompetence or corruption. All three sovereigns rely upon virtu, that is, effectiveness in ensuring the common good of their subjects however, all three have different de finitions of what constitutes virtu. In Mores sovereignty, it is controlling human nature and channeling it into promoting the general prosperity. For Machiavellis sovereignty, it is the result of the pursuit of self-interested goals, both on the part of the ruler and the ruled. In Hobbes sovereignty, it is the logical result of fear and of human, peace seeking, nature. Works CitedHobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. More, Thomas. Utopia. Trans. Clarence H. Miller. second ed. Yale University Press. 2001Walker, Leslie J. The Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli Routledge, 2013