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64 Part I ■ Introduction to Moral Philosophy

! JOH N LOC K E

Two Treatises of Civil Government

British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) was born into a liberal Puritan family
that was heavily involved in political activism. Locke’s theory of natural rights emerged
primarily as a protest against the idea that the king possessed divine rights. Locke
believed that God created the earth as a resource for humans. These natural rights
ethics had a profound effect on the founders of the United States, especially Thomas
Jefferson.
In the following selection, from Two Treatises of Civil Government, Locke defends
our right to own property and explains why people in a state of nature come together
to form a political society.

Critical Reading Questions

1. How does Locke define political power?
2. What is the state of nature? What rights do humans have in a state of nature?
3. What is the law of nature?
4. Why does Locke argue that civil society is preferable to a state of nature?
5. According to Locke, why do humans have a right to the resources of the earth?
6. How do humans, as individuals, make these resources their property?
7. What are the limits on what we can claim as our property?
8. According to Locke, why do people come together to form a political society?
9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in a political society?

OF THE STATE OF NATURE
4. To understand political power aright, and
derive it from its original, we must consider what
estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state
of perfect freedom to order their actions, and
dispose of their possessions and persons as they
think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature,
without asking leave or depending upon the will
of any other man.
“Natural Rights,” from Two Treatises of Civil Government
(London: A & J Churchill, 1698). Notes have been omit-
ted. (For the complete text, go to www.constitution.org/
jl/2ndtreat.htm.)
A state also of equality, wherein all the power
and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more
than another, there being nothing more evident
than that creatures of the same species and rank,
promiscuously born to all the same advantages of
Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should
also be equal one amongst another, without sub-
ordination or subjection, unless the lord and mas-
ter of them all should, by any manifest declaration
of his will, set one above another, and confer on
him by an evident and clear appointment an un-
doubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
...
6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is
not a state of license; though man in that state have
an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person

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John Locke
or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy
himself, or so much as any creature in his pos-
session, but where some nobler use than its bare
preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a
law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone;
and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind
who will but consult it, that, being all equal and
independent, no one ought to harm another in
his life, health, liberty, or possessions. For men
being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and
infinitely wise Maker, they are his property, . . .
...
15. . . . “for as much as we are not by ourselves
sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent
store of things needful for such a life as our
Nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man,
therefore to supply those defects and imperfec-
tions which are in us, as living single and solely by
ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek com-
munion and fellowship with others; this was the
cause of men uniting themselves as first in politic
societies.” But I, moreover, affirm that all men are
naturally in that state, and remain so till, by their
own consents, they make themselves members of
some politic society, . . .
OF PROPERTY
...
25. 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.
The earth and all that is therein is given to men
for the support and comfort of their being. And
though all the fruits it naturally produces, and
beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common,
as they are produced by the spontaneous hand
of Nature, and nobody has originally a private
dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any
of them, as they are thus in their natural state,
yet being given for the use of men, there must of
necessity be a means to appropriate them some
way or other before they can be of any use, or at all
beneficial, to any particular men. . . .
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■ Two Treatises of Civil Government 65
26. Though the earth and all inferior crea-
tures be common to all men, yet every man has
a “property” in his own “person.” This nobody
has any right to but himself. The “labour” of his
body and the “work” of his hands, we may say,
are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes
out of the state that Nature hath provided and
left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and
joined to it something that is his own, and thereby
makes it his property. It being by him removed
from the common state Nature placed it in, it
hath by this labour something annexed to it that
excludes the common right of other men. For this
“labour” being the unquestionable property of
the labourer, no man but he can have a right to
what that is once joined to, at least where there is
enough, and as good left in common for others.
OF THE BEGINNING OF
POLITICAL SOCIETIES
95. Men being, as has been said, by nature all
free, equal, and independent, no one can be put
out of this estate and subjected to the political
power of another without his own consent, which
is done by agreeing with other men, to join and
unite into a community for their comfortable,
safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another,
in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a
greater security against any that are not of it. This
any number of men may do, because it injures
not the freedom of the rest; they are left, as they
were, in the liberty of the state of Nature. When
any number of men have so consented to make
one community or government, they are thereby
presently incorporated, and make one body poli-
tic, wherein the majority have a right to act and
conclude the rest.
96. For, when any number of men have, by the
consent of every individual, made a community,
they have thereby made that community one body,
with a power to act as one body, which is only by
the will and determination of the majority.
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66 Part I ■ Introduction to Moral Philosophy

... that is, or needs be, between the individuals that

99. Whosoever, therefore, out of a state of
Nature unite into a community, must be under-
stood to give up all the power necessary to the
ends for which they unite into society to the
majority of the community, unless they expressly
agreed in any number greater than the majority.
And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into
one political society, which is all the compact
enter into or make up a commonwealth. And
thus, that which begins and actually constitutes
any political society is nothing but the consent
of any number of free-men capable of majority,
to unite and incorporate into such a society. And
this is that, and that only, which did or could
give beginning to any lawful government in the
world. . . .

Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Locke’s claim that there is a law of nature that gives individuals living in a
state of nature the right to punish transgressors. Does the lack of an international
government mean that nations are living in a state of nature? Discuss whether this
justifies the use of war against nations that threaten our property rights.
2. Evaluate natural rights ethicists, claim that human equality is self-evident. Discuss
the implications of this belief for public policy on the right of same-sex couples to
marry.
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “people say law but they mean wealth.” In the
United States 90 percent of the resources are owned by 10 percent of the people.
Compare and contrast the capitalist system of property ownership, as supported by
Ayn Rand, with Locke’s philosophy. Use specific examples to illustrate your answer.

! NEL NODDINGS

Caring: A Feminine Approach

to Ethics and Moral Education
American philosopher Nel Noddings is a professor at Stanford University. Care eth-
ics, which expands on Carol Gilligan’s studies of women’s moral reasoning, is currently
one of the most influential feminist theories in moral philosophy. Unlike the analytical
approach, care ethics stresses the contextual aspect of morality. We are at our moral
best when we are caring and being cared for in relationships. In the selection from her
book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Noddings illustrates the
role of feelings or sentiment in morality.

Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1984).

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