For whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the person of the man (where there is no Commonwealth;) or, (in a Commonwealth,) from the person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the rule thereof.
— Thomas Hobbes
Early Modern
Leviathan, social contract
