Hobbes and his monsters: on the possibility of a Hobbesian zoopolis

Abstract

Through a textual, conceptual, and comparative analysis of Hobbes’s work, this article proposes a reinterpretation of his political philosophy from a zoopolitical perspective. This approach, which incorporates humans, nonhuman animals, and monsters, challenges the anthropocentric foundations of modern political thought. A comparative examination of Aristotelian and Hobbesian zoology highlights the semiotic framework Hobbes assigns to animality, bestiality, and monstrosity, showing that his political ontology contains conceptual resources for thinking community beyond the boundaries of the human species. Using a hermeneutic approach centered on the distinction between animality and brutality, and on the conception of the State as a monstrous automaton, I argue that the internal logic of the Hobbesian system provides theoretical grounds for expanding the social contract toward a “Hobbesian zoopolis.” I contend that Hobbes recognizes in nonhuman animals an ontological equality with humans, while locating brutality as an exclusively human condition. Likewise, his conception of sovereignty—directed toward the preservation of life, collective prosperity, and happiness—allows the Commonwealth to be reinterpreted as a project aimed at guaranteeing the stability and flourishing of all forms of life that sustain it. This logic opens the theoretical possibility of reimagining the modern State as a multispecies Commonwealth.