Economists who believe that government is essentially benevolent tend to regard inter-governmental competition as a source of negative externalities that lower welfare. In contrast the public choice perspective, particularly that motivated by the Leviathan model, sees such competition as potentially beneficial. This paper considers a world consisting of politicians of both kinds – self-interest...

As a result of a chemical genetic screen for modulators of metalloprotease activity, we report that 2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide induces a conspicuous undulating notochord defect in zebrafish embryos, a phenocopy of the leviathan mutant. The location of the chemically-induced wavy notochord correlated with the timing of application, thus defining a narrow chemical sensitivity window during segmen...

We seek to explain why countries have adopted national Old-Age Insurance and Health Insurance programs. Theoretical work has posited several factors that could lead to this adoption: the strain from expanding capitalism; the need for political legitimacy; the desire to transfer to similar people; increased wealth; and the outcome of leviathan government. We relate the probability of a country’s...

I N THE FIRST PART OF LEVIATHAN, “OF MAN,” BEFORE HOBBES DEFINES a commonwealth and prophesies the philosophical “Kingdome of Darknesse” into which it can descend (956), he proclaims that “to have no Desire, is to be Dead” (110). As a motto for the passions, the phrase resonates as a defense of desire, a call to understand strong feelings as on the side of life. To have no desire is to be dead ...

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Frederick 2013 (the critique) offers criticisms of the Escape from Leviathan (EfL) theory libertarian liberty and also its compatibility with preference-utilitarian welfare private-property anarchy. This reply to critique first explains underlying philosophical problem EfL’s proposed solution in a concise precise way. It then goes through detail showing that it does not grasp or only misreprese...

Abstract This article identifies an argument in Hobbes’s writings often overlooked but relevant to current philosophical debates. Political philosophers tend categorize his thought as representing consent or rescue theories of political authority. Though these interpretations have textual support and are understandable, they leave out one most compelling arguments – what we call the lesser evil...