Locke on the Moral Basis of International Relations

Lee Ward Campion College at the University of Regina

This article aims to focus analysis of Locke’s theory of international relations away from the familiar discourse of sovereignty

and natural law and toward a different discourse involving self-government and international society. It argues that Locke’s

conception of international society balanced interrelated, overlapping, and even competing claims about sovereignty and

natural law in a normative framework in which the right of self-government replaced the principle of sovereignty as the

moral basis of international relations. Thus, for Locke the norms deduced from the law of nature govern the international

state of nature even as independent societies remain the primary executors of the law of nature in international society. The

article concludes by considering how Locke’s reflections on international relations may contribute to our understanding of

contemporary debates about sovereignty, the use of force, and the ethics of intervention.

From the dawn of the modern period in the sev-

enteenth century through to our own time the

existence of the nation state has been the central or-

ganizing principle of the international system. However,

debate about the moral basis of international relations is as

old as the system itself. Today, as in the past, the recurring

questions animating the debate about the role of the state

in international relations include the following: Is the int-

ernational system essentially anarchic marked by compe-

tition among independent states pursuing their national

interest and power, or does international relations provide

a context of norms by which nations form a society of

states?1 Does justice among nations rest on the core prin-

ciples of sovereignty and nonintervention, or is humani-

tarian intervention and the use of force to punish wrong-

doing and protect the innocent justified by an overarching

standard of international morality?2 Given the continuing

theoretical and ethical debates in the twenty-first century

about the rights and responsibilities of sovereign states

and the limits and possibilities of international law and

institutions, we are no less entitled now than perhaps at

any other time to inquire, what, if anything, does it mean

to speak of morality in international relations?

Lee Ward is assistant professor of political science, Campion College at the University of Regina, 3737 Wascana Parkway, Regina, SK,Canada, S4S 0A2 (Lee.Ward@uregina.ca).

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 Midwestern Political Science Association Annual Meeting and the 2005Southwestern Political Science Association Annual Meeting. The author would like to thank Tim Collins, Mark Kremer, and the anonymousreferees of the AJPS for their comments.

1For the classical realist statement of the international system, see Morgenthau (1954). The divided legacy of classical realism can be seenin the current debate between “American Realism” (Copeland 2003; Desch 2003; Glaser 2003) and the “English School” (Bull 1977; Buzan2001; Little 2000), who disagree as to whether to view the international system in societal, rather than anarchical terms. For a good overviewof this debate, see Little (2003).

2For a good treatment of the debate over intervention, see Bellamy (2003) and Nardin (2002, 64–70).

This article will consider this question by examining

the intersection of political philosophy and international

relations in the work of John Locke. At first glance Locke

may appear an unlikely candidate for such a study. In-

ternational relations were not the primary focus of his

work, and foreign affairs is treated less systematically by

Locke than other modern political philosophers such as

Machiavelli, Grotius, and Kant. However, Locke’s signifi-

cance as a seminal thinker in the liberal tradition of nat-

ural rights and constitutional government suggests that

his relatively modest reflections on international relations

merit more attention than they have historically received.

Thankfully, a number of commentators have begun to

reconsider Locke’s importance as a thinker on interna-

tional relations. Some identify Locke’s state of nature the-

ory with the school of early modern realism founded by

Machiavelli and Hobbes that was based on the twin princi-

ples of the international state of anarchy and the primacy

of sovereignty (Ahrensdorf and Pangle 1999, 153–57; Cox

1960). In this view, Locke’s assessment of the practical

impotence of natural law and international morality left

sovereignty, self-defense, and national interest as the only

reliable normative standards for international relations.

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 50, No. 3, July 2006, Pp. 691–705

C©2006, Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853

691

692 LEE WARD

Other commentators have discovered a rather different

Locke, a proponent of a robust internationalism in which

a permissive law of nature provides ready justification for

the use of force in international relations, including a right

of intervention and punitive wars (Seliger 1969, 114–18;

Tuck 1999, 173–78). A number of recent works have taken

this line of reasoning even further to argue that Locke’s

natural law theory was deliberately designed, at least in

part, to legitimize seventeenth-century English colonial

and mercantilist policies supporting military intervention

against premonetarized, non-European societies (Arneil

1996, 16–20, 163–65; Pagden 2003, 183–84; Tully 1993,

154–55).

This study builds upon, and in some key respects

departs from, recent Locke scholarship by tracing the

parallels between his treatment of the moral basis of in-

ternational relations and contemporary reflections upon

international society. My point is not to transpose current

debates onto earlier thinkers who might not have shared

the same concerns, but rather to show how Locke’s treat-

ment of sovereignty, natural law, and the international

state of nature might elucidate our thinking about inter-

national relations. The aim is to refocus analysis of Locke’s

theory of international relations away from the familiar

discourse of sovereignty and natural law, and toward a

different discourse involving self-government and inter-

national society. We will argue that Locke’s vision of the

moral basis of international relations rested on an idea of

international society that balanced interrelated, overlap-

ping, and even competing moral claims about sovereignty

and natural law in a general framework of international

norms governing the relations among self-governing so-

cieties. In Locke’s multidimensional conception of inter-

national society, norms deduced from the law of nature

govern nations and societies even as independent soci-

eties and nations remain the chief executors of the law of

nature in the international sphere.

This study approaches Locke’s understanding of in-

ternational relations by focusing on three main elements

of his teaching. First, we consider Locke’s seminal state of

nature account in light of its important implications for

his theory of international relations. It will be argued that

Locke’s doctrine of the natural executive power of the law

of nature, which rests on the fundamental moral prin-

ciple of nonaggression, establishes a permissive standard

for the use of force in the international state of nature. The

implication of the Lockean principle of nonaggression is a

normative vision of international relations that combines

both a deep respect for the idea of self-government, as

well as morally compelling authorization for direct vio-

lations of the principle of sovereignty including military

intervention, punitive war, and even lawful conquest and

occupation. Locke proposes the radical claim that self-

governing commonwealths in the international sphere are

no less subject to punishment for violating the natural law

than are individuals in the state of nature. Nonaggression

is not coterminus with nonintervention.

The second aspect of Locke’s argument we will exam-

ine is his conception of the problematic nature of the prin-

ciple of sovereignty. It will be shown that Locke’s theory

of just war, which endorses punishment of those respon-

sible for aggression, represents a powerful critique of the

traditional idea of national sovereignty. Locke’s effort to

replace the discourse of sovereignty with the logic of legal

supremacy signified not only his departure from regnant

ideas about sovereignty, but also helped him establish a

moral justification of “lawful conquest” based on princi-

ples of natural justice extrinsic and superior to the claims

of political sovereignty deriving from the consent of the

community.

The third element of Locke’s argument, which flows

directly out of his critique of sovereignty, is his conception

of international society. We maintain that while Locke sees

the state of nature as the permanent condition of inter-

national relations, he envisions a basis for international

norms derived from natural law and convention that reg-

ulates conflict and cooperation among independent so-

cieties in a broader international society. This vision of

international society rests on Locke’s crucial conceptual

distinction between government and civil society. The

constituent units of Locke’s international society are dis-

tinct societies conceived in terms of an inherent right of

self-government, rather than the principle of inviolable

national sovereignty. It is in the context of Locke’s ar-

gument for international society that we will reconsider

the important question of Locke’s relation to colonial-

ism. This study concludes by considering how Lockean

reflections on international relations may contribute to

contemporary debates about sovereignty, the use of force,

and the ethics of intervention.

The International State of Natureand the Doctrine of Nonaggression

In order to understand Locke’s reflections on interna-

tional relations it is first necessary to examine the moral

and political significance of the state of nature. Accord-

ing to Locke, the natural human condition is “a State of

perfect Freedom” and “a State of Equality, wherein all

Power and Jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more

than another.”3 While the state of nature is in one sense

3Locke [1690] 1988, Second Treatise, section 4 (hereafter treatiseand section in notes and text).

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 693

profoundly individualistic—there is no government—

Locke contends that there is a natural law derived from

reason regulating the relations of individuals in the natu-

ral condition. The law of nature contains three distinct but

interrelated commands. First, it enjoins “no one ought to

harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions”

(II, 6). Second, every individual “is bound to preserve

himself ” (II, 6). Third, each person ought “when his own

Preservation comes not in competition, . . . as much as he

can, to preserve the rest of Mankind” (II, 6). Locke claims

that the power to execute the natural law is “put into ev-

ery Mans hands,” whereby each individual has the right

to punish anyone who violates the natural law by threat-

ening one’s self-preservation or harming another in their

life, liberty, or possessions (II, 7). The law of nature would

“be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of Na-

ture, had a Power to execute that, and thereby preserve

the innocent and restrain offenders” (II, 7).

Perhaps the most striking feature in Locke’s account

of the state of nature, a condition practically defined by

the absence of civil law, is his emphasis on the logic and

rhetoric of law enforcement. While Locke affirms that the

scope of the self-defense right enjoyed by every individ-

ual in the state of nature must be proportionate to the

goal of “Reparation and Restraint” (II, 8), he also reveals

that this punishment right extends to “the power to kill”

(II, 11) an aggressor. There are, however, two elements

of Locke’s natural executive power teaching that extend

well beyond a self-defense right.4 First, Locke argues that

one may punish and even kill not only an actual physi-

cal aggressor, but anyone who has shown “an Enmity to

his being” (II, 16). The state of war, which activates the

natural executive power, therefore relates not only to the

actual use of force, but may reasonably be deduced from

the discovery of any “sedate settled design” upon one’s

life (II, 11). Second, Locke extends the punishment right

beyond the direct victims of aggression by advancing the

right of “every man” and “any other Person” (II, 8, 10)

to intervene against an aggressor who endangers another.

Not only is the natural executive power emphatically not

restricted to a special victims right, Locke extends it, in

principle at least, into a right of every individual to in-

tervene in a conflict in order to punish wrongdoers and

protect the innocent.

The law of nature is a mixed blessing providing the

state of nature with both its moral foundation and its

fundamental problem. Auto-interpretation of the law of

nature and its permissive stance toward the use of force

4For decidedly varied discussions of the radical political impli-cations of Locke’s natural punishing power, see Simmons (1993,40–42); Tully (1993, 315–23); McClure (1996, 127–32, 141–55);Zuckert (1994, 235–36); and Ward (2004, 231–40).

for punishing wrongdoers and protecting the innocent

practically ensures that “the Inconveniences” of the state

of nature must be great “where Men may be Judges in

their own Case” (II, 13). As is well known, civil govern-

ment emerges as Locke’s primary remedy to the “Incon-

veniences” of the state of nature. By surrendering their

natural executive power of the law of nature to a com-

mon “Umpire” in the legislative and executive power of

society, individuals consent to form a civil arrangement

that promises to better secure their life and property (II,

87–88). The formerly discrete individuals of the natural

condition now agree to form “One Body Politick” (II,

89) distinct from the rest of humankind by delegating

their general right of executing the law of nature to a

civil government empowered not only to punish injuries

within the community, but also “Injuries from without”

(II, 88, 3).

The law of nature supplies the conceptual and moral

link between Lockean civil government and international

relations. The primary evidence Locke provides to sup-

port the existence of the state of nature is that “since

all Princes and Rulers of Independent Governments all

through the World, are in a State of Nature, ’tis plain

the World never was, nor ever will be without Numbers

of Men in that State” (II, 14). For Locke, the definitive

demonstration of the existence of the state of nature is

the permanent condition of international relations. The

significance of Locke’s identification of an international

state of nature is twofold. First, he indicates that the in-

ternational state of nature exists despite the many leagues

and compacts between the “Governours of Independent

Communities” (II, 14).5 Agreements and promises among

independent communities do not form civil society in

the proper sense of “One Body Politick” with a common

legislative to which a group of individuals have trans-

ferred their natural executive power. The rulers of inde-

pendent communities retain their natural freedom and

equality regardless of leagues and compacts with other

commonwealths. However, Locke also insists that treaties

and compacts among nations possess genuine normative

force and are “binding to them, though they are perfectly

in a State of Nature” (II, 14; Dunn 1969, 163). Even in ab-

sence of a common legislative power or “Umpire” among

independent commonwealths, Locke suggests that some

form of moral rule operates in the international state

of nature.

Second, Locke maintains that the state of nature

is the permanent feature of the international arena.

5Locke employs the term “commonwealth” as a generic term forany “Independent Community” (II, 133), despite its controversialconnotations with English civil war radicalism. I will use common-wealth and independent community interchangeably in this article.

694 LEE WARD

Independent commonwealths subject to no higher sec-

ular authority are, and “ever will be,” the primary actors

in the international arena. By removing from the inter-

national state of nature the possibility of a common leg-

islature among distinct bodies politic, Locke rejects the

idea of global government and thus effectively precludes

the sole reliable remedy for the “inconveniences” of the

state of nature, which must be great when independent

communities and rulers, no less than individuals “may

be Judges in their own Case” (II, 13). Each independent

commonwealth invests in its government the right to act

in foreign relations with the degree of freedom and moral

authority that “answers to the Power every Man naturally

had before he entered into Society” (II, 145). Thus the

personhood of each independent community flows from

the natural law command about self-preservation, or in

the case of independent commonwealths, the aggregate

preservation right of each of its members.

The moral core of Locke’s law of nature is the prohibi-

tion on aggression, which he defines broadly as the use of

“Force without Right” (II, 19). This definition of aggres-

sion serves double duty. First, it applies, by virtue of the

“domestic analogy,” to both the international and indi-

vidual context: no commonwealth or individual may use

“Force without Right” against another (Bull 1966, 64–68;

Walzer 1977, 58). Second, it simultaneously defines the

rightful use of force narrowly in terms of self-defense and

punishment for aggression. In this respect Locke departs

somewhat from the older tradition of Christian natural

law according to which commonwealths were authorized

to enforce natural law provisions, but the crimes for whose

punishment justifies punitive wars need not be restricted

to aggression.6 For example, punitive war may be justified

by the iniquity of the adversary, which may include pun-

ishment for practices perceived to be contrary to natural

reason such as idolatry, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and

even the violation of the rights of hospitality (Augustine

1972, 861–62; Aquinas [1274] 1988, 221). While the later

form of Christian natural law thinking on just war, ad-

vanced most notably by Spanish scholastics such as Vi-

toria and de las Casas, tried to limit the justification for

punitive war in order to check the bellicosity of Spanish

imperialism and the maltreatment of native peoples, it

still retained a strong connection to the idea of war as a

way to enforce certain norms and punish certain prac-

tices (de las Casas [1552] 1992, 207; Vitoria [1528] 1991,

30, 225–26, 288). In this older tradition of natural law,

the claims of sovereignty and political independence had

6For good accounts of the Christian natural law tradition of justwar theory, see Ahrensdorf and Pangle (1999, chapter 4); Nardin(2002, 58–61); and Pagden (2003, 184–88).

less normative status than the moral imperative to punish

wrongdoers and protect the innocent.

In contrast to the Christian natural law tradition,

Locke’s effort to define just war solely in terms of self-

defense and punishment of aggression seems to make

respect for the political independence of separate com-

monwealths an integral feature of international relations.

Locke’s international state of nature simply reinterprets

the natural law teaching about equality of individuals in

terms of independent public persons or commonwealths:

aggression is fundamentally a violation of the principle

of natural equality. However, the domestic analogy sup-

porting the doctrine of nonaggression is highly strained,

especially with regard to the punitive dimension of the

natural law. In the moral economy of Locke’s law of na-

ture, the punishment of aggression involves the forfeiting

of rights by one party to another. With regard to the indi-

vidual in the state of nature the aggressor may forfeit his

or her right of self-preservation to the victim, and indeed

to every individual who may intervene in the conflict (II,

8, 10). Locke graphically illustrates that the range of le-

gitimate punishment may extend from reparation and re-

straint (imprisonment), to capital punishment, and even

a morally permissible form of slavery (II, 23–24). In the

context of aggression among individuals in the state of

nature the forfeiture of rights is in principle absolute.

With respect to punishment of aggression in the in-

ternational state of nature, the moral significance of the

social reality necessarily makes the situation much more

complex. In one sense the domestic analogy between in-

dividual and commonwealth is relatively unambiguous.

Just as the natural law authorizes the individual to punish

an aggressor with a view to reparation and restraint, so

too may a victim society and its allies reasonably com-

pel an aggressor to pay reparation for damages or agree

to restraint perhaps in the form of arms limitation or a

nonaggression treaty (II, 181). However, the natural law

authorization of capital punishment and slavery strains

the domestic analogy and the legal fiction of the public

person of the commonwealth to its logical extreme. Does

the forfeiture of rights involve the entire aggressor com-

monwealth or is it limited to specific parties in it? Is the

forfeiture of rights related to the whole victim society, re-

stricted to specific individuals in it, or even extended to

the entirety of humankind?

The law of nature authorizes conquest as a legit-

imate punishment for aggression, but Locke is careful

to place limits on the rights even of lawful conquerors.

He admits the shaky basis of the domestic analogy when

he establishes moral limits on the punitive conduct of

governments that simply do not pertain to individuals

in the state of nature (Coby 1987, 19). His strategy is

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 695

to narrow the scope of responsibility for aggression to

those individuals “who have actually assisted, concurr’d,

or consented to that unjust force” (II, 179). With re-

spect to this group “what Power a lawful Conqueror

has over the Subdued; . . . is purely Despotical” (II, 178).

While the defeated aggressor may likely (and legitimately)

feel the sword or the lash, Locke vehemently maintains

that noncombatants in the defeated society, and particu-

larly women and children, must be exempt from this fate

(II, 182–83). Moreover, lawful conquest—military action

authorized by the natural law—brings the conqueror no

title to the property of the defeated people apart from pro-

portionate monetary reparation (II, 180, 184) and must

in no sense be construed to be the basis for legitimate

government without the free consent of the conquered

(II, 186–87). In the international state of nature, lawful

conquest is punishment, not government.

Although conquest may not in itself produce govern-

ment without consent of the conquered, the meaningful

political independence of the lawfully conquered people

can hardly be taken for granted either. Locke recognizes

the difficulty, if not practical impossibility, of harmoniz-

ing a natural law authorizing conquest, on the one hand,

and the idea of inviolable sovereignty, on the other. The

natural equality of independent commonwealths signi-

fies simultaneously one of the guiding moral principles

of Locke’s international state of nature, as well as perhaps

its most problematic feature.

The Problem of Sovereignty

The defining characteristic of the international state of

nature is, according to Locke, the natural freedom and

equality of independent commonwealths. Thus, in one

sense, some element of the idea of national sovereignty

is woven into the very fabric of Lockean international re-

lations inasmuch as the international state of nature rec-

ognizes no higher legislative and political authority than

independent civil governments with sole competence to

make and execute law within a given body politic (II,

131). However, in a more fundamental sense, Locke’s con-

ception of political independence departs considerably

from the traditional notion of sovereignty. For Locke, the

idea of legal supremacy replaces sovereignty as the cen-

tral organizing principle of legitimate government.7 He is

7A thoughtful examination of Locke’s effort to develop conceptualalternatives to the regnant theories of sovereignty in seventeenth-century England is found in Franklin (1978). Franklin argues thatin his effort to formulate a conception of popular sovereignty anddissolution of government that could provide theoretical ground-

typically careful not to identify the highest legal author-

ity in the commonwealth as sovereign, preferring rather

to describe it as supreme in relation to the subordinate

magistrates and inferior offices. The “supreme” legisla-

tive power, whether held solely by the legislature or shared

with the executive, represents the organic unity or “soul”

of the society that “puts Men out of a State of Nature into

that of a Commonwealth” (II, 89, 151, 212).

While the supreme power is a delegated authority

given by society and held in trust (and thus cannot be

sovereign in the traditional sense), the commonwealth

as a distinct social and political entity is nonetheless

quintessentially independent in a way in which the in-

dividual in the state of nature can never be. Unlike the

individual person, the supreme power of the indepen-

dent commonwealth is incapable of surrendering its nat-

ural executive power, at least in any significant sense, to a

higher institutional authority (II, 141; cf. Franklin 1978,

93–95). Thus, Locke’s concept of legal supremacy reveals

the problem in trying to understand his notion of the

international state of nature in terms of the discourse of

sovereignty. On the one hand, the doctrine of nonaggres-

sion seems to endorse the idea of sovereignty by asserting

the natural equality of self-governing communities. For

Locke, independent commonwealths represent a moral

good in themselves inasmuch as their purpose is to guar-

antee human welfare and security (II, 158; Grant 1987,

128). On the other hand, legal supremacy, as Locke con-

ceives of it, implicitly undermines the idea of sovereignty

by offering no theoretical or moral obstacle to natural law

authorization for the defensive use of force broadly con-

ceived to include not only repulsing aggression, but even

permitting a form of conquest and occupation.

Locke’s theory of lawful conquest undermines the

moral primacy of sovereignty in three ways. The first can

be seen in Locke’s suggestion that it “seldom happens”

that the conquered and conquerors fail to incorporate

“into one People under the same Laws and Freedoms” (II,

178). Indeed, his prime example for this historical pattern

is the foundation of modern English society in the grad-

ual incorporation of Normans and Saxons following the

Conquest of 1066 (II, 177).8 While Locke suggests that

the consent of the conquered is the moral precondition

ing for the right of revolution, Locke followed the English CivilWar–era thinker George Lawson, who made the first crucial stepstoward reconceptualizing political sovereignty by articulating thedevolution of power from government to the community (Franklin1978, 71–81, 93–97). The following discussion of Locke’s re-placement of the discourse of sovereignty with the logic of legalsupremacy draws on Franklin’s insights.

8Locke’s interpretation of the Norman Conquest in consensualterms had important rhetorical value in his immediate political con-text in the English constitutional battles of the seventeenth century,

696 LEE WARD

for this political union, it is nonetheless striking that the

incorporation of two peoples does not strictly speaking

originate in consent, but rather in the ex post facto agree-

ment to a situation produced by prior military interven-

tion and conquest. Far from endorsing the inviolability

of sovereignty, Locke suggests that the reasonable, and in

some respects natural, course of events is for lawful con-

quest to eventuate in a new body politic (Josephson 2002,

191–96). The redemptive power of compact even extends

to aggressors who have forfeited their lives and liberty, for

“once Compact enter between” the lawful conqueror and

captive, “the state of War and Slavery ceases, as long as

the Compact endures” (II, 24). Thus, even the most ab-

solute form of subjection contains the seeds of new civil

association.

The second aspect of Locke’s conquest theory with

direct bearing on the status of sovereignty is his restric-

tion of responsibility for aggression to those who “actu-

ally assisted, concurr’d, or consented” to the unjust use of

force (II, 178). The obvious interpretive difficulty in this

formulation of war guilt lies in determining what consti-

tutes assistance, concurrence, or consent. Depending on

the criteria employed, the category of individuals subject

to despotic punishment may include not only the polit-

ical and military leadership of the defeated community,

but also a wide swath of enemy combatants and poten-

tially even segments of the public supportive of the war.9

Does Locke’s argument for selective war guilt preserve

the integrity of the defeated society? Selective responsi-

bility is incompatible with full sovereignty insofar as, de-

spite his tendency to eschew the discourse of sovereignty

(Scott 2000), Locke’s idea of supremacy retains one im-

portant connection to the traditional idea of sovereignty,

according to which “making War and Peace are marks of

Sovereignty” solely reserved to the “Supream Power” in

society (I, 131; Parry 1978, 134). The group or individual

possessing this sovereign right of war and peace is logically

the parties directly responsible for the actual prosecution

of an unjust war. Thus, whether we interpret assistance,

concurrence, and consent narrowly to signify command

responsibility or more broadly to include a wide range of

combatants and civilians, Locke’s natural law authoriza-

which pitted constitutionalist Whigs like Locke against divine rightmonarchists such as Filmer ([1679] 1991, 33–34, 53–54) and secu-lar absolutists such as Hobbes ([1651] 1994, chapter 20) who madearguments about the origins of the monarchy that are saturatedwith the logic of conquest.

9Waldron’s suggestion (2002, 148) that Locke excludes conscriptsfrom criminal responsibility is provocative, but unsupported in thetext. More likely Grant (1987, 130) is correct that Locke sees, inprinciple at least, no natural law protections for prisoners of war atall. Locke would thus be following the conventional usages of thelaw of nations of the time (Bull 1966, 58; Forde 1998, 645).

tion for punishment, for all intents and purposes, neces-

sarily included the supreme legal power in the aggressor

commonwealth.

Alternatively, however, Locke’s rationale for selective

responsibility does make an important concession to the

principle of self-government by framing aggressive war

as an abuse of power not delegated by the community to

its governors. The legitimate war power of a government

cannot justify aggression because “the People [have] given

to their Gouvernours no Power to do an unjust thing,

such as is to make an unjust War” (II, 179). A govern-

ment that launches an unjust war loses its claim to legit-

imacy. The aggressor government loses its public char-

acter by this abuse of power; it effectively relinquishes

its claim to legal supremacy and becomes a collection

of private individuals subject to natural law punishment

by the conqueror (Grant 1987, 129–30). Accordingly, to

the extent that Locke retains any significant connection

with the idea of sovereignty, this supreme power must be

said to devolve to society when the community’s gover-

nors forfeit their natural rights by an act of aggression.

This argument, at least partially, serves Locke’s moral aim

of restricting war guilt and exempting whole societies

from the despotic punishment of lawful conquest. Ag-

gression cannot be justified in the name or interests of the

people.

However, there are two serious difficulties in Locke’s

reasoning about delegated powers and aggression. First,

the argument that an aggressor government loses its le-

gitimacy does not clarify in what sense supremacy can be

understood to devolve to the community. To argue that the

government loses its public, and indeed supreme charac-

ter, does not automatically indicate who or what body may

rightfully assume the public representation of that soci-

ety to the other bodies politic in the international state of

nature. Lawful conquest appears to leave a community in

a form of legal and national limbo—neither fully subject,

nor possessing an independent government of its own.

The second problem relates to Locke’s ambiguous use of

the domestic analogy. On the one hand, he maintains that

the people had no more “Power in themselves” to consent

to an unjust war than they would to enslaving themselves

or voluntarily submitting to arbitrary rule (II, 23, 135,

179). Yet, on the other hand, Locke gives no suggestion

that we must assume that the general public would never

be so wicked or foolish as to consent to or support an

unjust war. Indeed, even in his most restrictive formula-

tion of war guilt Locke included those individuals who

“consented” to the unjust use of force (II, 179). He ap-

pears to accept the commonsense empirical observation

that communities can, have in the past, and probably will

in the future support aggressive, expansionist policies.

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 697

The unifying thread in Locke’s analogy between ex-

ternal aggression and domestic arbitrary rule is the pur-

portedly self-destructive character of each, inasmuch as

both endanger the basic freedom instrumental to self-

preservation (Glenn 1984, 90–96; Zuckert 1994, 240–46).

Once again, however, the domestic analogy between civil

and international relations is by no means obvious. Is

consenting to or supporting aggression against a weaker

neighbor as clearly self-destructive as enslaving oneself

or submitting to an arbitrary government? Admittedly,

the aggressor government submits itself to the possibility

of universal punishment by all other peace-loving peo-

ples, but this punishment is hardly guaranteed. The more

fundamental moral imperative against international ag-

gression must be that as a general principle aggression

undermines the equal respect for political independence

which, in theory at least, all commonwealths including

the aggressor have a presumptive right to enjoy.

The third aspect of Locke’s lawful conquest theory

with a direct bearing on the issue of sovereignty is his

treatment of the concept of total war. Locke considers the

possibility that every adult male may be held responsible

for aggression by virtue of their membership in a given

political society: “Let us suppose that all Men of that Com-

munity being all Members of the same Body Politick, may

be taken to have joyn’d in that unjust War, wherein they are

subdued, and so their Lives are at the Mercy of the Con-

querour” (II, 188). From this very expansive idea of war

guilt, Locke nonetheless still manages to establish clear

limits on lawful conquest that never extends to punishing

“innocent” women and children or claiming the prop-

erty originally held by the captive men (II, 180, 182–84).

Even Locke’s broadest construction of responsibility for

aggression does not justify national enslavement or mass

expropriation and annexation of territory. In this situ-

ation, the lawful conqueror is checked primarily by the

natural right of children to inherit their parent’s estate

(II, 190; Gauthier 1966, 41–45). The blameless legitimate

inheritors of the national wealth retain an indefeasible

right both to possess their family property and to estab-

lish their own government charged with securing it (II,

192). A conquered people cannot be ruled without their

consent, and those who retain the right to inherit estates

forfeited by their fathers have a complementary right to

form or consent to a government directed to protecting

their property. The argument that self-government flows

in some sense out of the structure of the right to prop-

erty may explain why conquerors cannot rightfully claim

permanent government over the conquered; however, the

natural right of inheritance does not demonstrate that the

political independence of a given society survives intact

in any form but in potentia through the course of invasion

and occupation.10 This limit on conquest has perhaps as

much to do with the natural law obligation on the con-

queror to refrain from despoiling a conquered people as

it has to do with conflicting rights claims arising from the

presumptive independence of the vanquished.

Locke’s theory of lawful conquest, then, is in consid-

erable tension with the notion of inviolable sovereignty.

Conquest does not produce a right to govern in absence

of the consent of the governed. But while the conquered

retain a moral right to choose their governors or may be

said never to have wholly forfeited this right, the reten-

tion of an abstract right is a far cry from full sovereignty

or meaningful independence. Whether we (or the con-

queror) interpret Locke’s conception of war guilt broadly

or narrowly, we are left with the inescapable conclusion

that a society’s effective political independence can be lost

or suspended due to actions punishable on the basis of

principles of natural justice extrinsic to the consent of the

community.

International Society

While Locke insists that independent communities op-

erate in a context of fundamental norms superintending

their relations, neither sovereignty nor natural law ade-

quately articulates the moral basis of international rela-

tions, which he conceives as a form of society without

government. Locke does not flinch from the harsh con-

clusion that lawful conquest potentially involves a severe

diminution of political independence. However, he main-

tains that distinct societies retain an inherent right of self-

government, even following lawful conquest. In the moral

framework of mutually reinforcing limits, Locke’s account

of lawful conquest effectively nullifies the principle of in-

violable national sovereignty, while the normative claims

of communal self-government strictly restrain the puni-

tive measures allowed by the law of nature. In order to

understand Locke’s idea of international society and self-

government, we need to reconsider the normative status

of the bodies politic inhabiting the international state of

nature.

The moral plane upon which independent peoples

interact and conflict in international society has both

a natural and a conventional or legitimist foundation.

For Locke, the natural foundation of international soci-

ety rests on the seminal distinction between government

and society, two separate forms of association that, like

10See, for example, Locke’s discussion of the Greeks’ relation totheir Turkish conquerors (II, 192).

698 LEE WARD

supremacy and self-government, reflect distinct princi-

ples of construction and dissolution. Legal supremacy is a

feature of civil government, a political phenomenon with

a distinct institutional expression produced by the con-

sent of the majority of society. According to the theoretical

“original Compact” forming civil government, “every one

of that Society” must submit “to the determination of the

majority” with respect to the constitution of the legisla-

tive power (II, 97, 132). Locke indicates that the legislative

power is “Supream” not only because its creation signifies

“the first and fundamental positive Law of all Common-

wealths” (II, 134), but also due to the quasi-natural law

of “greater force” by which the majority may be held to

act for the whole in regards to matters of general soci-

etal concern (II, 96). Locke’s endorsement of legislative

supremacy means that only the legislature, or possibly a

supreme executive (II, 151–52) with a share of the leg-

islative power, can be identified in any meaningful way

as supreme. Civil government and the supreme power it

possesses can only be dissolved by two means. First, the

people have a natural right to revolt against oppressive or

tyrannical rule, and thereby dissolve the government and

reconstitute a new one as they see fit (II, 212–17). Second,

the legislature may be destroyed and civil government

de facto dissolved by the external force of conquest (II,

178–83). By this logic, civil governments are the primary

victims of lawful conquest.

On one level, Locke’s idea of society is simply

the seedbed of civil government, a form of association

produced “by the consent of every individual” in the

community (II, 96). In theory, the unanimous consent

grounding society informs and in essence authorizes the

majority to act for the whole in determining the form of

government for a community. Herein lies the radically

democratic foundation of every “lawful government,”

whether the particular form of civil government estab-

lished by the majority of society is democratic or most

likely not (II, 99, 132; Tarcov 1981, 205). However, on a

deeper level society reflects the flesh and blood social re-

ality of common life for which the cold abstractions of

contractual legalism are always in some sense an impov-

erished metaphor (Rabkin 1997, 306–309; Walzer 1977,

53–54). In the normal course of events, civil government

and society are practically inseparable. As independent

commonwealths interact with others internationally and

govern themselves by general standing laws domestically,

the greater part represents the whole in a relatively seam-

less web of consensual connections. The dissolution of

government by conquest or revolution exposes the fun-

damental distinction between these two interrelated, but

discrete modes of existence. Society reconstitutes govern-

ments. The implication for international relations is that

it is not simply the establishment of a common legislative

that separates one independent community from all oth-

ers in the international state of nature. Rather the prior

commitment to social union, to form one “Society,” re-

flects the deeper moral and social reality that preexists

and emphatically outlives the dissolution of any particu-

lar government a people may create. For Locke, society is

where the people are.

Although society is not subject to the same logic of

dissolution that affects government, it hardly needs to be

said that Locke does not suggest that society is indestruc-

tible in the manner of Rousseau’s general will (Rousseau

[1762] 1978, 108–109). He freely admits that societies

may be dissolved consensually to form new ones through

the act of incorporation (II, 177–78) or societies may be

dissolved brutally by “Conquerors Swords,” which “cut

up Governments by the Roots, and mangle Societies to

pieces” (II, 211). However, the distinction between con-

sensual incorporation and brutal deracination may not be

as clear as it initially appears. As a practical matter, Locke

indicates that conquerors have historically been much less

nice about the rights of conquered peoples than his the-

oretical treatment would suggest (II, 175, 180, 186). As a

matter of fact, dissolution of society by the “Conquerors

Sword” can be seen as the prevalent historical practice to

which Locke’s entire conquest theory stands in opposi-

tion. The normative thrust of Locke’s teaching on lawful

conquest is to exempt and protect societies, as opposed

to governments, from the full weight of natural law pun-

ishments. The humanizing tendency of Locke’s limits on

lawful conquerors, especially with regard to respecting

property and civilian life, thus has a decidedly prescrip-

tive character meant to reconceptualize notions of just war

and natural law in moral terms compatible with a right of

self-government inhering in society. The basic constituent

elements of Locke’s international order are societies.

Whereas the political independence associated with

the idea of sovereignty is qualified or contingent on ad-

herence to the natural law principle of nonaggression, the

inherent right of self-government is absolute. However,

this right is absolute only in the negative sense that one

society must not be governed arbitrarily or permanently

by another without its consent. It is a right of nondomi-

nation rather than an absolute right in the positive sense

of a right to have a particular form of government or rule

by specific individuals.11 The principle of nondomina-

tion involves the right of a people to choose any form of

11Pettit’s idea of freedom as nondomination (2001, 138–49) as acondition free from arbitrary and exploitative measures, but notfrom all forms of perhaps salutary interference, provides a goodmodel for understanding Locke’s idea of a society’s inherent rightof self-government.

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 699

government consistent with natural law. The salutary con-

sequences of lawful conquest may include the destruction

and punishment of criminal leaders and even the elimi-

nation of aggressive regimes. In the harsh school of law-

ful conquest, societies may be instructed about the kinds

of governments to which a people mindful of the natu-

ral law should consent (Josephson 2002, 190–96). In this

sense, the inherent right of a society to govern itself is

integrally linked to the framework of norms governing

the international realm that may guide reasoned consent.

Self-government as a right of nondomination contains

the immanent causality of political independence, but

it does not necessitate full sovereignty in the immediate

sense.

There is also a distinct conventional or legitimist di-

mension to Locke’s conception of international society. As

several commentators have observed, Locke, unlike his

immediate predecessor Hugo Grotius, did not advance

any substantive notion of the “law of nations” (ius gen-

tium; Grotius [1625] 2005, 162–64, 189), an inductively

established body of norms and general principles of law

recognized in many different communities (Ahrensdorf

and Pangle 1999, 162–67; Cox 1960, 140–46; Forde 1998,

643–45; Nardin 2002, 58). For Locke, the law of nature

constitutes the only class of universally enforceable laws

binding on all rational beings. This being granted, how-

ever, it is important to observe that much as Locke main-

tains that municipal laws strengthen the moral saliency

of natural law principles by annexing “known penal-

ties . . . to them, to enforce their observation” (II, 135),

so too do the various leagues, alliances, and compacts

among nations signify a form of conventional glue bind-

ing the autonomous parts of international society (II, 14,

146). As Locke remarks, the various “Promises and Com-

pacts” that individuals or communities make “are binding

to them, though they are perfectly in a State of Nature, in

reference to one another” (II, 14). The social character of

the international state of nature derives in part from the

capacity of these public persons to generate moral claims

and obligations.

The kind of international agreement to which Locke

attributes the greatest significance relates to the issue

of territorial recognition. In the course of describing

the manner in which “several Communities settled the

Bounds of their distinct Territories,” Locke makes refer-

ence to “the Leagues that have been made between several

States and Kingdoms, either expressly or tacitly disowning

all Claim and Right to the land in the others Possession”

(II, 45). The legitimist aspect of international society in-

volves both the explicit renunciation of territorial claims

and an implicit recognition of the equality of the inde-

pendent “States and Kingdoms” party to these reciprocal

agreements. What is perhaps most striking about Locke’s

argument for the conventional legal basis of territorial

recognition is his contention that this recognition may be

explicit or tacit. We may understand this implicit recogni-

tion in several ways. First, Locke may mean no more than

that any explicit agreement with another state regarding

one matter includes implicit recognition of the territorial

integrity of the various parties. For example, an agree-

ment regarding trade or the establishment of diplomatic

relations implies mutual recognition of borders. Alterna-

tively, Locke may intend a more expansive construction of

the meaning of implicit recognition such that any explicit

assertion of territorial integrity by one state produces an

implicit renunciation by that state of any territorial claim

against any other state. Being a recognized member of

international society involves affirming, even if only tac-

itly, the independence and territorial integrity of the other

members. Locke assumes that every society must have a

territory of its own.

The argument for tacit territorial recognition sug-

gests another international norm, in addition to the in-

heritance and self-rule rights of the “innocent” individu-

als in the defeated societies, that limits conquest. Lawful

conquerors are prohibited from annexing territory of the

defeated society because of a moral obligation on the vic-

tor produced by the prior, if even implicit, recognition

of the territorial integrity of the other party. The recog-

nition of distinct territorial units is, in essence, a valida-

tion of the right of self-government inhering in the so-

ciety possessing and organizing that territory. How does

the legal principle of territoriality relate to the norm of

nonaggression?

The various leagues and compacts establishing ter-

ritorial boundaries provide legal or conventional mark-

ers for determining aggression in the international arena.

By delimiting a recognizable threshold for measuring ag-

gression, these international agreements establish a ba-

sis for self-defense and collective security arrangements

allowing intervention and counterintervention to assist

allies and victims of aggression. However, this position

begs the question whether annexation of territory is per-

missible, not as reparation, but rather as a security guar-

antee to prevent future aggression (Coby 1987, 21). In

absence of a broadly accepted revision of the territorial

settlement, such action would be inconsistent with in-

ternational norms inasmuch as the practice of violating

treaties and implicit obligations threatens to unravel the

moral fabric of international society. Nations are less likely

to treat, and wars likely to be more bitterly fought, if per-

manent loss of territory is an acceptable outcome. Locke

suggests that the broader security interest of every mem-

ber of international society is served by refraining from

700 LEE WARD

strategic or punitive annexation. By similar reasoning, the

international norms that permit preemptive war prohibit

preventive war.12 The natural law sanctions preemptive

attack against an adversary showing an “Enmity to [ones]

being” and a “sedate settled design” to harm (II, 16). How-

ever, preventive war lacking immediate threat of attack

and intended to weaken a potential rival or future threat is

itself a form of aggression, and would be no more morally

defensible than a war launched to preserve a nation’s hege-

mony or restore a balance of power. Both annexation and

preventive war involve violations of principles and norms,

the universal renunciation of which would make interna-

tional peace impossible.

Locke and Colonialism

It is in light of the natural and legitimist basis of inter-

national morality that the question of Locke’s relation to

colonialism is clearly germane. While a full examination of

the relation of liberalism and imperialism is well beyond

the scope of the present study (Mehta 1999; Muthu 2003;

Pitts 2005), it may be fitting to consider briefly the im-

plications of Locke’s international society argument for

colonialism. Several recent commentators have offered

studies associating Locke’s permissive natural law justifi-

cation of the use of force with the aggressive mercantilist

and colonial policies of early modern England (Arneil

1996, 16–20; Pagden 2003, 183–84; Tuck 1999, 73–78;

Tully 1993, 154–55).13 They generally reach this conclu-

sion by drawing together several pieces of evidence. First,

there is Locke’s admission that the prohibition on annex-

ing territory does not extend to unoccupied land of which

“anyone had liberty to make use of the waste” (II, 184).

Second, the consequentialist logic of Locke’s argument

that the one who cultivates “the wild woods and unculti-

vated waste of America” does not by his industry deprive

anyone else of their rights, but rather may be said to give

the bounty of increased productivity “to Mankind,” is

interpreted by some as a specious pseudo-humanitarian

rationalization for dispossessing native peoples of their

land (II, 37). Finally, Locke’s doctrine of nonaggression

is sometimes viewed in the colonial context as little more

12For the moral distinction between preemptive and preventive war,see Walzer (1977, 74–85) and Brailey (2003, 1–9).

13For some critics, the punitive aspect of Locke’s natural law isa rationalization for the dispossession and enslavement of nativeAfricans and Americans by the European powers. For a good treat-ment of the literature dealing with Locke and slavery, see Glauser(1990).

than a transparent, self-serving justification for the de-

struction and enslavement of native peoples who have the

temerity to resist their own dispossession. Together these

arguments form a serious indictment against Locke.

It may be helpful to analyze these charges in light of

our findings regarding Locke’s notion of self-government

and international society. There are two central questions

at issue. First, does Locke see non-European peoples as

independent nations or distinct societies against whom

the unprovoked use of force is simply aggression? Second,

do these non-European peoples have property rights in

the territory they inhabit?

When we consider the charges against Locke in terms

of these questions, neither the punitive aspect of the law

of nature nor the consequentialist justification for private

property necessarily serves the purposes alleged. It is im-

portant to observe that, in contrast to later liberal interna-

tional lawyers such as Vattel, Locke does not refer to leav-

ing land undeveloped as a violation of the natural law that

is in any way punishable by another party (Vattel 1793, I,

149–50; cf. Pagden 2003, 183). While Locke is vague as to

what constitutes insufficiently habited land, it is clear that

he does not make the brutal argument that any nation that

cannot protect private property cannot exclude foreign

settlement (Rabkin 1997, 313). Moreover, the consequen-

tialist and utilitarian justification for private acquisition

cannot on its own constitute an apology for colonialism,

inasmuch as Locke in no way entertains this reasoning

with respect to lawful conquest.14 Why could a lawful

conqueror not claim any land (not just “waste”) on the

grounds that they can make it more productive than its

original owners? On the basis of the consequentialist ar-

gument alone, there is no reason why a lawful conqueror

could not make such a claim, even though Locke denies

any such permission to the conqueror. Clearly, any con-

flict between settler and native may be rationalized, even

by the most self-serving logic, as a response to “force with-

out right,” and thus exploited by the moral hypocrisy of

the colonial powers seeking to justify their territorial am-

bitions. However, would the natural law authorization for

14It should be noted, however, that Locke’s consequentialist argu-ment for property rights is more suited to justifying the displace-ment of native peoples if the standard for proprietary rights is culti-vation, rather than any specific claim to the enhanced productivityaccruing from the institution of money. By this reasoning, the bareact of cultivation supplies a threshold for proprietary right that no-madic peoples presumably would have great difficulty meeting, atleast to the satisfaction of the colonial powers. For accounts of theway in which this version of Locke’s argument about agriculturewas or could be used to justify the dispossession of native peo-ples, see Arneil (1994, 602–609); Kramer (1997, 114–19); Lerner(1987, 139–73); Mehta (1999, 123–32); Muthu (2003, 187, 277);Pitts (2005, 201); and Tully (1993, 139–51, 163–66).

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 701

the use of lethal force and enslavement not apply at least

as much, and with potentially even more dramatic con-

sequences, to aggression among the settled peoples and

kingdoms of Europe, who Locke assumes are parties to

the comprehensive territorial settlement, as it would to

native peoples who may or may not be? The most radical

thrust of Locke’s punitive law of nature is perhaps directed

against belligerent European autocrats such as Louis XIV

and much less suited to colonial apologetics.15

Although Locke suggests that where there is “more

Land, than the Inhabitants possess, and make use of, any-

one has liberty to make use of the waste,” he also displays

a remarkable insouciance about this advantage claiming,

“but there Conquerors take little care to possess them-

selves of the Lands of the Vanquished” (II, 184). Locke’s

underlying assumption here is that wasteland is unlikely

anywhere money is widely used and available. This argu-

ment clearly leaves open the possibility for colonial powers

to claim “waste” land that they might assert (reasonably or

not) is not materially connected to the well-being of a peo-

ple in a distinct territorial area. However, this argument

serves as moral justification for colonial possession only

with the crucial qualification that the land is not claimed

by people “who have consented to the use of Money,” a

possibility increasingly foreclosed in Locke’s view by the

widespread use of money in his day (II, 45, 49, 184). Non-

monetarized native peoples would not, in this argument,

constitute societies included in the implicit territorial set-

tlement underlying Locke’s international society, and thus

are, or were, subject to colonial predations with respect

to surplus land they could not “possess, and make use

of” from which the monetarized societies of Europe were

largely immune. However, Locke does suggest a version of

the claim right to vacant or uncultivated land that holds

potentially explosive populist implications even in Eu-

rope: “I have heard it affirmed that in Spain itself, a Man

may be permitted to plough, sow, and reap, without be-

ing disturbed, upon Land he has no other Title to, but

only his making use of it” (II, 36). With this statement,

Locke takes a jab, if only in passing, at the premier colonial

power of the age. In the final analysis, Locke’s argument

is perhaps best understood as a rights claim to vacant

land that has colonial implications but is also historically

contingent on the development of a global monetary sys-

tem that would, by his own formulation, gradually make

colonialism morally indefensible.

15This is a line of argument pursued vigorously by Waldron (2002,148–50). A similar interpretation is that of Ashcraft (1986, 399),who maintains that Locke’s teaching on conquest was meant to warnthe tyrannical Stuarts that a foreign invasion to liberate Englandand punish its rulers would be entirely consistent with the law ofnature.

Conclusion: Locke and the Ethicsof Intervention

This article has tried to show that Locke’s thoughts on

international relations are better understood by shift-

ing from the familiar discourse of natural law and

sovereignty to a discourse of international society and

self-government. The normative content of this interna-

tional society rests on the recognition of distinct societies

with an inherent right of self-government, a notion of

just war as self-defense and law enforcement, and the

identification of the source of international norms in a

combination of natural law and conventional legitimist

principles.

It may be fitting to conclude by briefly exploring

Locke’s vision of international society with a view to con-

sidering its application to the contemporary debate about

sovereignty and intervention. The debate over the ethics

of intervention raises fundamental questions about ter-

ritorial integrity, political independence, and the right of

nations to interfere in the internal affairs of other na-

tions. This debate typically involves two distinct concep-

tions of international society: the pluralist and solidarist

models (Bull 1966, 52).16 Pluralists derive the normative

content of international society primarily from the mu-

tual recognition of the component societal units’ right to

exist and promote their diverse national ends with mini-

mal outside interference (Jackson 2000, 156–84; Mayall

2000, 14). In the pluralist model of international so-

ciety, as in international law generally, the emphasis is

on the principle of nonintervention and the primacy of

state sovereignty. The solidarist model, on the other hand,

maintains that human solidarity assumes moral priority

to state sovereignty since distinct national communities

can reach broad agreement about substantive moral stan-

dards. According to solidarists, the use of force is legiti-

mate when conceived as a form of law enforcement in-

cluding not only self-defense and collective security, but

also the possibility of intervening to uphold the shared

moral purposes of international society (Nardin 2002,

64–70; Wheeler 2000). The tension between the pluralist

and solidarist view has, if anything, only intensified with

recent developments such as the effort by the Interna-

tional Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

(2001) to shift the terms of the debate from the “right of

intervention” to the idea of “sovereignty as responsibility”

(Bellamy 2003, 326). Proponents of the idea of interna-

tional society, however conceived, feel the pressing need

to establish clear criteria as to which kinds of situations

16For good overviews of the pluralist-solidarist debate, see Bellamy(2003, 324–25) and Little (2003, 453).

702 LEE WARD

constitute a legitimate exception to the general principle

of state sovereignty and nonintervention underlying in-

ternational law.

Locke offers a perspective on the contemporary de-

bate about intervention that is neither wholly pluralist

nor solidarist. With the pluralist model, Locke views the

mutual recognition of the constituent units’ right to exist

as an important normative component of international

society. Moreover, he shares the pluralists’ enthusiasm for

the diverse ends available to independent communities

formed by the consent of their people and embodying

the moral purpose of society in their distinctive fashion.

Locke demonstrates no desire or confidence that inter-

national institutions will replace self-governing societies

as the primary actors in the international state of nature.

However, as we have seen, Locke departs from the plu-

ralists insofar as he does not share their emphasis on

the moral primacy of state sovereignty. Rather, more in

keeping with the solidarist model, Locke’s state of nature

grounds an idea of human solidarity prior to the state

that legitimizes the use of force broadly conceived as a

form of law enforcement. While Locke does not deal sys-

tematically with the normative content of international

morality, especially with regard to the status of individu-

als in international society, he does present a vision for the

basis of international agreement about substantive moral

standards in the generalities of the law of nature.

In order to develop a Lockean reading of the ethics of

intervention, we must piece together various aspects of his

argument about international society. The law of nature

that grounds the right of each “to preserve himself ” also

commands “the preservation of Society” (II, 6, 134). The

underlying tension between self-preservation and preser-

vation of society only intensifies in international society

wherein preservation of one society may conflict with the

command to “preserve the rest of Mankind” (II, 6; Grant

1987, 128). In the case of both the individual and soci-

ety Locke is adamant that the duty of universal preserva-

tion only assumes genuine moral saliency when it “comes

not in competition” with communal or self-preservation.

Locke clearly establishes that the overarching moral pur-

pose of each society is the security and welfare of its own

people, and thus any moral duty on states to intervene can

never be more than an imperfect duty qualified by the

danger involved. On its face, this formulation of global

responsibility appears to provide little guidance for the

ethics of intervention. Does the natural law command

to “preserve the rest of Mankind’ authorize or even re-

quire states and international society to intervene in or-

der, for example, to end humanitarian disasters or severe

oppression when their own safety or prosperity is not in

jeopardy?

Locke’s discussion of the Turkish occupation of

Greece may be significant in this regard. On one level,

it is meant as an illustration of the natural right of rev-

olution, a call for the Greeks to “cast off the Turkish

yoke . . . whenever they have a power to do it” (II, 192).

Locke clearly asserts the nondomination right of Greek

society, or any distinct society that retains its inherent

right of self-government despite the loss of political in-

dependence through conquest. What is not so clear, how-

ever, is whether Locke intended the Greek example to be

simply an objective observation about the natural right of

revolution, or if it can be construed as an appeal for inter-

vention by sympathetic European states on behalf of the

Greek people. As a theoretical question, Locke’s general

endorsement of the natural law principle of third-party

intervention (II, 8) would be applicable to this situation

if, as is likely, Locke and his audience construed Greek so-

ciety to be the victim of Turkish aggression. Admittedly,

Locke does not explicitly identify a right of international

society to intervene militarily on behalf of the oppressed

Greeks. However, unlike John Stuart Mill for instance,

neither does he place strict terms and qualifications on

the right of intervention such as requiring a direct appeal

for aid or a demonstration of actual military resistance by

the oppressed party (Mill [1859] 1873, 238–63; cf. Pitts

2005, 142–43). It is precisely the open-ended nature of

Locke’s appeal to the Greek cause that allows intervention

to be, at least, a plausible interpretation of his broader

intention.

While the Greek example may suggest Locke’s open-

ness to international support for, and even intervention in,

wars of national liberation, contemporary analysts gen-

erally believe it is a much more questionable proposition

to consider intervention in the purely internal affairs of

a sovereign nation (Hoffman 1996, 19; Walzer 1977, 106;

Wight 1966, 112–13; but see Teson 1988, 15–16). How-

ever, Locke’s account of lawful conquest contains the core

of an argument for even more direct intervention in the

internal affairs of another nation than we saw in the Greek

case. Locke’s theory of selective war guilt proposed that

the people of a given society are no more to be thought

responsible for external aggression than they are “to be

thought guilty of any Violence or Oppression their Gou-

vernours should use upon the People themselves, or any

Part of their Fellow Subjects, they having impowered them

no more to the one, than to the other” (II, 179). Locke em-

ploys the argument that aggressive war violates the raison

d’etre of society and is thus inconceivable as a delegated

power of legitimate government. One effect of Locke’s

moral parallel between external aggression and domestic

oppression is to present every lawful conquest as a kind

of foreign intervention to liberate an oppressed people

LOCKE ON THE MORAL BASIS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 703

who can no more be thought to authorize aggressive war

by their government against others as against themselves.

The theoretical distinction between government and soci-

ety allows Locke to suggest that society is the party injured

by an aggressive government (Lowenthal 1988, 132). The

extension of this logic to aggression against “Part” of soci-

ety forms the basis for a conception of sovereign respon-

sibility that makes government oppression of minorities

a justification not only of revolution, but also conceivably

for intervention to aid oppressed groups.

External aggression and domestic oppression against

a “Part of their Fellow Subjects” violates the same basic

principle of natural justice. Insofar as a given society may

no more be held responsible for one than the other, then

at least in principle, international society is no less re-

stricted in its right to punish those responsible for either

kind of aggression. Although Locke does not detail the

precise forms of government action that would constitute

such oppression of minorities, the logic of the Greek ex-

ample, as a kind of minority within an empire, suggests

the framework for establishing the normative content of

international standards regarding the status of individuals

that might include a prohibition against discriminatory

treatment or the systematic violation of fundamental

natural rights pertaining to physical security, ownership

and inheritance of property, and freedom of religion.

In lieu of concrete international agreement on the sub-

stantive normative content of the individual rights gov-

ernments are charged to secure, Locke’s theory arguably

limns the outline of what form such an agreement might

take.

Another topic that receives considerable attention in

the contemporary debate over intervention is the idea

of “supreme humanitarian emergencies” (Bellamy 2003,

335–38; Nardin 2003, 66–67; Walzer 1977, 251–54). Even

strong proponents of the principle of nonintervention

frequently admit that there are rare situations of extreme

humanitarian crisis such as genocide or natural disaster

that “shock the conscience of mankind” and may justify

intervention. Locke’s account of lawful conquest speaks to

this issue indirectly. His insistence on the humane treat-

ment of those conquered people not directly implicated

in aggression provides a rather stringent moral frame-

work regulating how states and militaries should conduct

themselves when intervening. The law of nature “that wil-

leth the preservation of all Mankind as much as is pos-

sible” (II, 182) requires lawful conquerors to respect the

property rights of noncombatants, and even to remit le-

gitimate reparation if it threatens the survival of innocent

people. With this argument, Locke indicates that a lawful

conqueror assumes a considerable measure of moral re-

sponsibility for the security and well-being of the defeated

people. Does this notion of responsibility extend globally

into a justification for intervention in order, for example,

to relieve a supreme humanitarian emergency?

Although Locke does not address this question di-

rectly, the general direction of his argument suggests two

distinct lines of thought on the issue of humanitarian in-

tervention. On the one hand, he indicates that the normal

rules of justice such as those applying to reparation may

be suspended by the greater humanitarian need of those

“who are in danger to perish without” these resources (II,

183). By this reasoning, supplemented by the natural law

imperative to preserve humankind, Locke could endorse

temporary suspension of the nonintervention principle,

at the very least, to relieve rare and severe cases of human-

itarian crisis such as mass starvation.17 On the other hand,

there is an aspect of the domestic analogy with decidedly

more radical implications for intervention. According to

Locke, the federative power that conducts a common-

wealth’s foreign policy “answers to the Power every Man

naturally had before he entered into Society” (II, 145). The

natural executive power of the individual includes the gen-

eral, or even universal, right to “joyn with” another that is

injured and assist in the punishment of the offender (II,

10). One implication of Locke’s argument would be that

when individuals in the state of nature transfer this pun-

ishment right to their government it is thereby authorized

by this third-party right to punish governments that abuse

their own people and even to prosecute violators of the law

of nature who may escape punishment in their own coun-

try (Simmons 1992, 129–30). While the claim that borders

may be crossed in order to punish wrongdoers does not

necessarily translate into a similar permission with respect

to protecting the innocent, the logic of punishment and

protection are clearly interwoven in the moral framework

of Locke’s international society; and thus the extraterrito-

rial implications of such a punishment right could make

humanitarian intervention a common feature of Lockean

international relations.

While Locke’s argument may be said to support the

logic of humanitarian intervention, he offers little guid-

ance with respect to the vital question regarding who, if

anyone, would have an obligation to fight in humanitar-

ian causes.18 There is a clear Lockean argument that a

soldier’s duty to fight in a just, primarily defensive, war

follows from one’s obligation to one’s own society and

the government’s legitimate power to preserve the society

(II, 139, 143). However, the moral duty to fight in wars

of intervention on behalf of others is more ambiguous.

17In a related context Locke suggested that the normal laws of eco-nomics can be suspended in famine conditions ([1695] 1997, 339–43). For the humanitarian imperatives of the natural law, see alsoTuckness (2002, 81).

18The author would like to thank an anonymous referee of AJPSfor raising this important issue.

704 LEE WARD

Possibly these wars would have to be fought solely by vol-

unteer armies. However, another potential source for the

individual’s obligation to fight in wars of humanitarian

intervention is the obligation arising from the compre-

hension of the individual’s natural executive power into

the federative power of the government. By this reason-

ing, the individual would authorize the government to

execute the natural law in the international sphere on the

same moral basis that he or she is obliged to assist in the

execution of the civil law internally. Of course, according

to Locke, the individual would still have the natural right

to decide whether the intervention by his or her govern-

ment is legitimate or constitutes an abuse of power and

thus would always retain the right of resistance and even

revolution.

Locke’s treatment of the moral basis of international

relations outlines what he takes to be the promise and

problems of international society. He exhibits promise

regarding possible agreement about international norms

pertaining to territorial integrity, the limits on con-

quest, and the mutual recognition of the right of self-

government inhering in distinct societies. Locke even pro-

vides a rough sketch of the normative basis for a way of

thinking about rights of individuals and minorities in the

international context. There are also, however, definite

limits to Locke’s optimism about international coopera-

tion. He shows little confidence that the natural law prin-

ciples of morality can be effectively embodied in inter-

national institutions. Moreover, the latent possibility of

anarchy is no less apparent where each society is its own

judge of humanitarian justice, than it is for the individual

in the state of nature. Indeed, Locke’s famous epistemo-

logical scepticism about the notion of innate moral sense,

as well as his deep pessimism with respect to the norma-

tive value of historical tradition and the customary law

of nations, point to what he must have seen as powerful

social, cultural, and intellectual obstacles to the formal-

ization and effective enforcement of international norms

of behavior (I, 58; II, 103, 175, 180, 186; Locke [1700]

1975, 65–84). In the final analysis, however, Locke’s ac-

count of the moral basis of international relations may

speak more to his cautious hope for general moral and

intellectual progress, than to a radical transformation in

the international state of nature. The natural, if more dis-

tant, corollary to the creation of citizens who develop the

proper rational habts and conduct befitting rights bear-

ing individuals in liberal society may be the global citizen

who respects and secures rights at home and in interna-

tional society. Perhaps the prescriptive thrust of Locke’s

theory of international society aimed toward the incul-

cation of liberal principles in areas and aspects hitherto

scarcely observed.

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