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"Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues" (Hobbes Chpt. 13) Thomas Hobbes, a noteworthy political theorist and contemporary of John Locke, offers a concept of justice that is dependent upon the existence of a social structure which he calls the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth arises out of a state of war which he entitles the state of nature. In the state …

…is the only way to enforce the bounds of the covenants. Because men are bound by their own covenants and laws within the Commonwealth, the breaking thereof would create an almost tautological effect in so far as the breaker is only breaking the laws which he had made in conjunction with the unified body thereby harming the others, which is unjust and forcing him back into the State of Nature, which is where he began.