John Locke

For his entry in History of Political Philosophy, Robert A. Goldwin focuses on the political thought of John Locke, one of the most influential figures in the development of liberalism who has had a particularly big impact on the development of the political thought in the United States. One of the most important things to remember about Locke is that for him, government is to be limited, an idea that is grounded in the notion that people are born free. Freedom is of great concern for Locke and it is for this reason that he dedicated three separate works to three separate conceptions of freedom: religious freedom in A Letter Concerning Toleration, political freedom in Two Treaties of Government, and economic freedom in Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interests and Raising the Value of Money. Due to the nature of the book Goldwin’s essay is found in, the bulk of his essay focuses on the ideas discussed in Two Treaties of Government. One of the first things that needs to be understood about Locke’s conception of political freedom is that for him freedom is natural and is rooted in the idea that humans are naturally equal. This relates closely to his idea on the state of nature which predates the state and is characterized by its freedom and peace.

Locke’s ideas on the state of nature are badly misunderstood as many take it to be a literal event with Locke having pre-historical people in mind as living in the state of nature. This is not true as the actual people Locke has in mind as living under the state of nature are princes as their sense of reason is well developed and no one rules over them. From here Locke laws out four basic concepts that need to be understood in order to understand the rest of his political thought. These concepts are as follows: 1) The state of nature, 2) the state of war, 3) civil society, and 4) the state of peace. The opposite of the state of nature is civil society as civil society is defined by having a common judge to enforce civil law. Likewise, the opposite of the state of war is the state of peace as the state of war is defined by the use of force without right. While this does mean that the state of nature and the state of war are not equivalent as Hobbes thought they were, it must be remembered that the state of nature cannot last long as eventually a state of war will arise out of it. The state of war and the state of nature may not be the same thing, but it is only from the state of nature that a state of war can arise. It should also be noted that in the state of nature, people have an obligation to protect themselves and it is from this obligation that another obligation to protect others and thus punish those that do harm against innocents develops. Locke sees this desire of self-protection as ultimately coming from God and is through this desire that the idea of natural law arises, which Locke sees as being common to all men. 

There is a tendency to understand Locke by contrasting his thought with another English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. And while differences between the two men certainly do exist, it is worth pointing out that there are many issues on which they agree. These issues are as follows: 1) the state of war can only happen in the state of nature, 2) humans are generally concerned with self-preservation, and 3) civil government is needed in order to deal with the problems of the state of nature. Despite these similarities, Locke still does have a more positive outlook on people which leads to him adopting less authoritarian solutions.

The idea of ownership is one of Locke’s most important contribution to political philosophy an idea which he roots in the concept that people own both their body and their labor. From this arises other forms of property, which are themselves rooted in scarcity and surplus. The idea that Locke presents is that originally, all property was held in common, which was not an issue as due to the small human population, there was a superabundance of resources. As populations grew however, abundance decreased so therefore the concept of property was needed to sort out the distribution of scarce resources. This shifted ownership from being commonly held to being privately held.

For Locke, under natural conditions property is limited to what a person can himself work, but as accumulation develops there becomes more and more of a conception of property. As Locke notes, in earlier societies, the amount that people could accumulate was limited by both spoilage and the lack of cultivation of land. As people began to be able to develop better storage systems and cultivate land better, accumulation became more and more of a reality. Money is another factor that spurred on the development of accumulation which Locke sees a predating civil society. Locke does admit that accumulation does eventually lead to inequality in wealth, but for Locke this is not a problem for as accumulation increases, the amount of good available increases, which will eventually be for the benefit of all. This is important as accumulation relates closely to the ability for people to overcome natural limits of their environment and produce more. This matters because under natural conditions it is impossible for a person to benefit except at the expense of another.

As property developed, there also developed a need for protection of that property also developed, so thus a common judge was eventually brought in in order to give protection for property. Out of this move towards having a judge arises civil society. According to Locke, civil society is set up in order to read with four major problems. These problems are as follows: 1) the protection of property, 2) making the law known to all, 3) a judge to determine the law, and 4) a method to punish those who break the law. While they are in the state of nature, each person holds these powers themselves, but by entering civil society, they give up these powers. It is worth noting that while Hobbes has a somewhat similar view to Locke; Locke still thinks that people retain some power to control their government. What is perhaps most interesting about Locke’s position is that without these controls, a civil government cannot really exist so therefore an absolute monarchy is not really a government formed out of civil society, but rather a return to the state of nature.

It’s important to remember that Locke’s intention here is to find some way to balance the rights of individuals with the needs of the community. The tension between these two elements of Locke’s thought can be clearly demonstrated in his ideas on how civil society is formed versus how it later governs for while civil society can only be formed by unanimous decision, once it is formed, it governs by majority rule. This concept is rooted in Locke’s ideas on the relationship between power and force because as the majority is more numerous, it will have more force and thus more power. It should also be noted that civil society is not exactly the same thing as government for it is after civil society is formed that governments are formed. Still, the relationship between them is very close as no civil society by itself can last very long. Locke does not go into great detail on exactly what sort of government civil society should form, but he does give some general guidelines, one of the most important of these being the separation of powers. An example of this can be seen in his ideas on the relationship between the legislative body, legislative power, and the executive for while legislative power is to be supreme; the legislative body should not be and should instead be kept in check by the executive. Though the executive is to obey the legislative law, he is to do so using wisdom rather than just following the law blindly. What this means is that a good executive may at times act outside the law but when s/he does this, s/he does it in service to the people. What’s interesting is that Locke thinks that a tyrant also acts outside the law, but for Locke the difference between the two is that while the good executive does so in service, the tyrant does so to make war on the people.

Locke does think that people have a right to resist unjust authority, but is careful to point out that this is only to be used as a last resort. Locke is also careful not to promote revolution because he sees revolution as having disastrous consequences, among these being that revolution stops civil society from functioning. Still, Locke sees people’s resistance against unjust government as being ultimately rooted in self-preservation, just as was their move towards forming civil society. Locke’s focus on self-protection yields some surprising results on the relationship between passion and reason for while the ancients saw reason as being the key to resisting tyranny, by rooting resistance to tyranny in self-protection, Locke turns passion into the key. As a result of this, Locke ends up elevating passion over reason.