Second Treatise of Government

Locke recaps the arguments from the previous treatise which he uses as a baseline for his propositions and theses throughout this essay. He argues that Adam, despite being the progenitor of the human race, had no right over his children; God gave the Earth to humankind in common, and to presuppose that Adam’s own will superseded that of the rest of his kind is nonsensical.

Likewise, individuals do not inherently possess power over each other. While a father may have influence over his children, or a master may have influence over his servant, these relationships are not based on natural power deficiencies but on political relationships that must be entered into, with equal understanding by both parties.

Locke concludes the section by defining political power as the “right of making laws […] 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 common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good” (8).

Locke calls the state of nature, “a state of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another” (8).

He writes that all men are subject to the laws of nature, and it is by these laws and universal subjection to them that all men are rendered equal to one another. It is by this state that men, as individuals, are allowed to engage in whatever activities that will bring their own personal benefit and good.

However, Locke also makes the firm point that “though this be a state of liberty […] it is not a state of license” (9). Though men are given freedom by nature, they are not given the right to exercise it in whatever way they choose; they can’t bring harm, subjection, or submission to themselves or others. It is here where true humanity, rationality, and responsibility emerge, and it is here where the concept of a government begins to become valuable.

Locke makes it clear, though, that men are capable of meting out justice and governing themselves in the state of nature without a constructed government. In the state of nature, an ideal balance can be reached wherein men tend to themselves and those around them. In the case of crimes or violations of this condition, they have the full right to “destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on anyone, who hath transgressed” (10).

Locke asserts that men have a right to self-preservation, which means that those who would threaten an individual’s ability to preserve themselves are no better than animals, and so “may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men have no society nor security” (10).

Locke acknowledges that many may question whether such a state has ever existed or will ever exist, and he answers that in his conception, it currently does. Any ruler of an independent nation, any governor of an independent community, even any member of any community, is in a state of nature with those around them. All people are subject to the laws of nature, and though governments may help to regulate certain affairs and agreements between individuals or collectives, “truth and keeping of faith belongs to men, as men, and not as members of society” (13). In Locke’s mind, the state of nature is a large part of what many call the “human condition.”

Opposite the state of nature is the state of war, in which an individual makes a “sedate settle design upon another man’s life” (14). Locke uses this definition as the basis to describe where such a condition often leads men and what situations arise when individuals or collectives are in such relational conflicts with each other. Locke clarifies that the state of war does not encompass being angry with someone; rather, it is a fixed and immovable position of enmity in which two or more individuals or entities reside until one destroys the other, they both destroy themselves, or a compromise is reached between them.

Locke illustrates his point using a thief as an example:

This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief […] because using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else (15).

This correlates with the point Locke makes in Chapter 2, where he says that individuals have a right to defend themselves, or even attack others, if their capability of self-preservation is harmed by an opposing party.

Locke concludes by saying that one of the reasons government exists is to annul the more dangerous qualities and endpoints of the state of war. With a third party to oversee and pass judgement on conflicts between individuals and parties, there is a lesser chance of all-out war between those groups than there would be without such mediation.