Macpherson claims that as the argument progresses, each of these restrictions is transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a meaningful restriction with the invention of money because value can be stored in a medium that does not decay 2.
The sufficiency restriction is transcended because the creation of private property so increases productivity that even those who no longer have the opportunity to acquire land will have more opportunity to acquire what is necessary for life 2.
The third restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually held at all. Locke, according to Macpherson, thus clearly recognized that labor can be alienated. He argues that its coherence depends upon the assumption of differential rationality between capitalists and wage-laborers and on the division of society into distinct classes.
Because Locke was bound by these constraints, we are to understand him as including only property owners as voting members of society. Alan Ryan argued that since property for Locke includes life and liberty as well as estate Two Treatises 2. While this duty is consistent with requiring the poor to work for low wages, it does undermine the claim that those who have wealth have no social duties to others.
Previous accounts had focused on the claim that since persons own their own labor, when they mix their labor with that which is unowned it becomes their property.
Robert Nozick criticized this argument with his famous example of mixing tomato juice one rightfully owns with the sea. When we mix what we own with what we do not, why should we think we gain property instead of losing it? Human beings are created in the image of God and share with God, though to a much lesser extent, the ability to shape and mold the physical environment in accordance with a rational pattern or plan.
Only creating generates an absolute property right, and only God can create, but making is analogous to creating and creates an analogous, though weaker, right. Since Locke begins with the assumption that the world is owned by all, individual property is only justified if it can be shown that no one is made worse off by the appropriation.
Where this condition is not met, those who are denied access to the good do have a legitimate objection to appropriation. Once land became scarce, property could only be legitimated by the creation of political society. Waldron claims that, contrary to Macpherson , Tully , and others, Locke did not recognize a sufficiency condition at all.
Waldron takes Locke to be making a descriptive statement, not a normative one, about the conditions that initially existed. Waldron thinks that the condition would lead Locke to the absurd conclusion that in circumstances of scarcity everyone must starve to death since no one would be able to obtain universal consent and any appropriation would make others worse off.
In particular, it is the only way Locke can be thought to have provided some solution to the fact that the consent of all is needed to justify appropriation in the state of nature. If others are not harmed, they have no grounds to object and can be thought to consent, whereas if they are harmed, it is implausible to think of them as consenting.
Sreenivasan does depart from Tully in some important respects. The disadvantage of this interpretation, as Sreenivasan admits, is that it saddles Locke with a flawed argument.
Those who merely have the opportunity to labor for others at subsistence wages no longer have the liberty that individuals had before scarcity to benefit from the full surplus of value they create. Moreover, poor laborers no longer enjoy equality of access to the materials from which products can be made. Simmons presents a still different synthesis. He sides with Waldron and against Tully and Sreenivasan in rejecting the workmanship model. Locke thinks we have property in our own persons even though we do not make or create ourselves.
Simmons claims that while Locke did believe that God had rights as creator, human beings have a different limited right as trustees , not as makers. According to the former argument, at least some property rights can be justified by showing that a scheme allowing appropriation of property without consent has beneficial consequences for the preservation of mankind.
This argument is overdetermined, according to Simmons, in that it can be interpreted either theologically or as a simple rule-consequentialist argument. Like Sreenivasan, Simmons sees this as flowing from a prior right of people to secure their subsistence, but Simmons also adds a prior right to self-government. Labor can generate claims to private property because private property makes individuals more independent and able to direct their own actions.
Some authors have suggested that Locke may have had an additional concern in mind in writing the chapter on property. David Armitage even argues that there is evidence that Locke was actively involved in revising the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina at the same time he was drafting the chapter on property for the Second Treatise.
A final question concerns the status of those property rights acquired in the state of nature after civil society has come into being. It seems clear that at the very least Locke allows taxation to take place by the consent of the majority rather than requiring unanimous consent 2. Nozick takes Locke to be a libertarian, with the government having no right to take property to use for the common good without the consent of the property owner. On his interpretation, the majority may only tax at the rate needed to allow the government to successfully protect property rights.
At the other extreme, Tully thinks that, by the time government is formed, land is already scarce and so the initial holdings of the state of nature are no longer valid and thus are no constraint on governmental action.
His analysis begins with individuals in a state of nature where they are not subject to a common legitimate authority with the power to legislate or adjudicate disputes.
From this natural state of freedom and independence, Locke stresses individual consent as the mechanism by which political societies are created and individuals join those societies.
While there are of course some general obligations and rights that all people have from the law of nature, special obligations come about only when we voluntarily undertake them. Locke clearly states that one can only become a full member of society by an act of express consent Two Treatises 2.
Simply by walking along the highways of a country a person gives tacit consent to the government and agrees to obey it while living in its territory. This, Locke thinks, explains why resident aliens have an obligation to obey the laws of the state where they reside, though only while they live there.
Inheriting property creates an even stronger bond, since the original owner of the property permanently put the property under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. Children, when they accept the property of their parents, consent to the jurisdiction of the commonwealth over that property Two Treatises 2.
There is debate over whether the inheritance of property should be regarded as tacit or express consent. On one interpretation, by accepting the property, Locke thinks a person becomes a full member of society, which implies that he must regard this as an act of express consent.
On the other interpretation, Locke recognized that people inheriting property did not in the process of doing so make any explicit declaration about their political obligation. However this debate is resolved, there will be in any current or previously existing society many people who have never given express consent, and thus some version of tacit consent seems needed to explain how governments could still be legitimate.
It is one thing, he argues, for a person to consent by actions rather than words; it is quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that they have done so.
To require a person to leave behind all of their property and emigrate in order to avoid giving tacit consent is to create a situation where continued residence is not a free and voluntary choice. Hannah Pitkin takes a very different approach. Tacit consent is indeed a watering down of the concept of consent, but Locke can do this because the basic content of what governments are to be like is set by natural law and not by consent.
Pitkin, however, thinks that for Locke the form and powers of government are determined by natural law. What really matters, therefore, is not previous acts of consent but the quality of the present government, whether it corresponds to what natural law requires.
Locke does not think, for example, that walking the streets or inheriting property in a tyrannical regime means we have consented to that regime. It is thus the quality of the government, not acts of actual consent, that determine whether a government is legitimate. Simmons objects to this interpretation, saying that it fails to account for the many places where Locke does indeed say a person acquires political obligations only by his own consent.
John Dunn takes a still different approach. Simmons objects that this ignores the instances where Locke does talk about consent as a deliberate choice and that, in any case, it would only make Locke consistent at the price of making him unconvincing. Recent scholarship has continued to probe these issues.
Only those who have expressly consented are members of political society, while the government exercises legitimate authority over various types of people who have not so consented. The government is supreme in some respects, but there is no sovereign.
The former is more plausibly interpreted as an act of affirmative consent to be a member of a political society. Registering to vote, as opposed to actually voting, would be a contemporary analogue. Van der Vossen makes a related argument, claiming that the initial consent of property owners is not the mechanism by which governments come to rule over a particular territory.
Rather, Locke thinks that people probably fathers initially simply begin exercising political authority and people tacitly consent. This tacit consent is sufficient to justify a rudimentary state that rules over the consenters. Treaties between these governments would then fix the territorial borders. Hoff goes still further, arguing that we need not even think of specific acts of tacit consent such as deciding not to emigrate as necessary for generating political obligation.
Instead, consent is implied if the government itself functions in ways that show it is answerable to the people. A related question has to do with the extent of our obligation once consent has been given. The interpretive school influenced by Strauss emphasizes the primacy of preservation.
Since the duties of natural law apply only when our preservation is not threatened Two Treatises 2. This has important implications if we consider a soldier who is being sent on a mission where death is extremely likely.
Grant points out that Locke believes a soldier who deserts from such a mission 2. Grant takes Locke to be claiming not only that desertion laws are legitimate in the sense that they can be blamelessly enforced something Hobbes would grant but that they also imply a moral obligation on the part of the soldier to give up his life for the common good something Hobbes would deny.
According to Grant, Locke thinks that our acts of consent can, in fact, extend to cases where living up to our commitments will risk our lives.
In other words, who better to judge the integrity of a Representative, than those who voted for that certain integrity? These two ideas are what shaped Western government as of the 17 th century, and are still the basis for most. Uzgalis, William. Theriault, S. Theriault, Sawyer A. John Locke and the Second Treatise on Government. The newsletter highlights recent selections from the journal and useful tips from our blog. Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines.
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From the Inquiries Journal Blog. Political Science » American Government. By no means did he become an anarchist or a thorough and consistent libertarian who decried the use of power — power, he believed, is essential to the running of a peaceful commonwealth, but it must be vigorously checked and controlled, as well as used to secure national interests.
Locke also enjoyed dabbling in rationalist designs for how societies ought to be run, which is far removed from the hero of libertarian thinking of live and let live that he is sometimes held to be. For example, Locke retained an Oxford born academic scepticism of the people tinted with a sense of noblesse oblige — he left money for the poor of the parishes of his birth and death well into his Shaftesbury years, but this is later admixed with his political experiences in which he gained a healthier cynicism of those who wield power and of their effects on what he increasingly believed ought to remain private and thus beyond the remit of the magistrate.
Locke neither rants from the extremes nor wraps his language in poetical mysticism to awe the superstitious, nor does he proffer snippets of profound metaphysical insights to satiate the quick reader. John Locke was born in in a cottage in the village of Wrington, near the great port of Bristol, Somerset, and was raised at Pensford a few miles to the west.
The second Stuart King of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland had been on the throne for seven years — the ill-fated Charles I, whose reign was to lead to a brutal Civil War dividing the British along religious and political lines and which ended in his execution in Somerset was one of the most populous and rich counties of the country, yet despite its affluence gained from hard work and a division of labour, social strata albeit highly flexible since Tudor times permeated social relations — each individual had a moral superior to look up to in a moral hierarchy that ended with the monarch, whose superior was God.
This political and social context is vital to be aware of, for the tensions and violence of the era permeate the atmosphere in which Locke matured and wrote his political writings. Westminster School was run by the formidable Dr Richard Busby, a Royalist, who was apparently fond of beating the boys, something the older Locke was to recommend for young beggars. The execution caused a sympathetic reaction to the Royalist cause to foment during the next decade — and a posthumously published pamphlet, allegedly written by Charles Eikon Basilike encouraged the raising of his status from traitor in the eyes of the High Court that tried him to one of martyr, and it popularised not just the Stuart doctrine that the Stuarts or monarchs in general were divinely appointed rather than chancing upon the throne of England — the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I died without issue , but that Parliamentarians were guilty of the heinous crime of regicide.
Oxford had enjoyed an influx of scientific inquiry and humanism — Roger Bacon , John Wycliffe , Desiderius Erasmus and Sir Thomas More , all had their influence on the colleges. The present head of Christ Church for Locke was the Presbyterian John Owen , a Puritan proponent of toleration and independence for Protestant sects and an earlier supporter and follower of Oliver Cromwell Owen travelled with Cromwell into his wars in Scotland and Ireland. Avoiding a career in theology and despising the dry Scholasticism although the techniques and knowledge were of great use to his mind , Locke concentrated his studies on medical science at Oxford and later held teaching and diplomatic positions until meeting up with Lord Ashley Cooper in later Earl of Shaftesbury.
His religious thinking had shifted from a traditional acceptance of his Puritan heritage to Latitudinarianism, which emphasises the employment of reason in understanding religious and Scriptural matters.
John Lambert penned the first British Constitution to give the Republic a stable form. The position of Lord Protector was created, which was passed to Cromwell.
However, political divisions beset the Republic, which teetered into a dictatorship as Cromwell became increasingly frustrated with his attempts at reforming the country.
Nonetheless, Cromwell was, in many respects, a highly capable ruler — rejecting the offered crown to become a de jure monarch, and realising what a political vacuum the dissolution of the monarchy implied he appointed good judges to ensure the rule of law, encouraged religious toleration, liberty of conscience and the immigration of Jews.
The Republic was a strange political beast, taking over in a country wracked by war the powers that the Tudors and early Stuarts James I and Charles I had arrogated to themselves, and whose traditional, but by then very well worn down, checks on arbitrary executive and legislative power were thereby diminished. The Republic became a pariah state, and European notably the French monarchs sought to assist Charles II to regain his throne.
In , John Locke was aged twenty eight and a newly appointed tutor in Greek at Oxford. But the repercussions were severe. However, the Uniformity Act dashed Puritan hopes for toleration.
The Act and subsequent legislation ejected two thousand Puritan ministers from their churches, fined anyone over 16 attending ceremonies not conducted by the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and forced ex-Puritan ministers to live at least five miles away from where they used to preach. An intolerant Act passed so soon after the dissolution of the Commonwealth caused concern and rebellion in parts of the Kingdom — nevertheless Locke was more of the opinion that the magistrate King possessed the right to demand uniformity, with the caveat that in their consciences men may remain free in order to secure peace in a troubled land.
It was an opinion he gradually moved away from. Anthony Ashley Cooper was a wealthy and politically powerful patron to work for, and Ashley worked for whomever was in power — Royalists, Parliamentarians, the Protectorate, and the Restoration monarchy. He had initially sided with Charles I in the first Civil War, but changed sides to fight with the Parliamentarians having become displeased with the political and religious advice afforded the King. He supported Cromwell and was promoted well till he became dissatisfied with the increasingly military leaning of the Protectorate From Ashley worked for Charles II, eventually rising to become Chancellor — and was promoted to an Earldom in Ashley argued for religious toleration for dissenting Protestants and supported the Anglo-Dutch wars on mercantilist grounds Dutch profit equates to English losses , but his anti-Catholic stance eventually led to his dismissal from government.
Initially, James had the backing of the establishment — he was more serious and thus more appreciable to the Anglicans, and he leaned towards toleration. However, his very Catholicism worried those of a more puritan and cynical leaning.
From this evolved the first two political parties of modern times — the Whigs and the Tories. The Whigs generally speaking followed Shaftesbury and the Tories supported the Anglican establishment. The poet laureate and Westminster graduate, John Dryden, penned a satirical attack on Shaftesbury at this time Absalom and Achitophel and a year later Shaftesbury fled to Holland and died in exile in Locke was introduced to him and the two became good friends.
In he oversaw a life-saving operation on his patron to remove liver cists. Locke learned much from Shaftesbury. For example, his first Essay on Toleration marked a substantial shift away from his earlier establishmentarian views that the ruler should prescribe the form of religious service for the country. Debate had heated up following the Act of Uniformity , and in Scotland, the Covenanters, who opposed any form of episcopalianism hierarchical rule of bishops and archbishops and uniformity, suffered brutally.
There were various uprisings in Scotland in , , and , which had led to thousands of martyrs burning at the stake and being hanged for their opposition. In Locke was elected to the Royal Society, and as his patron rose to become Chancellor for Charles II, Locke served the Lords Proprietors of Carolina helping to draft a Constitution for the plantation , Secretary for Presentations dealing with church livings , and Secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations.
His employment kept him busy from philosophical thought — but no doubt gave him invaluable experience of the workings of power and the court. From , an unwell Locke travelled to France, returning to London in with his master to enjoy the heat of the Exclusion Crisis in which Shaftesbury and his supporters sought a Parliamentary Act to exclude James from taking the throne. Filmer had written his work in supporting the divine right of Kings and their absolute power over the land. The jury rejected the charge against Shaftesbury, but Tory political advances prompted Shaftesbury, in the absence of any hope of a Parliament sitting to provide support to his party, to flee to Holland where he died in The intolerant and charged atmosphere kept Locke abroad from and freedom from political intrigues and duties allowed him to develop his philosophy.
In Charles II died and his brother James ascended the throne. The ripples from the Rye House Plot continued to upset the initially stable and sober new regime, and after the failed Monmouth and Argyll rebellions to oust James, the new monarch clamped down on those who sought to overthrow him.
James subsequently handed out army posts to supporting and trustworthy Catholics, and he advanced Catholics to his Privy Council; in November he dismissed Parliament. William had been fighting the might of Catholic France with much gusto and success.
Accordingly, as James became increasingly unstable and a boy James was born to his wife, William was invited over to take the throne. The ousted James had lost all his military abilities and an attempt at recovering his throne via an invasion of hope of a sympathetic uprising in Ireland led to his defeat by William at the Battle of the Boyne in These were certainly times of political commotion.
Damaris was the daughter of Ralph Cudworth , a Cambridge platonist, whose writings Locke had enjoyed and which had influenced his shift towards Latitudinarianism. Amidst friends and in a politically more cordial environment, Locke published works on economics, the Scriptures, toleration, and education. In he advised on the ending of press censorship, and was appointed a member of the Board of Trade His Essay Concerning Human Understanding gathered pace — drawing controversy and support and earning a translation into French in Locke died with Lady Damaris reading the Psalms to him.
Nonetheless, at Christ Church, Oxford, he penned two key essays on the extent of toleration, the most disruptive and contentious issue of the time — the Two Tracts on Government and his lectures on the Law of Nature , the latter written as Censor of Moral Philosophy at Christ Church. In a century of religious and civil wars, Locke understandably sought to explore the limits to toleration that a state should permit its citizens in their choice and manner of religious expression and worship.
The Two Tracts were penned on the occasion of the Restoration of the Monarchy, in which Puritans hoped for continued toleration for their practices and beliefs as they had enjoyed under Cromwell.
Not only should such matters be given up to the wisdom of the magistrate but the people are also obliged to obey. Christ commanded obedience, he notes, and after all, the magistrate looks to the public welfare, while the individual citizen seeks only his own interest.
After all, Locke surmises from monastic Oxford, the ruler is supposed to be wise. In what does more danger lie, Locke rhetorically asks — in the hands of a single, wise man, or an ignorant mob? The academician Locke highlights his distrust of the masses and prefers to put political control in the hands of a few rather than the many.
What the particular policies a magistrate ought to follow depends, Locke admits, on contemporary conventions and expectations, but the magistrate is in the best position to judge in light of the times what ought to be the best policy and what ought to be orderly and decent. A more conservative philosopher, accepting of the newly Restored monarchy, one could not imagine from the perspective of the later writer of the Treatises.
Yet are there glimmerings of the path Locke eventually takes? Certainly in the realm of private conscience, which Locke emphatically declares cannot be forced. Also written at this time were some comments on Infallibility in which Locke outlines an orthodox Protestant attack on Catholicism.
This would of course imply a rejection of any Act of Uniformity — of the imposition of Anglicanism and its Book of Common Prayer on the people. In his Essays or lectures to students as Censor, teacher of Moral Philosophy at Christ Church, Locke argues that there is a Law of Nature — a basic system of morals — which is given to every man to know.
The Essays were unpublished but circulated and had an influence on writers such as James Tyrell The law, he adds, is something which is the decree of a superior will God , and lays down what is to be done and not to be done, and which is binding on all men.
The moral law for Locke demands that some things are completely forbidden theft, murder , others depend on certain sentiments, periodic duties, or conditional attitudes.
Against the objection that the Law of Nature cannot be found, because not all people who possess reason have knowledge of it or that they will disagree over its content, Locke counters that possessing the faculty of reason does not necessitate its use. SparkNotes: Leviathan A study guide to the book. Yahoo Directory: Thomas Hobbes. Google Directory: Thomas Hobbes. Open Directory Project: Thomas Hobbes. Wikipedia: John Locke. Bluplete Biography: John Locke. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John Locke.
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Curriculum Materials. Add Event. Main Menu Home. Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau on Government Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau on Government Starting in the s, European philosophers began debating the question of who should govern a nation. Rousseau: The Extreme Democrat Jean-Jacques Rousseau — was born in Geneva, Switzerland, where all adult male citizens could vote for a representative government.
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