Locke’s Social Contract Theory
State of Nature: Freedom, equality and the law of nature.
State of War: How it starts and ends.
Locke’s conception of the state
What does the state do?
Why do we form states?
What do we give up when we form a state?
Discuss test questions

Collect your first tutorial assignment at the Philosophy department.
Your next tutorial assignment is due next week Thursday before 12:00.
NOTE: There will be no lectures or tutorials next week, but you still need to hand in your assignment.
Prepare and perfect your answers for the term test – it’s going to be a tough one!
Wednesday 25 February at 13:50
Venue: D3 Lab 401/2
If you can’t make it to the first test opportunity, the second opportunity will be next week Monday in A Les G02 (?!) at 08:30.
Remember to work hard on your tutorial assignments as they collectively count 40% of your term mark!
200924892 – Get your assignment from me during my consultation time.

In 300 words, answer the following question:
Analyse Locke’s argument in Chapter 5 (“Of Property”)?
Due Thursday 26 February before 12:00 at the Philosophy department.
Use your own words.
Find the ARGUMENT: What is the conclusion Locke is arguing for and what are his reasons?
Tutor consultation time:
Asheel and Likhwa: Tuesdays: 10:00-11:15; 15:30-16:15
Patience: Wednesdays 12:10-13:50
Schalk: Mondays 11:40-13:20
Wesley: Tuesdays 12:10-13:50

Recall that Hobbes is regarded as a “social contract” theorist.
Social contract theorists regard the state as an essentially legal entity, arising from a contractual agreement between people to live together.
Before the social contract people live in a “state of nature”, which might have certain benefits but many drawbacks.
Inconveniences or threats compel people living in a state of nature to form a political state and leave the state of nature.
John Locke is another such social contract theorist.
NB: Note in this lecture how his conceptions of the state of nature and the social contract differ from Hobbes’.

Unlike Hobbes, Locke was a supporter of parliamentarian democracy in Britain.
Locke’s father was a captain in the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War (1642-1651).
Locke’s political philosophy is an articulation and defence of constitutional democracy in the social contract theory tradition.
Locke was influential in his own country and abroad, particularly in the newly emerging United
States of America, both in inspiring independence and in creating their constitution.
The American right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in their constitution is taken almost verbatim from Locke’s Second Treatise.
Apart from his work on political philosophy, Locke has also been very influential for his work in epistemology (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding).
He is regarded as the father of
British empiricism.
In contrast to Hobbes’ atheism, Locke was a Puritan and based much of his political thought on his
Christian beliefs. One should therefore be careful to think which of his arguments can be held independently of his religion.

How does Locke conceive the state of nature?
“4. To UNDERSTAND political power right and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.”
Firstly, the state of nature is one of complete personal freedom.
Locke here gives a positive account of freedom:
Free “to order their actions…dispose of their posesstions…”
As well as a negative account:
Free from “asking leave or depending on the will of any other man.”

“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection”
Secondly, the state of nature is one of perfect equality .
This is not a normative kind of equality…
– Locke isn’t saying that in the state of nature people should be treated equally
– but rather that each member of a species has the same abilities .
In a state of nature, people are both free to do what they like and equal to each other.

Can people therefore do whatever they like in the state of nature?
Locke says man “has not Liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any
Creature in his possession, but where some nobler use, than its bare
Preservation calls for it…
The
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, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.”
In a state of nature, reason is the governing law for humans.
Locke says that reason should tell us not only to preserve our personal self, but also everyone else who is our equal.
Think how is this similar to and different from Hobbes’ view?

“…the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation; for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be in vain if there were nobody that in that state of nature had a power to execute that law and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders.”
Like Hobbes, Locke acknowledges that a law needs some power in place to preserve it.
Everyone in the state of nature has the power and authority to execute judgment if someone breaks the law. “…every Man hath a Right to punish the Offender, and be Executioner of the Law of
Nature.”
How should we punish offenders?
Since reason is the law of nature, even in the state of nature one should punish offenders according to how bad their crime was. There should be no excessive retribution.

Since all people are equal, everyone has the right to punish an offender because of their right of protecting all humankind.
“It will perhaps be demanded: with death? I answer: Each transgression may be punished to that degree and with so much severity as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like.”
In addition to carrying out execution on an offender, one also has the right to look for compensation
(reparation) if you were the victim of a crime.
“…and any other person, who finds it just, may also join with him that is injured and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered.”
As such, others may allow a crime to go unpunished, if they think it warranted.
But they cannot stop the victim from looking for repayment for what was damaged or taken from them.

“THE STATE of war is a state of enmity and destruction; and, therefore, declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty but a sedate, settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him or anyone that joins with him in his defense and espouses his quarrel…”
A state of war arises when there is a dispute between two parties.
The intention of war is declared, and each side may be joined with whomever agrees with their case.
Whoever tries to put someone under their absolute authority begins a war with that person.
“…for I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he got me there, and destroy me, too, when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e., make me a slave.”
To be under another’s absolute authority is (a) to be a slave to that person and (b) to have one’s life under constant threat of death by that authority.

Freedom is the basis of all life and action.
If someone tries to take away one’s freedom, then they can take away anything else they desire from that person.
“…he that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.”
For Locke, freedom is sacred and coextensive with one’s life.
“This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life any farther than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretense be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.”

“And here we have the plain difference between the state of nature and the state of war which, however some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state of peace, good-will, mutual assistance, and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence, and mutual destruction are one from another.”
“Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”
“But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war; and it is the want of such an appeal [that] gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor”

When the struggle between two warring parties is over, then the state of war is at an end.
After the state of war, both are once again subject to the law, and can appeal to the law for any past crimes.
However, if those presiding over the law misuse or pervert the law, then the two parties would again fall into a state of war.
Thus whenever there is a biased application of the law, “ War is made upon the Sufferers, who having no appeal on Earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such Cases, an appeal to Heaven.”
“To avoid this state of war — wherein there is no appeal but to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to decide between the contenders — is one great reason of men's putting themselves into society and quitting the state of nature; for where there is an authority, a power on earth from which relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power.”

Ch 1: “3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death and, consequently, all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.”
“ …all this is only for the public good .”
The state exists to serve and defend the citizens… by making and enforcing laws… to protect property (life, liberty and possessions)… and citizens from the power of other states.
Is there not a tension between serving the public and wielding the power of death?

But the state of nature doesn’t seem so bad, does it? There is a shared objective law, and the innocent are protected by everyone else. Occasionally a war breaks out, but we would expect that to happen even with a state.
“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 nobody, why will he part with his freedom, why will he give up his empire and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?”
Just like Hobbes, Locke acknowledges the uncertainty of living in a state of nature. While Locke’s conception of the state of nature isn’t quite as grim as Hobbes’, he nevertheless thinks there are benefits to be gained from making a state.
A human “seeks out, and is willing to joyn in Society with others who are already united, or have a mind to unite for the mutual Preservation of their Lives,
Liberties and Estates”.
Thus a state comes about to protect what you already have by nature, not to take away certain liberties or rights for the security merely of your life. One does not “transfer” or “renounceth” any rights.

“The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting…”
Since property is the foundation of life, it’s the most important thing to be protected.
However, in the state of nature there are some insecurities that threaten one’s property.
FIRST: There is no established law.
Our natural equality and use of reason gives us a shared law… but one is naturally biased towards or against a law when it affects your interests.
A codified law within a state that all or most people agree on would provide a formal standard of right and wrong.

SECOND, a state of nature doesn’t have an impartial (unbiased/indifferent) judge.
People might be too harsh against criminals who have wronged them, or they might be negligent in cases that don’t concern them.
The state provides an impartial judge to decide between matters of dispute.
THIRD, there is no single authoritative power to carry out a judgment.
If someone is judged to be guilty of a crime, they might still get away without punishment if they are strong enough to resist.
By entering into a state with legitimate armed forces (police, army), it will be able to execute and enforce judgments.
What are we to give up to live in a state? For Locke, only (1) acting according to the Law of Nature and (2) our right to punish wrongdoers.
What do you think of these three elements of the state: law, judge and power to enforce? Do they remind you of any government?