To me, Leviathan’s war-of-all-against-all fable is a metaphor for the practical reality of competing political interests. Taking it literally isn’t Hobbes’ point.

Hobbes’ point is that the sole job of the sovereign is to keep the peace and that is the only criterion for judging it. As personal political practice this is hard and that hardness — the hardness of not judging the sovereign by “what is in it for me” — is what makes Leviathan philosophy. What gives it heft is what we do today not whichever explanatory fiction or “farcical aquatic ceremonies” we believe brought us here.

Moreover Hobbes sets a clear moral criterion for voiding individual obligation to the sovereign...being led to the gallows. The social contract does not obligate our lives to the sovereign. This is still a radical departure from ordinary practice. The individual is not morally bound to accept the sovereign’s punishments even if those punishments are how the sovereign must keep the peace.