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<p>Thomas Hobbes’s most important recommendations for a sovereign reader concerned the governing of opinion. Due to the spread of false doctrines and their powerful champions, Hobbes was afraid that subjects would have opinions contrary to the maintenance of peace. His solution comprehended a combination of civic education and censorship. This text explains how Hobbes justifies his recommendations from the perspective of individual deliberation. It argues that Hobbes conceived censoring circulating doctrines as a way of keeping subjects’ minds like clean paper, ready for the sovereign to imprint civil doctrine in them through teaching, thereby increasing the chances of influencing subjects’ (free) deliberation, and thus of producing obedience.</p>
</abstract>

Thomas Hobbes’s most important recommendations for a sovereign reader concerned the governing of opinion. Due to the spread of false doctrines and their powerful champions, Hobbes was afraid that subjects would have opinions contrary to the maintenance of peace. His solution comprehended a combination of civic education and censorship. This text explains how Hobbes justifies his recommendations from the perspective of individual deliberation. It argues that Hobbes conceived censoring circulating doctrines as a way of keeping subjects’ minds like clean paper, ready for the sovereign to imprint civil doctrine in them through teaching, thereby increasing the chances of influencing subjects’ (free) deliberation, and thus of producing obedience.

The Governing of Opinions

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Hobbes on How Civic Education and Censorship Impact Subjects’ Deliberation

Thomas Hobbes’s most important recommendations for a sovereign reader concerned the governing of opinion. Due to the spread of false doctrines and their...

The Governing of Opinions

Published Online: Oct 05, 2023

Page range: 395 - 410

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2022-0019

Keywords
civil doctrine, imprint, obedience, public instruction, religion

© 2022 Mariana Kuhn de Oliveira, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Governing of Opinions

Published Online: Oct 05, 2023

Page range: 395 - 410

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2022-0019

Keywordscivil doctrine, imprint, obedience, public instruction, religion

© 2022 Mariana Kuhn de Oliveira, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
civil doctrine, imprint, obedience, public instruction, religion