John Locke

Two Treatises on Government (1690)

Locke’s times• Locke (1632-1704)• 1658 Cromwell’s death• 1660 Restoration of Charles II (son of Charles I). Governed

between 1660-1685, renewed problems of religion and parliament vs. the Crown

• Succeeded by his brother James II, a catholic• THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION:

– 1688 Whig and Tory leaders invite Prince William of Orange to become the British monarch for mandate of the Parliament/ James II leaves the country.

– 1689 “Convention Parliament” accuses James II of having subverted the “original contract” and designates William and Mary as King and Queen through the “Bill of Rights” (deprived the king of fiscal and military power, banned Catholicism)

– 1st Constitutional Monarchy

Locke• Puritan family• Oxford 1652-1684 (fired for political reasons)• Interested in philosophy, science, medicine.• Close friendship with Lord Ashley (Whig… liberal). After

him, Locke became a government’s high official until 1675).

• Fled to Holland in 1679 and returned only ten years later (Holland exemplified the possibility for toleration)

• 1696 Commissioner of Trade and Plantations• Two Treatises (1679-1681, revised in 1689)• Foundational work for Liberalism

– The political begins to be modeled upon civil and commercial law, by which the relations involved in trade and the firm serve us to understand power (compare with Aristotle)

Locke’s State of Nature• Life in the state of nature is not substantially

different from life in the civil society– Equality– Governed by reasonLife is lived “within the bounds of the law of nature” (389)

( there is liberty but not “licence”)-Man “has no liberty to destroy himself, or so much

as any creature in his possession” (389)- “Preservation comes not in competition” (390)

-Natural rights of punishing crimes and obtaining reparation (391)

- “Force without right upon a man’s person makes a state of war where there is, and is not, a common judge” (393). To avoid these situations of war, men create society

DefectiveDefective laws of nature (399)

– Lack of precision and clarity– There is no third-party– Weak parties cannot enforce the laws (of

nature)

• Ex: passage from possession to property

Property• “God, who hath given the world to men in common,

hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience” (394).

• The preservation of property amounts to the main function of government

– Life, Liberty and Estate (397)– “The great and chief end… of men’s uniting into

commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property…” (399)

– Locke argues that labor creates property (“Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property” (396)

– Origin of theories of value further developed by Smith/Ricardo/Marx

Social Contract Law & Order

• The social contract sets up society

• “Predictability of known laws and impartial institutions” (E & E 384)

• The social contract perfects natural laws– (law enforcers, umpire)

• Government does not arise from the contract, but from a fiduciary trust

People (both Trustor and beneficiary(Rights)

Government (Trustee)(Duties)

Legislature

Executive/Judges

The power of the government remains limited by eternal natural laws (400)

• “Law precedes the state in Locke, but follows it in Hobbes.” (385)

• ≈ Hobbes: states coexist in a state of nature

Against Absolutism

• “It is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all.” (398)

The Right to Rebel

• “The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property… whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God provided for all men against force and violence” (403).