Autorictas facit legem: the problem of justification of authority in Hobbes

Abstract

This text aims to address the relationship between science and authority in Thomas Hobbes’ philosophy. The fundamental problem that motivates this text lies in Hobbes' constant assertions that it is authority and not truth that makes the law. Such statements, which reveal adherence to the voluntarist conception of law, seem to compromise Hobbes' project of institution of scientia civilis, since the sovereign's decision would be of a merely arbitrary character and therefore not rationally founded. From this perspective, the project of founding a science of morals and politics seems to lose much of its strength, which in turn makes the establishment of an adequate normative basis for political authority problematic, since the justification of the normative statements that underlie it should necessarily derive from scientific knowledge. The intention is to list some elements that can demonstrate that the thesis of auctoritas facit legem does not imply the abandonment of rationality, proving that not only the justification of authority, but the establishment of civil law itself follows a set of rational principles.