Only the radical will to live founds sovereignty, regardless of will’s form
Evidence
Now Hobbes says that there is no essential difference between the way a child consents to its mother’s sovereignty in order to preserve its own life (which does not even involve an expression of the will or a contract) and the way the defeated give their consent when the battle is over. What Hobbes is trying to demonstrate is that the decisive factor in the establishment of sovereignty is not the quality of the will, or even its form or level of expression. Basically, it does not matter if we have a knife to our throats, or if what we want is explicitly formulated or not. For sovereignty to exist, there must be— and this is all there must be—a certain radical will that makes us want to live, even though we cannot do so unless the other is willing to let us live. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 112
Categorization
- DEFINE: Reduces Hobbesian sovereignty to a single condition: a radical will to live that depends on another’s permission — form and expression of the will are irrelevant.
- XREF: The mother-child basis of sovereignty in the state of nature anticipates feminist critiques of the social contract (Pateman’s ‘The Sexual Contract’) that the Islamophobia field’s critical-theory toolkit would need. — connects to: Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255; Conquest founds legitimate sovereignty because the defeated prefer life to death — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 111; Resistance of colonized peoples merits support regardless of its form. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 361 (+1 more)
Related
- Conquest founds legitimate sovereignty because the defeated prefer life to death (similarity 0.81)
- Sovereignty is always constructed from below by the fearful, never from above (similarity 0.79)
- Hobbes denies war any role in founding sovereignty (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Conquest founds legitimate sovereignty because the defeated prefer life to death
#exemplifies(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 111 - Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will
#qualifies(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 - An acceptance of will determines the existence of the universe.
#expands(0.75) — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 79 - Resistance of colonized peoples merits support regardless of its form.
#exemplifies(0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 361