Two Treatises of Government
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The Two Treatises of Government is a work of political philosophy published in 1689 by John Locke. The two component treatises are often discussed as separate works, though Locke himself never published them separately. The Second Treatise is often cited as a manifesto for liberal democracy and capitalism, and so has been alternately praised and villified, depending on one's point of view. Locke claims in the Preface to the work that its purpose is to justify William of Orange's ascension to the throne of England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, though recent scholarship has suggested that the bulk of the writing was completed between 1679-1682. That he would write a defense of revolution during the Exclusion Crisis, i.e., during the reign of Charles II, rather than in anticipation of the imminent ouster of James II, serves to cast the work in a very radical light. Locke further edited the Treatises before publication. Books in Seventeenth-century England were dated the same way we date automobile model years, so a date of 1690 on the title page means that a book was published in 1689.
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Structure of the Work
The Two Treatises begin with a Preface announcing Locke's intention. He says that more than half of what he had originally written, occupying a space in between the First and Second Treatises, has been lost and that he will not rewrite it. It is possible that Locke expanded the remaining sections prior to publication to include the more important themes discussed in those that were lost. This, however, is only conjecture and some scholars maintain that we are missing the end of the First Treatise: the final section can be read as breaking off in mid-sentence, or as being poorly punctuated.
Locke had severe problems with the publication process. It has been suggested that he held the printers to a higher standard of perfection than the technology of the time would permit. Be that as it may, the first edition was replete with errors. The second edition was even worse, and finally printed on cheap paper and sold to the poor. The third edition was much improved, but Locke still was not satisfied. He made corrections to the third edition by hand, but died before a fourth could be published. Peter Laslett's critical edition of the Two Treatises is based upon these hand corrections to the third edition, as is Richard Cox's edition of the Second Treatise. A full story of the Two Treatises’s printing history is contained in the introduction to Laslett's edition (cited below).
The Two Treatises culminate in a defense of resistance to tyranny. This defense is based upon a particular view of legitimate government. This view in turn relies upon there being a natural equality among mankind, which was precisely what was denied by Locke's opponents. He singles out one opponent, Sir Robert Filmer, and begins by assailing him in the First Treatise. He proceeds through Filmer's arguments, contesting his proofs from Scripture and ridiculing them as senseless, until concluding that no government can be justified by appeal to the divine right of kings. While Locke presents the First Treatise as an exercise in groundclearing, especially at the beginning of the Second Treatise, numerous scholars have found much of independent interest there.
The original title of the Second Treatise appears to have been simply "Book II", corresponding to the title of the First Treatise ("Book I"). Before publication, however, Locke gave it greater prominence by (hastily) inserting a separate title page: "An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government." He distinguishes among political power, parental power, and despotical power, and proceeds to discuss how the first might come into being. People are just to oppose attempts at parental or despotical power when these are inappropriate, the implication being that James II forfeited his crown by such an attempt and so that the Glorious Revolution was justified.
First Treatise
The First Treatise is an extended attack on Sir Robert Filmer. Locke approaches the argument along two general lines: he undercuts the Scriptural support that Filmer had adduced for his thesis, and he argues that the acceptance of Filmer's thesis can lead only to absurdity. Locke chose Filmer as his target, he says, because of his reputation and because he "carried this Argument [jure divino] farthest, and is supposed to have brought it to perfection" (1st Tr., §5).
Filmer had argued for a divinely ordained, hereditary, absolute monarchy. Adam possessed unlimitable power over his children as their father, and this authority passed down through the generations. Locke attacks this on several grounds. Accepting that fatherhood grants authority, he argues, it would do so only by the act of begetting, and so cannot be transmitted to one's children. Nor is the power of a father over his children absolute, as Filmer would have it (this is taken up again in the Second Treatise). Finally, whatever power begetting does grant would be shared with the mother. This final argument has drawn contemporary feminists to study the First Treatise.
Filmer had also suggested that Adam's absolute authority came from his ownership over all the world. To this, Locke opposes that the world was originally held in common (both here and in the Second Treatise). But, even if it were not, God's grant to Adam covered only the land and brute animals, not human beings. Nor could Adam, or his heir, leverage this grant to enslave mankind, for the law of nature forbids reducing one's fellows to a state of desperation, if one possesses a sufficient surplus to maintain oneself securely. And even if this charity were not commanded by reason, Locke continues, such a strategy for gaining dominion would prove only that the foundation of government lies in consent.
Throughout the First Treatise, Locke intimates that a doctrine of jure divino will destroy all government. Its final chapter asks the question, "Who heir?" If Filmer is correct, there should be only one rightful king in all the world, viz. the heir of Adam. This would absolve the members of every commonwealth save one of their obligations to their rulers, which could only lead to anarchy if taken seriously. And since we do not know the true heir of Adam, and cannot discover him, all governments are in this position. Filmer must therefore say that men are dutybound to obey their present rulers. Locke states on this point:
I think he is the first Politician, who, pretending to settle Government upon its true Basis, and to establish the Thrones of lawful Princes, ever told the World, That he was properly a King, whose Manner of Government was by Supreme Power, by what Means soever he obtained it; which in plain English is to say, that Regal and Supreme Power is properly and truly his, who can by any Means seize upon it; and if this be, to be properly a King, I wonder how he came to think of, or where he will find, an Usurper. (1st Tr., §79)
Locke concludes the First Treatise by examining the history told in the Bible, and the history of the world since then, and notes that there is no evidence to support Filmer's hypothesis. No king has ever claimed that his authority rested upon his being the heir of Adam. It is Filmer, Locke alleges, that is the innovator in politics, not those who assert the natural equality and freedom of man.
Second Treatise
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 themselves judge of what the law of nature requires. It also covers conquest and slavery, property, representative government, and the right of revolution.
The State of Nature
The work of Thomas Hobbes made theories based upon a state of nature popular in Seventeenth-Century England, even as most of those who employed such arguments were deeply troubled by his absolutist conclusions. Locke's state of nature can best be seen in light of this tradition. Because there is no divinely ordained monarch over all the world, as was argued in the First Treatise, the natural state of mankind is anarchic. In contrast to Hobbes, who posited the state of nature as a hypothetical possibility, Locke is at great pains to show that such a state did indeed exist. Indeed, it exists wherever there is no legitimate government.
While no individual in this state may tell another what to do or authoritatively pronounce justice in a given case, men are not free to do whatever they please. "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it" (2nd Tr., §7). The specifics of this law are unwritten, however, and so each is likely to misapply it in his own case. Lacking any commonly recognized, impartial judge, there is no way to correct these misapplications. Even were such a judge available, the just are vastly outnumbered by the unjust and indifferent, so his pronouncements would lack effect.
The law of nature is therefore ill enforced in the state of nature.
IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. (2nd Tr., §123)
What should be a state of peace very quickly begins to look like the state of war that Hobbes described (though the ill enforcement of the law of nature does not release individuals from their obligation to it, as it does in Hobbes).
It is to avoid the state of war that often occurs in the state of nature that men enter into political society. It is also the state to which men return upon the dissolution of government, i.e., under tyranny.
The Law of Nature
Conquest and Slavery
Ch. 4 ("Of Slavery") and Ch. 16 ("Of Conquest") are sources of some confusion: the former provides a justification for slavery, the latter, the rights of conquerors. Because the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina provided that a master had perfect authority over his slaves, some have taken these chapters to be an apology for the institution of slavery in Colonial America.
Most Locke scholars roundly reject this reading, as it is directly at odds with the text. The extent of Locke's involvement in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions is a matter of some debate, but even attributing full culpability for its contents and for his having profited from the Atlantic slave trade, the majority of experts will concede that Locke may have been a hypocrite in this matter, but are adamant that no part of the Two Treatises can be used to provide theoretical support for slavery by bare right of conquest.
In the rhetoric of seventeenth-century England, those who opposed the increasing power of the kings claimed that the country was headed for a condition of slavery. Locke therefore asks, facetiously, under what conditions such slavery might be justified. He notes that slavery cannot come about as a matter of contract (which will be the basis of Locke's political system). To be a slave is to be subject to the absolute, arbitrary power of another; as men do not have this power even over themselves, they cannot sell or otherwise grant it to another. One that is deserving of death, i.e., who has violated the law of nature, may be enslaved. This is, however, "but the state of war continued" (2nd Tr., §24), and even one justly a slave therefore has no obligation to obedience.
In providing a justification for slavery, he has rendered all forms of slavery as it actually exists invalid. Moreover, as one may not submit to slavery, there is a moral injunction to attempt to throw off and escape it whenever it looms. Most scholars take this to be Locke's point regarding slavery: submission to absolute monarchy is a violation of the law of nature, for one does not have the right to enslave oneself.
The legitimacy of an English king depended on (somehow) demonstrating descent from William the Conqueror: the right of conquest was therefore very much a topic rife with constitutional connotations. Locke does not say that all subsequent English monarchs have been illegitimate, but he does make their rightful authority dependent solely upon their having acquired the people's approbation.
Locke first argues that, clearly, aggressors in an unjust war can claim no right of conquest: everything they despoil may be retaken as soon as the dispossessed have the strength to do so. Their children retain this right, so an ancient usurpation does not become lawful with time. The rest of the chapter then considers what rights a just conqueror might have.
The argument proceeds negatively: Locke proposes one power a conqueror could gain, and then demonstrates how in point of fact that power cannot be claimed. He gains no authority over those that conquered with him, for they did not wage war unjustly: thus, whatever other right William may have had in England, he could not claim kingship over his fellow Normans by right of conquest. The subdued are under the conqueror's despotical authority, but only those who actually took part in the fighting. Those who were governed by the defeated aggressor do not become subject to the authority of the victorious aggressed. They lacked the power to do an unjust thing, and so could not have granted that power to their governors: the aggressor therefore was not acting as their representative, and they cannot be punished for his actions. And while the conqueror may seize the person of the vanquished aggressor in an unjust war, he cannot seize the latter's property: he may not drive the innocent wife and children of a villain into poverty for another's unjust acts, and so while the property is technically that of the defeated, his innocent dependents have a claim to it to which the just conqueror must yield. He cannot seize more than the vanquished could forfeit, and the latter had no right to ruin his dependents. (He may, however, demand and take reparations for the damages suffered in the war, so long as these leave enough in the possession of the aggressor's dependants for their survival).
In so arguing, Locke accomplishes two objectives. First, he neutralizes the claims of those who see all authority flowing from William I by the latter's right of conquest. In the absence of any other claims to authority (e.g., Filmer's primogeniture from Adam, divine anointment, etc.), all kings would have to found their authority on the consent of the governed. Second, he removes much of the incentive for conquest in the first place, for even in a just war the spoils are limited to the persons of the defeated and reparations sufficient only to cover the costs of the war, and even then only when the aggressor's territory can easily sustain such costs (i.e., it can never be a profitable endeavor). Needless to say, the bare claim that one's spoils are the just compensation for a just war does not suffice to make it so, in Locke's view.
Property
In the Second Treatise, Locke claims that civil society was created for the protection of property. In saying this, he relies the etymological root of "property," Latin proprius, or that which is one's own, including oneself (cf. French propre). Thus, by "property" he means "life, liberty, and estate." By saying that political society was established for the better protection of property, he claims that it serves the private (and non-political) interests of its constituent members: it does not promote some good which can be realized only in community with others (e.g., virtue).
For this account to work, individuals must possess some property outside of society, i.e., in the state of nature: the state cannot be the sole origin of property, declaring what belongs to whom. If the purpose of government is the protection of property, the latter must exist independently of the former. Filmer had said that, if there even were a state of nature (which he denied), everything would be held in common: there could be no private property, and hence no justice or injustice (injustice being understood as treating someone else's goods, liberty, or life as if it was one's own). Thomas Hobbes had argued the same thing. Locke therefore provides an account of how material property could arise in the absence of government.
He begins by asserting that each individual, at a minimum, "owns" himself; this is a corollary of each individual's being free and equal in the state of nature. As a result, each must also own his own labor: to deny him his labor would be to make him a slave. One can therefore take items from the common store of goods by mixing one's labor with them: an apple on the tree is of no use to anyone — it must be picked to be eaten — and the picking of that apple makes it one's own. In an alternate argument, Locke claims that we must allow it to become private property lest all mankind have starved, despite the bounty of the world. A man must be allowed to eat, and thus have what he has eaten be his own (such that he could deny others a right to use it). The apple is surely his when he swallows it, when he chews it, when he bites into it, when he brings it to his mouth, etc.: it became his as soon as he mixed his labor with it (by picking it from the tree).
This does not yet say why an individual is allowed to take from the common store of nature. There is a necessity to do so in order to eat, but this does not yet establish why others must respect one's property, especially as they labor under the like necessity. Locke assures his readers that the state of nature is a state of plenty: one may take from communal store if one leaves a) as much and b) as good for others, and since nature is bountiful, one can take all that one can use without taking anything from someone else. Moreover, one can take only so much as one can use before it spoils. There are then two provisos regarding what one can take, the "as much and as good" condition and "spoilage."
Neither of these restrictions have any practical effect with the creation of money and the enclosure of land. Tilling the land mixes ones labor with it, and thus makes it and its fruit one's property. The issue is not how much land remains for others after enclosure, however, but how much usable food remains. If one acre of enclosed land produces as much food as one hundred acres of unenclosed, common land, then the man who encloses that acre takes nothing from the community: in fact, he gives back the equivalent of ninety-nine acres of land. And he can claim as his own only so much produce as he can utilize before it spoils. Thus, it makes no sense to enclose more land than one needs to feed oneself and to trade of other useful goods.
Gold does not rot. Neither does silver, or any other precious metal or gem. They are, moreover, useless, their aesthetic value not entering into the equation. One can heap up as much of them as one wishes, or take them in trade for food. By the tacit consent of mankind, they become a form of money (one accepts gold for apples with the understanding that someone else will accept that gold for wheat). One can therefore avoid the spoilage limitation by selling all that one has amassed before it rots; the limits on acquisition thus disappear.
In this way, Locke argues that a full economic system could, in principle, exist within the state of nature. Property could therefore predate the existence of government, and thus society can be dedicated to the protection of property.
When one joins civil society, however, one joins one's property to it to be regulated by the community. This is one of the things to which one consents when joining society. In the Twentieth Century, Marxist scholars neglected this point and made Locke into the founder of bourgeois capitalism. Those who were opposed to communism accepted their reading of Locke, but celebrated him for it. He has therefore become associated with capitalism, an association that is implausible on both historical and textual grounds.
A fairer interpretation of his thought would make him the founder of modern materialist society: the purpose of society is the preservation and enlargement of life, liberty, and estate, but this need not in itself determine the model of economic relationships. Civil society, which regulates the property of each of its members, may choose to keep the means of production in private hands or it may nationalize them, but so long as the decision is taken based on which option will better promote the property of each individual, and so long as it is taken by a representative assembly, the government will be compatible with Locke's doctrine of property. In a sense, capitalism and communism were competing over which was the better Lockean.
Representative Government
Since there is no natural hierarchy among human beings, any subordination of one to another must be conventional. This convent is called the social compact. Each individual decides that it would be good to part with the liberty enjoyed in the state of nature and to submit to the determination of the society. The society is thereby responsible for the natural law obligations of each of its members. Each member, of a legimitate commonwealth, surrenders the power had in the state of nature and agrees, with every other member, to subordinate his will to the judgments of the whole.
As a practical matter, in every society, a part must rule the whole. As the majority is composed of more wills and is stronger than the minority, the will of society must be determinied by the majority. This makes liberal democracy a moral imperative. At a minimum, the majority must support the regime in power; in practice, this support can be demonstrated only by including something like a Parliament in the government. It must be said that the people rule themselves.
Locke's reasons for this form the crux of much of his theory. They are as follows. No one may surrender a power which one does not have (else it would not be available to surrender). The power one has over oneself is determined by the law of nature; that law forbids that one neglect one's own presevation. The rule of law is the best guarantor of one's life, liberty, and estate. One cannot consent to a power that claims authority over these things regardless of the law, or what is reasonable, or social norms. One cannot, therefore, consent to a government that violates these goods. Society is the subjugation of oneself to the will of another, but since one may subjugate oneself only to one who will not rule arbitrarily, society must enunciate its will in the form of general laws.
This means that representative government is demanded by the law of nature, i.e., by reason itself. One cannot consent to any other form of government. Any other form of government, Locke says, would endanger one's preservation more than would the state of nature, and so one would lack the right to give that government authority. The rule of law — the idea that the power of the state may be excersied only pursuant to a general rule crafted by the legislature — is the only legitimate form of government.
The Right of Revolution
He believed that a group of people had the right to declare their independence over an act of atrocity by the government or over hardships.
Controversies Regarding Interpretation
Comparing Locke and Hobbes
The Second Treatise is often taken as a refutation of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, the latter's support of absolute monarchism seemingly antithetical to Locke's ideal majoritarian government. However, Leo Strauss in his Natural Right and History contentiously argues that Locke is more or less Hobbesian in his conception of politics. Strauss claims that the supposed egotism of Hobbes' natural law and the ostensible altruism of Locke's can be reduced to an identical moral framework, one in which people are to treat others as others treat them, to be selfless when others are selfless, selfish when others are selfish.
Proto-Capitalism in the Second Treatise
Selected Secondary Literature
- Richard Ashcraft. Revolutionary Politics and Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
- Richard Ashcraft. Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1987.
- John Dunn. The Political Thought of John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
- Peter Laslett. Introduction to Two Treatises of Government, by John Locke. Student Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- C. B. MacPherson. Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
- Thomas L. Pangle. The Spirit of Modern Republicanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
- Leo Strauss. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
- Jeremy Waldron. God, Locke, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Michael P. Zuckert. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
- Michael P. Zucker. Launching Liberalism. University Press of Kansas, 2002.
External links
- etext of the Second Treatise (Project Gutenberg)
- Full text of the Second Treatise
- Sparknotes on the Second Treatise
