Conceptul de supunere civică în filosofia luminilor
The concept of civic obedience in the philosophy of the Enlightenment

Summary/Abstract: The process of positively increasingthe law had, first, a delimitation of moral from justice. From here we have the following dualisms: moral and legal, the imperatives of conscience and state constraints, a matter of fact and a subject of law, community and individuality. The individual's right to defend himself, and the duty of the individual to obey, occupies a main place in Thomas Hobbes's social-political philosophy. According to the Hobbesian Agreement, peace, within the society, is ultimately the result of accepting civic submissions. The act of civic submissions supposes, in Hobbes view, the enacting of a sort of necessity (the fear of death) that cannot be eluded. Thus, people accept obedience because they want to survive. In Book III of the Social Contract, Rousseau rejects the idea of a legal power, stating that there are only two powers in the strict sense - the legislature and the executive. The duty of obedience is not determined by an outside institution of the citizen, being based on an internal decision. It follows that, in one’s decision to obey, one only hears his will to be a free agent („the real will”), and the responsibility that accompanies him remains strictly internal and individual.

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