Journal of Philosophical Research

Volume 22, 1997

Freedom as Motion
Thomas Hobbes and the Images of Liberalism

Central to the argument of this article is the sense in which Thomas Hobbes and liberals see freedom as centered around the notion of free movement. Hobbes, in chapter 21 of Leviathan, describes freedom as “the absence of opposition” to motion. This work argues that the Hobbesian view of freedom as motion was taken up by liberalism as its hallmark and flourished most of all in America where emphasis on individualism was greatest. In America, movement coupled with individualism to create a conception of freedom.