John Locke

(1632–1704)
IR 110
Main messages
• Locke is a social contract theorist with a positive view of SoN
• Locke emphasized natural law as the basis of our rights
• Locke is seen as a liberal due to his views on private property and
toleration
• When people make a contract and establish the state, they do not give
up their power but entrust it
• Rulers are also human beings and may have a tendency to grasp power
• Mechanism for registering on going consent
• Limited state and separation of powers (legislature vs executive)
His life and work
• One of the most significant
liberal thinkers of the 17th c.
• Born into a middle class family
• Father supporter of the
Parliament
• Studied philosophy and medicine
• Two Treatises on Government
written 10 years before the This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under
CC BY-SA

Glorious Revolution
• Published in 1689 anonymously
Two Treatises on Government
• Against Filmer’s Patriarcha
• Power of fathers = power of kings
• Focus on Creation: Adam was the first father and King
• We are his descendants and not free
• People are born into families
• Political power is a property
• the Kings did not have a divine right to rule
• everyone was born equal
• no one had any right to dominate the other.
• Relationship between the King and his subjects was a political relationship
(compare Aristotle)
• Emphasized natural law and the state of nature
• the natural law included the commands of God and the dictates of reason.
• more optimistic SoN: rights of life, liberty and property are all protected by
natural law in the state of nature.
• These rights were given by God and could not be transferred.
• The government was established to protect our rights not to undermine
them.
• Inspired the American and French revolutions.
• His theory of property and his attempt to justify theory on the basis of
labor prepared the ground for Adam Smith and Karl Marx
State of Nature
• State of nature: a device to justify government authority
• According to Locke, in SoN
• No government
• State of peace, goodwill, cooperation and protection
• People live according to reason
• Natural rights: life, liberty and estate (jointly Right to Property)
• Negative rights
• No natural right to rule
State of Nature (2)
• Right to liberty is not “license”
• Rights limited by natural law created by God, discoverable with
reason
• No right to harm others
• Responsibility to help as long as no harm to self
• If the SoN is peaceful why need a social contract?
• A minority may violate laws of nature
• Having rights means having a right to punish violators
• So a government is needed
Private property
• Property is defined broadly as the things men forms with his
creative capabilities.
• private property is a the center of his theory of social contract
• God has given the world to human beings.
• All the fruits and animals in the world belong to people.
• But these become part of their private property when they use
their labor
• When a man gathers apples from the tree, he uses his labor
• Natural limits: a person cannot take everything
• Things change when money is invented
• Tacit consent: when you use money
• Accumulation of wealth is possible
• Accumulation leads to inequality
• But inequality due to some people working harder
• Private property of land is good because it will be owned by people
who work hard, more products for everyone
• So private property increases the common stock of humanity
• Locke: people are not natural observers of Justice and Equity
• A government is necessary to protect natural right
• Government is good for both people with and without property
• A government is formed on the basis of unanimous consent of people.
• Once people live under a government, the majority becomes the decisive
factor.
• All must submit to the ill of the majority and only those who have private
property have the will to vote.
• Locke also argue that people living within the boundaries of the country
tacitly accept the laws of the country just by living there
Limited government
• Locke forms one of the basic ideas of liberalism
• No political authority can have an arbitrary and absolute power
over human beings
• Even men do not have absolute and arbitrary power on themselves and
others
• Government established to protect rights
Limited government (2)
• Principle of toleration
• Necessary for the moral identity of the person
• Applies to private realm
• Government can rule external things, not internal
• Government cannot change opinions
• Lack of toleration leads to problems
• However, this toleration is not unlimited.
• Toleration cannot be extended to religions or sects that do not tolerate the existence
of other religions and sects.
• The atheists cannot be tolerated either because the functioning of civil society is
based on contract and oaths but atheists do not comply with these
• Basis of incompatibility between Western notions of liberty and Muslim practices
Locke and Colonialism
• Locke was a defender of colonies in
America
• Many people were against colonies
• People draining into colonies
• Colonies could become independent and
compete with England
• Locke:
• It is industry (labor) which is the source of
wealth
• Without labor there is no private property,
and land is worthless
• Note his examples of agriculture
• Conquest does not give you the right to the Earl of Shaftesbury
land (Dutch and Spanish) but labor does
Should women have equal rights?
• We have rights because we are
human
• Are women also human beings?
• Women have the same nature
with men
• Natural differences?
• Women cannot be proper wives
and mothers if they are not as
independent and educated as men
• Family life will be improved if
women are educated Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797
Would Locke agree?
• Implicitly, yes
• Women are fully rational
• Praise of women in power
• Does not exclude women from “people”, people can decide on voting rules
• Authority of parents over children are equal
• Marriage is a voluntary contract, can be terminated with mutual consent
• Property owned by woman belongs to her after divorce
• Hesitant to affirm full equality
• Final decision falls to husband (abler and stronger?)
• A secular justification of patriarchy?
Differences between Hobbes and
Locke?
• State of nature as a coherent social organization vs state of war
• All powerful state as a threat
• State serves the social order
• Hobbes supports a single sovereign, Locke supports separation of
powers
• In Locke we give up rights to
• Enforce law of nature (to interpret, apply it to specific cases and use force)