THEA FAYE B.

CAHUYA JD-1A

John Locke’s Natural Law and Natural Rights

Summary of a Part of Case Reading (Locke’s view):
John Locke school of thought on natural right contributed greatly to the political and legal
system specifically in the origin of civil government and natural rights of an individual. He
emphasized that in any form of government, “ultimate sovereignty rested in the people and all
legitimate government was based on the consent of the governed. He also explained in his major
work, Second Treaties of Government, that human beings enjoyed natural rights in the state of
nature, before the formation of civil or political society. In a state of nature, it is self-evident that
all persons are naturally in a state of perfect freedom and in a state of equality. Yet, state of nature
is not a state of license because it has a law of nature to govern it and limit it, which obliges
everyone not to harm the natural rights of others and respect the same. In this sense, the execution
of the law of nature is placed on the hands of every individuals who has the right to punish
transgressors of the law of nature to an extent that will hinder its violation. Two harsh
inconveniences was discovered. First, natural law being an unwritten code of moral conduct, it
might sometimes be ignored if the personal interests of certain individuals are involved. Second,
without any written laws, and without any established judges or magistrates, persons may be
judges in their own cases and self-lover might make them partial to their side. Hence, nothing but
confusion and disorder will follow. This lead to a collective agreement among people which
established a civil government. In relation to this, three (3) important consequences should be
noted. They are the following:
a. Central, overriding purpose of civil government was to protect and preserve
individual’s rights
b. Protection of the individual’s natural rights, sets firm limits on the political authority
of the civil government; and,
c. Individual subjects have a right of last resort to collectively resist or rebel against
overthrow a government that has failed to discharge its duty of protecting people’s
natural rights and has instead abused its powers by acting in an arbitrary or tyrannical
manner.

Locke’s theory showed the necessity of civil society and government yet it was careful to
assert and protect the individual’s rights against governmental invasion, thus implying a theory of
limited government that both restricted the role of the state to protect the rights to life, liberty and
property and prohibited the same, on moral grounds, from violating those rights. Undoubtedly, this
Locke’s ideas influenced Thomas Jefferson who espoused his theory that man is free in the state
of nature. While Locked limited the authority of the state by the doctrine of natural rights,
Jefferson, on the other hand, used the doctrine of natural rights as a basis for a fundamental law or
constitution established by the people. Therefore, two (2) ideas are fundamental in the constitution:
one is the regulation of the form of government and the other, the securing of the liberties of the
people. But while the constitution guarantees and protects fundamental rights of the people, it
should be stressed that it does not create them. Thus, natural law is to not to be understood as the
residual source of constitutional rights but instead, as the reasoning that implied the necessity to
sacrifice natural liberty to government in a written constitution. Natural law and natural rights were
concepts that explained and justified written constitutions.
With the establishment of civil government and constitution, there arises a distinction
between civil rights and natural rights. Civil rights are rights secured by the Constitution to all its
citizens or inhabitants not connected with the organization or administration of government which
belong to the domain of political rights. Civil rights may vary in different states or countries. Civil
rights are those natural rights – particularly rights to security and protection – which by themselves,
individuals could not safeguard, rather requiring the collective support of civil society and
government. Thus, they are rights appertain to man for him being a member of the society. On the
other hand, Natural rights, according to Black, may be used to describe those rights which belong
to man by virtue of his nature and depend upon his personality. Natural rights were often
categorized as the rights to life, liberty and property; or life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. These
were also fundamental rights endowed by God upon human beings which are not injurious to the
natural rights of others. Thus, they are rights which appertain to man in right of his existence.

Who was John Locke?

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern
period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free
and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued
that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, which have a foundation
independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free
and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result
of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights
to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty,
and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights
of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and
replaced with new governments. Locke is thus also important for his defense of the right of
revolution. Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the separation of legislative and
executive powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be used
to bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should
have any coercive power over their members. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later
political writings, such as the Second Letter on Toleration and Third Letter on Toleration.
There was little in Locke’s appearance to suggest greatness. He was tall and thin.
According to biographer Maurice Cranston, he had a “long face, large nose, full lips, and soft,
melancholy eyes.” Although he had a love affair which, he said, “robbed me of the use of my
reason,” he died a bachelor.
Locke’s Two Treatises on Government
Locke’s two treatises on government were published in October 1689 with a 1690 date on
the title page. While later philosophers have belittled it because Locke based his thinking on
archaic notions about a “state of nature,” his bedrock principles endure. He defended the natural
law tradition whose glorious lineage goes back to the ancient Jews: the tradition that rulers cannot
legitimately do anything they want because there are moral laws applying to everyone.
“Reason, which is that Law,” Locke declared, “teaches all Mankind, who would but consult
it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty,
or Possessions.” Locke envisioned a rule of law:
have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by
the Legislative Power erected in it; A Liberty to follow my own Will in all things,
where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain,
unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man.
Locke established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: “every Man has
a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body,
and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” He continues: “The great and chief end
therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the
Preservation of their Property.”
Locke believed people legitimately turned common property into private property by
mixing their labor with it, improving it. Marxists liked to claim this meant Locke embraced the
labor theory of value, but he was talking about the basis of ownership rather than value.
He insisted that people, not rulers, are sovereign. Government, Locke wrote, “can never
have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their
own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all.” He makes his point even
more explicit: rulers “must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of
the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies.”
Locke had enormous foresight to see beyond the struggles of his own day, which were
directed against monarchy:
’Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other
Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that
is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their
Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or
subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There
it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.
Then Locke affirmed an explicit right to revolution:
 Whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the
People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves
into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther
Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all
Men, against Force and Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall
transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or
Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an
Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach
of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite
contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their
original Liberty.
To help assure his anonymity, he dealt with the printer through his friend Edward Clarke.
Locke denied rumors that he was the author, and he begged his friends to keep their speculations
to themselves. He cut off those like James Tyrrell who persisted in talking about Locke’s
authorship. Locke destroyed the original manuscripts and all references to the work in his writings.
His only written acknowledgment of authorship was in an addition to his will, signed shortly before
he died. Ironically, the two treatises caused hardly a stir during his life.

Locke's Political Philosophy

The present entry focuses on seven central concepts in Locke’s political philosophy.

1. Natural Law and Natural Rights

Perhaps the most central concept in Locke’s political philosophy is his theory of natural
law and natural rights. The natural law concept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing
the idea that there were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless of the particular
place where they lived or the agreements they had made. The most important early contrast was
between laws that were by nature, and thus generally applicable, and those that were conventional
and operated only in those places where the particular convention had been established. This
distinction is sometimes formulated as the difference between natural law and positive law.
Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in the Christian tradition,
normally referred to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and other inspired
writers. Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, while divine law
can be discovered only through God’s special revelation and applies only to those to whom it is
revealed and who God specifically indicates are to be bound. Thus some seventeenth-century
commentators, Locke included, held that not all of the 10 commandments, much less the rest of
the Old Testament law, were binding on all people. The 10 commandments begin “Hear O Israel”
and thus are only binding on the people to whom they were addressed (Works 6:37). As we will
see below, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart from special revelation,
he saw no contradiction in God playing a part in the argument, so long as the relevant aspects of
God’s character could be discovered by reason alone. In Locke’s theory, divine law and natural
law are consistent and can overlap in content, but they are not coextensive. Thus there is no
problem for Locke if the Bible commands a moral code that is stricter than the one that can be
derived from natural law, but there is a real problem if the Bible teaches what is contrary to natural
law. In practice, Locke avoided this problem because consistency with natural law was one of the
criteria he used when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblical passages.
In the century before Locke, the language of natural rights also gained prominence through
the writings of such thinkers as Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf. Whereas natural law emphasized
duties, natural rights normally emphasized privileges or claims to which an individual was entitled.
There is considerable disagreement as to how these factors are to be understood in relation to each
other in Locke’s theory. Leo Strauss, and many of his followers, take rights to be paramount, going
so far as to portray Locke’s position as essentially similar to that of Hobbes. They point out that
Locke defended a hedonist theory of human motivation (Essay 2.20) and claim that he must agree
with Hobbes about the essentially self-interested nature of human beings. Locke, they claim,
recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations where our own preservation is not in
conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have.
On the other end of the spectrum, more scholars have adopted the view of Dunn, Tully,
and Ashcraft that it is natural law, not natural rights, that is primary. They hold that when Locke
emphasized the right to life, liberty, and property he was primarily making a point about the duties
we have toward other people: duties not to kill, enslave, or steal. Most scholars also argue that
Locke recognized a general duty to assist with the preservation of mankind, including a duty of
charity to those who have no other way to procure their subsistence (Two Treatises 1.42). These
scholars regard duties as primary in Locke because rights exist to ensure that we are able to fulfill
our duties. Simmons takes a position similar to the latter group, but claims that rights are not just
the flip side of duties in Locke, nor merely a means to performing our duties. Instead, rights and
duties are equally fundamental because Locke believes in a “robust zone of indifference” in which
rights protect our ability to make choices. While these choices cannot violate natural law, they are
not a mere means to fulfilling natural law either. Brian Tienrey questions whether one needs to
prioritize natural law or natural right since both typically function as corollaries. He argues that
modern natural rights theories are a development from medieval conceptions of natural law that
included permissions to act or not act in certain ways.
There have been some attempts to find a compromise between these positions. Michael
Zuckert’s version of the Straussian position acknowledges more differences between Hobbes and
Locke. Zuckert still questions the sincerity of Locke’s theism, but thinks that Locke does develop
a position that grounds property rights in the fact that human beings own themselves, something
Hobbes denied. Adam Seagrave has gone a step further. He argues that the contradiction between
Locke’s claim that human beings are owned by God and that human beings own themselves is
only apparent. Based on passages from Locke’s other writings (especially the Essay Concnerning
Human Understanding) In the passages about divine ownership, Locke is speaking about humanity
as a whole, while in the passages about self-ownership he is taking about individual human beings
with the capacity for property ownership. God created human beings who are capable of having
property rights with respect to one another on the basis of owning their labor. Both of them
emphasize differences between Locke’s use of natural rights and the earlier tradition of natural
law.
Another point of contestation has to do with the extent to which Locke thought natural law
could, in fact, be known by reason. Both Strauss and Peter Laslett, though very different in their
interpretations of Locke generally, see Locke’s theory of natural law as filled with contradictions.
In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke defends a theory of moral knowledge that
negates the possibility of innate ideas (Essay Book 1) and claims that morality is capable of
demonstration in the same way that Mathematics is (Essay 3.11.16, 4.3.18–20). Yet nowhere in
any of his works does Locke make a full deduction of natural law from first premises. More than
that, Locke at times seems to appeal to innate ideas in the Second Treatise (2.11), and in The
Reasonableness of Christianity (Works 7:139) he admits that no one has ever worked out all of
natural law from reason alone. Strauss infers from this that the contradictions exist to show the
attentive reader that Locke does not really believe in natural law at all. Laslett, more
conservatively, simply says that Locke the philosopher and Locke the political writer should be
kept very separate.
Many scholars reject this position. Yolton, Colman, Ashcraft, Grant, Simmons, Tuckness
and others all argue that there is nothing strictly inconsistent in Locke’s admission in The
Reasonableness of Christianity. That no one has deduced all of natural law from first principles
does not mean that none of it has been deduced. The supposedly contradictory passages in the Two
Treatises are far from decisive. While it is true that Locke does not provide a deduction in the
Essay, it is not clear that he was trying to. Section 4.10.1–19 of that work seems more concerned
to show how reasoning with moral terms is possible, not to actually provide a full account of
natural law. Nonetheless, it must be admitted that Locke did not treat the topic of natural law as
systematically as one might like. Attempts to work out his theory in more detail with respect to its
ground and its content must try to reconstruct it from scattered passages in many different texts.
To understand Locke’s position on the ground of natural law it must be situated within a
larger debate in natural law theory that predates Locke, the so-called “voluntarism-
intellectualism,” or “voluntarist-rationalist” debate. At its simplest, the voluntarist declares that
right and wrong are determined by God’s will and that we are obliged to obey the will of God
simply because it is the will of God. Unless these positions are maintained, the voluntarist argues,
God becomes superfluous to morality since both the content and the binding force of morality can
be explained without reference to God. The intellectualist replies that this understanding makes
morality arbitrary and fails to explain why we have an obligation to obey God.
With respect to the grounds and content of natural law, Locke is not completely clear. On
the one hand, there are many instances where he makes statements that sound voluntarist to the
effect that law requires a law giver with authority (Essay 1.3.6, 4.10.7). Locke also repeatedly
insists in the Essays on the Law of Nature that created beings have an obligation to obey their
creator (ELN 6). On the other hand there are statements that seem to imply an external moral
standard to which God must conform (Two Treatises 2.195; Works 7:6). Locke clearly wants to
avoid the implication that the content of natural law is arbitrary. Several solutions have been
proposed. One solution suggested by Herzog makes Locke an intellectualist by grounding our
obligation to obey God on a prior duty of gratitude that exists independent of God. A second
option, suggested by Simmons, is simply to take Locke as a voluntarist since that is where the
preponderance of his statements point. A third option, suggested by Tuckness (and implied by
Grant), is to treat the question of voluntarism as having two different parts, grounds and content.
On this view, Locke was indeed a voluntarist with respect to the question “why should we obey
the law of nature?” Locke thought that reason, apart from the will of a superior, could only be
advisory. With respect to content, divine reason and human reason must be sufficiently analogous
that human beings can reason about what God likely wills. Locke takes it for granted that since
God created us with reason in order to follow God’s will, human reason and divine reason are
sufficiently similar that natural law will not seem arbitrary to us.
Those interested in the contemporary relevance of Locke’s political theory must confront
its theological aspects. Straussians make Locke’s theory relevant by claiming that the theological
dimensions of his thought are primarily rhetorical; they are “cover” to keep him from being
persecuted by the religious authorities of his day. Others, such as Dunn, take Locke to be of only
limited relevance to contemporary politics precisely because so many of his arguments depend on
religious assumptions that are no longer widely shared. More recently a number of authors, such
as Simmons and Vernon, have tried to separate the foundations of Locke’s argument from other
aspects of it. Simmons, for example, argues that Locke’s thought is over-determined, containing
both religious and secular arguments. He claims that for Locke the fundamental law of nature is
that “as much as possible mankind is to be preserved” (Two Treatises 135). At times, he claims,
Locke presents this principle in rule-consequentialist terms: it is the principle we use to determine
the more specific rights and duties that all have. At other times, Locke hints at a more Kantian
justification that emphasizes the impropriety of treating our equals as if they were mere means to
our ends. Waldron, in his most recent work on Locke, explores the opposite claim: that Locke’s
theology actually provides a more solid basis for his premise of political equality than do
contemporary secular approaches that tend to simply assert equality.
With respect to the specific content of natural law, Locke never provides a comprehensive
statement of what it requires. In the Two Treatises, Locke frequently states that the fundamental
law of nature is that as much as possible mankind is to be preserved. Simmons argues that in Two
Treatises 2.6 Locke presents 1) a duty to preserve one’s self, 2) a duty to preserve others when
self-preservation does not conflict, 3) a duty not to take away the life of another, and 4) a duty not
to act in a way that “tends to destroy” others. Libertarian interpreters of Locke tend to downplay
duties of type 1 and 2. Locke presents a more extensive list in his earlier, and unpublished in his
lifetime, Essays on the Law of Nature. Interestingly, Locke here includes praise and honor of the
deity as required by natural law as well as what we might call good character qualities.

2. State of Nature
Locke’s concept of the state of nature has been interpreted by commentators in a variety of
ways. At first glance it seems quite simple. Locke writes “want [lack] of a common judge, with
authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without
a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.” (Two Treatises
2.19) Many commentators have taken this as Locke’s definition, concluding that the state of nature
exists wherever there is no legitimate political authority able to judge disputes and where people
live according to the law of reason. On this account the state of nature is distinct from political
society, where a legitimate government exists, and from a state of war where men fail to abide by
the law of reason.
Simmons presents an important challenge to this view. Simmons points out that the above
statement is worded as a sufficient rather than necessary condition. Two individuals might be able,
in the state of nature, to authorize a third to settle disputes between them without leaving the state
of nature, since the third party would not have, for example, the power to legislate for the public
good. Simmons also claims that other interpretations often fail to account for the fact that there are
some people who live in states with legitimate governments who are nonetheless in the state of
nature: visiting aliens (2.9), children below the age of majority (2.15, 118), and those with a
“defect” of reason (2.60). He claims that the state of nature is a relational concept describing a
particular set of moral relations that exist between particular people, rather than a description of a
particular geographical territory. The state of nature is just the way of describing the moral rights
and responsibilities that exist between people who have not consented to the adjudication of their
disputes by the same legitimate government. The groups just mentioned either have not or cannot
give consent, so they remain in the state of nature. Thus A may be in the state of nature with respect
to B, but not with C.
Simmons’ account stands in sharp contrast to that of Strauss. According to Strauss, Locke
presents the state of nature as a factual description of what the earliest society is like, an account
that when read closely reveals Locke’s departure from Christian teachings. State of nature theories,
he and his followers argue, are contrary to the Biblical account in Genesis and evidence that
Locke’s teaching is similar to that of Hobbes. As noted above, on the Straussian account Locke’s
apparently Christian statements are only a façade designed to conceal his essentially anti-Christian
views. According to Simmons, since the state of nature is a moral account, it is compatible with a
wide variety of social accounts without contradiction. If we know only that a group of people are
in a state of nature, we know only the rights and responsibilities they have toward one another; we
know nothing about whether they are rich or poor, peaceful or warlike.
A complementary interpretation is made by John Dunn with respect to the relationship
between Locke’s state of nature and his Christian beliefs. Dunn claimed that Locke’s state of nature
is less an exercise in historical anthropology than a theological reflection on the condition of man.
On Dunn’s interpretation, Locke’s state of nature thinking is an expression of his theological
position that man exists in a world created by God for God’s purposes but that governments are
created by men in order to further those purposes.
Locke’s theory of the state of nature will thus be tied closely to his theory of natural law,
since the latter defines the rights of persons and their status as free and equal persons. The stronger
the grounds for accepting Locke’s characterization of people as free, equal, and independent, the
more helpful the state of nature becomes as a device for representing people. Still, it is important
to remember that none of these interpretations claims that Locke’s state of nature is only a thought
experiment, in the way Kant and Rawls are normally thought to use the concept. Locke did not
respond to the argument “where have there ever been people in such a state” by saying it did not
matter since it was only a thought experiment. Instead, he argued that there are and have been
people in the state of nature. (Two Treatises 2.14) It seems important to him that at least some
governments have actually been formed in the way he suggests. How much it matters whether they
have been or not will be discussed below under the topic of consent, since the central question is
whether a good government can be legitimate even if it does not have the actual consent of the
people who live under it; hypothetical contract and actual contract theories will tend to answer this
question differently.

3. Property
Locke’s treatment of property is generally thought to be among his most important
contributions in political thought, but it is also one of the aspects of his thought that has been most
heavily criticized. There are important debates over what exactly Locke was trying to accomplish
with his theory. One interpretation, advanced by C.B. Macpherson, sees Locke as a defender of
unrestricted capitalist accumulation. On Macpherson’s interpretation, Locke is thought to have set
three restrictions on the accumulation of property in the state of nature: 1) one may only
appropriate as much as one can use before it spoils (Two Treatises 2.31), 2) one must leave
“enough and as good” for others (the sufficiency restriction) (2.27), and 3) one may (supposedly)
only appropriate property through one’s own labor (2.27). Macpherson claims that as the argument
progresses, each of these restrictions is transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a
meaningful restriction with the invention of money because value can be stored in a medium that
does not decay (2.46–47). The sufficiency restriction is transcended because the creation of private
property so increases productivity that even those who no longer have the opportunity to acquire
land will have more opportunity to acquire what is necessary for life (2.37). According to
Macpherson’s view, the “enough and as good” requirement is itself merely a derivative of a prior
principle guaranteeing the opportunity to acquire, through labor, the necessities of life. The third
restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually held at all. Though Locke appears to
suggest that one can only have property in what one has personally labored on when he makes
labor the source of property rights, Locke clearly recognized that even in the state of nature, “the
Turfs my Servant has cut” (2.28) can become my property. Locke, according to Macpherson, thus
clearly recognized that labor can be alienated. As one would guess, Macpherson is critical of the
“possessive individualism” that Locke’s theory of property represents. He argues that its coherence
depends upon the assumption of differential rationality between capitalists and wage-laborers and
on the division of society into distinct classes. Because Locke was bound by these constraints, we
are to understand him as including only property owners as voting members of society.
Macpherson’s understanding of Locke has been criticized from several different directions.
Alan Ryan argued that since property for Locke includes life and liberty as well as estate (Two
Treatises 2.87), even those without land could still be members of political society. The dispute
between the two would then turn on whether Locke was using property in the more expansive
sense in some of the crucial passages. James Tully attacked Macpherson’s interpretation by
pointing out that the First Treatise specifically includes a duty of charity toward those who have
no other means of subsistence (1.42). While this duty is consistent with requiring the poor to work
for low wages, it does undermine the claim that those who have wealth have no social duties to
others.
Tully also argued for a fundamental reinterpretation of Locke’s theory. Previous accounts
had focused on the claim that since persons own their own labor, when they mix their labor with
that which is unowned it becomes their property. Robert Nozick criticized this argument with his
famous example of mixing tomato juice one rightfully owns with the sea. When we mix what we
own with what we do not, why should we think we gain property instead of losing it? On Tully’s
account, focus on the mixing metaphor misses Locke’s emphasis on what he calls the
“workmanship model.” Locke believed that makers have property rights with respect to what they
make just as God has property rights with respect to human beings because he is their maker.
Human beings are created in the image of God and share with God, though to a much lesser extent,
the ability to shape and mold the physical environment in accordance with a rational pattern or
plan. Waldron has criticized this interpretation on the grounds that it would make the rights of
human makers absolute in the same way that God’s right over his creation is absolute. Sreenivasan
has defended Tully’s argument against Waldron’s response by claiming a distinction between
creating and making. Only creating generates an absolute property right, and only God can create,
but making is analogous to creating and creates an analogous, though weaker, right.
Another controversial aspect of Tully’s interpretation of Locke is his interpretation of the
sufficiency condition and its implications. On his analysis, the sufficiency argument is crucial for
Locke’s argument to be plausible. Since Locke begins with the assumption that the world is owned
by all, individual property is only justified if it can be shown that no one is made worse off by the
appropriation. In conditions where the good taken is not scarce, where there is much water or land
available, an individual’s taking some portion of it does no harm to others. Where this condition
is not met, those who are denied access to the good do have a legitimate objection to appropriation.
According to Tully, Locke realized that as soon as land became scarce, previous rights acquired
by labor no longer held since “enough and as good” was no longer available for others. Once land
became scarce, property could only be legitimated by the creation of political society.
Waldron claims that, contrary to Macpherson, Tully, and others, Locke did not recognize
a sufficiency condition at all. He notes that, strictly speaking, Locke makes sufficiency a sufficient
rather than necessary condition when he says that labor generates a title to property “at least where
there is enough, and as good left in common for others” (Two Treatises 2.27). Waldron takes
Locke to be making a descriptive statement, not a normative one, about the condition that happens
to have initially existed. Waldron also argues that in the text “enough and as good” is not presented
as a restriction and is not grouped with other restrictions. Waldron thinks that the condition would
lead Locke to the absurd conclusion that in circumstances of scarcity everyone must starve to death
since no one would be able to obtain universal consent and any appropriation would make others
worse off.
One of the strongest defenses of Tully’s position is presented by Sreenivasan. He argues
that Locke’s repetitious use of “enough and as good” indicates that the phrase is doing some real
work in the argument. In particular, it is the only way Locke can be thought to have provided some
solution to the fact that the consent of all is needed to justify appropriation in the state of nature.
If others are not harmed, they have no grounds to object and can be thought to consent, whereas if
they are harmed, it is implausible to think of them as consenting. Sreenivasan does depart from
Tully in some important respects. He takes “enough and as good” to mean “enough and as good
opportunity for securing one’s preservation,” not “enough and as good of the same commodity
(such as land).” This has the advantage of making Locke’s account of property less radical since
it does not claim that Locke thought the point of his theory was to show that all original property
rights were invalid at the point where political communities were created. The disadvantage of this
interpretation, as Sreenivasan admits, is that it saddles Locke with a flawed argument. Those who
merely have the opportunity to labor for others at subsistence wages no longer have the liberty that
individuals had before scarcity to benefit from the full surplus of value they create. Moreover poor
laborers no longer enjoy equality of access to the materials from which products can be made.
Sreenivasan thinks that Locke’s theory is thus unable to solve the problem of how individuals can
obtain individual property rights in what is initially owned by all people without consent.
Simmons presents a still different synthesis. He sides with Waldron and against Tully and
Sreenivasan in rejecting the workmanship model. He claims that the references to “making” in
chapter five of the Two Treatises are not making in the right sense of the word for the workmanship
model to be correct. Locke thinks we have property in our own persons even though we do not
make or create ourselves. Simmons claims that while Locke did believe that God had rights as
creator, human beings have a different limited right as trustees, not as makers. Simmons bases this
in part on his reading of two distinct arguments he takes Locke to make: the first justifies property
based on God’s will and basic human needs, the second based on “mixing” labor. According to
the former argument, at least some property rights can be justified by showing that a scheme
allowing appropriation of property without consent has beneficial consequences for the
preservation of mankind. This argument is overdetermined, according to Simmons, in that it can
be interpreted either theologically or as a simple rule-consequentialist argument. With respect to
the latter argument, Simmons takes labor not to be a substance that is literally “mixed” but rather
as a purposive activity aimed at satisfying needs and conveniences of life. Like Sreenivasan,
Simmons sees this as flowing from a prior right of people to secure their subsistence, but Simmons
also adds a prior right to self-government. Labor can generate claims to private property because
private property makes individuals more independent and able to direct their own actions.
Simmons thinks Locke’s argument is ultimately flawed because he underestimated the extent to
which wage labor would make the poor dependent on the rich, undermining self-government. He
also joins the chorus of those who find Locke’s appeal to consent to the introduction of money
inadequate to justify the very unequal property holdings that now exist.
Some authors have suggested that Locke may have had an additional concern in mind in
writing the chapter on property. Tully (1993) and Barbara Arneil point out that Locke was
interested in and involved in the affairs of the American colonies and that Locke’s theory of labor
led to the convenient conclusion that the labor of Native Americans generated property rights only
over the animals they caught, not the land on which they hunted which Locke regarded as vacant
and available for the taking. Armitage even argues that there is evidence that Locke was actively
involved in revising the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina at the same time he was drafting
the chapter on property for the Second Treatise. Mark Goldie, however, cautions that we should
not miss the fact that political events in England were still Locke’s primary focus in writing the
the Second Treatise.
A final question concerns the status of those property rights acquired in the state of nature
after civil society has come into being. It seems clear that at the very least Locke allows taxation
to take place by the consent of the majority rather than requiring unanimous consent (2.140).
Nozick takes Locke to be a libertarian, with the government having no right to take property to use
for the common good without the consent of the property owner. On his interpretation, the majority
may only tax at the rate needed to allow the government to successfully protect property rights. At
the other extreme, Tully thinks that, by the time government is formed, land is already scarce and
so the initial holdings of the state of nature are no longer valid and thus are no constraint on
governmental action. Waldron’s view is in between these, acknowledging that property rights are
among the rights from the state of nature that continue to constrain the government, but seeing the
legislature as having the power to interpret what natural law requires in this matter in a fairly
substantial way.

4. Consent, Political Obligation, and the Ends of Government

The most direct reading of Locke’s political philosophy finds the concept of consent
playing a central role. His analysis begins with individuals in a state of nature where they are not
subject to a common legitimate authority with the power to legislate or adjudicate disputes. From
this natural state of freedom and independence, Locke stresses individual consent as the
mechanism by which political societies are created and individuals join those societies. While there
are of course some general obligations and rights that all people have from the law of nature,
special obligations come about only when we voluntarily undertake them. Locke clearly states that
one can only become a full member of society by an act of express consent (Two Treatises 2.122).
The literature on Locke’s theory of consent tends to focus on how Locke does or does not
successfully answer the following objection: few people have actually consented to their
governments so no, or almost no, governments are actually legitimate. This conclusion is
problematic since it is clearly contrary to Locke’s intention.
Locke’s most obvious solution to this problem is his doctrine of tacit consent. Simply by
walking along the highways of a country a person gives tacit consent to the government and agrees
to obey it while living in its territory. This, Locke thinks, explains why resident aliens have an
obligation to obey the laws of the state where they reside, though only while they live there.
Inheriting property creates an even stronger bond, since the original owner of the property
permanently put the property under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. Children, when they
accept the property of their parents, consent to the jurisdiction of the commonwealth over that
property (Two Treatises 2.120). There is debate over whether the inheritance of property should
be regarded as tacit or express consent. On one interpretation, by accepting the property, Locke
thinks a person becomes a full member of society, which implies that he must regard this as an act
of express consent. Grant suggests that Locke’s ideal would have been an explicit mechanism of
society whereupon adults would give express consent and this would be a precondition of
inheriting property. On the other interpretation, Locke recognized that people inheriting property
did not in the process of doing so make any explicit declaration about their political obligation.
However this debate is resolved, there will be in any current or previously existing society
many people who have never given express consent, and thus some version of tacit consent seems
needed to explain how governments could still be legitimate. Simmons finds it difficult to see how
merely walking on a street or inheriting land can be thought of as an example of a “deliberate,
voluntary alienating of rights” (69). It is one thing, he argues, for a person to consent by actions
rather than words; it is quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that they
have done so. To require a person to leave behind all of their property and emigrate in order to
avoid giving tacit consent is to create a situation where continued residence is not a free and
voluntary choice. Simmons’ approach is to agree with Locke that real consent is necessary for
political obligation but disagree about whether most people in fact have given that kind of consent.
Simmons claims that Locke’s arguments push toward “philosophical anarchism,” the position that
most people do not have a moral obligation to obey the government, even though Locke himself
would not have made this claim.
Hannah Pitkin takes a very different approach. She claims that the logic of Locke’s
argument makes consent far less important in practice than it might appear. Tacit consent is indeed
a watering down of the concept of consent, but Locke can do this because the basic content of what
governments are to be like is set by natural law and not by consent. If consent were truly
foundational in Locke’s scheme, we would discover the legitimate powers of any given
government by finding out what contract the original founders signed. Pitkin, however, thinks that
for Locke the form and powers of government are determined by natural law. What really matters,
therefore, is not previous acts of consent but the quality of the present government, whether it
corresponds to what natural law requires. Locke does not think, for example, that walking the
streets or inheriting property in a tyrannical regime means we have consented to that regime. It is
thus the quality of the government, not acts of actual consent that determine whether a government
is legitimate. Simmons objects to this interpretation, saying that it fails to account for the many
places where Locke does indeed say a person acquires political obligations only by his own
consent.
John Dunn takes a still different approach. He claims that it is anachronistic to read into
Locke a modern conception of what counts as “consent.” While modern theories do insist that
consent is truly consent only if it is deliberate and voluntary, Locke’s concept of consent was far
broader. For Locke, it was enough that people be “not unwilling.” Voluntary acquiescence, on
Dunn’s interpretation, is all that is needed. As evidence Dunn can point to the fact that many of
the instances of consent Locke uses, such as “consenting” to the use of money, make more sense
on this broad interpretation. Simmons objects that this ignores the instances where Locke does talk
about consent as a deliberate choice and that, in any case, it would only make Locke consistent at
the price of making him unconvincing.
 Recent scholarship has continued to probe these issues. Davis closely examines Locke’s
terminology and argues that we must distinguish between political society and legitimate
government. Only those who have expressly consented are members of political society, while the
government exercises legitimate authority over various types of people who have not so consented.
The government is supreme in some respects, but there is no sovereign. Van der Vossen makes a
related argument, claiming that the initial consent of property owners is not the mechanism by
which governments come to rule over a particular territory. Rather, Locke thinks that people
(probably fathers initially) simply begin exercising political authority and people tacitly consent.
This is sufficient to justify a state in ruling over those people and treaties between governments
fix the territorial borders. Hoff goes still further, arguing that we need not even think of specific
acts of tacit consent (such as deciding not to emigrate). Instead, consent is implied if the
government itself functions in ways that show it is answerable to the people.
A related question has to do with the extent of our obligation once consent has been given.
The interpretive school influenced by Strauss emphasizes the primacy of preservation. Since the
duties of natural law apply only when our preservation is not threatened (2.6), then our obligations
cease in cases where our preservation is directly threatened. This has important implications if we
consider a soldier who is being sent on a mission where death is extremely likely. Grant points out
that Locke believes a soldier who deserts from such a mission (Two Treatises 2.139) is justly
sentenced to death. Grant takes Locke to be claiming not only that desertion laws are legitimate in
the sense that they can be blamelessly enforced (something Hobbes would grant) but that they also
imply a moral obligation on the part of the soldier to give up his life for the common good
(something Hobbes would deny). According to Grant, Locke thinks that our acts of consent can in
fact extend to cases where living up to our commitments will risk our lives. The decision to enter
political society is a permanent one for precisely this reason: the society will have to be defended
and if people can revoke their consent to help protect it when attacked, the act of consent made
when entering political society would be pointless since the political community would fail at the
very point where it is most needed. People make a calculated decision when they enter society,
and the risk of dying in combat is part of that calculation. Grant also thinks Locke recognizes a
duty based on reciprocity since others risk their lives as well.
Most of these approaches focus on Locke’s doctrine of consent as a solution to the problem
of political obligation. A different approach asks what role consent plays in determining, here and
now, the legitimate ends that governments can pursue. One part of this debate is captured by the
debate between Seliger and Kendall, the former viewing Locke as a constitutionalist and the latter
viewing him as giving almost untrammeled power to majorities. On the former interpretation, a
constitution is created by the consent of the people as part of the creation of the commonwealth.
On the latter interpretation, the people create a legislature which rules by majority vote. A third
view, advanced by Tuckness, holds that Locke was flexible at this point and gave people
considerable flexibility in constitutional drafting.
A second part of the debate focuses on ends rather than institutions. Locke states in the
Two Treatises that the power of the Government is limited to the public good. It is a power that
hath “no other end but preservation” and therefore cannot justify killing, enslaving, or plundering
the citizens. (2.135). Libertarians like Nozick read this as stating that governments exist only to
protect people from infringements on their rights. An alternate interpretation, advanced in different
ways by Tuckness, draws attention to the fact that in the following sentences the formulation of
natural law that Locke focuses on is a positive one, that “as much as possible” mankind is to be
preserved. On this second reading, government is limited to fulfilling the purposes of natural law,
but these include positive goals as well as negative rights. On this view, the power to promote the
common good extends to actions designed to increase population, improve the military, strengthen
the economy and infrastructure, and so on, provided these steps are indirectly useful to the goal of
preserving the society. This would explain why Locke, in the Letter, describes government
promotion of “arms, riches, and multitude of citizens” as the proper remedy for the danger of
foreign attack (Works 6: 42)

5. Locke and Punishment

John Locke defined political power as “a Right of making Laws with Penalties of Death,
and consequently all less Penalties” (Two Treatises 2.3). Locke’s theory of punishment is thus
central to his view of politics and part of what he considered innovative about his political
philosophy. But he also referred to his account of punishment as a “very strange doctrine” (2.9),
presumably because it ran against the assumption that only political sovereigns could punish.
Locke believed that punishment requires that there be a law, and since the state of nature has the
law of nature to govern it, it is permissible to describe one individual as “punishing” another in
that state. Locke’s rationale is that since the fundamental law of nature is that mankind be
preserved and since that law would “be in vain” with no human power to enforce it, it must
therefore be legitimate for individuals to punish each other even before government exists. In
arguing this, Locke was disagreeing with Samuel Pufendorf. Samuel Pufendorf had argued
strongly that the concept of punishment made no sense apart from an established positive legal
structure.
Locke realized that the crucial objection to allowing people to act as judges with power to
punish in the state of nature was that such people would end up being judges in their own cases.
Locke readily admitted that this was a serious inconvenience and a primary reason for leaving the
state of nature (Two Treatises 2.13). Locke insisted on this point because it helped explain the
transition into civil society. Locke thought that in the state of nature men had a liberty to engage
in “innocent delights” (actions that are not a violation of any applicable laws), to seek their own
preservation within the limits of natural law, and to punish violations of natural law. The power to
seek one’s preservation is limited in civil society by the law and the power to punish is transferred
to the government. (128–130). The power to punish in the state of nature is thus the foundation for
the right of governments to use coercive force.
The situation becomes more complex, however, if we look at the principles which are to
guide punishment. Rationales for punishment are often divided into those that are forward-looking
and backward-looking. Forward-looking rationales include deterring crime, protecting society
from dangerous persons, and rehabilitation of criminals. Backward-looking rationales normally
focus on retribution, inflicting on the criminal harm comparable to the crime. Locke may seem to
conflate these two rationales in passages like the following:
And thus in the State of Nature, one Man comes by a Power over another; but yet no
Absolute or Arbitrary Power, to use a Criminal when he has got him in his hands, according to the
passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own Will, but only to retribute to him, so far as
calm reason and conscience dictates, what is proportionate to his Transgression, which is so much
as may serve for Reparation and Restraint. For these two are the only reasons, why one Man may
lawfully do harm to another, which is that [which] we call punishment. (Two Treatises 2.8)
Locke talks both of retribution and of punishing only for reparation and restraint. Simmons
argues that this is evidence that Locke is combining both rationales for punishment in his theory.
A survey of other seventeenth-century natural rights justifications for punishment, however,
indicates that it was common to use words like “retribute” in theories that reject what we would
today call retributive punishment. In the passage quoted above, Locke is saying that the proper
amount of punishment is the amount that will provide restitution to injured parties, protect the
public, and deter future crime. Locke’s attitude toward punishment in his other writings on
toleration, education, and religion consistently follows this path toward justifying punishment on
grounds other than retribution. Tuckness claims that Locke’s emphasis on restitution is interesting
because restitution is backward looking in a sense (it seeks to restore an earlier state of affairs) but
also forward looking in that it provides tangible benefits to those who receive the restitution. There
is a link here between Locke’s understanding of natural punishment and his understanding of
legitimate state punishment. Even in the state of nature, a primary justification for punishment is
that it helps further the positive goal of preserving human life and human property. The emphasis
on deterrence, public safety, and restitution in punishments administered by the government
mirrors this emphasis.
A second puzzle regarding punishment is the permissibility of punishing internationally.
Locke describes international relations as a state of nature, and so in principle, states should have
the same power to punish breaches of the natural law in the international community that
individuals have in the state of nature. This would legitimize, for example, punishment of
individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity even in cases where neither the laws of the
particular state nor international law authorize punishment. Thus in World War II, even if “crimes
of aggression” was not at the time recognized as a crime for which individual punishment was
justified, if the actions violated that natural law principle that one should not deprive another of
life, liberty, or property, the guilty parties could still be liable to criminal punishment. The most
common interpretation has thus been that the power to punish internationally is symmetrical with
the power to punish in the state of nature.
Tuckness, however, has argued that there is an asymmetry between the two cases because
Locke also talks about states being limited in the goals that they can pursue. Locke often says that
the power of the government is to be used for the protection of the rights of its own citizens, not
for the rights of all people everywhere (Two Treatises 1.92, 2.88, 2.95, 2.131, 2.147). Locke argues
that in the state of nature a person is to use the power to punish to preserve his society, mankind
as a whole. After states are formed, however, the power to punish is to be used for the benefit of
his own particular society. In the state of nature, a person is not required to risk his life for another
(Two Treatises 2.6) and this presumably would also mean a person is not required to punish in the
state of nature when attempting to punish would risk the life of the punisher. Locke may therefore
be objecting to the idea that soldiers can be compelled to risk their lives for altruistic reasons. In
the state of nature, a person could refuse to attempt to punish others if doing so would risk his life
and so Locke reasons that individuals may not have consented to allow the state to risk their lives
for altruistic punishment of international crimes.

6. Separation of Powers and the Dissolution of Government

Locke claims that legitimate government is based on the idea of separation of powers. First
and foremost of these is the legislative power. Locke describes the legislative power as supreme
(Two Treatises 2.149) in having ultimate authority over “how the force for the commonwealth
shall be employed” (2.143). The legislature is still bound by the law of nature and much of what it
does is set down laws that further the goals of natural law and specify appropriate punishments for
them (2.135). The executive power is then charged with enforcing the law as it is applied in specific
cases. Interestingly, Locke’s third power is called the “federative power” and it consists of the
right to act internationally according to the law of nature. Since countries are still in the state of
nature with respect to each other, they must follow the dictates of natural law and can punish one
another for violations of that law in order to protect the rights of their citizens.
The fact that Locke does not mention the judicial power as a separate power becomes
clearer if we distinguish powers from institutions. Powers relate to functions. To have a power
means that there is a function (such as making the laws or enforcing the laws) that one may
legitimately perform. When Locke says that the legislative is supreme over the executive, he is not
saying that parliament is supreme over the king. Locke is simply affirming that “what can give
laws to another, must needs be superior to him” (Two Treatises 2.150). Moreover, Locke thinks
that it is possible for multiple institutions to share the same power; for example, the legislative
power in his day was shared by the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the King. Since
all three needed to agree for something to become law, all three are part of the legislative power
(1.151). He also thinks that the federative power and the executive power are normally placed in
the hands of the executive, so it is possible for the same person to exercise more than one power
(or function). There is, therefore, no one to one correspondence between powers and institutions.
Locke is not opposed to having distinct institutions called courts, but he does not see
interpretation as a distinct function or power. For Locke, legislation is primarily about announcing
a general rule stipulating what types of actions should receive what types of punishments. The
executive power is the power to make the judgments necessary to apply those rules to specific
cases and administer force as directed by the rule (Two Treatises 2.88–89). Both of these actions
involve interpretation. Locke states that positive laws “are only so far right, as they are founded
on the Law of Nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted” (2.12). In other words,
the executive must interpret the laws in light of its understanding of natural law. Similarly,
legislation involves making the laws of nature more specific and determining how to apply them
to particular circumstances ( 2.135) which also calls for interpreting natural law. Locke did not
think of interpreting law as a distinct function because he thought it was a part of both the
legislative and executive functions (Tuckness 2002a).
If we compare Locke’s formulation of separation of powers to the later ideas of
Montesquieu, we see that they are not so different as they may initially appear. Although
Montesquieu gives the more well-known division of legislative, executive, and judicial, as he
explains what he means by these terms he reaffirms the superiority of the legislative power and
describes the executive power as having to do with international affairs (Locke’s federative power)
and the judicial power as concerned with the domestic execution of the laws (Locke’s executive
power). It is more the terminology than the concepts that have changed. Locke considered arresting
a person, trying a person, and punishing a person as all part of the function of executing the law
rather than as a distinct function.
Locke believed that it was important that the legislative power contain an assembly of
elected representatives, but as we have seen the legislative power could contain monarchical and
aristocratic elements as well. Locke believed the people had the freedom to created “mixed”
constitutions that utilize all of these. For that reason, Locke’s theory of separation of powers does
not dictate one particular type of constitution and does not preclude unelected officials from having
part of the legislative power. Locke was more concerned that the people have representatives with
sufficient power to block attacks on their liberty and attempts to tax them without justification.
This is important because Locke also affirms that the community remains the real supreme power
throughout. The people retain the right to “remove or alter” the legislative power (Two Treatises
2.149). This can happen for a variety of reasons. The entire society can be dissolved by a successful
foreign invasion (2.211), but Locke is more interested in describing the occasions when the people
take power back from the government to which they have entrusted it. If the rule of law is ignored,
if the representatives of the people are prevented from assembling, if the mechanisms of election
are altered without popular consent, or if the people are handed over to a foreign power, then they
can take back their original authority and overthrow the government (2.212–17). They can also
rebel if the government attempts to take away their rights (2.222). Locke thinks this is justifiable
since oppressed people will likely rebel anyway and those who are not oppressed will be unlikely
to rebel. Moreover, the threat of possible rebellion makes tyranny less likely to start with (2.224–
6). For all these reasons, while there are a variety of legitimate constitutional forms, the delegation
of power under any constitution is understood to be conditional.
Locke’s understanding of separation of powers is complicated by the doctrine of
prerogative. Prerogative is the right of the executive to act without explicit authorization for a law,
or even contrary to the law, in order to better fulfill the laws that seek the preservation of human
life. A king might, for example, order that a house be torn down in order to stop a fire from
spreading throughout a city (Two Treatises 1.159). Locke defines it more broadly as “the power
of doing public good without a rule” (1.167). This poses a challenge to Locke’s doctrine of
legislative supremacy. Locke handles this by explaining that the rationale for this power is that
general rules cannot cover all possible cases and that inflexible adherence to the rules would be
detrimental to the public good and that the legislature is not always in session to render a judgment
(2.160). The relationship between the executive and the legislature depends on the specific
constitution. If the chief executive has no part in the supreme legislative power, then the legislature
could overrule the executive’s decisions based on prerogative when it reconvenes. If, however, the
chief executive has a veto, the result would be a stalemate between them. Locke describes a similar
stalemate in the case where the chief executive has the power to call parliament and can thus
prevent it from meeting by refusing to call it into session. In such a case, Locke says, there is no
judge on earth between them as to whether the executive has misused prerogative and both sides
have the right to “appeal to heaven” in the same way that the people can appeal to heaven against
a tyrannical government (2.168).
The concept of an “appeal to heaven” is an important concept in Locke’s thought. Locke
assumes that people, when they leave the state of nature, create a government with some sort of
constitution that specifies which entities are entitled to exercise which powers. Locke also assumes
that these powers will be used to protect the rights of the people and to promote the public good.
In cases where there is a dispute between the people and the government about whether the
government is fulfilling its obligations, there is no higher human authority to which one can appeal.
The only appeal left, for Locke, is the appeal to God. The “appeal to heaven,” therefore, involves
taking up arms against your opponent and letting God judge who is in the right.

7. Toleration
In Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, he develops several lines of arguments that are
intended to establish the proper spheres for religion and politics. His central claims are that
government should not use force to try to bring people to the true religion and that religious
societies are voluntary organizations that have no right to use coercive power over their own
members or those outside their group. One recurring line of argument that Locke uses is explicitly
religious. Locke argues that neither the example of Jesus nor the teaching of the New Testament
gives any indication that force is a proper way to bring people to salvation. He also frequently
points out what he takes to be clear evidence of hypocrisy, namely that those who are so quick to
persecute others for small differences in worship or doctrine are relatively unconcerned with much
more obvious moral sins that pose an even greater threat to their eternal state.
In addition to these and similar religious arguments, Locke gives three reasons that are
more philosophical in nature for barring governments from using force to encourage people to
adopt religious beliefs (Works 6:10–12). First, he argues that the care of men’s souls has not been
committed to the magistrate by either God or the consent of men. This argument resonates with
the structure of argument used so often in the Two Treatises to establish the natural freedom and
equality of mankind. There is no command in the Bible telling magistrates to bring people to the
true faith and people could not consent to such a goal for government because it is not possible for
people, at will, to believe what the magistrate tells them to believe. Their beliefs are a function of
what they think is true, not what they will. Locke’s second argument is that since the power of the
government is only force, while true religion consists of genuine inward persuasion of the mind,
force is incapable of bringing people to the true religion. Locke’s third argument is that even if the
magistrate could change people’s minds, a situation where everyone accepted the magistrate’s
religion would not bring more people to the true religion. Many of the magistrates of the world
believe religions that are false.
Locke’s contemporary, Jonas Proast, responded by saying that Locke’s three arguments
really amount to just two, that true faith cannot be forced and that we have no more reason to think
that we are right than anyone else has. Proast argued that force can be helpful in bringing people
to the truth “indirectly, and at a distance.” His idea was that although force cannot directly bring
about a change of mind or heart, it can cause people to consider arguments that they would
otherwise ignore or prevent them from hearing or reading things that would lead them astray. If
force is indirectly useful in bringing people to the true faith, then Locke has not provided a
persuasive argument. As for Locke’s argument about the harm of a magistrate whose religion is
false using force to promote it, Proast claimed that this was irrelevant since there is a morally
relevant difference between affirming that the magistrate may promote the religion he thinks true
and affirming that he may promote the religion that actually is true. Proast thought that unless one
was a complete skeptic, one must believe that the reasons for one’s own position are objectively
better than those for other positions.
Jeremy Waldron, in an influential article, restated the substance of Proast’s objection for a
contemporary audience. He argued that, leaving aside Locke’s Christian arguments, his main
position was that it was instrumentally irrational, from the perspective of the persecutor, to use
force in matters of religion because force acts only on the will and belief is not something that we
change at will. Waldron pointed out that this argument blocks only one particular reason for
persecution, not all reasons. Thus it would not stop someone who used religious persecution for
some end other than religious conversion, such as preserving the peace. Even in cases where
persecution does have a religious goal, Waldron agrees with Proast that force may be indirectly
effective in changing people’s beliefs. Much of the current discussion about Locke’s contribution
to contemporary political philosophy in the area of toleration centers on whether Locke has a good
reply to these objections from Proast and Waldron.
Some contemporary commentators try to rescue Locke’s argument by redefining the
religious goal that the magistrate is presumed to seek. Susan Mendus, for example, notes that
successful brainwashing might cause a person to sincerely utter a set of beliefs, but that those
beliefs might still not count as genuine. Beliefs induced by coercion might be similarly
problematic. Paul Bou Habib argues that what Locke is really after is sincere inquiry and that
Locke thinks inquiry undertaken only because of duress is necessarily insincere. These approaches
thus try to save Locke’s argument by showing that force really is incapable of bringing about the
desired religious goal.
Other commentators focus on Locke’s first argument about proper authority, and
particularly on the idea that authorization must be by consent. David Wootton argues that even if
force occasionally works at changing a person’s belief, it does not work often enough to make it
rational for persons to consent to the government exercising that power. A person who has good
reason to think he will not change his beliefs even when persecuted has good reason to prevent the
persecution scenario from ever happening. Richard Vernon argues that we want not only to hold
right beliefs, but also to hold them for the right reasons. Since the balance of reasons rather than
the balance of force should determine our beliefs, we would not consent to a system in which
irrelevant reasons for belief might influence us.
Other commentators focus on the third argument, that the magistrate might be wrong. Here
the question is whether Locke’s argument is question begging or not. The two most promising
lines of argument are the following. Wootton argues that there are very good reasons, from the
standpoint of a given individual, for thinking that governments will be wrong about which religion
is true. Governments are motivated by the quest for power, not truth, and are unlikely to be good
guides in religious matters. Since there are so many different religions held by rulers, if only one
is true then likely my own ruler’s views are not true. Wootton thus takes Locke to be showing that
it is irrational, from the perspective of the individual, to consent to government promotion of
religion. A different interpretation of the third argument is presented by Tuckness. He argues that
the likelihood that the magistrate may be wrong generates a principle of toleration based on what
is rational from the perspective of a legislator, not the perspective of an individual citizen. Drawing
on Locke’s later writings on toleration, he argues that Locke’s theory of natural law assumes that
God, as author of natural law, takes into account the fallibility of those magistrates who will carry
out the commands of natural law. If “use force to promote the true religion” were a command of
natural law addressed to all magistrates, it would not promote the true religion in practice because
so many magistrates wrongly believe that their religion is the true one. Tuckness claims that in
Locke’s later writings on toleration he moved away from arguments based on what it is
instrumentally rational for an individual to consent to. Instead, he emphasized testing proposed
principles based on whether they would still fulfill their goal if universally applied by fallible
human beings.

Sources:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/#LawNat
https://fee.org/articles/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/