Idea Transcript
John Locke (1632-1704) John Locke lived through a tumultuous age in English history. The Protestant Reformation had led to religious conflict and attempts by different groups to control political power. A civil war in the 1640s ended with the execution of King Charles I and ten years of parliamentary rule. Even after the monarchy was restored in 1660, the new kings—Charles II, then James II— faced conflict with Parliament and from abroad. Finally, in 1688, Parliament prevailed in what is known as the Glorious Revolution. At this time, Protestant Queen Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, came to the throne, but gave more power to the legislative branch. These events influenced John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, in which he criticized hereditary monarchy, analyzed natural and human laws, and suggested an alternative form of government. Locke was raised in a Puritan family, and was firm in his religious views. However, he approached arguments with enough doubt to allow for alternatives. Like other Enlightenment philosophers, Locke worked to apply a scientific understanding of the world to human affairs. His political ideas were not always logical, but he believed in balancing reason with experience and common sense to find practical solutions to problems. Given the turmoil in Europe at the time, the problem Locke and other political philosophers wanted to solve was how best to organize human societies under peaceful and just governments. Monarchs ruled all the major European countries in the 17th century. A number of these claimed to rule through the divine right of kings, the idea that God gave them their authority. Prior to the Reformation, this authority was given to kings through the Catholic Church, but as Protestants threw off papal power, they also challenged the basis for royal power. Locke, in particular, claimed that heredity was not a valid basis for political succession. To identify the type of government that would serve society better than monarchy, Locke imagined how people lived before government, what drove them to form governments, and how they formed the first governments. Locke was not the first to use this approach. Thomas Hobbes had written in the 1650s about these same questions, but in support of absolute monarchy. Both Hobbes and Locke used the idea of a ‘state of nature’ to describe how people lived before government. Whereas Hobbes described a hypothetical state of nature that was competitive and warlike, Locke implied that his state of nature (natural rights) was historically true and described it as relatively peaceful. In Locke’s state of nature, people were equal and free to do as they pleased, but they generally followed reason and natural laws. Locke described natural laws as the most basic rules for human conduct; laws seen as divinely given and accepted by everyone, such as “thou shalt not kill.”
The complete freedom that existed in the state of nature allowed a person to do anything he or she wanted. Occasionally one person acting out of self-interest, would hurt another person or take another’s property. In the state of nature, the one who was threatened had to defend himself; he couldn’t rely on society to help or protect him. Therefore, according to Locke, people formed governments to share responsibility for security of life, liberty, and property. “The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.” Enlightenment thinkers used the idea of a ‘social contract’ to explain how people formed a government. Thomas Hobbes’ social contract was an agreement between citizens who agreed to give up their rights to a monarch. The monarch, in turn, would protect them, but was not bound by the contract. Under Locke, the social contract was an agreement between the citizens and the government. This crucial difference meant that Locke’s government was beholden to the citizens. If the government violated the contract—if it failed to protect their life, liberty and property—then the contract was broken and the citizens could form a new government. The government then created rules or laws, which required individuals to act in a certain way or face a punishment. Once a government was instituted, however, individuals gave up the right to defend themselves against violators, ceding that right to the government. “Political power I take to be the right of making laws, with penalty of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.” It is worth noting here that the citizens described by Locke are men of property. He did not accept the right of women or the poor—those without property—to take part in the making of government of to possess the rights of citizenship. In describing the best form of government, Locke only discusses the legislative and executive branches. He doesn’t mention the judiciary, even though its powers were hotly contested during the English Civil War. Locke asserts that the legislative branch and executive branch must be separate from each other, but he doesn’t explain what should be done when they come into conflict. He condemns the use of force except when opposing injustice, but doesn’t acknowledge that the two sides may have different views of what is just.