Question

John Locke

John Locke was born in 1632, the son of a lawyer of Wrighton. He taught

Greek and rhetoric at Oxford while completing his studies in medicine and

science. His interests turned to moral and political theory thanks to his

father’s enthusiasm for the parliamentary cause during the English Civil War.

The English Civil Wars (1642-1651) stemmed from conflict between

Charles I and Parliament over an Irish insurrection. The first war was

settled with Oliver Cromwell’s victory for Parliamentary forces at the

1645 Battle of Naseby. The second phase ended with Charles’ defeat

at the Battle of Preston and his subsequent execution in 1649 .

John Locke (1632–1704), wrote extensively about two particular ideas:

1. the social contract and

2. natural law.

The social contract was a shorthand way of describing the mutual duties and

responsibilities of the government and the governed. The consent of the

governed, or the citizens, legitimized the authority of the government. This

consent was based on an understanding of what the government would do

for the governed, and, likewise, what the citizens owed in terms of obedience

to the state. This implied contract could be broken if one side failed to live up

to expectations, however; for example, if the citizens agreed to place

themselves under a particular government so it could protect their lives and

property, and in turn it abused the citizens’ rights and property, then the

contract was broken, and the citizens had the right to revolt against the state.

Locke does preserve a distinction between natural right and natural law, the

latter of which is distinguished by its enforceability. But the legitimacy of that

power derives from the right that everyone has to preserve their own basic

rights. No one has the right to invade the rights of others, and “everyone has

the right to punish the transgressors of that Law (of nature) to such a Degree,

as may hinder its Violation.”

Locke wrote Two Treatises of Civil Government appeared in 1690. In the

Second Treatise, Locke posed the question: if individuals naturally are free,

why should they ever choose to cede some of their natural rights to

government? The answer, Locke argued, was that the state was necessary

to protect property and liberty. Where protection ended, he continued, so did

the legitimate authority of government.

John Locke believed that human nature allowed for peaceful, cooperative

relationships between individuals, and the state’s chief responsibility was to

try to maintain the freedom that would allow individuals to recapture this state

of nature again. Thus it can be said the Locke had a more optimistic view of

the state of nature. He believed that a man’s place in society was not

necessarily a struggle against his neighbors in contrast to the views of

Hobbes. He saw human nature as civil, reasonable, tolerant, and industrious,

with its distribution of talents and opportunities being essentially equal

He also disagreed with Plato that private property would necessarily create

enemies. He instead claimed that people are born with equality and

freedom, and if this turns competitive and ugly, it is because of their

actions. Governments are formed to ensure peace and freedom between

people. This creates the possibility of economic freedom that is unregulated

by the state, provided one does not harm one’s neighbor, people are at

liberty to do as they please.

For Locke, the danger to peace was not the grasping natures of men

pursuing their own interests, but the rapacious behavior of the monarch and

his contempt for natural rights. The behaviour of the monarch is the type of

behaviour that forced man to move from the calm state of nature to the state

of war to protect their property and their rights. The lesson of the civil war,

for Locke, was not the need to defend the absolute power of the monarchical

sovereign. Rather, the lesson was that the Stuart monarchy had lost, and it

had to pass down its stolen powers if the institution were to continue at all.

For Locke the cause of the conflict was the violation of those very liberties

which Locke saw as natural and widely held. The people who fought against

the thieving monarchs, including himself, of course had only acted to protect

what was reasonably and rightfully theirs. Further, it was through their natural

respect for the rights and reasons of each other that the wealth, which the

monarch sought to extract through taxes, was theirs in the first place. A king

according to Locke does not generate prosperity: industry, cooperation, and

exchange. Locke argued that the nature of production and the way its

bounties should be distributed is plain to anyone who sets their mind to it.

The exercise of freedom and reason and its industrious deployment is thus,

for Locke, the natural disposition of man. The role of government is not to

change this disposition, but merely to assist its facility and

development by providing for a neutral judge when disputes occur.

Locke said that men should be allowed to regulate their own commerce.

Governments should exist only to protect people from injustice against

the state and against the people, whether from outside sources or from

threats within their borders. Locke also explained why some members of

society were able to amass such a state of wealth; it was through their own

labor that they were able to make enough to sell and, consequently, gather

their money.

Locke’s theory of government does not solve all the problems of a

democracy. But it does clearly set forth the doctrine of government as

essentially a representative body of the people’s rights and interests.

In Locke, the political theory of the liberal–democratic state finds a defender.

But there is one crucial problem: how to justify curtailing the will of the

majority if it makes unjust claims by intruding on the rights of a minority, or

single person. Locke’s theory of the state was built around the need to

defend a right, the right to property.

Summary

Locke argued that individuals were not bound to obey governmental laws

that ignored their rights and therefore contradicted natural law. Second,

Locke articulated a positive view of human nature that challenged the

prevailing view of humans as incapable of peaceful coexistence without

intrusive state interference. Third, he explained the idea that governments

derived legitimacy from the consent of the governed. The compact, or

agreement, between the state and its citizens placed duties on both; if

the government failed to meet its responsibilities and breached the

contract, citizens, according to Locke, possessed the right to revolt.

Last, Locke argued that liberty was dependent on private property. A state

that protected private property ensured the freedom of its citizens. Locke

defined property as an act of creation, mixing labor with land grew crops,

which therefore were property and thus expanded the term to include political

ideas, religious beliefs, and even an individual’s self. Locke’s contribution to

political theory in general and libertarianism in particular cannot be

overstated.

He argued that all individual rights ultimately draw justification from self–

ownership, through which a person’s thoughts, beliefs, possessions, and

labors are his or her own. His defense of life, liberty, and property and the

right of revolution for citizens whose government fails to protect these rights

influenced revolts such as the American and French Revolutions, documents

such as the American Declaration of Independence, and even activism such

as the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. By illuminating the values and issues of

individualism, Locke provided the framework for an ongoing dialogue and

earned the title of father of libertarianism.