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John Locke - Week 2 - Thursday Lecture

John Locke, known as the father of liberalism, emphasizes natural rights, limited government, and the importance of private property and religious toleration in his work 'Two Treatises of Government.' He critiques monarchy and absolutism, arguing that the state of nature involves inherent duties towards one another and that civil society should be established through a social contract to resolve conflicts and protect individual interests. Locke's ideas laid the foundation for modern democratic thought and the principles of representative democracy and the rule of law.

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1 views10 pages

John Locke - Week 2 - Thursday Lecture

John Locke, known as the father of liberalism, emphasizes natural rights, limited government, and the importance of private property and religious toleration in his work 'Two Treatises of Government.' He critiques monarchy and absolutism, arguing that the state of nature involves inherent duties towards one another and that civil society should be established through a social contract to resolve conflicts and protect individual interests. Locke's ideas laid the foundation for modern democratic thought and the principles of representative democracy and the rule of law.

Uploaded by

Kalkidan Getachew
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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John Locke

Week 2 - Thursday
Foundations of Modern Social
Thought
General Introduction

• Known as ‘the father of liberalism’


• Natural rights
• Limited government
• Private property
• Religious toleration
• Representative democracy
• The rule of law
Two Treatises of
Government
• The First Treatise
• Critical engagement with Sir Robert
Filmer’s defense of monarchy as a
God-given privilege
• Close reading of the Biblical verses
• Tries to show that there is no natural
right to rule over someone
• Similar to Hobbes in this regard??
Two Treatises of Government
• The Hobbesian social contract is not a solution.
• If anything, absolutism makes things worse:
“He being in a much worse condition, who is exposed to the arbitrary power of
one man, who has the command of 100,000, than he that is exposed to the
arbitrary power of 100,000 single men” (Second Treatise, Chapter 6, Sect.
137).

“I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is
than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the
liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he
pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or control those who
execute his please”” (Second Treatise, Chapter 2, Sec. 13).
State of Nature

• Locke’s approach to equality


• Hobbesian equality?

• The power of abstraction/Thinking in


terms of general ideas
• Existence of God
State of Nature
• Natural law is rationalistic and reasonable
• We have duties towards each other
• Reason teaches us to respect for each other

• “Every one, as is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully,
so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition,
ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not,
unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what
tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods
of another” (Second Treatise, Chapter 2, Sect. 6).
State of Nature
• Negative duties: Not to attack or injure others

• Positive duties: To preserve others as long as it does


not jeopardize your own preservation

• In the state of nature, we already operate as a society:


• duties and punishment
Social Contract

• What is the function of social


contract/civil government?

• How would you compare it to


Hobbesian conception of social
contract?
State of Nature

• Civil society creates • An instrumental conception of


government
• Laws (legislation)
• No absolute transfer of power
• Judges to interpret
the laws impartially • Government is a tool to resolve some of
the inconveniences in the state of nature
(jurisdiction)
• Individual interest is the main point of
• Magistrates to reference
enforce the laws
• That is why we call Locke the founder of
(execution) liberal thought
Imagining the State of Nature
• Hypothetical exercise?
• Reference to actual events in history (Second Treatise, Chapter
7)
• Earlier societies: Implicit agreement for patriarchal rule
(simpler times)
• Later societies: Too complex to rely on patriarchy / conflicts
of interest / greed
• Now consent needs to be explicit (contractual)
• to “prevent the abuses of that power, which they having intrusted in another’s
hands only for their own good, they founded was made use of to hurt them”
(Second Treatise, Chapter 8, Sec. 111).

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