John Locke's , Second Treatise of Government - Book Report/Review Example

Name of writer appears here] [Course name appears here] [Professor’s name appears here] [Date appears here] Review Essay on John Locke's book, Second Treatise of Government Introduction The Two Treatises of Government is a work of political philosophy anonymously published in 1689 by John Locke. Second Treatise of Government The Second Treatise is notable for a number of themes that Locke therein develops. It begins with a depiction of the state of nature, wherein individuals are under no obligation to obey another but are each they judge of what the law of nature requires. It also covers conquest and slavery, property, representative government, and the right of revolution. State of Nature: As with Hobbes before him, Locke begins his theory of society by discussing the state of nature. The state of nature was a situation before the invention of civil government in which people were independent and free, a state of total equality in the sense that no one had any jurisdiction over any other. It is not crucial to Locke’s argument that he demonstrates that the state of nature actually existed at the beginning of human history. Instead he is trying to make the logical point that the status of the individual is more fundamental than that of the government. Nevertheless, he believes the American wilderness of his time serves as an example of such a condition, as do the relationships between sovereign nations, or the relationship between two individuals on the desert island. Locke, a product of his times, began with many of the unquestioned assumptions that were floating around the seventeenth century. Prominent among these was the notion that people are independent, atomic individuals and that society is simply a complex collection of individuals. Thus the relationship between simple and complex ideas has been mirrored in social philosophy. It is significant that Robinson Crusoe was published in this century by Locke’s contemporary, Daniel Defoe. This story of one solitary person, facing nature with only his God and his goat as companions, was a literary version of the individualistic starting point we find in the Enlightenment social theory. Although Locke’s method of weaving political philosophy from the state of nature is similar to Hobbes’s. Locke gives us a completely different description of what it would be like. For Hobbes’s it was a state of war. Locke has a much more optimistic view of human nature. However, he describes life without government as one of peace, goodwill and mutual assistance. Offcourse, there will be a few troublemakers, but on the whole people will get along quite well. Without government, people would be bound only by the law of nature or reason, which is “intelligible and plain” to everyone. Although each individual in the state of nature is completely free and independent, Locke thinks there would natural and informal social relationships in such a state. Thus, he is not quite the extreme individualistic that Hobbes was. Natural Law and Human Rights: Locke is an example of a natural law theorist. He believes that certain moral laws are as much a part of nature as those physics describes. For example, he does not believe our fundamental human rights are bestowed on us by the government. Even without civil laws, he claims, everyone has natural, God-given rights. The notion of natural rights is a crucial one in his theory. Since we did not receive these rights from the government but had them before it came into existence, the government cannot legitimately take them away. This concept was very important to the founders of the American government and is echoed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Bill of Rights. A primary law of nature is that no one ought to harm another in life, liberty, or possessions. Natural resources (air, water, soil, and trees) are common property, free to all to use as they need. However, if I mix my labor with a part of nature, soil if freely available to everyone, but if I clear the land and till the ground and plant seeds, then both the land and its harvest belong to me. This account is called Locke’s “labor theory of property.” Locke differs here from Hobbes, who thought that without government there could not be any way to define property within an unbounded nature. The Social Contract: If the state of nature is basically one of peace and goodwill and one in which we have basic rights, then why would we ever need government? Locke’s reply is that the state of nature is tolerable but not convenient. Even though we could survive without society, humans are naturally inclined toward it. Furthermore, there are a number of reasons why government and laws would make life better. First, even though there is a natural law, we need a written and agreed-on law to resolve controversies among individuals. In this way, human bias will not enter into judgments concerning individual cases. Second, even though each individual in nature many punish wrongdoing; an officially appointed, indifferent judgments could apply the laws in a manner more equitable than a person whose personal interests were at stake. Third, we need a government to enforce the laws on behalf of the powerless. At this point, Locke introduces the fiction of social contract used by Hobbes before him. By now, it had become a common device to explain the origin and justification of government. According to this account, people unite together for their mutual benefit and transfer some of their individual power to political body. There is an initial contract to form a government, based on unanimous consent. This is then followed by a formal agreement in the form a constitution that is decided on by a majority vote. Locke does not specify what form the government should take. His ideas could be applied to a constitutional monarchy as well as to a democracy as long as power ultimately lies with the people. For those of us who actually did not sign the contract, Locke says we have given tacit consent to it by virtue of the fact that we have lived in our society and received its benefits. The Limits of Government: Locke’s vision of government was one of the early formulations of classical liberalism. He stated that the power of government may not extend beyond that required by the common good. His view of government differed radically from that of Hobbes. For the latter, the people were desperate for law and order and so would be willing to surrender all their power to the government. For Locke, government is a convenience, not a necessity; hence we can dictate the terms of bargain. Instead of surrendering our power to the government, we delegate it for the mutual preservation of our lives, estates and liberties. The government is our creation, therefore, is our servant. The final feature of the social contract is the method of majority rule. Locke was a firm believer in the common sense; hence he believed that the community of common citizens should have the ultimate sovereignty. Locke states that the government must rule by laws, and not simply by force or arbitrary will. Here, his strange mixture of rationalism and empiricism arises again. In his rationalistic mode, he stresses that the government does not invent the laws but seeks to discover what the natural laws are and makes its civil laws conform to these eternal laws. In a more empirical mode, he emphasizes the need for empirical research to determine what laws and social structures create the best society. In one of his journals he states that the public policy should be conducted like medicine. In both cases, whether or not the remedy will work cannot be determined a priori but is a matter of probability and experience. With brilliant insight, Locke suggested that the government should be divided into separate branches, each serving as a limit on the power of the other units. He called these the executives, legislative and federative branches. One of the most influential features of Locke’s thought concerned his ideas on revolution. For Hobbes, the danger of anarchy was worse than that of tyranny. Hence, he did not provide much in the way of legitimate grounds for overthrowing an oppressive government. For Locke tyranny is more likely than anarchy. Furthermore, he insists that the right to rebellion is nor the same as anarchy. Thus, Locke provides the grounds for a right to revolution. If a government should exceed its legitimate authority, the social contract is broken, and the citizens may replace it. My thoughts on Locke’s second treatise of government Despite Locke’s eloquent discussions of freedom and human rights, we should not think that these terms had the same meaning for him as they have come to have for us today. For example, he believed that the captives taken in a just war are by the right of nature the slaves of their captors. (Locke, p.85) When he defended liberty, he was thinking mostly of the liberty of the aristocratic establishment of which he was part. Although a product of his time, and an apologist for the political sentiments of his contemporaries, Locke was also a maker of his time. The notions of the state of nature, the natural moral law, natural rights, the social contract, and the right of revolution were the intellectual currency of the eighteenth century political thought. For example, when writing the American Declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson said that his ideas were not new but followed the thought of writers such as Locke. When the colonists shouted, “No taxation without representation” they were virtually quoting Locke. Locke might not have sanctioned the American and French revolutions, but it is certain these movements grew from seeds he had planted. Some commentators have claimed that Locke attacks a version of the doctrine that no one ever held. His contemporary, Leibniz, pointed out that there is a difference between having certain rational principles and being aware of them. Locke assumes an idea is in mind, in the same way a ball is in the box. Ideas for him are always indubitably present to the mind, if they are present at all. Locke believed that we do not know the external world but it is represented to us by our ideas. There is however a major problem with Locke’s theory which is known as “inner-outer” problem. If we know only the interior contents of the mind, how can we know their relationship to the outer world? Locke answers his own question by arguing that we do not invent simple ideas (that is, we do not manufacture our own experience), therefore they must be causal effects of external objects. Furthermore, he says, our ideas will conform to their objects to the extend intended by “the wisdom and will of our Maker.” The theological reference here contains an echo of Descartes argument for the validity of our perceptual knowledge. The problem still remains, however, in determining which ideas accurately represent their objects and which merely secondary qualities that do not resemble them are. Conclusion At the start of his philosophical journey, John Locke took it as his mission to set out the grounds of knowledge, ethics, politics and religion. In tackling this set of problems, he took on a task of immense proportions that he has inherited from the rationalists. Read More