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Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
First published anonymously in December 1689, John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” are considered to be some of the most important works of political philosophy ever written. In the first treatise Locke disputes the divine right of monarchial rule principle that is put forth in the book “Patriarcha” by Sir Robert Filmer. The first treatise is in fact a sentence by sentence refutation of “Patriarcha.” Filmer asserts the idea that absolute authority over the world flows from the Biblical Adam and his ownership of the world and that the heir of Adam is the rightful inheritor of this authority. Locke dismisses this line of reasoning that authority flows from some divine lineage to the first man in favor of a system based on natural laws and consent of the people. In the second treatise Locke sets forth the basic principles of natural law that lay the foundation for basic human rights and the government of man. Also contained within this volume is the shorter work, “A Letter Concerning Toleration.” These works collectively represent some of the first and most important rejections of monarchial rule and helped to lay the foundation towards the representative governments that now dominate the Western world. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by Henry Morley.
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1689
About the author
John Locke
2,027 books1,507 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
John Locke was an English philosopher. He is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and "the self", figuring prominently in the later works of philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first Western philosopher to define the self through a continuity of "consciousness." He also postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas.
John Locke was an English philosopher. He is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and "the self", figuring prominently in the later works of philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first Western philosopher to define the self through a continuity of "consciousness." He also postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas.
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August 8, 2022
Even though the Two Treatises of Government was published anonymously in the year 1689, the Editor of this book's edition, Peter Laslett, argues that the two Treatises were written between the years of 1679-1683, well before the publishing and The Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Furthermore, Laslett claims that the Second Treatise was written first, and the First Treatise, second, while there remains a possibility of a missing, third part. Challenging times for writers and freethinkers.
The First Treatise is devoted to refuting Sir Robert Filmer's defense of monarchy and patriarchalism, in which property, women, and children are subjects of a father, and the father's subjects of the King. This is all in line with Filmer's central argument, loosely based on Scriptural writings, that God created Adam and the world at his disposal, which makes Adam our first king and the sole proprietor of everything, and all rights can only be inherited through his lineage, namely through a male descendant.
However, in Locke's view, all men and women are born free and lived before the first established civil societies in accord with the laws of nature, in what John Locke (1632-1704) refers to as the State of Nature. Where by he believes that the only reason the people are to enter, by mutual consent, into a political community is to better preserve their liberty and secure their property as the property is insufficiently regulated in the State of Nature. Nevertheless, these Civil Societies should be in harmony with the natural rights enjoyed in the State of Nature. Locke goes on further to discuss the necessity of the separation of the legislative and executive powers, the people's rights to retain instruments to overthrow governments, and that an individual's "labor of his body and the work of his hands" are to remain in their possession.
Locke, a philosopher, and a physician began studying and writing about government and politics once he came under the influence of the first earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper).
Spinoza's and Descartes' impact on Locke's philosophy is evident but his philosophy remains original. A great book with a lengthy biographical introduction of John Locke who is today commonly known as the Father of Liberalism. Worth reading.
The First Treatise is devoted to refuting Sir Robert Filmer's defense of monarchy and patriarchalism, in which property, women, and children are subjects of a father, and the father's subjects of the King. This is all in line with Filmer's central argument, loosely based on Scriptural writings, that God created Adam and the world at his disposal, which makes Adam our first king and the sole proprietor of everything, and all rights can only be inherited through his lineage, namely through a male descendant.
However, in Locke's view, all men and women are born free and lived before the first established civil societies in accord with the laws of nature, in what John Locke (1632-1704) refers to as the State of Nature. Where by he believes that the only reason the people are to enter, by mutual consent, into a political community is to better preserve their liberty and secure their property as the property is insufficiently regulated in the State of Nature. Nevertheless, these Civil Societies should be in harmony with the natural rights enjoyed in the State of Nature. Locke goes on further to discuss the necessity of the separation of the legislative and executive powers, the people's rights to retain instruments to overthrow governments, and that an individual's "labor of his body and the work of his hands" are to remain in their possession.
Locke, a philosopher, and a physician began studying and writing about government and politics once he came under the influence of the first earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper).
Spinoza's and Descartes' impact on Locke's philosophy is evident but his philosophy remains original. A great book with a lengthy biographical introduction of John Locke who is today commonly known as the Father of Liberalism. Worth reading.
July 26, 2007
Those of us living in liberal democracies owe tremendous intellectual debt to John Locke. His "Second Treatise" in particular helped lay the foundation for a political system that emphasized "life, liberty, and property." The First Treatise is interesting to skim through, though it is in the second where the Locke is most substantive. His Theory of Private Property, which could also be construed as a theory of value, is an unmistakable revolution in political thought. It is, as Locke contends, when man applies his labor to nature that he is entitled to it. Questions about environmental ethics or indegenous rights aside, this observation, made in a still heavily ecclesiastical society, is a brilliant one. Furthermore, Locke's understanding of the formation of government is based on a hypothetical "state of nature" account. Locke's arguments are intellectually pleasing, and his social-scientific models make intuitive sense. Given that, perhaps the only weakness of the work is its failure to adequately analyze such concepts as the social contract or his theory of labor-property relations. For example, Locke fails to seriously consider what we should do with states that are clearly formed by mere force. Indeed, he doesn't adequately address the possibility that such a state could justify its existence on the grounds that "better tyranny than nothing." While Locke believes that a state that doesn't respect private property cannot last for very long, history says otherwise. Of course, in retrospect it is easier to criticize Locke in these regards, but with Machiavelli before him it was not as though these ideas were not known. There are admittedly other inconsistencies, such as his view on taxation later in the book and on who "owns" the grass his serf cuts. Interestingly enough, Locke is unwilling to expound on the distinction between property garnered for the sake of personal enjoyment (possessions) and property garnered for the sake of profit. Nevertheless, the work is a passionate defense of a liberal government, and the points are persuasively argued. As long as the reader, as Locke himself urges, keeps a skeptical attitude, this work has much to offer.
April 29, 2026
There is a reason why, among the two treatises included in this volume, the Second Treatise is the one that is most referenced. The First Treatise has a purpose, which is to set the argumentative basis from which the Second Treatise could be developed. Locke had to show, in a devastating rebuttal of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha that the biblical basis for the divine rights of kings was wrongheaded. Locke shows how basing rational arguments for the rights of kings and the conventions of primogeniture on divine mandates and on the paternal lineage from Adam is not only wildly inconsistent but frequently illogical and contradictory. In my eyes, Locke swiftly made the point to my satisfaction, but he does go on, presumably, to close as many avenues for Bible-based rebuttals as possible. It’s a bit tedious.
The Second Treatise is where things really get going. I won’t try to summarize, but I want to hit some things that stood out. One is that Locke, like Hobbes, starts from a consideration of the “State of Nature” in which all men (charitably … as a generic collective noun) have, more or less equal ability to pursue their self-interests. And like Hobbes, in pursuing those interests, we rely on any advantages to assert our interest over those of our fellow human beings, putting us into a “State of War.” Whereas Hobbes sees the solution to residing in a “state of nature” in naming a Sovereign who exercises absolute power and stands outside the reach of a civil society organized by laws, Locke sees the solution in the creation of representative government that may be focused on an individual as an executor, but that is fundamentally built on the interests of individuals who all have a stake in the commonwealth. For Hobbes, people follow the sovereign out of fear. For Locke, citizens follow a government of the people in order to protect their interests in the form of property.
In the First Treatise Locke undermines the argument that God provided Adam with “dominion” over the world and that this dominion is the basis of kingly rule. He replaces that reading with one in which God provided Adam with use of the world and all the plants and beasts within it, as a space of the Common Good. It is out of the Common Good that property is made. “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 nobody has originally a private Dominion, exclusive of the rest of Mankind” (286). Property is what emerges from the our skilled use of resources found in the Common: “[w]hatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labor with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property” (288). Property arises from our skilled use of natural resources that are held in common and that everyone has the ability to transform through their own labor into their own property (289). But property rights only extend to what one can make adequate personal use of (290). Political power is the creation and enforcement of laws for the preservation of the common good (268) and the government that serves this purpose is the focus of the Second Treatise.
I love the principles of the Second Treatise but it raises all kinds of questions for me. For example, what counts as property? I think Locke had in mind things that we literally make with our hands, but can that extend to the products of intellectual labor? Can it extend to things like our personal data, things that we create passively with the movements of our bodies in space? Also, what does it mean to have access to the Common Good and what resources are to be considered part of the Common? It seems like we would need to define that in order to understand the scope of the law that is meant to protect that access. If we are talking about access to hunting grounds or arable lands in parcels that can be managed by a person or a family, the scope of protective law might be easier to define. But when the common includes information or access to infrastructure allowing us to make use of resources, or when it references our capacity or means to access things like education and credentials then the protective scope of the law widens still. I prefer to think of property as value and access as means, and it seems worthwhile to consider how the laws support the creation of value and secure our means of creating it, not to the exclusion of others’ abilities to secure the same but merely to secure our own. Locke also thought about the way that money creates problems for a system of value based on labor (301), but he doesn’t really resolve that satisfactorily. Maybe he is understanding the function of money as Aristotle did in his treatment of justice. Money is an equalizer for the unequal application of natural justice.
The latter half of the Second Treatise describes a system of political society that people enter into to preserve their property-based stakes in this world. Political Society as an organization of individuals has “in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offenses of all those of that society; there, and there only is the political society, where everyone of the members hath quitted this nature power, resign’d it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it” (324). In the political society, the majority rules, and the majority is represented by the Legislative branch of elected officials. Interestingly, Locke thought of the Legislative as the “Supream Power” (366) precisely because it serves the majority by passing laws that protect individual property rights and their access to the common good. When no new laws were needed (!!) the Legislative would disband, essentially making it an ad hoc assemblage. The Legislative ought always to reflect the majority of the population and it should be disbanded and reformed through election (or revolution) when it does not. Locke also envisions an Executive branch that enforces laws and a Federative branch that makes treaties and enlarges the community. The Judiciary was not seen as a separate, independent branch that figured out the vagaries of the law — that work was delegated, distributively to magistrates. All in all, a fascinating discussion of a system that is self-correcting, power-balanced, and self-checking. It also a system that must adhere to the will of the majority, lest people have a right to dissolve government, sometimes abruptly and violently. It is system that does not tolerate despots.
Upon finishing the Second Treatise, it was clear to me why this text was so inspirational to the founders of American democracy. And although our motives are different, I have to agree with my state legislators who push to make sure that texts like this are read and studied. I think it is an important task for admirers of democracies to read this text and understand what Locke was advocating to build and preserve. The motivations for and conditions under which Locke wrote these treatises in the 1680s might have changed, but there is no doubt that issues related to the representation of individual interests in the operation of our system of government remain absolutely pertinent today.
The Second Treatise is where things really get going. I won’t try to summarize, but I want to hit some things that stood out. One is that Locke, like Hobbes, starts from a consideration of the “State of Nature” in which all men (charitably … as a generic collective noun) have, more or less equal ability to pursue their self-interests. And like Hobbes, in pursuing those interests, we rely on any advantages to assert our interest over those of our fellow human beings, putting us into a “State of War.” Whereas Hobbes sees the solution to residing in a “state of nature” in naming a Sovereign who exercises absolute power and stands outside the reach of a civil society organized by laws, Locke sees the solution in the creation of representative government that may be focused on an individual as an executor, but that is fundamentally built on the interests of individuals who all have a stake in the commonwealth. For Hobbes, people follow the sovereign out of fear. For Locke, citizens follow a government of the people in order to protect their interests in the form of property.
In the First Treatise Locke undermines the argument that God provided Adam with “dominion” over the world and that this dominion is the basis of kingly rule. He replaces that reading with one in which God provided Adam with use of the world and all the plants and beasts within it, as a space of the Common Good. It is out of the Common Good that property is made. “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 nobody has originally a private Dominion, exclusive of the rest of Mankind” (286). Property is what emerges from the our skilled use of resources found in the Common: “[w]hatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labor with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property” (288). Property arises from our skilled use of natural resources that are held in common and that everyone has the ability to transform through their own labor into their own property (289). But property rights only extend to what one can make adequate personal use of (290). Political power is the creation and enforcement of laws for the preservation of the common good (268) and the government that serves this purpose is the focus of the Second Treatise.
I love the principles of the Second Treatise but it raises all kinds of questions for me. For example, what counts as property? I think Locke had in mind things that we literally make with our hands, but can that extend to the products of intellectual labor? Can it extend to things like our personal data, things that we create passively with the movements of our bodies in space? Also, what does it mean to have access to the Common Good and what resources are to be considered part of the Common? It seems like we would need to define that in order to understand the scope of the law that is meant to protect that access. If we are talking about access to hunting grounds or arable lands in parcels that can be managed by a person or a family, the scope of protective law might be easier to define. But when the common includes information or access to infrastructure allowing us to make use of resources, or when it references our capacity or means to access things like education and credentials then the protective scope of the law widens still. I prefer to think of property as value and access as means, and it seems worthwhile to consider how the laws support the creation of value and secure our means of creating it, not to the exclusion of others’ abilities to secure the same but merely to secure our own. Locke also thought about the way that money creates problems for a system of value based on labor (301), but he doesn’t really resolve that satisfactorily. Maybe he is understanding the function of money as Aristotle did in his treatment of justice. Money is an equalizer for the unequal application of natural justice.
The latter half of the Second Treatise describes a system of political society that people enter into to preserve their property-based stakes in this world. Political Society as an organization of individuals has “in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offenses of all those of that society; there, and there only is the political society, where everyone of the members hath quitted this nature power, resign’d it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it” (324). In the political society, the majority rules, and the majority is represented by the Legislative branch of elected officials. Interestingly, Locke thought of the Legislative as the “Supream Power” (366) precisely because it serves the majority by passing laws that protect individual property rights and their access to the common good. When no new laws were needed (!!) the Legislative would disband, essentially making it an ad hoc assemblage. The Legislative ought always to reflect the majority of the population and it should be disbanded and reformed through election (or revolution) when it does not. Locke also envisions an Executive branch that enforces laws and a Federative branch that makes treaties and enlarges the community. The Judiciary was not seen as a separate, independent branch that figured out the vagaries of the law — that work was delegated, distributively to magistrates. All in all, a fascinating discussion of a system that is self-correcting, power-balanced, and self-checking. It also a system that must adhere to the will of the majority, lest people have a right to dissolve government, sometimes abruptly and violently. It is system that does not tolerate despots.
Upon finishing the Second Treatise, it was clear to me why this text was so inspirational to the founders of American democracy. And although our motives are different, I have to agree with my state legislators who push to make sure that texts like this are read and studied. I think it is an important task for admirers of democracies to read this text and understand what Locke was advocating to build and preserve. The motivations for and conditions under which Locke wrote these treatises in the 1680s might have changed, but there is no doubt that issues related to the representation of individual interests in the operation of our system of government remain absolutely pertinent today.
April 30, 2026
El "Segundo Tratado sobre el Gobierno Civil" de John Locke es uno de los documentos más influyentes de toda la historia.
El primer gran acierto de Locke es su capacidad para establecer las bases del estado de naturaleza. Las personas nacen en "perfecta libertad" para ordenar sus acciones y disponer de sus cuerpos y bienes, sin depender de la voluntad de otro. Y también nacen en "perfecta igualdad", entendida no como identidad de capacidades, sino como ausencia de subordinación natural. Locke no inventa la libertad, mas bien la descubre en la naturaleza misma de la criatura racional.
Despues encontramos la distinción entre libertad y licencia. El estado de naturaleza no es un vacío moral, sino que está regido por una "ley natural" que es la razón misma. Y esa ley impone una obligación fundamental: "nadie deberá dañar a otro en su vida, salud, libertad o posesiones". La argumentación de Locke surge porque todas las personas fueron creadas de un mismo "Creador", y porque todas las personas tienen las mismas facultades. Asi pues, no podemos suponer una subordinación que nos autorice a destruirnos unos a otros. Esta es la base de la dignidad humana y de los derechos humanos.
Siguiendo la lectura, tenemos la doctrina del derecho a castigar en el estado de naturaleza. Locke se enfrenta a una objeción evidente: si no hay autoridad común, quién ejecuta la ley natural? Su respuesta es revolucionaria, ya que, basicamente, la ejecución de la ley natural está "confiada a las manos de cada cual". Cada persona tiene derecho a castigar a quein les haga daño hasta el grado necesario para impedir la violación, porque de otro modo la ley natural sería "cosa vana". Esta es una afirmación radical de la responsabilidad moral individual, pero también el inicio del contrato social: precisamente porque ese poder de cada uno es peligroso (puede ser arbitrario o apasionado), las personas acuerdan cederlo a una autoridad común.
Finalmente, la seccion sobre el castigo del asesino es particularmente poderoso. Un homicida, al "renunciar a la razón, regla y medida común", se convierte en una "fiera salvaje", declarando "guerra a la humanidad toda". Por ello, "cualquiera que le hallare" tiene derecho a destruirlo.
En fin, el estilo de Locke es el instrumento perfecto para su pensamiento. Su argumentacion es clara, ordenada, pero sin perder nunca el rigor. Cada idea se presenta, se explica con un ejemplo, se conecta con la siguiente. La traducción al español de este libro es lo unico negativo. Porrua ofrece las peores traducciones y ediciones que se pueden leer, pero ignorando eso, este es un texto esencial en la historia de la filosofia.
El primer gran acierto de Locke es su capacidad para establecer las bases del estado de naturaleza. Las personas nacen en "perfecta libertad" para ordenar sus acciones y disponer de sus cuerpos y bienes, sin depender de la voluntad de otro. Y también nacen en "perfecta igualdad", entendida no como identidad de capacidades, sino como ausencia de subordinación natural. Locke no inventa la libertad, mas bien la descubre en la naturaleza misma de la criatura racional.
Despues encontramos la distinción entre libertad y licencia. El estado de naturaleza no es un vacío moral, sino que está regido por una "ley natural" que es la razón misma. Y esa ley impone una obligación fundamental: "nadie deberá dañar a otro en su vida, salud, libertad o posesiones". La argumentación de Locke surge porque todas las personas fueron creadas de un mismo "Creador", y porque todas las personas tienen las mismas facultades. Asi pues, no podemos suponer una subordinación que nos autorice a destruirnos unos a otros. Esta es la base de la dignidad humana y de los derechos humanos.
Siguiendo la lectura, tenemos la doctrina del derecho a castigar en el estado de naturaleza. Locke se enfrenta a una objeción evidente: si no hay autoridad común, quién ejecuta la ley natural? Su respuesta es revolucionaria, ya que, basicamente, la ejecución de la ley natural está "confiada a las manos de cada cual". Cada persona tiene derecho a castigar a quein les haga daño hasta el grado necesario para impedir la violación, porque de otro modo la ley natural sería "cosa vana". Esta es una afirmación radical de la responsabilidad moral individual, pero también el inicio del contrato social: precisamente porque ese poder de cada uno es peligroso (puede ser arbitrario o apasionado), las personas acuerdan cederlo a una autoridad común.
Finalmente, la seccion sobre el castigo del asesino es particularmente poderoso. Un homicida, al "renunciar a la razón, regla y medida común", se convierte en una "fiera salvaje", declarando "guerra a la humanidad toda". Por ello, "cualquiera que le hallare" tiene derecho a destruirlo.
En fin, el estilo de Locke es el instrumento perfecto para su pensamiento. Su argumentacion es clara, ordenada, pero sin perder nunca el rigor. Cada idea se presenta, se explica con un ejemplo, se conecta con la siguiente. La traducción al español de este libro es lo unico negativo. Porrua ofrece las peores traducciones y ediciones que se pueden leer, pero ignorando eso, este es un texto esencial en la historia de la filosofia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2022
Un po' noiosina, forse per l'eccesso di precisione e di tecnicismo legale, la prima parte, quella in cui Locke, Bibbia alla mano, demolisce le teorie assolutistiche di Robert Filmer, che nel suo Il Patriarca legittimava il potere assolutistico dei monarchi giacché derivato, per mano di Dio, direttamente da quello di Adamo. Molto più interessante la seconda parte, quella in cui l'autore viene a delineare, nei minimi dettagli, lo Stato liberale che ancora conosciamo e i principi che hanno poi ispirato la Costituzione americana, francese, italiana. Un filosofo che sapeva indubbiamente guardare avanti.
April 19, 2018
Inoffensive, agreeable, well written, but also rather dull and useless.
February 21, 2020
As its title states, John Locke’s “Two Treatises on Government” are two separate treatments on the basis of just and legitimate government; the first of which is structured as a rebuttal to the notion, as articulated in Robert Filmer’s “Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings”, of monarchical power authorized by “divine right” whereas the second is a positive articulation of concepts and principles locating the source of authority for any legitimate government within the consent of the governed.
The essential argument that Locke rebutted in the first treatise was that of a king’s right to rule his subjects derived from divine authority – the divine right of kings. In “Patriarcha” Filmer asserted that the right of a king to rule over subjects was absolute, bestowed by God to Adam, the original patriarch, and has been passed down to successive rulers ever since by the dominion, Filmer asserts, God gave to all fathers over their own children. Locke sets down an almost line for line refutation of Filmer’s assertions, arguing, essentially, that God bestowed no such right to Adam and even if he had, that right certainly did not pass to successive generations by virtue of any divine grant of patriarchal authority. Not having read Filmer, there was a great temptation to skip over Locke’s first treatise; however, through various sly and interesting means throughout his refutation of Filmer, Locke lays the groundwork for his second treatise, namely, that whatever right a ruler has to rule comes exclusively from the consent of the governed. Although this, in itself, is enough to warrant the first treatise a full read, as a bonus, Locke provides a wonderful example of a trained rhetorician’s rebuttal of the absurd through logic and reason that makes the read worthwhile. Moreover, in expressing his argument, Locke’s capacity for urbane, condescending humor leaches out through every line as he takes obvious delight in ridiculing the absurdities of Filmer’s arguments.
The crux of Locke’s second treatise is fascinating in that although it was written over 300 years ago, it will resonate with anyone familiar with traditional American notions of “political common sense.” Locke argues that by nature, all men are born equal and subject to no obligation of obedience to anyone. However, notwithstanding this, living this equality carries the risk that those with greater strength can, through force, compel a free man to do whatever the strong man wants, including surrendering his property. To forestall this risk, Lock argues, mankind has assented to surrendering a portion of his individual liberty to the extent that he is prepared to adhere to mutually agreed upon laws of the community in exchange for the protections afforded by common government whose laws and rules serve to protect him and his possessions. Government, therefore, derives its power and authority not from any ancient grant bestowed by God upon Adam, but only by the consent of the governed.
While none of this is particularly revolutionary to a contemporary reader, it is nonetheless fascinating to read ideas that today we all take for granted structured as propositions that, in Locke’s time, had to be persuasively argued. Moreover, Locke’s ideas are not necessarily a one to one match to those of contemporary democratic philosophy. In particular, the centrality of property in Locke’s thesis is striking relative to the way we think of government today. The purpose of any government, Locke assures us, is to protect the sanctity of individual property from unjust appropriation by others. What’s interesting is the way he takes for granted either that everyone has property to be defended, or, what is more likely, the only people whose rights matter are those with property to protect.
His assumption, of course, is that there is a level playing field and that the only path to wealth accumulation is through dint of hard work. Imagine, he argues, that there is a common forest full of acorn trees. A man, seeing an acorn on the ground, picks it up. The acorns are the common property of the community, but in the moment the man expends his labor to pick it up, the right to that acorn reverts to him who expended the labor to harvest it. It is, he continues, a crime to pick up more acorns than he can consume as the excess will go to rot; however, if he is able to trade his excess for the excess of some other entrepreneur the fact that he’s harvested more than he personally needs goes from being a public evil brought about by waste to a public good brought about by plenty accessible to a greater number of community members. What he ignores, of course, is that when the acorn guy grabs up all the acorns such that he and he alone has all the food there is to be had in the commons, people, faced with starvation, will do anything (including bartering away their own freedom) to get a share of the man’s horded wealth. Throughout his discourse, Locke is silent about how property is accumulated – if you have property, regardless of the means by which you’ve acquired it, you deserve the protection of the law, including, presumably, protection from the masses of starving people who will, in their desperation, attempt to rob from you in order that they might eat. Locke’s cannon is “life, liberty and property,” – it took a different hand and a hundred years for this to become the famous, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” so dear to Americans.
It was not, as one can probably imagine, a light read – especially the first treatise. Yet it is interesting to go back and read about the ideas that changed the world that were written at a time then those ideas were fresh, new and highly controversial.
The essential argument that Locke rebutted in the first treatise was that of a king’s right to rule his subjects derived from divine authority – the divine right of kings. In “Patriarcha” Filmer asserted that the right of a king to rule over subjects was absolute, bestowed by God to Adam, the original patriarch, and has been passed down to successive rulers ever since by the dominion, Filmer asserts, God gave to all fathers over their own children. Locke sets down an almost line for line refutation of Filmer’s assertions, arguing, essentially, that God bestowed no such right to Adam and even if he had, that right certainly did not pass to successive generations by virtue of any divine grant of patriarchal authority. Not having read Filmer, there was a great temptation to skip over Locke’s first treatise; however, through various sly and interesting means throughout his refutation of Filmer, Locke lays the groundwork for his second treatise, namely, that whatever right a ruler has to rule comes exclusively from the consent of the governed. Although this, in itself, is enough to warrant the first treatise a full read, as a bonus, Locke provides a wonderful example of a trained rhetorician’s rebuttal of the absurd through logic and reason that makes the read worthwhile. Moreover, in expressing his argument, Locke’s capacity for urbane, condescending humor leaches out through every line as he takes obvious delight in ridiculing the absurdities of Filmer’s arguments.
The crux of Locke’s second treatise is fascinating in that although it was written over 300 years ago, it will resonate with anyone familiar with traditional American notions of “political common sense.” Locke argues that by nature, all men are born equal and subject to no obligation of obedience to anyone. However, notwithstanding this, living this equality carries the risk that those with greater strength can, through force, compel a free man to do whatever the strong man wants, including surrendering his property. To forestall this risk, Lock argues, mankind has assented to surrendering a portion of his individual liberty to the extent that he is prepared to adhere to mutually agreed upon laws of the community in exchange for the protections afforded by common government whose laws and rules serve to protect him and his possessions. Government, therefore, derives its power and authority not from any ancient grant bestowed by God upon Adam, but only by the consent of the governed.
While none of this is particularly revolutionary to a contemporary reader, it is nonetheless fascinating to read ideas that today we all take for granted structured as propositions that, in Locke’s time, had to be persuasively argued. Moreover, Locke’s ideas are not necessarily a one to one match to those of contemporary democratic philosophy. In particular, the centrality of property in Locke’s thesis is striking relative to the way we think of government today. The purpose of any government, Locke assures us, is to protect the sanctity of individual property from unjust appropriation by others. What’s interesting is the way he takes for granted either that everyone has property to be defended, or, what is more likely, the only people whose rights matter are those with property to protect.
His assumption, of course, is that there is a level playing field and that the only path to wealth accumulation is through dint of hard work. Imagine, he argues, that there is a common forest full of acorn trees. A man, seeing an acorn on the ground, picks it up. The acorns are the common property of the community, but in the moment the man expends his labor to pick it up, the right to that acorn reverts to him who expended the labor to harvest it. It is, he continues, a crime to pick up more acorns than he can consume as the excess will go to rot; however, if he is able to trade his excess for the excess of some other entrepreneur the fact that he’s harvested more than he personally needs goes from being a public evil brought about by waste to a public good brought about by plenty accessible to a greater number of community members. What he ignores, of course, is that when the acorn guy grabs up all the acorns such that he and he alone has all the food there is to be had in the commons, people, faced with starvation, will do anything (including bartering away their own freedom) to get a share of the man’s horded wealth. Throughout his discourse, Locke is silent about how property is accumulated – if you have property, regardless of the means by which you’ve acquired it, you deserve the protection of the law, including, presumably, protection from the masses of starving people who will, in their desperation, attempt to rob from you in order that they might eat. Locke’s cannon is “life, liberty and property,” – it took a different hand and a hundred years for this to become the famous, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” so dear to Americans.
It was not, as one can probably imagine, a light read – especially the first treatise. Yet it is interesting to go back and read about the ideas that changed the world that were written at a time then those ideas were fresh, new and highly controversial.
Read
August 13, 2019This book is almost as dense as I am.
January 29, 2018
As I was finishing Locke and beginning to put this review together, a news story came to my attention which, in a circuitous manner, reminded me of why I felt the need to do some (re)reading about liberalism this year.
A FRIVOLOUS DIGRESSION
An American woman was going through security at Frankfurt International Airport when she was taken aside and told that her carry-on bag contained too many liquids, and that she would have to either dispose of a stick of deodorant in her bag or put it in her checked luggage. While a reasonable person would likely have parted with their deodorant without much fuss, this woman decided to have a debate with the German federal police as to whether her rub-on deodorant was a solid or a liquid. According to the police report, the woman was adamant, uncooperative, and increasingly belligerent; apparently having chosen to fight and die on Speed Stick Hill rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of conforming to a quite standard airport security regulation. Then she did something really stupid. She called them Nazis. Now I’ve never been to Germany before, but even I know that references to Nazism, in speech or in symbol, are treated with extreme seriousness by German law. The woman was forced to pay a preliminary fine at the airport before continuing on her way. She now faces criminal charges for slander.
The story could have ended here; but it’s a testament to the peculiar “character” of our protagonist that it didn’t. This woman was not just some ignorant American tourist; one of those stock-and-trade “ugly Americans” who routinely bring shame and dishonor upon my nationality through feats of international asshattery. She’s an associate professor of Peace and Security Studies at the foreign service school of Georgetown University. For those unaware, Georgetown was founded by the Jesuit Order, and is famous for providing a high-quality education in international affairs, and for training a good portion of America’s foreign service officers.
A professor at this prestigious institution, suffice it to say, should be one of the last people one would expect to make so unsightly a spectacle of herself in a foreign airport. But the spectacle having been made, her reaction was even more galling. Did she apologize? Did she do damage control? Did she quietly move on with her life and let the incident be forgotten? Negatory! She’s an American, silly goose! She wrote a political hit piece in the Huffington Post.
“No!”, I screamed to myself, alone in my car, reading the story on my phone during a work break and seeing a link to the HuffPost article. “I’m not going to read it! No! Never!”
But I had already clicked the link, like a man possessed. Like that lecherous lactophile from A Clockwork Orange, my eyes felt like they were being held open, my retinas burned by this woman’s idiocy. The article is fascinating in a number of ways; none of them positive. For one, it reads as if it were written by a precocious middle schooler with a thesaurus close at hand. This is a woman who never met an adverb she didn’t like, or a metaphor she wasn’t willing to use, whether or not it makes sense. Superfluous description abounds, as well as oracular vocabulary plucked from the scriptures of Merriam-Webster; words that amateurs use to make their writing feel more “grown up”, but which have the ironic effect of highlighting the whole piece as a shallow contrivance.
But even more damning than the style of the piece is its content, which is, in two words, preposterously typical. So rote and predictable and mindless is the procedure by which she checks every requisite box of a progressive liberal diatribe that it occurred to me that the entire article could have been composed by a computer algorithm.
By her telling, not only were the German police “thuggish” fascists; they were misogynists as well: Agent Smiths of the Matrix of Patriarchy terrified by the “assertiveness” (i.e. insolence) of a woke woman—despite the fact that at least one of the officers was a woman herself. She asserts that while she did use the word “Nazi”, she was not directing it at the police officers, but at a young American man in line behind her, whose haircut, in her eyes, made him look like a member of “the Hitler’s Youth.” In an article about her, a white woman, being stopped by police in Germany, she finds a way to invoke the specter of “white privilege” in the United States. She wonders whether a Muslim woman wearing a hijab would receive even worse treatment than she did. She makes an obligatory quip about Donald Trump’s self-description as a “stable genius”. Check, check, check, check, and check.
The article should be stored in the Smithsonian. It's a pristine example of the shitshow of furious intellectual wheelspinning that American liberalism has become in the year 2018.
LIBERALISM AS TABOO
Liberalism has always been the political religion of the United States; if not the actual, theological one as well. John Locke was not only the greatest influence on the Founding Fathers; his writings established the parameters and the very language of our political discourse. Anyone with clout in American politics is a Lockean. The Democratic and Republican parties are best described as representatives of progressive and classical liberalism, respectively. Partisan animus is so acute not because of their ideological differences, but because of their overwhelming, stifling uniformity. The superficial differences must be accentuated to give the illusion that political debate in the United States is robust and thriving, when it is anything but. When you strip away the snark, the cultural prejudices, and the bandying of slogans, clichés, and soundbites that constitute the American electoral process, you find that the subject of politics, how best to organize and improve our life together under this constitutional order, is hardly ever broached.
When real political discussion disappears in a liberal democracy, the language of liberalism remains, but functions only like a religious artifact that has been taken from an Indigenous American tribe and placed in a museum. It has a certain natural beauty and elegance to it—one suspects that it represents something important—but outside of its original social context it is a dead thing, disconnected from the roots of its spiritual power.
Like the professor in our story, our liberalism, which was once the subject of intense, high-stakes physical and rhetorical combat among the midwives of our republic, has devolved into an endless regression of clichés, which are waved about like incense. The professor ran into an embarrassing situation of her own making, but as an acolyte of our ritualized liberalism, she could only write about her experience by invoking the fashionable controversies of American politics as if they were animistic deities. She has a vague sense that her rights and autonomy were violated; that she is perpetually victimized by “fascists” who are all around her, desperate to deprive her of her self-ownership, which is constantly under threat by people who want to tell her what to do. As a woman, she identifies herself with other groups of people who she believes are deprived of their “rights” like she is; African-Americans, Muslims, and so on.
But it’s clear that, like most of us, she is not thinking critically about the historical and intellectual roots of the “freedom” that her intuition tells her is so existentially threatened in the age of The Donald. This way of (not) thinking, of praying to our ideals instead of wrestling with them, is draining the blood of our civil society. We need to do something about it.
It’s not enough anymore to lay flowers at Locke’s tomb, to light candles at his altars, or to collect relics of his to try and piece them together like Frankenstein’s monster. We must dare to attempt more than an incantation. It’s time for a conjuration. Let’s put on our necromancer’s robes and try to resurrect Locke wholesale. The master must be summoned. Arise, Lazarus!
FIRST TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
Okay, so when you crack open Locke’s First Treatise of Government, it doesn’t seem to promise much in terms of contemporary relevance. It is a refutation (more like a demolition) of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha; a Biblical defense of absolute monarchy by divine right. Sir Robert believed that absolute monarchy was established by God from the creation of Adam, and that this right to absolute, patriarchal authority had been passed down through all the generations of human history, right down to the absolute monarchs of Sir Robert’s day. Monarchical power passed from Adam down to Noah, and from him to his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, each of whom, according to Sir Robert, was given absolute power over a continent of the eastern hemisphere after the Flood. All legitimate monarchs are descendants of one of these three, and thus exercise total, private power by dictate of God.
Contrary to republican thought, Sir Robert held that laws were derived from the persons of kings, rather than the other way around. Laws were instituted to serve as symbolic expressions of the king’s personal will; they were to be consulted in order to get an idea of the king’s will when the king’s personal presence was unavailable.
Locke takes this theory apart piece by piece through his own exegesis of the book of Genesis. It deserves mentioning that the Hebrew Bible had taken on a critical importance for virtually all the political theorists of the seventeenth century; historians have nicknamed it the “Biblical Century” for this reason. New rabbinical sources allowed intellectuals to look upon the familiar scriptures with fresh eyes. Political theorists came to believe that the Hebrew Bible contained a total blueprint for God’s ideal human government, and that the perfect political system, through a proper application of reason, could be extracted from it.
Locke cuts off Sir Robert’s argument at the roots. Contrary to his claim, there is no evidence in scripture that God gave Adam authority over other people. God gives Adam dominion over the natural environment and the lesser animals, but never over another person. Sir Robert cited scripture where God tells Eve that she is to be subordinate to Adam, but Locke counters that this occurs after their fall from grace, and so does not reflect on the original condition of mankind. Locke points out that it’s a bit silly to say that Adam was given “paternal” authority over mankind when he didn’t even have any children over which to exercise this authority. Sir Robert believed that he possessed this power in potentiality; but Locke, humorously, wonders whether this means that Sir Robert became an author before he wrote his book.
And even if Adam had been given this power, there’s no indication that it passed down to Noah and his sons. If Noah were an absolute monarch, he would have had absolute authority over the life and death of his sons; but scripture doesn’t attest to this. After the flood, God gives the new world to Noah and his sons to share in common. Sir Robert apparently argued that when God gave the likes of Adam and Noah power over the “beasts” of the earth, the meaning of the Hebrew word for “beasts” could be extended to include their human subjects as well. If this is so, says Locke, then God gave Noah the power to eat his sons after the flood, and thus the absolute monarchs who now rule the world in his stead have the power to consume their subjects as a healthy midnight snack. And this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how such an original lineage of absolutism could have survived unbroken through the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities.
Sir Robert’s theory is easy to ridicule, as Locke’s rebuttals demonstrate. Given that there’s virtually no one left in the world who believes what he believed (if you know someone who does, please introduce us), is there anything we can learn from Locke’s takedown? I think you can rehabilitate Sir Robert a little by reading him non-literally. His argument derives from a simple inversion of the republican theory we’re accustomed to: that good governments are governed by laws, and not by men. Sir Robert is arguing that good laws are derived from the example of good men; that the norms established through history, by well-adjusted people living real lives, make a more beneficial model for good government than any abstract legal principles. Reading it this way, Sir Robert might be described as taking a more traditionalist, Catholic view, while Locke is rebutting him from a legalistic, protestant view. Even back then, after all, Anglicans were trying to be both Catholic and protestant at the same time.
If you want to be really irresponsible (I do), you could even map their comparative positions onto the debate between “evolutionism” or “Darwinism”, on the one side, and “creationism” or “intelligent design” on the other. Sir Robert is an “evolutionist” because he believes that the concept of rulership has been established by rulers themselves, demonstrating through historical trial, error, and adaptation, how power and legitimacy is acquired and maintained. Locke, conversely, is more of a “creationist”, because he believes that God created nature and humanity through abstract reason, and so good government consists merely in adhering to the timeless natural law that God has handed down. Locke’s humanity owes nothing to the past; Sir Robert’s humanity is constituted by it.
Neither position—that of traditionalism or that of legalism—is unassailable. A Filmerian monarch who rules merely by dictate of tradition can still be a corrupt bastard who brings ruin to the people under his protection. Good norms may be derived from good men, but it’s just as true that bad norms can be derived from bad ones. A state founded by a Frederick the Great is not invulnerable to the later ravages of a Caligula. A Lockean legalism can become dehumanizing when its precepts fail to align with actually-existing human nature but are still forcibly imposed over it. Traditionalism can turn over into tyranny, while legalism can turn over into fundamentalism.
SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
Having demolished Sir Robert’s political theory, Locke now has the task of advancing a positive conception of his own. His basic ideals are hinted at apophatically in the first treatise, but now he makes them explicit. From the days of Genesis until now—eternally, providentially—God has written the law of reason into the fabric of creation. Man’s capacity for reason is what separates him from the animals, and an individual’s reasoning mind is what guarantees his access to equal rights in the commonwealth. Just as Adam was given authority over nature by God, so each man’s reasoning consciousness entitles him to the same endowment. Reason allows man to possess nature and make it his property (and his “property”, by the way, includes his own body).
In the state of nature, every individual has an inalienable right to their own property; to dispose of themselves and their possessions as they see fit. Locke’s model for life in the state of nature is the Biblical patriarchs, who go out into the world, dominate nature, and proliferate the species. God intended every man to be a Noah, an Abraham, an Isaac, a Jacob, or a Joseph. Nor is prosperity a zero-sum game; God created nature in such abundance that the enlargement of one man’s estate does not need to come at the expense of another’s. Jacob and Esau, though rivals, went their separate ways, built separate livelihoods, and had an emotional reunion later in life, having both sired prosperous dynasties quite independently of one another.
In such a free and non-competitive state, there is a natural peace and equality among all people, because there is no impetus for envy or interpersonal domination. War is thus an aberration and an imposition on individual rights under natural law. According to Locke, a state of war is what happens when one person or group is trying to take away the natural rights of another person or group. It is not necessarily a matter of explicit, physical violence. In war, the aggressor is trying to assert their power over the defender. By attempting to take the defender’s life, the aggressor is first and foremost claiming the power to deprive the defender of his right to his life, which is naturally his alone. All injustices stem from the usurpation of an individual’s natural rights. A legislature that passes a law depriving you of your property is as much an enemy combatant as a guy trying to hack through your door with an axe.
Everyone having these natural rights, each individual in a state of nature also has a natural executive power which allows him to protect those rights and restore them when they are encroached upon. You have the right to kick someone’s ass if they’re trying to take your property; whether that property is your life or any of your possessions. Locke even thinks that men in the state of nature have the right to kill someone who is just trying to steal money or goods from them. Before he is trying to steal from you, a thief is trying to usurp your natural right to your own stuff, making you the subject of his arbitrary will. Once he has established this power over you, who is to say that he will use it only to deprive you of your money? A threat to liberty is a threat to life, so both must be defended with the sword.
Having established an individual’s right to property, how does a person legitimately claim property as his own? For Locke, people gain a right to property by using it. Their legitimate domain consists precisely of everything they’re able to make use of and improve without letting it go to waste. Nature is originally the common property of mankind, but when people use it, it becomes an extension of their person.
Governments are instituted not to limit the rights of the individuals of whom it is composed, but rather to protect those rights. To be legitimate, a government must be based in natural law, and thus to make no further impositions on individual autonomy than those strictly necessary in order to more fully secure that autonomy from outside forces. In the Lockean liberal state, government and personal property are not adversaries; they in fact buttress each other.
Now there’s something your progressive Democrat and your small-government Republican would do well to learn; each party being inheritors of part of the Lockean legacy. The liberal state and the individual accumulation of wealth through the “free market” are deeply reliant upon one another. Statism and individualism are two halves of an arch; you cannot expand one without expanding the other. It is common for American political commentators to say that the left won the culture war, while the right won the economic war. It is more accurate to say that liberalism won both wars, liberalizing both social relations and economic ones, and now stands unchallenged over American life like a colossus.
For the discontents of neoliberal American life, wary of the darkness brooding beneath its grinning exterior but at a loss to formulate a coherent response to it, the way forward may be to look beyond the boundaries of liberalism itself.
A FRIVOLOUS DIGRESSION
An American woman was going through security at Frankfurt International Airport when she was taken aside and told that her carry-on bag contained too many liquids, and that she would have to either dispose of a stick of deodorant in her bag or put it in her checked luggage. While a reasonable person would likely have parted with their deodorant without much fuss, this woman decided to have a debate with the German federal police as to whether her rub-on deodorant was a solid or a liquid. According to the police report, the woman was adamant, uncooperative, and increasingly belligerent; apparently having chosen to fight and die on Speed Stick Hill rather than suffer the minor inconvenience of conforming to a quite standard airport security regulation. Then she did something really stupid. She called them Nazis. Now I’ve never been to Germany before, but even I know that references to Nazism, in speech or in symbol, are treated with extreme seriousness by German law. The woman was forced to pay a preliminary fine at the airport before continuing on her way. She now faces criminal charges for slander.
The story could have ended here; but it’s a testament to the peculiar “character” of our protagonist that it didn’t. This woman was not just some ignorant American tourist; one of those stock-and-trade “ugly Americans” who routinely bring shame and dishonor upon my nationality through feats of international asshattery. She’s an associate professor of Peace and Security Studies at the foreign service school of Georgetown University. For those unaware, Georgetown was founded by the Jesuit Order, and is famous for providing a high-quality education in international affairs, and for training a good portion of America’s foreign service officers.
A professor at this prestigious institution, suffice it to say, should be one of the last people one would expect to make so unsightly a spectacle of herself in a foreign airport. But the spectacle having been made, her reaction was even more galling. Did she apologize? Did she do damage control? Did she quietly move on with her life and let the incident be forgotten? Negatory! She’s an American, silly goose! She wrote a political hit piece in the Huffington Post.
“No!”, I screamed to myself, alone in my car, reading the story on my phone during a work break and seeing a link to the HuffPost article. “I’m not going to read it! No! Never!”
But I had already clicked the link, like a man possessed. Like that lecherous lactophile from A Clockwork Orange, my eyes felt like they were being held open, my retinas burned by this woman’s idiocy. The article is fascinating in a number of ways; none of them positive. For one, it reads as if it were written by a precocious middle schooler with a thesaurus close at hand. This is a woman who never met an adverb she didn’t like, or a metaphor she wasn’t willing to use, whether or not it makes sense. Superfluous description abounds, as well as oracular vocabulary plucked from the scriptures of Merriam-Webster; words that amateurs use to make their writing feel more “grown up”, but which have the ironic effect of highlighting the whole piece as a shallow contrivance.
But even more damning than the style of the piece is its content, which is, in two words, preposterously typical. So rote and predictable and mindless is the procedure by which she checks every requisite box of a progressive liberal diatribe that it occurred to me that the entire article could have been composed by a computer algorithm.
By her telling, not only were the German police “thuggish” fascists; they were misogynists as well: Agent Smiths of the Matrix of Patriarchy terrified by the “assertiveness” (i.e. insolence) of a woke woman—despite the fact that at least one of the officers was a woman herself. She asserts that while she did use the word “Nazi”, she was not directing it at the police officers, but at a young American man in line behind her, whose haircut, in her eyes, made him look like a member of “the Hitler’s Youth.” In an article about her, a white woman, being stopped by police in Germany, she finds a way to invoke the specter of “white privilege” in the United States. She wonders whether a Muslim woman wearing a hijab would receive even worse treatment than she did. She makes an obligatory quip about Donald Trump’s self-description as a “stable genius”. Check, check, check, check, and check.
The article should be stored in the Smithsonian. It's a pristine example of the shitshow of furious intellectual wheelspinning that American liberalism has become in the year 2018.
LIBERALISM AS TABOO
Liberalism has always been the political religion of the United States; if not the actual, theological one as well. John Locke was not only the greatest influence on the Founding Fathers; his writings established the parameters and the very language of our political discourse. Anyone with clout in American politics is a Lockean. The Democratic and Republican parties are best described as representatives of progressive and classical liberalism, respectively. Partisan animus is so acute not because of their ideological differences, but because of their overwhelming, stifling uniformity. The superficial differences must be accentuated to give the illusion that political debate in the United States is robust and thriving, when it is anything but. When you strip away the snark, the cultural prejudices, and the bandying of slogans, clichés, and soundbites that constitute the American electoral process, you find that the subject of politics, how best to organize and improve our life together under this constitutional order, is hardly ever broached.
When real political discussion disappears in a liberal democracy, the language of liberalism remains, but functions only like a religious artifact that has been taken from an Indigenous American tribe and placed in a museum. It has a certain natural beauty and elegance to it—one suspects that it represents something important—but outside of its original social context it is a dead thing, disconnected from the roots of its spiritual power.
Like the professor in our story, our liberalism, which was once the subject of intense, high-stakes physical and rhetorical combat among the midwives of our republic, has devolved into an endless regression of clichés, which are waved about like incense. The professor ran into an embarrassing situation of her own making, but as an acolyte of our ritualized liberalism, she could only write about her experience by invoking the fashionable controversies of American politics as if they were animistic deities. She has a vague sense that her rights and autonomy were violated; that she is perpetually victimized by “fascists” who are all around her, desperate to deprive her of her self-ownership, which is constantly under threat by people who want to tell her what to do. As a woman, she identifies herself with other groups of people who she believes are deprived of their “rights” like she is; African-Americans, Muslims, and so on.
But it’s clear that, like most of us, she is not thinking critically about the historical and intellectual roots of the “freedom” that her intuition tells her is so existentially threatened in the age of The Donald. This way of (not) thinking, of praying to our ideals instead of wrestling with them, is draining the blood of our civil society. We need to do something about it.
It’s not enough anymore to lay flowers at Locke’s tomb, to light candles at his altars, or to collect relics of his to try and piece them together like Frankenstein’s monster. We must dare to attempt more than an incantation. It’s time for a conjuration. Let’s put on our necromancer’s robes and try to resurrect Locke wholesale. The master must be summoned. Arise, Lazarus!
FIRST TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
Okay, so when you crack open Locke’s First Treatise of Government, it doesn’t seem to promise much in terms of contemporary relevance. It is a refutation (more like a demolition) of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha; a Biblical defense of absolute monarchy by divine right. Sir Robert believed that absolute monarchy was established by God from the creation of Adam, and that this right to absolute, patriarchal authority had been passed down through all the generations of human history, right down to the absolute monarchs of Sir Robert’s day. Monarchical power passed from Adam down to Noah, and from him to his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, each of whom, according to Sir Robert, was given absolute power over a continent of the eastern hemisphere after the Flood. All legitimate monarchs are descendants of one of these three, and thus exercise total, private power by dictate of God.
Contrary to republican thought, Sir Robert held that laws were derived from the persons of kings, rather than the other way around. Laws were instituted to serve as symbolic expressions of the king’s personal will; they were to be consulted in order to get an idea of the king’s will when the king’s personal presence was unavailable.
Locke takes this theory apart piece by piece through his own exegesis of the book of Genesis. It deserves mentioning that the Hebrew Bible had taken on a critical importance for virtually all the political theorists of the seventeenth century; historians have nicknamed it the “Biblical Century” for this reason. New rabbinical sources allowed intellectuals to look upon the familiar scriptures with fresh eyes. Political theorists came to believe that the Hebrew Bible contained a total blueprint for God’s ideal human government, and that the perfect political system, through a proper application of reason, could be extracted from it.
Locke cuts off Sir Robert’s argument at the roots. Contrary to his claim, there is no evidence in scripture that God gave Adam authority over other people. God gives Adam dominion over the natural environment and the lesser animals, but never over another person. Sir Robert cited scripture where God tells Eve that she is to be subordinate to Adam, but Locke counters that this occurs after their fall from grace, and so does not reflect on the original condition of mankind. Locke points out that it’s a bit silly to say that Adam was given “paternal” authority over mankind when he didn’t even have any children over which to exercise this authority. Sir Robert believed that he possessed this power in potentiality; but Locke, humorously, wonders whether this means that Sir Robert became an author before he wrote his book.
And even if Adam had been given this power, there’s no indication that it passed down to Noah and his sons. If Noah were an absolute monarch, he would have had absolute authority over the life and death of his sons; but scripture doesn’t attest to this. After the flood, God gives the new world to Noah and his sons to share in common. Sir Robert apparently argued that when God gave the likes of Adam and Noah power over the “beasts” of the earth, the meaning of the Hebrew word for “beasts” could be extended to include their human subjects as well. If this is so, says Locke, then God gave Noah the power to eat his sons after the flood, and thus the absolute monarchs who now rule the world in his stead have the power to consume their subjects as a healthy midnight snack. And this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how such an original lineage of absolutism could have survived unbroken through the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities.
Sir Robert’s theory is easy to ridicule, as Locke’s rebuttals demonstrate. Given that there’s virtually no one left in the world who believes what he believed (if you know someone who does, please introduce us), is there anything we can learn from Locke’s takedown? I think you can rehabilitate Sir Robert a little by reading him non-literally. His argument derives from a simple inversion of the republican theory we’re accustomed to: that good governments are governed by laws, and not by men. Sir Robert is arguing that good laws are derived from the example of good men; that the norms established through history, by well-adjusted people living real lives, make a more beneficial model for good government than any abstract legal principles. Reading it this way, Sir Robert might be described as taking a more traditionalist, Catholic view, while Locke is rebutting him from a legalistic, protestant view. Even back then, after all, Anglicans were trying to be both Catholic and protestant at the same time.
If you want to be really irresponsible (I do), you could even map their comparative positions onto the debate between “evolutionism” or “Darwinism”, on the one side, and “creationism” or “intelligent design” on the other. Sir Robert is an “evolutionist” because he believes that the concept of rulership has been established by rulers themselves, demonstrating through historical trial, error, and adaptation, how power and legitimacy is acquired and maintained. Locke, conversely, is more of a “creationist”, because he believes that God created nature and humanity through abstract reason, and so good government consists merely in adhering to the timeless natural law that God has handed down. Locke’s humanity owes nothing to the past; Sir Robert’s humanity is constituted by it.
Neither position—that of traditionalism or that of legalism—is unassailable. A Filmerian monarch who rules merely by dictate of tradition can still be a corrupt bastard who brings ruin to the people under his protection. Good norms may be derived from good men, but it’s just as true that bad norms can be derived from bad ones. A state founded by a Frederick the Great is not invulnerable to the later ravages of a Caligula. A Lockean legalism can become dehumanizing when its precepts fail to align with actually-existing human nature but are still forcibly imposed over it. Traditionalism can turn over into tyranny, while legalism can turn over into fundamentalism.
SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT
Having demolished Sir Robert’s political theory, Locke now has the task of advancing a positive conception of his own. His basic ideals are hinted at apophatically in the first treatise, but now he makes them explicit. From the days of Genesis until now—eternally, providentially—God has written the law of reason into the fabric of creation. Man’s capacity for reason is what separates him from the animals, and an individual’s reasoning mind is what guarantees his access to equal rights in the commonwealth. Just as Adam was given authority over nature by God, so each man’s reasoning consciousness entitles him to the same endowment. Reason allows man to possess nature and make it his property (and his “property”, by the way, includes his own body).
In the state of nature, every individual has an inalienable right to their own property; to dispose of themselves and their possessions as they see fit. Locke’s model for life in the state of nature is the Biblical patriarchs, who go out into the world, dominate nature, and proliferate the species. God intended every man to be a Noah, an Abraham, an Isaac, a Jacob, or a Joseph. Nor is prosperity a zero-sum game; God created nature in such abundance that the enlargement of one man’s estate does not need to come at the expense of another’s. Jacob and Esau, though rivals, went their separate ways, built separate livelihoods, and had an emotional reunion later in life, having both sired prosperous dynasties quite independently of one another.
In such a free and non-competitive state, there is a natural peace and equality among all people, because there is no impetus for envy or interpersonal domination. War is thus an aberration and an imposition on individual rights under natural law. According to Locke, a state of war is what happens when one person or group is trying to take away the natural rights of another person or group. It is not necessarily a matter of explicit, physical violence. In war, the aggressor is trying to assert their power over the defender. By attempting to take the defender’s life, the aggressor is first and foremost claiming the power to deprive the defender of his right to his life, which is naturally his alone. All injustices stem from the usurpation of an individual’s natural rights. A legislature that passes a law depriving you of your property is as much an enemy combatant as a guy trying to hack through your door with an axe.
Everyone having these natural rights, each individual in a state of nature also has a natural executive power which allows him to protect those rights and restore them when they are encroached upon. You have the right to kick someone’s ass if they’re trying to take your property; whether that property is your life or any of your possessions. Locke even thinks that men in the state of nature have the right to kill someone who is just trying to steal money or goods from them. Before he is trying to steal from you, a thief is trying to usurp your natural right to your own stuff, making you the subject of his arbitrary will. Once he has established this power over you, who is to say that he will use it only to deprive you of your money? A threat to liberty is a threat to life, so both must be defended with the sword.
Having established an individual’s right to property, how does a person legitimately claim property as his own? For Locke, people gain a right to property by using it. Their legitimate domain consists precisely of everything they’re able to make use of and improve without letting it go to waste. Nature is originally the common property of mankind, but when people use it, it becomes an extension of their person.
Governments are instituted not to limit the rights of the individuals of whom it is composed, but rather to protect those rights. To be legitimate, a government must be based in natural law, and thus to make no further impositions on individual autonomy than those strictly necessary in order to more fully secure that autonomy from outside forces. In the Lockean liberal state, government and personal property are not adversaries; they in fact buttress each other.
Now there’s something your progressive Democrat and your small-government Republican would do well to learn; each party being inheritors of part of the Lockean legacy. The liberal state and the individual accumulation of wealth through the “free market” are deeply reliant upon one another. Statism and individualism are two halves of an arch; you cannot expand one without expanding the other. It is common for American political commentators to say that the left won the culture war, while the right won the economic war. It is more accurate to say that liberalism won both wars, liberalizing both social relations and economic ones, and now stands unchallenged over American life like a colossus.
For the discontents of neoliberal American life, wary of the darkness brooding beneath its grinning exterior but at a loss to formulate a coherent response to it, the way forward may be to look beyond the boundaries of liberalism itself.
October 26, 2018
هنا وجدت أصول الفلسفة السياسية الحديثة بمختلف إتجاهاتها فمن كتاب لوك هذا يمكنك أن ترى إنبثاق الديموقراطية والشيوعية او الملكية الدستورية فى مهدها ومن ناحية أخرى تجد الأرستقراطية والملكية المطلقة فى طور الإحتضار فهكذا كانت الإتجاهات السياسية فى عصر لوك والكتاب فى حد ذاته ثورة على التداخل المريع الذى حدث طوال القرون الوسطى وحتى عصر الإصلاح الدينى بين المفاهيم السياسية والتفسيرات الدينية لها كما يمثل ثورة على كل طغيان ترسخ فى أوروبا منذ قرون وأصبح شيئا مقبولا وإعتيادياً حتى أصبح حجر عثرة فى طريق التقدم الإنسانى .
يتناول هذا الكتاب قسمين أولهما إقتصر عل نقد أحد الكتاب المعاصرين للوك وهو السير روبرت فليمر والذى كان له كتابا يدعم فيه حق السلطة المطلقة الإلهى للملوك على أساس إنبثاق ذلك الحق من حق الطاعة الأبوية الذى بدأ مع آدم والواقع أن ذلك الجزء كان ساذجاً مملاً بالنسبة لعقول هذه الأيام ولا يمكن أن يتوقع منه أدنى إفادة اللهم إلا بعض المعلومات التاريخية والدينية من تاريخ المسيحية الأولى واليهود وبعض أقاصيص الكتب المقدسة لديهم .
أما الجزء الثانى فيتناول فلسفة لوك السياسية والتى تبدأ بتوضيح الفروق بين السلطة السياسية والأبوية ثم منها ينتقل إلى الطور الطبيعى لدى الإنسان فتوجب عليه أن ينتقد فى عجالة مذهب هوبز فى حالة الطبيعة التى تمثل حالة حرب الكل ضد الكل . أما لوك فيعتقد أن حالة الطبيعة كانت حالة يعتمد فيها الإنسان على عقله ويتوصل فيها إلى القانون الطبيعى من حيث حق كل فرد فى الدفاع عن حياته وحريته وإقتناعه بأن من يتعرض بالجور على من عداه فإنه يتوقع عدوان وجور مماثل من الآخرين إذاءه فيتجنب بالتالى هذه الأفعال العدوانية . وهذا بالنسبة له هو حال الأغلبية من البشر فى الطور الطبيعى .
ومنها ينتقل إلى حق الملكية والمعروف عند لوك أنه ينشأ عن العمل بعد أن كانت الطبيعة كلها مشاعا لبنى البشر على السواء بحيث تكفى أغراضهم ومنافعهم جميعاً ومن حق الإمتلاك ينشأ حق الدفاع عن الأملاك التى بتراكمها وكثرتها وتعدد الفوارق بينها من إنسان إلى آخر وجب التفكير فى التعايش فى جماعات التى تفوض سلطاتها الطبيعية الى فرد ما أو عدة أفراد يقومون بسن وحماية وتنفيذ القوانين التى سيجتمعوا فى ظلها حفاظاً على ذواتهم ومصالحهم وأملاكهم .
ومن هنا يتجه لوك للحديث عن أنواع السلطات المتباينة ومدى علاقة كل منها بالأخرى وحدود كل منها وإيجازا فإنه يضع مصلحة الشعب وخيره حداً فاصلاً فى شرعية السلطات وحدود سلطتها ويحرم السطو على أملاك الآخرين كل التحريم مهما كان الجرم المرتكب ثم ويجعل الحد الفاصل فى شرعية الحاكم هو إستخدامه للقوة ضد شعبه لأى سبب كان . ويميز هنا بالذات بين المغتصب والطاغية وهو تمييز ذو دلالة فى فكر لوك السياسى .
كن هذا القسم الثانى من الكتاب شيقاً إلى أبعد الحدود كما أنه بالغ الأهمية لكل مهتم بالفلسفة السياسية أو السياسة المجردة .
يتناول هذا الكتاب قسمين أولهما إقتصر عل نقد أحد الكتاب المعاصرين للوك وهو السير روبرت فليمر والذى كان له كتابا يدعم فيه حق السلطة المطلقة الإلهى للملوك على أساس إنبثاق ذلك الحق من حق الطاعة الأبوية الذى بدأ مع آدم والواقع أن ذلك الجزء كان ساذجاً مملاً بالنسبة لعقول هذه الأيام ولا يمكن أن يتوقع منه أدنى إفادة اللهم إلا بعض المعلومات التاريخية والدينية من تاريخ المسيحية الأولى واليهود وبعض أقاصيص الكتب المقدسة لديهم .
أما الجزء الثانى فيتناول فلسفة لوك السياسية والتى تبدأ بتوضيح الفروق بين السلطة السياسية والأبوية ثم منها ينتقل إلى الطور الطبيعى لدى الإنسان فتوجب عليه أن ينتقد فى عجالة مذهب هوبز فى حالة الطبيعة التى تمثل حالة حرب الكل ضد الكل . أما لوك فيعتقد أن حالة الطبيعة كانت حالة يعتمد فيها الإنسان على عقله ويتوصل فيها إلى القانون الطبيعى من حيث حق كل فرد فى الدفاع عن حياته وحريته وإقتناعه بأن من يتعرض بالجور على من عداه فإنه يتوقع عدوان وجور مماثل من الآخرين إذاءه فيتجنب بالتالى هذه الأفعال العدوانية . وهذا بالنسبة له هو حال الأغلبية من البشر فى الطور الطبيعى .
ومنها ينتقل إلى حق الملكية والمعروف عند لوك أنه ينشأ عن العمل بعد أن كانت الطبيعة كلها مشاعا لبنى البشر على السواء بحيث تكفى أغراضهم ومنافعهم جميعاً ومن حق الإمتلاك ينشأ حق الدفاع عن الأملاك التى بتراكمها وكثرتها وتعدد الفوارق بينها من إنسان إلى آخر وجب التفكير فى التعايش فى جماعات التى تفوض سلطاتها الطبيعية الى فرد ما أو عدة أفراد يقومون بسن وحماية وتنفيذ القوانين التى سيجتمعوا فى ظلها حفاظاً على ذواتهم ومصالحهم وأملاكهم .
ومن هنا يتجه لوك للحديث عن أنواع السلطات المتباينة ومدى علاقة كل منها بالأخرى وحدود كل منها وإيجازا فإنه يضع مصلحة الشعب وخيره حداً فاصلاً فى شرعية السلطات وحدود سلطتها ويحرم السطو على أملاك الآخرين كل التحريم مهما كان الجرم المرتكب ثم ويجعل الحد الفاصل فى شرعية الحاكم هو إستخدامه للقوة ضد شعبه لأى سبب كان . ويميز هنا بالذات بين المغتصب والطاغية وهو تمييز ذو دلالة فى فكر لوك السياسى .
كن هذا القسم الثانى من الكتاب شيقاً إلى أبعد الحدود كما أنه بالغ الأهمية لكل مهتم بالفلسفة السياسية أو السياسة المجردة .
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October 23, 2021-Primo trattato sul governo ***
-Secondo trattato sul governo ***
-Secondo trattato sul governo ***
February 14, 2023
Locke believes that in the state of nature a man is born free and independent, an individual: he associates with others only for the defense of his property. Therefore for Locke society is nothing but a mutual defense pact between individuals. If you accept this premise, everything Locke says makes a lot of sense. But how can you accept this premise? If you were cast in the wilderness alone, naked and without tools made by other humans, you would last only a few days (especially in England in the winter). Now think of a pregnat woman, how could she deliver babies?
Locke's essays are just mental gymnastics to try to justify the mentality of a spoiled teenager who wants to smoke pot. Locke has to admit that parents have duty towards their children (but that's not a political society, he assures us), and that originally governments were extended families with the father in charge (but they don't count), and so on. Apparently the parents' duty over their children ends the moment in which the children become adults, when they are able to freely choose their government and their religion (...wait, what?).
Locke's idea of sociey revolves around maintaining property, hence it is pure materialism. Not only society is just a bunch of individuals, the only goal of said individuals is to keep their property (which they acquired on their own in the wilderness I guess) and that's the only reason they enter an association with other free individuals. Locke quotes a lot from the Bible but it doesn't cross his mind that the history of humanity is the history of tribes with tribe members working together for a common goal (often not a materialistic one). History is not about free voluntary associations. A Canaanite couldn't walk up to Moses and say "I would like to join into your self-defense pact so that you'll defend my property". Speaking of the Bible, Locke denies that a woman is subject to her husband according to the Scriptures but this is wrong. The New Testament says multiple times that a woman must submit to her husband (e.g. Ephesians 5:22-24). This seems a very odd mistake to make (it's in the first Essay where Locke attacks another philosopher for misinterpreting the Bible).
Could it be that Locke found it convenient to ignore this, because a woman being unequal to her husband would debunk the idea of society being founded on individuals (it would be founded on the family at least)? Locke's vision of marriage doesn't correspond to reality: if marriage was a voluntary association between two individuals, it would cease to exist the moment in which these two individuals decide to end it. But even in today's society divorce is not automatic, because society at large has a stake on a man and a woman being together.
Another odd thing was that in the Letter Locke is very repetitive in talking about freedom of religion, but in a few lines he mentions that Muslims and Atheists are not ok. His position is not really explored. Could it be that Muslims or atheists are incompatible with his vision of society based on individuals wanting to keep their property? Perhaps society needs something more, like a common set of values that needs to be defended? I really got the feeling that Locke was ignoring the topics that would be inconvenient to his ideology.
Lastly, Locke's ideology is also based on equality between individuals, at least political equality. This causes the usual problems that liberals have, for example that they need to come up with an arbitrary number of years after which a human becomes "emancipated". Locke mentions an age of 21. Modern science found that the brain finishes its development only at the age of 25, therefore completely rejecting Locke's assumption that every adult is equally capable. The fact that in most countries people vote at 18, and in some countries at 16, is pure science denial; but this was just an extension of Locke's ideas that "everybody" is equal, where the definition of "everybody" keep expanding and soon even 5-year-olds will be given the right to vote in the name of liberalism.
This book also comes with 3 essays by random authors. Here's my comments on them (again, these are NOT Locke's essays):
1) Just useless blah blah blah.
2) A woman nagging about being oppressed. Note that she doesn't talk about women in Locke's time, but she claims that women are subordinated NOW and she tries to use Locke to find weapons for her political goals. The addition of a feminist essay is even more grating considering that Locke discusses how originally political power came from war. This woman of course ignores this inconvenient bit: men had exclusive political power because they were exclusively required to go die in wars (or enslaved, like British men (and not women) forced to work in coal mines during WWII).
Feminism is rooted in Locke's idea that society is based on individuals, as it only makes sense within this assumption. Locke demolishes the concept of paternal authority (by lying about the Bible as I mentioned above), also denying that the family is a political union. Locke's mindset of individual conflict was then exploited by feminists to claim that women are in conflict with their men, allowing one of the most destructive alien ideologies to take hold in White people's civilization.
3) The third essay is interesting. It argues that Locke was a precursor of democracy, because while Locke didn't talk about political representation his ideology of (political) equality would naturally lead to a democratic system. Locke also discusses that the only check against government power is the majority, while individuals who feel treated unjustly by their government has no recourse (I think this contradicts what Locke had said elsewhere about society being a voluntarily association). I believe this is Locke being practical, rather than him giving some political legitimacy to the majority (in addition to the political legitimacy of the individuals) so I don't quite agree with this essay's author but this was a good read nonetheless.
In summary, I found Locke's ideology to be full of holes, with him avoding difficult topics that would have been hard for him to tackle. I also found a few contradictions. I feel less liberal after reading Locke than I was before; this either means that the author did a bad job, or it means that liberalism is wrong.
Locke's essays are just mental gymnastics to try to justify the mentality of a spoiled teenager who wants to smoke pot. Locke has to admit that parents have duty towards their children (but that's not a political society, he assures us), and that originally governments were extended families with the father in charge (but they don't count), and so on. Apparently the parents' duty over their children ends the moment in which the children become adults, when they are able to freely choose their government and their religion (...wait, what?).
Locke's idea of sociey revolves around maintaining property, hence it is pure materialism. Not only society is just a bunch of individuals, the only goal of said individuals is to keep their property (which they acquired on their own in the wilderness I guess) and that's the only reason they enter an association with other free individuals. Locke quotes a lot from the Bible but it doesn't cross his mind that the history of humanity is the history of tribes with tribe members working together for a common goal (often not a materialistic one). History is not about free voluntary associations. A Canaanite couldn't walk up to Moses and say "I would like to join into your self-defense pact so that you'll defend my property". Speaking of the Bible, Locke denies that a woman is subject to her husband according to the Scriptures but this is wrong. The New Testament says multiple times that a woman must submit to her husband (e.g. Ephesians 5:22-24). This seems a very odd mistake to make (it's in the first Essay where Locke attacks another philosopher for misinterpreting the Bible).
Could it be that Locke found it convenient to ignore this, because a woman being unequal to her husband would debunk the idea of society being founded on individuals (it would be founded on the family at least)? Locke's vision of marriage doesn't correspond to reality: if marriage was a voluntary association between two individuals, it would cease to exist the moment in which these two individuals decide to end it. But even in today's society divorce is not automatic, because society at large has a stake on a man and a woman being together.
Another odd thing was that in the Letter Locke is very repetitive in talking about freedom of religion, but in a few lines he mentions that Muslims and Atheists are not ok. His position is not really explored. Could it be that Muslims or atheists are incompatible with his vision of society based on individuals wanting to keep their property? Perhaps society needs something more, like a common set of values that needs to be defended? I really got the feeling that Locke was ignoring the topics that would be inconvenient to his ideology.
Lastly, Locke's ideology is also based on equality between individuals, at least political equality. This causes the usual problems that liberals have, for example that they need to come up with an arbitrary number of years after which a human becomes "emancipated". Locke mentions an age of 21. Modern science found that the brain finishes its development only at the age of 25, therefore completely rejecting Locke's assumption that every adult is equally capable. The fact that in most countries people vote at 18, and in some countries at 16, is pure science denial; but this was just an extension of Locke's ideas that "everybody" is equal, where the definition of "everybody" keep expanding and soon even 5-year-olds will be given the right to vote in the name of liberalism.
This book also comes with 3 essays by random authors. Here's my comments on them (again, these are NOT Locke's essays):
1) Just useless blah blah blah.
2) A woman nagging about being oppressed. Note that she doesn't talk about women in Locke's time, but she claims that women are subordinated NOW and she tries to use Locke to find weapons for her political goals. The addition of a feminist essay is even more grating considering that Locke discusses how originally political power came from war. This woman of course ignores this inconvenient bit: men had exclusive political power because they were exclusively required to go die in wars (or enslaved, like British men (and not women) forced to work in coal mines during WWII).
Feminism is rooted in Locke's idea that society is based on individuals, as it only makes sense within this assumption. Locke demolishes the concept of paternal authority (by lying about the Bible as I mentioned above), also denying that the family is a political union. Locke's mindset of individual conflict was then exploited by feminists to claim that women are in conflict with their men, allowing one of the most destructive alien ideologies to take hold in White people's civilization.
3) The third essay is interesting. It argues that Locke was a precursor of democracy, because while Locke didn't talk about political representation his ideology of (political) equality would naturally lead to a democratic system. Locke also discusses that the only check against government power is the majority, while individuals who feel treated unjustly by their government has no recourse (I think this contradicts what Locke had said elsewhere about society being a voluntarily association). I believe this is Locke being practical, rather than him giving some political legitimacy to the majority (in addition to the political legitimacy of the individuals) so I don't quite agree with this essay's author but this was a good read nonetheless.
In summary, I found Locke's ideology to be full of holes, with him avoding difficult topics that would have been hard for him to tackle. I also found a few contradictions. I feel less liberal after reading Locke than I was before; this either means that the author did a bad job, or it means that liberalism is wrong.
June 22, 2022
Originally published in the wake of the Glorious Revolution these two essays were neglected due to a glut of tracts and treatise in support of the events of 1689-90, it wasn’t until the 1760s that they become important in political discourse. Two Treatise of Government by John Locke were a refutation of absolute monarchy and the theory of the state of nature and how government is created.
The less famous First Treatise is a straight line for line critique of Sir Robert Filmer’s divine right absolutist monarch supporting tract, Patriarcha, the conclusion of which Locke examines the Bible and history to demolish Filmer’s hypothesis. In the Second Treatise Locke turns from Filmer’s work into his own theories of the state of nature and how it eventually led to the formation of a government by contract between individuals. Overall, the First Treatise is slog with Locke apparently having to repeat the same evidence to refute Filmer and essentially isn’t needed to understand its follow-up. On the other hand, the Second Treatise begins slowly as Locke references Filmer until transition to his own theory of the state of nature that leads to his own contract theory that is thought-provoking and historically influential.
Two Treatise of Government while being connected as a refutation and then opposing argument, the latter work by John Locke this is more profound not only as political theory and from an historical perspective.
The less famous First Treatise is a straight line for line critique of Sir Robert Filmer’s divine right absolutist monarch supporting tract, Patriarcha, the conclusion of which Locke examines the Bible and history to demolish Filmer’s hypothesis. In the Second Treatise Locke turns from Filmer’s work into his own theories of the state of nature and how it eventually led to the formation of a government by contract between individuals. Overall, the First Treatise is slog with Locke apparently having to repeat the same evidence to refute Filmer and essentially isn’t needed to understand its follow-up. On the other hand, the Second Treatise begins slowly as Locke references Filmer until transition to his own theory of the state of nature that leads to his own contract theory that is thought-provoking and historically influential.
Two Treatise of Government while being connected as a refutation and then opposing argument, the latter work by John Locke this is more profound not only as political theory and from an historical perspective.
Read
December 20, 2025Picture this. You’re at a party. Maybe it’s hosted by your non-binary anarchist friend in their grimy Berlin Altbau or, alternatively by your zyn-popping Young Republican friend in their (let’s be honest, his) dorm room. Unwittingly, you’re cornered into a conversation next to the table of complimentary ketamine/natty lite by a gaggle of undergrads studying politics. As you try to slip away undetected to find literally anyone else to talk to, you’re dragged into a conversation on Liberalism. You’re not quite sure what it means, although you’ve heard of it. It’s not really come up all that much as you’re studying a real degree that will doubtlessly lead you to gainful employment and a stable happy life. However, throughout the course of this conversation you learn that Liberalism is an ideology that will or perhaps already has led to untold suffering and that its proponents, Liberals, are the most loathsome creatures to walk the earth, bringing death, destruction, and pain wherever they go. Furthermore, the most horrifying thing is that these creatures, according to your new friends, walk amongst us, stalking the streets, searching for any remnants of class solidarity or traditional community to decimate. In fact, they outnumber us; they surround us. Indeed, we live in a paradigm wrought through and through with liberal corruption. As they disperse, you’re left shaken and hollow. You stare down at your now sweaty, shaking palms and ask yourself: “Could I be a Liberal?”
Reading John Locke in 2025 is weird. As with any classic text like this, the Two Treaties are outdated and archaic. Some of the ideas are so tied to the specific debates and intellectual milieu of the time that they’re primarily interest today is for understanding intellectual history rather for what they say about our current predicament. However, the other source of strangeness, as eluded to in what I’ll generously call our “thought-experiment”, is that we live in a moment where many in political life, whether our edgy undergraduates or our elected officials, are consciously attempting to move beyond the primary ideological takeaway credited to the Treaties, that is “Liberalism”. It seems that across the political spectrum throughout the Global North, Liberalism is being reassessed. It is a dirty word in progressive circles, synonymous with hypocrisy, exploitation, and Eurocentrism, and amongst the Right, the Neoliberal fusionists are largely folding to the alt-right, Paleos, and Populists. In Europe, Orban self-consciously and without embarrassment identifies himself as “Illiberal”. The world’s superpower, pioneer of the modern Liberal nation-state is being subverted by undemocratic, Christian-nationalist ideologues, openly disdainful of the Liberalism on which their country was meant to be founded. In such a moment, whilst Locke is doubtlessly archaic, he also feels urgent.
I’m going to admit something that will lose me a lot of cache amongst my leftist friends: I like Liberalism. I probably wouldn’t call myself a Liberal, but I don’t have it in my heart to despise those who find much to love in the canon of Western Liberalism. Of course, it has been inconsistently and hypocritically applied. Its historical proponents have loudly voiced its tenants while at the same time enslaving, murdering, colonizing, and dispossessing. However, I can’t help but feel a lot of affinity and appreciation for the things that it has given us: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, popular government, and political power subservient to a body of law. When I see dispossessed minorities or my fellow queer folk make an impassioned argument for their own rights, they can’t help but couch it in the language of our time - the language of Liberalism. Indeed, I’ve yet to see a theory whose language and institutional structures are more conducive to those political claims of the downtrodden and the oppressed. So when I see people dismiss the “libs” or, more pressingly, when I see the Right actively work to establish an “illiberal” or “post-liberal” state, it scares me.
It was with these anxieties in mind that I picked up Locke. I hoped to return to the origins of this strain of thought to better understand it and why a significant minority of people are fed up with it. I hoped at the very least to, in the course of reading the Two treaties, to work through some of the ambivalence that had accrued in my mind surrounding that nebulous term. Therefore, in lieu of a coherent argument, I’ve split this review into the major themes that I think are important. Time to Locke In.
Monarchy vs Not-Monarchy
If you’ve not read the Treaties or only the later, far more relevant of the two, then let me get you to up to speed. Locke uses it to absolutely blast a Monarchist called Robert Filmer into a historical footnote. This is mostly done through both line-by-line rebuttals of Filmer’s Patriarcha along with a painstaking biblical exegesis that denies any avenue for justification of a divine right to rule descending from Adam. It’s pretty rough-going from a contemporary perch with a few interesting exceptions. Massively simplified, the overall arch of the argument is that even if some divine or fatherly authority was endowed on Adam in the Creation, monarchical power is not general but specific and we need a way to observe and validate authority here and now, to decide who can rightfully rule lest we submit ourselves to someone arbitrarily. The fact that this or that monarch currently holds power cannot be proof enough of their right to rule as then we would have to submit to whoever so happens to rule over us, “prince” or “pirate”. Divine Right fails as the question is “not whether there be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.” In this, it’s hard to disagree with Locke. It’s a lot like watching those Evolutionist verses Creationist debates that were all the rage on early YouTube. We, as an audience, aren’t here to witness a contest of equal ideas in a well informed debate that challenges our preconceptions. We’re here to watch an idiot be humiliated. As a modern audience, we were never going to side with the monarchist on this one. Obviously, this wasn’t the case at the time and it’s an interesting exercise to try to reach back to that era when Locke’s view was in the minority, and to try for a second to glimpse the revolutionary nature of what sounds to us today, plain statements of common sense. So in our assessment of Liberalism, as told by John Locke, I can confidently say that it’s better than Monarchy. Yay for Liberalism!
State of Nature?
In Locke’s version of the state of nature, we exist in state of absolute freedom, where power over oneself and, critically, one’s possessions is reciprocal. He also believes this is inherently a state of equality with enforcement of the law being held equally in the hands of all men. To what extent the law is natural if it has to be enforced by men at all, I leave to more philosophically minded folks.
Firstly, I think it’s pretty tired and uninteresting to engage pedantically with Locke’s argument by disputing the historicity of the state of nature. Yeah of course there wasn’t ever such a thing; we’re social animals and so long as there was people there was some form of social structure. But I think that misses the point that Locke is trying to make. If we are to strip away from the context of current day society, monarchy then, modern liberal democracy now, what does man do. Well primarily he makes decisions for himself and his immediate circle of family or tribe. That’s a pretty valid observation to me.
My primary problem with this largely peaceful version of the state of nature as opposed to Hobbes’s rendition, is how he justifies the emergence of the state from it. We need the state to cooperate for our mutual enforcement of our natural rights and protection of our property. Regardless that this is historically nonsense, I don’t understand why Locke thinks this is necessary. If men, being rational and understanding natural law, all obey it and mutually enforce it then what need is there for government.
I think the stronger version of this argument that Locke hints at but does not make outright or explicitly, is that some people are incapable of enforcing their natural rights or protecting themselves from the tyranny of others. I think to make this argument one has to concede to a slightly more hobessian view of the state of nature in that there are many who will use their strength to harm others and those who are physically weaker need assistance to protect their natural rights. So the physical inequality between people gives rise to a need for government to enforce the natural social equality between people.
Not exactly groundbreaking but it’s nice to dust off some of that undergrad political theory and flex the thought experiment muscles. Honestly, I think the bigger problem with all of this is that I think the idea of natural law is fake and ridiculous but I have to draw the boundaries of this review somewhere.
Property
So finally, here is where I get to brandish my lefty credentials! So put away the guillotine comrade and give me a wide berth. I’m about to do some “praxis”.
For Locke, Property is an extension of the right to life via subsistence; that while the natural fruits of the earth belong to all men, to make the earth produce those means we must first appropriate or acquire them. First of all, simple question: Why? Why is an exclusionary, rivalrous form of ownership necessary to make the earth productive? I find that notion very strange and Locke kind of hand waves it away by saying “well there’s plenty of land around so everyone will get some.”
For Locke, property emerges when we mix our labour with the natural fruits of the earth. Understood in a state of nature, this is pretty inoffensive as you picked the fruit, you get to eat it. However, as he developed it further, it emerges that he thinks that whoever can make the most productive use of land should have it outright. It is quite difficult to ignore the dispossession inherent in this argument. Marbled throughout Locke’s account is references to American Indians, and it becomes quite clear why this distinction between rationalised productive approaches to land and other approaches to living on the land is being made. This, whether an explicit retroactive justification, or simply a byproduct of his argument, is disgusting and pretty unforgivable.
But the argument isn’t just immoral and distasteful to modern standards, I think it’s wrong. The idea of “natural” property is ludicrous. I was willing to overlook the appeals to nature when talking about individuals and their freedom because to some extent the individual is a real and extant thing that exist prior to society. An individual would exist if he were the only person on the planet; our lone individual, however, could not own property. Property is a social relationship, and politically constituted (I think I’m the first person on earth to recognise this). So Locke is not just describing a natural mode of property being protected by the state, he is arguing for a particular enforcement of distribution of property by the force of law and state violence. Furthermore, it is a version of property rights that has justified untold dispossession, imperialism, enclosure, and further down the line all of the ills of industrial capitalism.
There is so so much more here I could talk about. There is points where it feels like Locke is far more concerned with the protection of property even than people, so he preempted a lot of contemporary libertarians and neoliberals in that way. To avoid making this section too long, I’ll issue a blanket statement that I more or less disagree with everything this man said about property.
The Individual and Her Will
Now this, I saved this for last because it’s the one where I don’t just agree with the liberals but feel just as hotly as they do about it. I know Libertarians or Classical Liberals can seem a little goofy at the current moment; however, when they talk of the individual and their negative freedom, their right to be left the hell alone, I can’t help but want to fire off a few approval shots into the ceiling. The only time, in reading the treaties where I felt myself emphatically nodding along was when he talked about the purpose of government being to ensure a “Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man”. Again, kind of tired today but I can’t help but appreciate it. I think the approval stems from, beyond my own temperamental obstinacy towards any authority, especially arbitrary, is that it really recognises the fundamental nature of the individual will. There are very few things in the social sciences that we can privileged as laws in the way the physical scientists are able; however, I think the closest thing that the social sciences have to an atom is the individual. There is an unpredictability, a stubborn refusal, a frustrating but beautiful diversity that rests in the black box of each of our minds that resists being categorised or contained. Yes, we are deeply socially conditioned. Yes, our actions are constrained by institutions. Yes, we act on concepts and norms that are socially constructed. Yet, in a moment of decision, nobody, not the greatest historian, nor psychologist, nor the best behavioural data scientist that Silicon Valley can summon, can tell you with certainty what any one of us will do but our own Will. We see out of our own eyes. We make our choices.
So by way of conclusion, there are a lot of problems with Locke’s account of liberalism. Primarily abhorrent to me is the account of property and the centrality which private property rights take in it. With that being said, I really do come alive when he is railing against tyranny and the extolling the virtues of personal liberty. That is the value I find in a purely applied doctrine of Classical Liberalism: the willingness to give a full throated endorsement of the individual’’s Will, however wrong, however unpopular, however offensive, however queer, however ugly. I do with my life what I wish. As you with yours. I’d love to have a beer with you one day and you can tell me all about it.
Reading John Locke in 2025 is weird. As with any classic text like this, the Two Treaties are outdated and archaic. Some of the ideas are so tied to the specific debates and intellectual milieu of the time that they’re primarily interest today is for understanding intellectual history rather for what they say about our current predicament. However, the other source of strangeness, as eluded to in what I’ll generously call our “thought-experiment”, is that we live in a moment where many in political life, whether our edgy undergraduates or our elected officials, are consciously attempting to move beyond the primary ideological takeaway credited to the Treaties, that is “Liberalism”. It seems that across the political spectrum throughout the Global North, Liberalism is being reassessed. It is a dirty word in progressive circles, synonymous with hypocrisy, exploitation, and Eurocentrism, and amongst the Right, the Neoliberal fusionists are largely folding to the alt-right, Paleos, and Populists. In Europe, Orban self-consciously and without embarrassment identifies himself as “Illiberal”. The world’s superpower, pioneer of the modern Liberal nation-state is being subverted by undemocratic, Christian-nationalist ideologues, openly disdainful of the Liberalism on which their country was meant to be founded. In such a moment, whilst Locke is doubtlessly archaic, he also feels urgent.
I’m going to admit something that will lose me a lot of cache amongst my leftist friends: I like Liberalism. I probably wouldn’t call myself a Liberal, but I don’t have it in my heart to despise those who find much to love in the canon of Western Liberalism. Of course, it has been inconsistently and hypocritically applied. Its historical proponents have loudly voiced its tenants while at the same time enslaving, murdering, colonizing, and dispossessing. However, I can’t help but feel a lot of affinity and appreciation for the things that it has given us: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, popular government, and political power subservient to a body of law. When I see dispossessed minorities or my fellow queer folk make an impassioned argument for their own rights, they can’t help but couch it in the language of our time - the language of Liberalism. Indeed, I’ve yet to see a theory whose language and institutional structures are more conducive to those political claims of the downtrodden and the oppressed. So when I see people dismiss the “libs” or, more pressingly, when I see the Right actively work to establish an “illiberal” or “post-liberal” state, it scares me.
It was with these anxieties in mind that I picked up Locke. I hoped to return to the origins of this strain of thought to better understand it and why a significant minority of people are fed up with it. I hoped at the very least to, in the course of reading the Two treaties, to work through some of the ambivalence that had accrued in my mind surrounding that nebulous term. Therefore, in lieu of a coherent argument, I’ve split this review into the major themes that I think are important. Time to Locke In.
Monarchy vs Not-Monarchy
If you’ve not read the Treaties or only the later, far more relevant of the two, then let me get you to up to speed. Locke uses it to absolutely blast a Monarchist called Robert Filmer into a historical footnote. This is mostly done through both line-by-line rebuttals of Filmer’s Patriarcha along with a painstaking biblical exegesis that denies any avenue for justification of a divine right to rule descending from Adam. It’s pretty rough-going from a contemporary perch with a few interesting exceptions. Massively simplified, the overall arch of the argument is that even if some divine or fatherly authority was endowed on Adam in the Creation, monarchical power is not general but specific and we need a way to observe and validate authority here and now, to decide who can rightfully rule lest we submit ourselves to someone arbitrarily. The fact that this or that monarch currently holds power cannot be proof enough of their right to rule as then we would have to submit to whoever so happens to rule over us, “prince” or “pirate”. Divine Right fails as the question is “not whether there be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.” In this, it’s hard to disagree with Locke. It’s a lot like watching those Evolutionist verses Creationist debates that were all the rage on early YouTube. We, as an audience, aren’t here to witness a contest of equal ideas in a well informed debate that challenges our preconceptions. We’re here to watch an idiot be humiliated. As a modern audience, we were never going to side with the monarchist on this one. Obviously, this wasn’t the case at the time and it’s an interesting exercise to try to reach back to that era when Locke’s view was in the minority, and to try for a second to glimpse the revolutionary nature of what sounds to us today, plain statements of common sense. So in our assessment of Liberalism, as told by John Locke, I can confidently say that it’s better than Monarchy. Yay for Liberalism!
State of Nature?
In Locke’s version of the state of nature, we exist in state of absolute freedom, where power over oneself and, critically, one’s possessions is reciprocal. He also believes this is inherently a state of equality with enforcement of the law being held equally in the hands of all men. To what extent the law is natural if it has to be enforced by men at all, I leave to more philosophically minded folks.
Firstly, I think it’s pretty tired and uninteresting to engage pedantically with Locke’s argument by disputing the historicity of the state of nature. Yeah of course there wasn’t ever such a thing; we’re social animals and so long as there was people there was some form of social structure. But I think that misses the point that Locke is trying to make. If we are to strip away from the context of current day society, monarchy then, modern liberal democracy now, what does man do. Well primarily he makes decisions for himself and his immediate circle of family or tribe. That’s a pretty valid observation to me.
My primary problem with this largely peaceful version of the state of nature as opposed to Hobbes’s rendition, is how he justifies the emergence of the state from it. We need the state to cooperate for our mutual enforcement of our natural rights and protection of our property. Regardless that this is historically nonsense, I don’t understand why Locke thinks this is necessary. If men, being rational and understanding natural law, all obey it and mutually enforce it then what need is there for government.
I think the stronger version of this argument that Locke hints at but does not make outright or explicitly, is that some people are incapable of enforcing their natural rights or protecting themselves from the tyranny of others. I think to make this argument one has to concede to a slightly more hobessian view of the state of nature in that there are many who will use their strength to harm others and those who are physically weaker need assistance to protect their natural rights. So the physical inequality between people gives rise to a need for government to enforce the natural social equality between people.
Not exactly groundbreaking but it’s nice to dust off some of that undergrad political theory and flex the thought experiment muscles. Honestly, I think the bigger problem with all of this is that I think the idea of natural law is fake and ridiculous but I have to draw the boundaries of this review somewhere.
Property
So finally, here is where I get to brandish my lefty credentials! So put away the guillotine comrade and give me a wide berth. I’m about to do some “praxis”.
For Locke, Property is an extension of the right to life via subsistence; that while the natural fruits of the earth belong to all men, to make the earth produce those means we must first appropriate or acquire them. First of all, simple question: Why? Why is an exclusionary, rivalrous form of ownership necessary to make the earth productive? I find that notion very strange and Locke kind of hand waves it away by saying “well there’s plenty of land around so everyone will get some.”
For Locke, property emerges when we mix our labour with the natural fruits of the earth. Understood in a state of nature, this is pretty inoffensive as you picked the fruit, you get to eat it. However, as he developed it further, it emerges that he thinks that whoever can make the most productive use of land should have it outright. It is quite difficult to ignore the dispossession inherent in this argument. Marbled throughout Locke’s account is references to American Indians, and it becomes quite clear why this distinction between rationalised productive approaches to land and other approaches to living on the land is being made. This, whether an explicit retroactive justification, or simply a byproduct of his argument, is disgusting and pretty unforgivable.
But the argument isn’t just immoral and distasteful to modern standards, I think it’s wrong. The idea of “natural” property is ludicrous. I was willing to overlook the appeals to nature when talking about individuals and their freedom because to some extent the individual is a real and extant thing that exist prior to society. An individual would exist if he were the only person on the planet; our lone individual, however, could not own property. Property is a social relationship, and politically constituted (I think I’m the first person on earth to recognise this). So Locke is not just describing a natural mode of property being protected by the state, he is arguing for a particular enforcement of distribution of property by the force of law and state violence. Furthermore, it is a version of property rights that has justified untold dispossession, imperialism, enclosure, and further down the line all of the ills of industrial capitalism.
There is so so much more here I could talk about. There is points where it feels like Locke is far more concerned with the protection of property even than people, so he preempted a lot of contemporary libertarians and neoliberals in that way. To avoid making this section too long, I’ll issue a blanket statement that I more or less disagree with everything this man said about property.
The Individual and Her Will
Now this, I saved this for last because it’s the one where I don’t just agree with the liberals but feel just as hotly as they do about it. I know Libertarians or Classical Liberals can seem a little goofy at the current moment; however, when they talk of the individual and their negative freedom, their right to be left the hell alone, I can’t help but want to fire off a few approval shots into the ceiling. The only time, in reading the treaties where I felt myself emphatically nodding along was when he talked about the purpose of government being to ensure a “Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man”. Again, kind of tired today but I can’t help but appreciate it. I think the approval stems from, beyond my own temperamental obstinacy towards any authority, especially arbitrary, is that it really recognises the fundamental nature of the individual will. There are very few things in the social sciences that we can privileged as laws in the way the physical scientists are able; however, I think the closest thing that the social sciences have to an atom is the individual. There is an unpredictability, a stubborn refusal, a frustrating but beautiful diversity that rests in the black box of each of our minds that resists being categorised or contained. Yes, we are deeply socially conditioned. Yes, our actions are constrained by institutions. Yes, we act on concepts and norms that are socially constructed. Yet, in a moment of decision, nobody, not the greatest historian, nor psychologist, nor the best behavioural data scientist that Silicon Valley can summon, can tell you with certainty what any one of us will do but our own Will. We see out of our own eyes. We make our choices.
So by way of conclusion, there are a lot of problems with Locke’s account of liberalism. Primarily abhorrent to me is the account of property and the centrality which private property rights take in it. With that being said, I really do come alive when he is railing against tyranny and the extolling the virtues of personal liberty. That is the value I find in a purely applied doctrine of Classical Liberalism: the willingness to give a full throated endorsement of the individual’’s Will, however wrong, however unpopular, however offensive, however queer, however ugly. I do with my life what I wish. As you with yours. I’d love to have a beer with you one day and you can tell me all about it.
February 23, 2024
A must-read for anyone interested in modern political philosophy and liberalism. Locke persuasively argued for the majority rule as the best way to protect individual rights. It also far-sighted that he rightly supported the legitimate right to political resistance, which still has important implications for today’s politics.
About the three essays:
The first one is a critical review of Locke by John Dunn. It compares how we view Locke from a contemporary perspective with Locke’s implications for modern politics. Very hard to read, and I have to say that I didn’t understand the whole text thoroughly.
The second is an essay on how Locke is liberal from feminist’s perspective by Ruth Grant. From today’s perspective, liberalism is very much limited in feminist’s sense. However, Locke’s view is remarkably liberal for his time. His arguments include political community is made up of individuals not families, that marriage is a voluntary contract between two individuals and that obedience from wife to husband does not extend to granting a husband any political authority over his family. In this sense, classical liberalism is indeed a progressive force in history, as represented by Locke.
The third essay is written by the editor Ian Shapiro. (Just a note, I was prompted to read this book after I took Shapiro’s course Moral Foundations of Politics on Coursera. I recommend this course for anyone interested in politics and political philosophy.) In this essay, he demonstrated how Locke used theological evidence to support the ideal of individual rights and human equality. And that in order to ensure equality and protect individual rights, majority rule is the best way to practice this ideal in politics. Shapiro argues that Locke is a supporter for both individual rights and ‘democratic legitimacy.
Link to the Coursera course by Ian Shapiro: https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-...
About the three essays:
The first one is a critical review of Locke by John Dunn. It compares how we view Locke from a contemporary perspective with Locke’s implications for modern politics. Very hard to read, and I have to say that I didn’t understand the whole text thoroughly.
The second is an essay on how Locke is liberal from feminist’s perspective by Ruth Grant. From today’s perspective, liberalism is very much limited in feminist’s sense. However, Locke’s view is remarkably liberal for his time. His arguments include political community is made up of individuals not families, that marriage is a voluntary contract between two individuals and that obedience from wife to husband does not extend to granting a husband any political authority over his family. In this sense, classical liberalism is indeed a progressive force in history, as represented by Locke.
The third essay is written by the editor Ian Shapiro. (Just a note, I was prompted to read this book after I took Shapiro’s course Moral Foundations of Politics on Coursera. I recommend this course for anyone interested in politics and political philosophy.) In this essay, he demonstrated how Locke used theological evidence to support the ideal of individual rights and human equality. And that in order to ensure equality and protect individual rights, majority rule is the best way to practice this ideal in politics. Shapiro argues that Locke is a supporter for both individual rights and ‘democratic legitimacy.
Link to the Coursera course by Ian Shapiro: https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-...
December 31, 2009
John Locke's major work of political philosophy is often referred to as a major source for the Declaration of Independence, The Second Treatise of Civil Government. This work, authored in 1690, is a major statement of liberalism. Like Thomas Hobbes, Locke begins with humans living in a state of nature, a situation before the development of the state and government. The Lockeian state of nature was not an unpleasant place. Human reason led people to tend to leave one another alone in their respective pursuits.
Natural law guides people's actions in the state of nature and their reason allows them to apprehend the essence of these laws. Thus, Locke expressed great confidence in human reason. However, inconveniences did result in the state of nature. If disagreements rose between people, it was not always easy to resolve these. If one person stole something from another, it was up to the victim to redress the injustice. And these shortcomings in the state of nature made individuals ultimately, rationally, decide that they should give up some of their freedom in order to secure order and protection of the fruits of their labor. Locke said: "[T:]he enjoyment of the property he has in his state is very unsafe, very unsecure. . . . The great and chief end, therefore, of man's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property."
As a result, people contract with one another to form civil society and government in order to preserve their rights under natural law, with the dominant right being termed property. And what happens if government does not protect rights under natural law? Revolution is thereby allowable. For instance, Locke notes one justification for suspending an existing government: "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. . . .[I:]t devolves to the people to have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative, such as they shall think fit, provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society."
Locke's work well illustrates basic tenets of liberalism, among which are:
1. Individualism (and its concomitants of limited government and certain rights, such as the right to property and to certain freedoms, and equality);
2. Materialism (material incentives are important; acquisition and enjoyment of material goods is altogether proper);
3. Faith in human reason;
4. Faith in the market as a way of distributing wealth and goods.
Is Locke the philosopher of the American Revolution? Probably not. But he well articulated many of the major themes accepted by the Founders of the revolutionary movement in the 1770s.
Natural law guides people's actions in the state of nature and their reason allows them to apprehend the essence of these laws. Thus, Locke expressed great confidence in human reason. However, inconveniences did result in the state of nature. If disagreements rose between people, it was not always easy to resolve these. If one person stole something from another, it was up to the victim to redress the injustice. And these shortcomings in the state of nature made individuals ultimately, rationally, decide that they should give up some of their freedom in order to secure order and protection of the fruits of their labor. Locke said: "[T:]he enjoyment of the property he has in his state is very unsafe, very unsecure. . . . The great and chief end, therefore, of man's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property."
As a result, people contract with one another to form civil society and government in order to preserve their rights under natural law, with the dominant right being termed property. And what happens if government does not protect rights under natural law? Revolution is thereby allowable. For instance, Locke notes one justification for suspending an existing government: "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. . . .[I:]t devolves to the people to have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative, such as they shall think fit, provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society."
Locke's work well illustrates basic tenets of liberalism, among which are:
1. Individualism (and its concomitants of limited government and certain rights, such as the right to property and to certain freedoms, and equality);
2. Materialism (material incentives are important; acquisition and enjoyment of material goods is altogether proper);
3. Faith in human reason;
4. Faith in the market as a way of distributing wealth and goods.
Is Locke the philosopher of the American Revolution? Probably not. But he well articulated many of the major themes accepted by the Founders of the revolutionary movement in the 1770s.
Read
November 12, 2024A basic work in political theory and the growth of democracy in the West. Not always very clear thinking, and not always very consistent (e.g. no tolerance towards catholics).
March 14, 2024
rousseau and hobbes sweep
June 29, 2022
Читав по 3 сторінки в день. Перша книжка, яку взяв до рук і почав читати після початку повномасштабного вторгнення росії в Україну. Доводилось чути в університеті, що Джон Лок - це батько британського лібералізму. Мабуть, ця теза і зрезонувала у перші дні повномасштабної війни – геть від москви, дайош Європу. Бути ще ближче до Європи, до британського принципу негативної свободи - коли у громадянина є фундаментальні права, як-от, зокрема, на свободу, і громадянин може робити що завгодно, якщо це не порушує свободи і права інших громадян. Найбільше небажання було на той момент опинитися під окупацією росії (не було страху смерті, наприклад), і відчути на собі оце от обмеження свобод, що було в совєтському союзі. Тож "Два трактати про правління" стали такою собі спробою інтеграції на особистісному рівні до західного (можливо, буде доречніше написати «британського») світу.
July 18, 2025
The first treatise reminds me of your standard political philosophical diss track from the era. The amount of foundation in the Bible, while interesting, led to a monotonous read.
The second treatise is the real juice to squeeze here. Chapters on property, power, and the various forms of tyranny and usurpation of said power were quite memorable. It’s easy to see the foundations this laid for the Founding Fathers.
If it weren’t for the old-timey language and the sometimes banal nature of the topic at hand, this was otherwise a great read.
The second treatise is the real juice to squeeze here. Chapters on property, power, and the various forms of tyranny and usurpation of said power were quite memorable. It’s easy to see the foundations this laid for the Founding Fathers.
If it weren’t for the old-timey language and the sometimes banal nature of the topic at hand, this was otherwise a great read.
March 7, 2024
Die Kommentarreihe ist mMn Gold wert.
July 15, 2026
Summary
Locke's two most famous political essays are collected here. In the first, he debates the leading theory of monarchical legitimacy. In the second, he casts his own vision of what political legitimacy looks like.
First Treatise (against hereditary monarchy)
Locke's first treatise is in response to a popular book written by Robert Filmer titled *Patriarcha* which provides arguments supporting the divine rights of kings. As a modern reader, it is hard not to hear the arguments put forward by Filmer as anything other than attempts to fabricate defenses for an existing system of governance. The basic line of reasoning goes something like God granted Adam dominion over all the world and as such created the blueprint for how governments should be structured. There is then some confused argumentation about how children are born under the dominion of their parents and the way dominion is inherited like property to the first born. In Filmer's defense, I am hearing these arguments from Locke who clearly thinks they are even more confused than me. Reading argumentation about something that society has largely moved past is not very interesting.
Second Treatise (state of nature, law of nature, legitimate government)
Locke does get into much more interesting territory when laying out his own novel theory of where governments get their legitimacy. Before describing how governments should function it was important to Locke to define the condition of individuals who are not under any government. Locke called this condition a "State of Nature", or just the natural state of humans. To Locke, this is a condition of perfect equality, no human has dominion over another. All relations are defined by rationality and subordination to the natural laws of God and nature, like thou shalt not steal or kill etc. While no one has any political authority in this state over another, there is still the right to administer punishment when a natural law is broken. When disputes are not resolved through rationality and force is employed the relationship falls from a state of nature to that of a state of war. This is above all the state most to be avoided, for having cast off rationality, the other becomes no better than a predatory animal that must be destroyed. It is to avoid the common occurrence of the state of war that people organize governments to arbitrate disputes.
To Locke, the principal aim of a government is the protection of private property. Locke's definition of property, which he defines as that which is properly one's own, here includes not only one's possessions but also one's liberty, and life. What made Locke's theory politically radical for his time is that he argued if a government didn't protect its citizen's liberty and possessions it had no legitimacy and its subjects had a moral right to overthrow it. It is this contractual nature of government which justified his earlier work, where Locke went through such pains to disprove divine mandate; to Locke the alternative to divine mandate was a social contract, one which could be invalidated by monarch as easily as by subjects.
Locke continues to define what his version of the social contract looks like. While not demanding democratic governance per se, consent played a major role in Locke's prescription of what a legitimate government actually looks like. He goes so far as to argue that without the active or tacit consent of the individual to be governed, the individual would be considered in a state of nature.
This provides a framework for Locke's 'Right of Revolution' which would be employed as justification by America's founding fathers. Yet allowing for revolution is a dangerous thing to do. Locke recognizes this and argues that all the constraints that apply to existing governments must also constrain revolutions. That is, they must represent the will of the majority and work to secure personal liberty and property. If a revolution does spring up without popular consent, a military coup for example, would not be legitimate in Locke's eyes. He in fact argues that, by the same logic, foreign conquest of a nation grants no right of possession to the invaders as it is done without the consent of the residents and thus has no path to legitimacy.
Locke proceeds to then outline some structural elements of the government that would help to preserve its stability and accountability to the governed. These include things such as separating the legislative and executive branches and acknowledging the legislative branch as supreme to maintain its authority to lawfully remove the head of the executive if grounds for removal are found. With each new piece Locke adds, further complications arise. For example, if it is up to the legislative to decide what actions are lawful for the executive to take, what should the executive do in times of crisis where quick decisions are required? Locke adds the concept of prerogative to allow the executive some leeway to take decisive action. This of course leads to more questions of how to constrain the leader's prerogative within proper bounds as to not create a monarch in crisis and on and on.
Thoughts
This was good and gave me a lot to think through. Locke's influence in Britain at the time of writing this may have been small, but the second treatise and the "Right of Revolution" became a foundational principle for the founding fathers, as was the idea of governments representing the governed. Instead of recapitulating all the points of agreement I would rather focus on the things that left me questioning. The giant that lives in the shadows of this text is Thomas Hobbes. It is hard to overstate how ever present and threatening of a character Hobbes was in political theory at the time. He was known as the Monster of Malmesbury, this was mostly because Hobbes unapologetically described the world and God himself in purely materialistic terms. This resulted in Hobbes being labeled an atheist and his books being banned. It was dangerous to be caught explicitly dealing with Hobbes' arguments because of guilt by association. Yet, his ideas were so hard to refute that much of political theory that emerged after Hobbes' Leviathan were attempts to answer and refute the arguments therein. Locke never mentions Hobbes by name, but his ideas are scattered throughout the text. After all, the term 'State of Nature' was popularized by Hobbes and one that Locke redefines according to his own design. This does put Locke in danger though, as if he was branded with the label of atheist, his ideas could be easily dismissed. This may in part explain the tightrope he walks, going through many pains to separate his ideas from Hobbes while quietly adopting Hobbes' revolutionary lens of explaining political authority through human action rather than divine appointment. This is not to say that there aren't fundamental differences between the two thinkers, but it is said to highlight the pressures of the time.
One of the main disagreements between Hobbes and Locke was in their definitions of state of nature, to Hobbes, the state of nature was famously 'nasty, brutish and short', to Locke this was a description of the state of war, the state of nature was a level that existed above the state of war. This undercuts Hobbes' central justification for submitting to a ruler no matter how tyrannical. To Hobbes any state was preferable to that of a state of nature. Locke rejects this, arguing that life underneath a tyrannical king is in fact no different than Hobbes' state of nature. This is captured by Locke's now famous quote:
The other major disagreement Locke and Hobbes had was that to Hobbes, definitionally, whatever a ruler did was just. Locke argued that the ruler was only a ruler by consent of the governed and as such could break the terms of that consent and therefore be unjust. Thus, creating the foundation of the right of rebellion.
As for my own perspective, I am categorically aligned with Hobbes and prescriptively aligned with Locke. Locke attempts to compress several layers of analysis into a single coherent view. He slides between legal validity, political legitimacy, and moral evaluation without acknowledging that each of these lenses draw boundaries in different ways. For example, when Hobbes argues that anything an absolute ruler does is just, this sounds appalling to our ears, but when looked at through the lens of legal validity it is almost a tautology. If the absolute ruler writes a law that says "The leader can do no wrong" then within that framework the ruler cannot be labeled a criminal or unjust according to its own logic. This ties into my largest critique of Locke's concept of a right of revolution. He is making a case for overthrowing a corrupt government, but it is impossible to make a political or legal case for overthrowing a government. A government cannot enshrine the means of its own dissolution. It may provide a way to replace its leadership or alter its laws, but no government in history allows its subjects to dissolve the government. This can only be done by a revolution which is by legal definition always a crime of the highest order.
So, is a revolution ever justified? I would argue that this right can only exist in a moral realm which Locke folds into a political one. One can look upon a tyrannical government and wish for it to fall, even participate in its overthrow, but one can never expect such an act to be legally justified by the government being overthrown. As Locke would have argued himself, one can only make an Appeal to Heaven and hope that God grants the cause success.
Another issue with Locke's prescriptions is that they are open to quite a bit of interpretations and grey areas which a nice clean absolute ruler doesn't need to address. For example, splitting the government between legislative and executive is justified by arguing that the legislative branch shouldn't be entrusted with executing the laws lest they make exceptions for themselves. This is fine as far as it goes, but he then goes on to declare the legislative to be the supreme authority in the government because they can replace the executive. There is a tension here in that the split between defining laws and executing them is divided cleanly between these two branches save for the single action of replacing the leader. But how are the legislatures supposed to know when they are authorized to use this exception? Similar issues occur with Locke's concept of executive prerogative, which by its nature cannot be explicitly defined due to the inherent complexity of our world.
Even if these theoretical tensions could be resolved, history would create another that Locke couldn't have anticipated; namely semi-permanent political parties. In Locke's sketch of a government, the assumption was that legislature would be loyal to the legislative branch while executives would be loyal to the executive branch. These loyalties would work to keep each other's powers in check. Political parties undercut this by creating loyalties that supersede government branches. As a result, you can end up with a legislative that is run by spineless yes men for the current executive, I will not give any current examples that come to mind, alternatively you can have an obstructive relationship between the branches where neither are interested in effective governance but instead are more invested in advancing their party's power.
Saying all of this though, oftentimes a thinker's greatest achievement is providing the correct terms with which to build and attack arguments. By this metric Locke was one of the West's foremost political theorists and his categories continue to be relevant even in a world that has unfolded much differently than he would have imagined.
Locke's two most famous political essays are collected here. In the first, he debates the leading theory of monarchical legitimacy. In the second, he casts his own vision of what political legitimacy looks like.
First Treatise (against hereditary monarchy)
Locke's first treatise is in response to a popular book written by Robert Filmer titled *Patriarcha* which provides arguments supporting the divine rights of kings. As a modern reader, it is hard not to hear the arguments put forward by Filmer as anything other than attempts to fabricate defenses for an existing system of governance. The basic line of reasoning goes something like God granted Adam dominion over all the world and as such created the blueprint for how governments should be structured. There is then some confused argumentation about how children are born under the dominion of their parents and the way dominion is inherited like property to the first born. In Filmer's defense, I am hearing these arguments from Locke who clearly thinks they are even more confused than me. Reading argumentation about something that society has largely moved past is not very interesting.
Second Treatise (state of nature, law of nature, legitimate government)
Locke does get into much more interesting territory when laying out his own novel theory of where governments get their legitimacy. Before describing how governments should function it was important to Locke to define the condition of individuals who are not under any government. Locke called this condition a "State of Nature", or just the natural state of humans. To Locke, this is a condition of perfect equality, no human has dominion over another. All relations are defined by rationality and subordination to the natural laws of God and nature, like thou shalt not steal or kill etc. While no one has any political authority in this state over another, there is still the right to administer punishment when a natural law is broken. When disputes are not resolved through rationality and force is employed the relationship falls from a state of nature to that of a state of war. This is above all the state most to be avoided, for having cast off rationality, the other becomes no better than a predatory animal that must be destroyed. It is to avoid the common occurrence of the state of war that people organize governments to arbitrate disputes.
To Locke, the principal aim of a government is the protection of private property. Locke's definition of property, which he defines as that which is properly one's own, here includes not only one's possessions but also one's liberty, and life. What made Locke's theory politically radical for his time is that he argued if a government didn't protect its citizen's liberty and possessions it had no legitimacy and its subjects had a moral right to overthrow it. It is this contractual nature of government which justified his earlier work, where Locke went through such pains to disprove divine mandate; to Locke the alternative to divine mandate was a social contract, one which could be invalidated by monarch as easily as by subjects.
Locke continues to define what his version of the social contract looks like. While not demanding democratic governance per se, consent played a major role in Locke's prescription of what a legitimate government actually looks like. He goes so far as to argue that without the active or tacit consent of the individual to be governed, the individual would be considered in a state of nature.
This provides a framework for Locke's 'Right of Revolution' which would be employed as justification by America's founding fathers. Yet allowing for revolution is a dangerous thing to do. Locke recognizes this and argues that all the constraints that apply to existing governments must also constrain revolutions. That is, they must represent the will of the majority and work to secure personal liberty and property. If a revolution does spring up without popular consent, a military coup for example, would not be legitimate in Locke's eyes. He in fact argues that, by the same logic, foreign conquest of a nation grants no right of possession to the invaders as it is done without the consent of the residents and thus has no path to legitimacy.
Locke proceeds to then outline some structural elements of the government that would help to preserve its stability and accountability to the governed. These include things such as separating the legislative and executive branches and acknowledging the legislative branch as supreme to maintain its authority to lawfully remove the head of the executive if grounds for removal are found. With each new piece Locke adds, further complications arise. For example, if it is up to the legislative to decide what actions are lawful for the executive to take, what should the executive do in times of crisis where quick decisions are required? Locke adds the concept of prerogative to allow the executive some leeway to take decisive action. This of course leads to more questions of how to constrain the leader's prerogative within proper bounds as to not create a monarch in crisis and on and on.
Thoughts
This was good and gave me a lot to think through. Locke's influence in Britain at the time of writing this may have been small, but the second treatise and the "Right of Revolution" became a foundational principle for the founding fathers, as was the idea of governments representing the governed. Instead of recapitulating all the points of agreement I would rather focus on the things that left me questioning. The giant that lives in the shadows of this text is Thomas Hobbes. It is hard to overstate how ever present and threatening of a character Hobbes was in political theory at the time. He was known as the Monster of Malmesbury, this was mostly because Hobbes unapologetically described the world and God himself in purely materialistic terms. This resulted in Hobbes being labeled an atheist and his books being banned. It was dangerous to be caught explicitly dealing with Hobbes' arguments because of guilt by association. Yet, his ideas were so hard to refute that much of political theory that emerged after Hobbes' Leviathan were attempts to answer and refute the arguments therein. Locke never mentions Hobbes by name, but his ideas are scattered throughout the text. After all, the term 'State of Nature' was popularized by Hobbes and one that Locke redefines according to his own design. This does put Locke in danger though, as if he was branded with the label of atheist, his ideas could be easily dismissed. This may in part explain the tightrope he walks, going through many pains to separate his ideas from Hobbes while quietly adopting Hobbes' revolutionary lens of explaining political authority through human action rather than divine appointment. This is not to say that there aren't fundamental differences between the two thinkers, but it is said to highlight the pressures of the time.
One of the main disagreements between Hobbes and Locke was in their definitions of state of nature, to Hobbes, the state of nature was famously 'nasty, brutish and short', to Locke this was a description of the state of war, the state of nature was a level that existed above the state of war. This undercuts Hobbes' central justification for submitting to a ruler no matter how tyrannical. To Hobbes any state was preferable to that of a state of nature. Locke rejects this, arguing that life underneath a tyrannical king is in fact no different than Hobbes' state of nature. This is captured by Locke's now famous quote:
This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.
The other major disagreement Locke and Hobbes had was that to Hobbes, definitionally, whatever a ruler did was just. Locke argued that the ruler was only a ruler by consent of the governed and as such could break the terms of that consent and therefore be unjust. Thus, creating the foundation of the right of rebellion.
As for my own perspective, I am categorically aligned with Hobbes and prescriptively aligned with Locke. Locke attempts to compress several layers of analysis into a single coherent view. He slides between legal validity, political legitimacy, and moral evaluation without acknowledging that each of these lenses draw boundaries in different ways. For example, when Hobbes argues that anything an absolute ruler does is just, this sounds appalling to our ears, but when looked at through the lens of legal validity it is almost a tautology. If the absolute ruler writes a law that says "The leader can do no wrong" then within that framework the ruler cannot be labeled a criminal or unjust according to its own logic. This ties into my largest critique of Locke's concept of a right of revolution. He is making a case for overthrowing a corrupt government, but it is impossible to make a political or legal case for overthrowing a government. A government cannot enshrine the means of its own dissolution. It may provide a way to replace its leadership or alter its laws, but no government in history allows its subjects to dissolve the government. This can only be done by a revolution which is by legal definition always a crime of the highest order.
So, is a revolution ever justified? I would argue that this right can only exist in a moral realm which Locke folds into a political one. One can look upon a tyrannical government and wish for it to fall, even participate in its overthrow, but one can never expect such an act to be legally justified by the government being overthrown. As Locke would have argued himself, one can only make an Appeal to Heaven and hope that God grants the cause success.
Another issue with Locke's prescriptions is that they are open to quite a bit of interpretations and grey areas which a nice clean absolute ruler doesn't need to address. For example, splitting the government between legislative and executive is justified by arguing that the legislative branch shouldn't be entrusted with executing the laws lest they make exceptions for themselves. This is fine as far as it goes, but he then goes on to declare the legislative to be the supreme authority in the government because they can replace the executive. There is a tension here in that the split between defining laws and executing them is divided cleanly between these two branches save for the single action of replacing the leader. But how are the legislatures supposed to know when they are authorized to use this exception? Similar issues occur with Locke's concept of executive prerogative, which by its nature cannot be explicitly defined due to the inherent complexity of our world.
Even if these theoretical tensions could be resolved, history would create another that Locke couldn't have anticipated; namely semi-permanent political parties. In Locke's sketch of a government, the assumption was that legislature would be loyal to the legislative branch while executives would be loyal to the executive branch. These loyalties would work to keep each other's powers in check. Political parties undercut this by creating loyalties that supersede government branches. As a result, you can end up with a legislative that is run by spineless yes men for the current executive, I will not give any current examples that come to mind, alternatively you can have an obstructive relationship between the branches where neither are interested in effective governance but instead are more invested in advancing their party's power.
Saying all of this though, oftentimes a thinker's greatest achievement is providing the correct terms with which to build and attack arguments. By this metric Locke was one of the West's foremost political theorists and his categories continue to be relevant even in a world that has unfolded much differently than he would have imagined.
May 18, 2018
I figured that at some point or another it would be a responsible thing to read through some of the foundational documents and ideas that founded America - which is why I picked this up and dove into it. It's fascinating to read from this vantage point in history, where our nation and its constitution have been around for so long. Many of the ideas in the book seem self-evident, or commonsensical, and so it was a fascinating exercise to try and put ones mind into the arena of the day it was written, and to understand how radical the ideas in this slim volume really were. Additionally the letter concerning toleration was just a fascinating look into the way that the church ought to be and behave--and yet doesn't. The ideas that Locke gives here are so straightforward and ought to be the way that the Gospel and the church function, and yet it is clear in our world today that there are so many who have forsaken the true mission and motives of the gospel for their own ends. This is tremendously sad, and Locke really hits home hard for those who seek to practice their religion faithfully in that concluding chapter.
Overall an interesting and useful historical read that also provided a fresh sense of perspective on some modern religious and political issues.
Overall an interesting and useful historical read that also provided a fresh sense of perspective on some modern religious and political issues.
March 12, 2008
I was already familiar with Locke before reading this, but I'm blown away at his clarity and insight. Most Americans think they know Locke, but really don't. We're vaguely familiar with the ideas, but can't articulate them, and frequently scorn them.
The First Treatise is kind of tedious, aimed at knocking down the then-recent concept of the divine right of kings. He tackles it from every single angle possible.
The Second Treatise is astoundingly clear, refreshing, and compelling. Many ideas are familiar to people, particularly those living in abundance and productivity. These are important ideas that some wish to sweep under the rug so that they can rule over us.
The only difficulties that I see people having thus far are (1) English has changed (including the meanings of some key words), and (2) the language has a strong legal slant.
I'm working around these with:
(1) Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary (on-line version here). It's 138 years later than Locke, but 180 years more recent than modern dictionaries.
(2) Black's Law Dictionary
The First Treatise is kind of tedious, aimed at knocking down the then-recent concept of the divine right of kings. He tackles it from every single angle possible.
The Second Treatise is astoundingly clear, refreshing, and compelling. Many ideas are familiar to people, particularly those living in abundance and productivity. These are important ideas that some wish to sweep under the rug so that they can rule over us.
The only difficulties that I see people having thus far are (1) English has changed (including the meanings of some key words), and (2) the language has a strong legal slant.
I'm working around these with:
(1) Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary (on-line version here). It's 138 years later than Locke, but 180 years more recent than modern dictionaries.
(2) Black's Law Dictionary
Read
May 16, 2011The first of the two treatises is fairly irrelevant. It's a very witty refutal of Robert Filmer's theory of divine right, which was a relevant case in the 18th Century, but now it's become so ingrained in the democratic/republican tradition (and I use that term very, very, very broadly) as to be an essential component of most every state on Earth.
I cannot argue with the fact that history has vindicated John Locke's political philosophy. His writings were a necessary step in the evolution of a liberal political mindset, and I respect that. However, I can't help but thinking that his philosophy of markets that seems pretty accepting of conquest is decidedly self-interested. It's the philosophical approach of a rising bourgeoisie.
I cannot argue with the fact that history has vindicated John Locke's political philosophy. His writings were a necessary step in the evolution of a liberal political mindset, and I respect that. However, I can't help but thinking that his philosophy of markets that seems pretty accepting of conquest is decidedly self-interested. It's the philosophical approach of a rising bourgeoisie.
May 21, 2017
A lot of it is wasted on pointless argumentation about what exactly does the Bible say about the right to rule. There's a lot of Bible quoting and it doesn't get sensible until halfway through. The rest of it is groundbreaking nevertheless quite common sense nowadays. Except the bit about rulers not being allowed to appoint other rulers who were not elected directly by the people and ceding any law making power to them. Sounds like what is annoying people about the EU.
October 6, 2016
One of the volumes that helped our founders form the Republic in the Convention of 1787. I highly recommend that anyone who wishes to understand what principle we started out to live under were and therefore better understand what we've become in ignorance of them.
April 8, 2008
yes . . . ive read it, and you should too . . . this dude was thomas jefferson's BFF!!!!
January 29, 2020
Locke was a monstrous evil that made the world a far worse place. He was really clever tho
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