Comment in 150 words: “Covenants without swords are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” (Hobbes) (2013, 10 Marks)
The sentence comes from chapter 17 of Thomas Hobbes‘s Leviathan (1651), where he explains why men erect a commonwealth. The laws of nature, he writes, of themselves, without the terror of some power to enforce them, run against our passions of partiality, pride, revenge; covenants, without the sword, are but words. The claim is sound about stable order but overstated about what makes rules bind.
Where the Sentence Sits
- Laws of nature are not laws proper. They are conclusions, or theorems of reason about self-preservation (ch. 15), the articles of peace of chapter 13. They bind in foro interno always, in action only when others keep them too.
- A covenant is a contract with trust in it. Whoever performs first exposes himself, and in the state of nature the bonds of words are too weak to bridle men’s ambition, avarice, anger (ch. 14).
- Hence justice presupposes coercion. Before the names of just and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power (ch. 15). The sword is the sovereign’s power of punishment, created when each authorises one person or assembly to act for all.
The Case for Hobbes
- Fear is the dependable passion. Reason recommends peace; only a penalty makes it safe, which is Hobbes’s answer to the Foole, who thinks breaking promises pays.
- Assurance, not mere terror. The sword lets willing cooperators keep faith without becoming prey (an assurance game).
- Legal positivism descends from here: John Austin defined law as a sovereign’s command backed by sanction.
- International politics confirms the point. Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal for the security assurances of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum; they did not prevent the annexation of Crimea (2014) or the invasion of 2022.
- Kautilya said the same: without danda, the strong swallow the weak (matsyanyaya).
The Limits
- Herbert L. A. Hart (The Concept of Law, 1961) called the command model the gunman situation writ large. Law endures because officials accept rules as standards; even the sword rests on words, since soldiers must accept their orders.
- Louis Henkin observed that almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law almost all the time, with no world sovereign.
- The Indian Constitution (Article 37) declares the Directive Principles unenforceable in any court, yet fundamental in the governance of the country. Courts have since read many into Article 21: norms without a sword have shaped Indian law.
Conclusion
Hobbes is right that promises cannot secure life where breaking them carries no penalty. The sword is necessary but not sufficient: it becomes authority only when those it governs accept it as legitimate.