Locke, John (1632–1704)

A British political philosopher and Oxford academic whose writing carried forward the earlier ideas of the natural law philosophers, from Cicero (106–43 BC) through Johannes Althusius (1557–1638), Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), the Levellers led by John Lilburne (1614–1657), James Harrington (1611–1677), Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), Henry Neville, James Tyrrell (1642–1718), and Algernon Sidney (1622–1683). His major work, The Second Treatise on Civil Government, which was written in the years 1679–1683, was not published until 1689, together with his first treatise, titled Two Treatises on Government. His writings were not much noted during his life, but after about 1705 they emerged as expressive of the principles of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and became the main authority for the Whig Party, together with the writings of Tyrrell and Sidney. It was in British North America that his social contract theory would become most influential, and it provided the theoretical foundation for the American War of Independence and the state and federal constitutions of government that emerged from that.

Lockean theory holds that every society is the result of a social contract among its members, by which they agree to cooperate in defending one another's natural rights of life, liberty, and property. This is not a formal legal contract enforceable in a court of law, or a distinct event, but a largely tacit agreement that people are induced to adopt by their [Page 871]parents or guardians from childhood. A child becomes fully committed to the contract by reaching the age of majority without leaving the territory over which the society has dominion. An individual is subject to the will of the society in much the way he is subject to the will of the head of a household while he remains within its premises. When he has children of his own, he has a duty to induct them into the society.

Locke's concept of property is somewhat broader than common usage of the term. For him a person creates and acquires title to property by mingling his labor with some raw material not the property of another, or if it is owned by another, a claim on the increase in value of it. He also suggested that a person may lose title to property by not making full use of it, letting all or part of it go to waste, when it could be used by others. This is the theory by which persons may appropriate unused land if the original owner ceases to use it or defend his title to it. Every individual has a property in his own person, so that the rights to life and liberty can be cast as property rights.

Locke examines how the social contract may be breached, so that the situation passes from the state of society into the state of nature, in which everyone is engaged in unrestricted competition with one another. He argued that every person has the right to enforce the contract against offenders of his rights, including, if necessary, by killing the offender, as an act of self-preservation, or to protect his liberty or property, and to take reasonable measures to prevent violations. He maintained that to allow someone to enslave him, or deprive him of the means to life, was a threat to his life, and therefore he was justified in using force to defend his rights. He also has a duty to defend the rights of others, because a threat to one is a threat to all.

...