The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 3
We began by talking about governmental power and the rights of the citizen, but now we’re talking about war! What led us in this odd direction?
The sequence of thought is less illogical than one might think.
Locke is still describing man before "society," i.e. before civic organization
and government; one of his goals is to show that society has positive purposes,
including protection of people and their rights (one of which is the right
to property). He’s described a state of nature that rests on mutual
respect. Warlike foes violate this state, leading to chaos; death
is an appropriate punishment. So in section 19 he will distinguish
between a "state of nature" and a "state of war":
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Peace |
enmity |
| good will | malice |
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mutual assistance and preservation |
violence and mutual destruction |
| living together according to reason | force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another |
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Without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between contestants |
no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief |
| the want [lack] of such an appeal gives a man:
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| because the aggressor allows not:
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want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature |
force without right makes a state of war, both where there is, and is not, a common judge |
Stop and think about this outline: notice the parallelism between "aggressor" and "thief." Do you think it is right to kill a thief? What argument does Locke provide for this?
Now click here to glance ahead to chapter 18. Use the "search" or "find" command on your browser to search for the word "thief." What section does it occur in? Turn to Blackboard's Discussion Board to answer a question on this topic.
Problems with the State of Nature
What is the answer to war? One answer is to fight till one side says uncle (sections 19 at end, 20 at beginning: "the state of war once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace,…" And the only appeal we have is to God, as Locke says in a peculiar note at the end of section 21 referring to Judges 11.27). "Where there is no judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven." The implication seems to be that God won’t help solve our daily disputes. How do we avoid this cycle of destruction?
We cannot avoid it in the State of Nature, because there is no "common judge with authority." So we have to create civil government: "To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no appeal but to heaven,…) is one great reason of men's putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature." (section 21) Men voluntarily set up a government for their own preservation: this government provides an "appeal to the law" to resolve conflicts.
Now, we should note that "laws" by themselves are not enough. Locke has already said, in section 20, that even when we establish "law" and justice, once justice is perverted and the laws "wrested" to allow violence, we’re still in a state of war. Even a judge or ruler can be an oppressor. An important thought: the implication is that men have the right to overthrow unjust rulers: this opposes not only Filmer (the author Locke is responding to) who insisted that kings had "divine right," but Locke's great predecessor Hobbes, who said that rebellion against a king goes against "reason" (check it out, if you wish, in chapter 24 of Hobbes's Leviathan).
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