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Personal Details

Principal Investigator Prof. A. Raghuramaraju Department of Philosophy,

University of Hyderabad

Paper Coordinator Dr. Shyam Ranganathan Department of Philosophy and Department

of Social Sciences, South Asian Studies,
York University, Toronto

Content Writer Prof. Susan Dimock Professor of Philosophy and University

Professor, Department of Philosophy
York University, Toronto
Content Reviewer Dr. C. Bharath Kumar Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, IIT Indore

Language Editor Miss Chitralekha Manohar Freelancer, Chennai

Description of Module

Subject name Philosophy

Paper Name Ethics-1
Module Name/Title Locke: Property, Authority and Consent
Module Id 4.18
Prerequisites 4.17
Objectives To trace John Locke’s ideas of equality, starting with his particular
conception of property rights, personal rights, and political rights.
Key words Authority, Consent, political right, Locke, property right
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Locke: Property, Authority and Consent

1. Introduction

In this module, we trace John Locke’s ideas of equality, starting with his particular conception of property
rights, personal rights, and political rights. Here, as in the previous module, we see that Locke is
following the program of Ethics as started by Plato, who understood morality in terms of our social and
personal relations. But whereas Plato offers a Virtue Theory in which character determines the rightness
and wrongness of specific actions, Locke defends a theory of Natural Rights in which the rightness or
wrongness of specific actions is determined by their impact (positive or negative) on the rights of the
persons involved. On Locke’s view, our rights dictate what we are and others are morally permitted to do.
Because our natural rights give rise to corresponding duties that limit what others may do to us—they
may not kill us, nor enslave us, nor violate our bodily integrity, nor steal or damage our property—we
could classify Locke’s theory under Deontology or Duty-Based theories. Everyone has a duty to
respect/not to violate the natural rights of all others. Classifying Locke as a deontologist is more
misleading than illuminating, however, because in his view our rights are basic and their corresponding
duties are derivative. Though the differences may look subtle, theories privileging rights rather than duties
as basic are distinct. After describing Locke’s account of natural rights, we reveal how that account
subsequently shapes his consent based defence of limited political authority.

2. The Natural Right to Property

As noted in the previous module, there is a serious ambiguity in Locke’s theory. On the one hand, he
supposed that our natural right to life and liberty is inalienable, and on the other, he supposed that a
person can, through her own wrongdoing, forfeit those same rights.

A similar ambiguity, or duality, attends Locke’s derivation of the right to property. Again, he tells two
competing tales: in one, God plays an indispensable role, while in the other, the basis of property resides
in persons themselves.

Let’s begin with the secular story. Natural reason tells us that everyone has the right to life and a duty to
do that which will preserve it. Consequently, persons must have the right to the necessities of life: “to
meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence.” (Chapter 5, Section 25) It
would be a cruel joke indeed to be told that you have a right to life but no right to any of the material
goods necessary to sustain it.
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The alternative argument from mono-theistic theologies is this: God gave the world to Adam and his
posterity in common. But he gave it to them for their use and benefit. So long as all the bounty of nature
remains in common—the fruit on the trees, the fish in the oceans, the beasts in the woods—it provides
them no advantage or benefit. If they left all of the goods of nature in the common, men would starve
while surrounded by plenty. Plus, “being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to
appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular
man.” (Chapter 5, Section 26) In order to be of use to any particular person, the apple must be picked, the
fish caught, etc. This involves removing it from the common and appropriating it for the exclusive use of
him who picks or catches it. This activity of removing something from the common and appropriating it
for one’s exclusive use is called “initial acquisition” (literally, acquiring it for the first time). Initial
acquisition is the beginning of private property and the exclusive use of things.

How, one might wonder, does one initially acquire that which was previously part of the common stock
of mankind? Locke considers and quickly dismisses one possible answer: that each person acquires
permission to take from the common only through consent of all the rest. He denies that private property
might require the consent or agreement of all the commoners, i.e., all the people to whom it was given in
common by God. Such consent is impossible to get. As Locke put it, “If such a consent as that [everyone
agreeing that you may keep that apple or that fish] was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the
plenty God had given him.” (Chapter 5, Section 28) Thus even if God gave the world in common to us,
there must be some way by which we can come to have rights to the exclusive use of some parts of that
gift, and those rights mustn’t depend upon others giving us permission to use those parts.

Instead, Locke here introduces a wholly novel claim. He says that, while the earth and all its inferior
creatures are given to man in common, things stand very differently when it comes to our own bodies.
These are not part of the common. Rather, “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 works of his hands, we may say, are properly
his.” 1 (Chapter 5, Section 27)

From the premise that we each own ourselves and our labour, Locke derives the origins of private
property. Whenever a person takes something out of the common, he mixes his labour with it and thereby
makes it his property. By picking the apple or catching the fish, a person has “by this labour something
annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable

1
The careful reader will immediately see a problem: here Locke insists that every person owns himself or herself,
yet earlier he claimed that we are owned by God. It is because God owns us that we have a duty to preserve
ourselves and others, and why we cannot sell ourselves into slavery. But if we own ourselves, our own bodies, then
we should expect to be able to destroy or dispose of ourselves as we might anything else that we own.
 4

property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there
is enough, and as good, left in common for others.” (Chapter 5, Section 27) In this way people come to
have exclusive rights to property in the state of nature.

The phrase “enough, and as good, left in common for others” is a crucially important one, for it represents
one of two limits Locke identifies on the appropriation of private property in the state of nature. That one
must leave “enough and as good” for others is typically called “the Lockean proviso.” We will return to it
shortly. The second limit on initial acquisition is much easier both to understand and explain the rationale
of: this is the “no spoilage” condition.

God gave the world in common for persons to use. One may then take what one can use from it by mixing
one’s labour with things in the common. But God did not give us permission, in this story, to take more
than we can use. By appropriating goods, we remove them from the common and thus deny others their
potential benefit. If we take more than we can use before it spoils, we take more than our rightful share. A
person acquires a property right to any goods she expends her labour on to gather, collect, catch, etc. in
the commons. So long as she takes only what she can use, her appropriation is permissible and rational.
But if goods so taken are allowed to spoil, we must judge that she “took more than [her] share, and robbed
others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than [she] could make
use of.” (Chapter 5, Section 46) In the state of nature before the introduction of money, natural reason
directly supports the “no waste” or “no spoilage” limit on appropriation. After all, to appropriate
anything, one must mix one’s labour with it: one must pick the fruit, catch the fish, snare the hare, mill
the flour, etc. To take more than one can use is then utterly irrational; it is, literally, a waste of effort.
Thus no one has any rational motive for taking more than she can use before it spoils.

This rationale extends not only to the fruits of the earth, but to the earth itself, i.e., to land. Private
ownership of property (parcels of land) begins in the same way as does the ownership of other goods in
the state of nature: through labour. “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates and can use
the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, in close it from the common.”
(Chapter 5, Section 32) Just as it would be irrational to pick more apples than one can eat before they
spoil, so it would be irrational to try to enclose more land than one can work and use the produce of.
Doing so would violate the “no spoilage” limit on appropriation, but it is a violation no rational person
would want to engage in, it being nothing but a useless waste of labour.

But once we talk about the appropriation of land itself, the Lockean proviso becomes more important.
This is so because, eventually, all of the useful land in a place will be appropriated and held as private
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property. The person who takes the last parcel of land seems not to leave “as much, and as good” for
others. And since the last person cannot appropriate the last parcel of land, the second-to-last has not left
“as much, and as good” for others, so her appropriation is unjust. But then the third-to-last appropriator
has not left “enough, and as good” for others and so his appropriation is unjust. Repeat. By way of this
backward induction argument, it looks as though the private appropriation of land itself should be ruled
out by the proviso. Locke disagreed.

Locke observed that God gave us the world in common and for our benefit. But he also commanded us to
labour, and especially to work and cultivate the land. Thus we cannot suppose that He intended us to
leave the land “common and uncultivated.” (Chapter 5, Section 34) Instead, He intended the land to be
improved by labour, which would in turn establish ownership to it. While everyone was bound to
privatize only so much land as he could use, there was enough land for all. No one could rightfully
complain about the appropriations of others when there was still enough for him too.

Everything changed, however, with the introduction of money. When “use” was confined to what a
person could usefully mix her labour with and consume, property holdings were very limited and a
natural equality in property resulted. Once money was introduced, by common consent, as a medium of
exchange, however, both the “no waste” and “enough, and as good” for others limits on appropriation of
property fell away. First, one could now appropriate more perishable goods than one could personally use,
so long as one traded those goods with others who would use them. Money does not spoil, and so there is
no limit on how much money one can accumulate. Second, and similarly, the introduction of money
allowed some to appropriate and privatize much more land than they could personally cultivate or work,
the produce of which exceeded their personal needs and desires. For now they could employ labourers for
wages to work the land, and sell the excess produce it produced. Thus with the introduction of money
came significant inequality as well as the division of the population into land owners and landless wage
labourers.

Once it was possible for some individuals to appropriate large tracts of land, in some locations all the
useful land was privatized and held as private property. This would seem to violate the Lockean proviso
that requires each leave “enough, and as good” for others: the person who enclosed the last useful plot of
land surely did not satisfy the proviso, for there would no longer be land for subsequent persons to
privatize. Yet Locke thinks private ownership in land, even in places like England where all the usable
land was owned, could be reconciled with the proviso by considering the comparative value of privately
owned and cultivated land, on the one hand, and land left uncultivated and in the common, on the other.
The value of cultivated land vastly exceeds that of otherwise similar land that has been left in its natural
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state. The extra value of cultivated land is the product of the labour put into it. Even when no land is left
for others,

he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increases
the common stock of mankind: for the provisions serving to the support of
human life, produced by one acre of enclosed and cultivated land, are … ten
times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of equal richness
lying waste in common. And therefore he that encloses land, and has a greater
plenty of the conveniences of life from ten acres, than he would have from an
hundred left to nature, may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind: for his
labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the
product of an hundred lying in common. I have here rated the improved land
very low, in making its product but as ten to one, when it is much nearer an
hundred to one: for I ask, whether in the wild woods and uncultivated waste of
America, left to nature, without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a
thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniences
of life, as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, where they are well
cultivated? (Chapter 5, Section 34)

Thus, while the last person to enclose land in a place does not leave as much and as good land for others,
he nonetheless leaves more than enough and as good of what serves the needs and even desires of others
so long as he puts the land to productive use. Whether one directly labours on land one owns, or on land
owned by others as a wage labourer, one will enjoy a better life in a society in which land is privately
owned than in one where land still lays in common.2 If one takes a purely instrumental view of things, it
really does not matter whether you own land or just your labour; both have value only to the extent that
you can use them to supply the variety of material goods and non-material advantages (good health,
leisure, etc.) that one needs and wants to live a happy and fulfilled life. Locke’s empirical claim is that the
needs and wants of everyone are better fulfilled in a system of privatized and improved land holdings and
wage labour than in a system of non-ownership or common ownership of unimproved land. All of this,

2
It was because the inhabitants of the Americas had not privatized and made productive use of the land that Locke’s
theory was thought to license the appropriation of massive tracts of land by the colonizers from Europe; the land was
considered to still be unowned and so part of the common gift God gave people to use to supply the goods they need
for preservation and good lives. This of course ignored the fact that the land was used by the indigenous peoples
already there. But, in fairness to Locke, one can see how a comparison of the lives of western Europeans and
aboriginal groups in the Americas in the two centuries before his time might suggest that people are better off with
private property than without.
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though, is possible only because of the agreement to allow money to serve as a medium of exchange,
including the exchange of labour for money. (Chapter 5, Sections 35-37)

Locke’s case for an unlimited right to hold private property relies upon his twin claims: that everyone
owns his own body and labour, and that it is labour that produces most of what is useful or delightful for
human beings. Indeed, Locke developed an influential “labour theory of value.”3 That theory holds that
“labour … puts the difference of value on everything.” (Chapter 5, Section 40) When we compare what
nature alone provides for our use, and what we have created from our labour, we see that labour adds
almost all of the value to the resultant goods.

There cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything, than several members of

the Americas are of this, who are rich in land and poor in all the comforts of
life; whom nature having furnished as liberally as any other people, with the
materials of plenty, i.e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance, what might
serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet for want of improving it by labour,
have not one hundredth part of the conveniences we enjoy: and a king with a
large and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-
labourer in England.” (Chapter 5, Section 41)

Only labour makes the difference in value, as materials taken from nature and improved (e.g., as the
produce of silk worms is transformed into cloth, grapes are made into wine, or wheat is turned into bread)
by labour are of vastly greater benefit to mankind than the raw products are alone. And in addition to its
contribution to so much that we value, to labour is also attributed our original right to property. Labour is
our title. Labour establishes property in initial acquisition—the removal of any unowned thing from the
commons for one’s exclusive use—because it alone is naturally one’s own. Because I am the “proprietor”
of my own person and its actions and labours, when I labour on anything in the commons, I mix with it
something that is exclusively mine, something that does not belong in common to others. Thus I have
within myself “the great foundation of property.” (Chapter 5, Section 44)

We have seen that the introduction of money radically transformed the state of nature. Before the
introduction of money, the state of nature was a state of rough equality among persons who acquired
property only for personal use, and private property remained very limited in extent. This was especially
so with respect to perishable goods whose value lasted only over short durations, e.g., fruits, vegetables,
animal proteins and other consumable things. Such items rot or decay if not used promptly. Even before

3
A similar position was later articulated by Karl Marx in Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Capital:
Critique of Political Economy) in 1867, though to very different effect.
 8

money was introduced, though, some limited form of market exchange no doubt developed, at least in the
form of barter. If a person could exchange an excess bucket of apples she had picked for a kilo of nuts
that would last a year, no wrong would be done others, so long as both the apples and nuts were
consumed by their new owners before they rotted. If a person were likewise willing to exchange her
apples for a piece of metal, or a diamond, or any other thing that never perished or rotted, then the “no
waste” condition would be satisfied. With respect to anything that is truly non-perishable, there is no
natural limit on acquisition; each may “hoard up as much of these durable things as he pleased” without
invading the rights of others: “the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness
of his possession, but the perishing of anything uselessly in it.” (Chapter 5, Section 46) The exchange of
useful but perishable goods for “some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling” was made
easier with the introduction of money. Once people by mutual consent agreed to take some relatively
useless thing – gold, silver, diamonds or paper – “in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports
of life,” vast inequalities of wealth became possible.

It is only, too, with the introduction of money that anyone has a rational motive to accumulate wealth in
excess of one’s needs and wants. If one has no opportunity to exchange the goods one produces with
others, one will naturally labour only so much as to produce what one can use. Prior to the introduction of
money, there was no reason to enlarge one’s holdings beyond what was needed for consumption and
barter. (Chapter 5, Section 48)

Locke was well-aware of the fact that the introduction of money both enabled and motivated the
accumulation of unequal amounts of wealth. “But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of
man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof
labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain that men have agreed to a disproportionate and
unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out a way how a
man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the
overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or
decaying in the hands of the possessor.” (Chapter 5, Section 50)

He was likewise well aware that, with the inequality of property holdings and wealth money made
possible came also new sources of quarrel and dispute among people. When everyone had little and only
so much as they were obviously using, there was no need to quarrel over land or goods. If enough and as
good was left for others in the common, none had grounds to complain about the acquisitions of others.
Nor was there any incentive to invade the holdings of others, when each had enough for himself and an
excess would simply be wasted. But with the introduction of serious wealth inequality and unequal
 9

holdings, a person’s title to his property was no longer tied so obviously to his own labour, and others
might be tempted to complain about the vast holdings of others, when they enjoyed not the same
themselves. Thus there arose a need to make the bounds of holdings determinate. Since exchange now
had to be mediated by money, people found themselves needing new rules that would support new forms
of exchange. And those with significant wealth needed increased security against those without, since the
latter might now be tempted to invade the property of the former. It was to better fix and protect property
rights that people eventually came to create political societies.

Private property thus begins with human self-ownership and labour. It extends to external objects and to
the land itself. It includes the property holder’s right not only of exclusive use, but also to bequeath it
upon death to whomever the owner chooses. Thus Locke supported the practice by which private property
is transferred when the owner dies, on the grounds that such a right is included in the bundle of rights that
constitute property ownership, rather than, say, because children have a right to inherit. Grown children
have no such right, which would interfere with the liberty of current owners to do what they will with
what they own. Nor do grown children have any natural duty to accept goods bequeathed to them. (This
latter is important when the property is real property (land), because land in most parts of the world falls
within the jurisdictional boundaries of specific nation states. One can own such land only by submitting to
the government of that state and accepting a duty to obey its laws. Forcing a child to accept an inheritance
of land seemingly rob him of the natural freedom Locke says every person has to decide upon maturity
what society he will join, or what commonwealth she will put herself under. Voluntary acceptance of such
an inheritance, though, signals the recipient’s submission to the government of the country in which the
land exists, and establishes political obligations (as we immediately see). (Chapter 6, Section 73)

3. Parental Authority and Equality

The claim that all persons are equal might seem, as an empirical matter, false if not absurd. But Locke
does not deny that persons may be unequal in many ways: in age or virtue, in mental or physical abilities,
for example, people differ considerably. Nor does everyone stand in an equal position relative to others:
one may owe another gratitude and loyalty, for instance, because of some good the first received from the
second. And once money is introduced into the state of nature, some may be much wealthier than others.
These and a myriad of other ways in which individuals differ one from another do not contradict Locke’s
posited equality, however, for when he speaks of equality, he means that everyone has an “equal right to
his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man.” (Chapter 6,
Section 54) People can enjoy this right equally even if they are unequal in many material or social ways.
 10

To establish the equal natural freedom of every person, though, Locke will have to reconcile such
freedom with the facts that individuals are (1) under parental power during their childhoods, (2) under
political authority, and (3) bound by the laws of nature. We will return to (2) shortly, but first we must
examine the extent and basis of “paternal” (or as Locke thinks more accurate, “parental”) authority. We
then examine how he reconciles our claims to freedom with the authority of the natural law.

The issue of paternal authority was one Locke had to address, because those (like Filmer) who defended
the “divine right of kings” did so on the supposed power of Adam-as-father. The idea was that God gave
Adam domination over all else, including over other people; Adam’s paternal authority transferred
through an unbroken line of successors to his sons and their sons …; and the authority of legitimate kings
currently likewise derives from that original gift of power to Adam-as-father. This was the doctrine Locke
critiqued in The First Treatise on Government. Even if we reject the “divine right of kings” as the
foundation of legitimate political authority, though, the question of how we reconcile the claim to equal
freedom with the authority of parents remains, and Locke spent considerable time discussing it.

First, Locke denies that fathers have any rights over their children that mothers do not equally have. Thus
he prefers to speak of “parental” rather than “paternal” power or authority. Nor does he think that
whatever rights parents have over their children are inalienable to biological parenthood per se. If a father
dies while his children are young, for example, and the mother remarries, the step-father assumes a full
share of parental rights over the former’s children. The same is true if a father abandons his children: his
rights over them thereafter cease to be. This is because the rights that parents have over their children,
especially their right to decide what their children may or may not do, is conditional on the parents
assuming duties to preserve, nurture, care for and educate them. Parents have duties to their children, and
correspondingly have that degree of power over them as is needed for the proper fulfilment of those
duties. This power is also, in the normal course, temporary: it lasts only as long as the child needs to be
guided by another for his own good. Finally, and crucially against those who try to base absolute political
authority on the paternal power of Adam over his children, the power that parents have over their
children, even while they are too immature to govern themselves, is of limited extent (not just duration).
The power of parents does not include the power to punish their children with death and every lesser
penalty for disobedience to the rules parents establish; since the power to punish with death is the
hallmark of political authority for Locke, this limitation on parental authority suggests that it is distinct
from political authority. Parental power is limited by the natural rights of children to life and to property,
even during the age in which parents may legitimately interfere with their liberty.
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Locke thus says: “Children, I confess, are not born in this full state of equality [to be free from the will or
authority of any other man], thought they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction
over them when they come into the world, and for some time after; but it is but a temporary one” (Chapter
6, Section 55) Children’s subjugation to their parents lasts only until age and the development of their
reason have advanced to the point at which they are capable of understanding and obeying the natural
law. At that time the child is as free as her parents themselves.

Human children are born “weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding.” (Chapter 6, Section
56) Thus parents are, “by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish and educate the
children they beget. This is an obligation God has placed on parents to preserve those who are His
‘workmanship’.” (Chapter 6, Section 57) It is a duty to which human beings are naturally inclined, by the
emotional attachment to and love of one’s own children. Parental obligation is primary on this account,
and parental power derivative. “This power, then that parents have over their children, arises from that
duty which is incumbent upon them to take care of their off-spring, during the imperfect state of
childhood.” (Chapter 6, Section 58)

4. Societies, Conjugal and Political, Rest on Consent

Human beings are naturally social creatures. “[N]ecessity, convenience, and inclination drive
[individuals] into society, as well as fit [them] with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it.”
(Chapter 7, Section 77) The first society was “conjugal society,” formed between men and women,
growing into families with the adding of children and later servants too. Conjugal society was created by
“a voluntary compact between man and woman,” the terms of which included not just sexual access for
procreative purposes, but “mutual support and assistant,” and “a communion of interests.” (Chapter 7,
Section 78) The end of conjugal society was not mere procreation, but continuation of the species. Given
natural realities, this end is best served by men and women joining together for extended periods of time,
long enough for the nourishment, support and education of their common children to be completed. When
women beget further children, before the earlier are yet out of dependency, the period extends even
further. (Chapter 7, Section 81)

Locke took the idea of “compact” or “contract” very seriously here. He saw no reason why such contracts
should not be of a fixed duration, or binding only so long as needed so parents could fulfil their
obligations to their children. He saw no reason why they could not be conditional and so voidable, by
either party. And, as “voluntary,” he saw no reason why marriage contracts should establish the despotical
authority of husbands over their wives, any more than they should establish unlimited parental authority
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of fathers over their children. Fathers have no authority to do anything that would prevent their children
from coming into their full entitlement of natural rights—to life, liberty and estate—upon maturity. And
so fathers could not kill or maim their children, sell them into a state of slavery, or even take any portion
of whatever property they happened to acquire by their own industry or the largess of others. Likewise,
husbands have no authority to violate the rights of their wives. Women are free to dissolve their unions
when the contract permits dissolution, enjoy the full right to property, and may retain custody of any
minor children. As Locke said earlier of children, if a man must at some future time allow his wife to
regain her full freedom, he cannot have arbitrary control over her before that time. (Chapter 7, Sections
81-82) Like all voluntary contracts, they impost only so many limits on the freedom of the contractors as
is necessary to accomplish their ends. The ends of conjugal society are procreation, mutual assistance and
support, and the successful raising of the next generation. These goals do not require that husbands enjoy
“absolute sovereignty and power of life and death” over women, or children, and so those powers are not
annexed to the means: “nothing being necessary to any society that is not necessary to the ends for which
it is made.” (Chapter 7, Section 83) Similar reasoning extends to servants within families; the contract of
service for wages is limited in duration and scope, and does not confer unlimited authority over servants,
whose natural rights to life and property remain as inviolate as those of the master of the family himself;
the limits on liberty are only those established in the service contract. Indeed, in Locke’s view, there are
no stable relations between people outside of political society that establish or permit despotical power on
one side and complete subjugation on the other. Even slaves – those who have forfeited their rights by
being captured in an unjust war – do not remain in that state. As soon as the slave offers obedience and
service in exchange for life and physical liberty, and that offer is accepted, the relation ceases to be only
of slavery and becomes instead one of service, drudgery maybe, but absolute power, no. The master
cannot kill or maim the servant, nor violate his right to property or to liberty beyond the terms of the
contract.

We have thus the following tale. Human beings are born to a state of freedom, a state realized when they
come, through maturation and education, to the normal use of reason and capacity for understanding.
They are then able to know the natural law, which enjoins them to respect the natural rights of others—to
life, liberty and property—as well as to exercise those rights in themselves. After the introduction of
money into this state of nature, what would previously have been a state of rough equality of wealth
became a state of serious wealth inequality. Some became land owners and owners of other means of
production, while others became servants and wage labourers. And yet each had dramatically greater
access to a wider range of material goods once money was introduced, and so by tacit agreement accepted
this new form of inequality. Contractual arrangements between individuals also greatly increased with the
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introduction of money, as the wage labour economy expanded. This is the Lockean state of nature, a state
of peace for the most part, but with ever-increasing causes of quarrel amongst its members. It is a pre-
political state, containing law but without a political authority to interpret and enforce it. And in it
individuals are therefore burdened with three “inconveniences”: they must be judge in their own quarrels,
they must enforce the law of nature themselves, and they must punish violators. If others do not accept
our judgement of the facts or interpretation of the law, or if they resist us when we seek to punish their
transgressions as we think fit, as may well be expected, these inconveniences become troublesome, even
dangerous. The state of peace can degenerate into a state of war. And under such circumstances, none can
feel very secure in their individual abilities to defend their rights against aggressors. In the state of nature,
each person has “a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the
injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is
persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself ….” (Chapter 7, Section 87) It is to better secure
our rights, and to overcome these inconveniences, that we leave the state of nature and create political
societies.

The Second Treatise contains Locke’s attempt to explain the origin (“original”), limits (“extent”), and
purpose (“end”) of civil government. The political authority whose nature and justification he explores is
defined thusly:

Political power … 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 defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this
only for the public good. (Chapter 1, Section 3)

The inconveniences of the state of nature are what drive people into political societies, and so it is no
surprise that Locke identifies the core of political power as the political, institutionalized analogue of the
natural powers that give rise to them. Thus political power is characterized as (1) the power to create
“settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties”; (2) the authority to appoint some persons
who will execute those rules, and who will decide all disputes about rights that might arise; and (3) the
power to punish violators, with death or any lesser penalties. When every individual has the authority to
interpret the law, execute the law and punish violators, quarrels descend into war, and the property of all
is rendered thereby less secure. It is to avoid this danger that persons establish political society, and the
only way that solution works is by everyone agreeing to “quit[] this natural power, resign[] it up into the
hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protections to the law
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established by it.” (Chapter 7, Section 87) Thus political society exists only when a government is
constituted and empowered by the community to create a legal system: legislative, executive and judicial
branches each performing the tasks individuals themselves had to perform in the state of nature. “Those
who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with
authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with
another: but those who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each
being, where there is no other judge for himself, and executioner; which is, as I have before showed it, the
perfect state of nature.” (Chapter 7, Section 87)

Political society must authorize some to respond, not just to violations of the law by members of society,
but to violations of the natural law by external aggressors as well. Thus also annexed to political power is
the power of making war and peace. (Chapter 7, Section 88)

Individuals surrender their legislative and executive powers, together with their powers to punish, to a
central authority in creating civil society. They do this only because it is necessary for the protection of
their lives, liberties and estates. When previously free people come together in this way, to create a new
polity governed by such legal institutions, that will exercise the natural rights on behalf of the people as
their agent, we speak of a “social contract.” This is the only legitimate origin of governments. Once a
plurality of independent political communities exist, people can also surrender their natural rights
(legislative, executive and judicial) to any existing state, by joining with it and accepting duties of
obedience to it. Whether a group of free people join together in a social contract to create a new political
community, or a person joins an existing polity, the authorization of the government remains exactly the
same.

The goal of political society is to avoid, and remedy, those inconveniences of the state of nature that
necessarily follow from every man’s being judge in his own case. (Chapter 7, Section 90) It follows that
“absolute monarchy” can never be a legitimate form of political society. So long as an absolute ruler
retains the right to decide any controversy involving himself and others, he remains in a state of nature
with respect to those whom he purports to govern. Where there is no standing rule and common judge to
resolve controversies between an absolute ruler and those he rules, they remain in the state of nature and
subject to all its inconveniences “with only this woeful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an
absolute prince: that whereas, in the ordinary state of nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, and
according to the best of his power, to maintain it; now, whenever his property is invaded by the will and
order of his monarch, he has not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but if he were degraded
from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or to defend his right; and so
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is exposed to all the misery and inconveniences that a man can fear from one, who being in the
unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed with power.” (Chapter 7, Section 91)
Thus Locke concludes (contra Hobbesian) that the election of an absolute monarch does not remove
people from the state of nature, for it does not secure the ends for which political association is sought.
True, an absolute monarch can ensure that, between subjects, rights are respected, and transgressions
punished. But that hardly makes establishing an absolute ruler a rational choice: “as if when men quitting
the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one should be under the restraint
of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made
licentious by impunity. This is to think that men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs
may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.”
(Chapter 7, Section 93)

Political societies begin and subsist only with the consent of the governed. When a group of people
choose to form a political community together, “one body politic,” they thereby also agree to be bound by
the will of the “majority” thereafter. (Chapter 8, Section 95) In consenting to form one government, each
must authorize and empower it to act on behalf of all. Practically speaking, the body politic must act even
in the absence of consensus about what should be done amongst the members. Thus they come to see that
each must “submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it.” (Chapter 8, Section
97) Only if the majority can act for all can political government be effective, given disagreement amongst
the members of the society. Thus, “that, which begins and actually unites any political society, is nothing
but the consent of any member of freeman capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a
society. And it is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the
world.” (Chapter 8, Section 99)

Consent remains the only foundation of political authority even after many political communities have
come into beginning through original social contracts. Even though most people are now born into extant
polities, we should not conclude that they are no longer free to decide whether they will consent to the
government there or seek another elsewhere. As Locke points out, to suppose that any people have ever
had the capacity to establish a legitimate government through their own consent entails that every person
has it too. If the father was capable of entering into political society, having been born free and rational,
so too must his sons have the same liberty, when they become mature enough to exercise it. Though we
are born in political societies, they have no claim to our allegiance until we have become capable of
agreeing to it, or going elsewhere to find or create something more to our liking. We assume political
obligations by an act of will and consent. History is filled with examples of people breaking with the
community of their forbearers and establishing new ones elsewhere. To suppose that we are bound to the
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governments under whose jurisdiction we are born is to suppose that our parents were able not only to
consent to their own subjugation to a specific government by agreement, but able too to bind their
children and posterity by the same consent. But parents can assume obligations only for themselves;
doing so involves a transferring of some of their natural rights to a political authority to exercise on their
behalves, and consent to be bound by the majority will of the resulting polity. Parents have control over
their own rights and can exercise their freedom in this way. But all the freedom and any rights that parents
claim, including the right only to be governed through their own consent, are as fully the entitlements of
their children upon maturity. Only the individual himself can transfer his natural rights or subordinate
himself to a political authority. A parent can no more give away the rights of her child than she can the
rights of her neighbours. Both natural and positive law recognize that “a child is born a subject of no
country or government.” (Chapter 8, Section 118) Instead, every person being naturally free, only their
own consent can put them under the subordination of another.

The consent by which one becomes the member of a political community may be express or tacit. Locke
says of the former only: “No body doubts but the express consent, of any man entering into any society,
makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government.” (Chapter 8, Section 119) That
has been challenged by more recent thinkers, who wonder about the exact content of the act of
subordination, about exactly what persons agree to in consenting to membership in a given polity. Locke
had no such concerns. Instead, he thought that only tacit consent—expressed through actions and inferred
rather than given directly through an expressed wish to be so joined—raised any difficulty. This issue is
unavoidable for any consent theorist, of course, because few members of ongoing societies are asked for
or given explicit opportunity to consent to that society. Exceptions include those who must give a public
oath in order to fill a specific position in society (e.g., members of Parliaments) or immigrants who take
oaths of citizenship which make their consent explicit. Most members of ongoing societies don’t have
such opportunities. And yet, if one remains in the country of one’s birth or in the society to which one’s
parents had joined after coming of age, it is assumed that one has thereby indicated a willingness to
continue one’s association with it and consent to its government and laws. What, besides remaining in a
place when free to leave, constitutes tacit consent to a polity will be controversial. Locke thought owning
land in a jurisdiction was conclusive proof of consent to submission to the commonwealth in which it
rests. But he also thought that the mere receipt of benefits from the community could indicate acceptance
of its authority. And even then, if one would abandon one’s land (sell it, donate it, etc.) and forgo the
community’s benefits by quitting it, one may with perfect right withdraw one’s tacit consent and seek
society elsewhere.
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5. Conclusion

At a time when many argued that the grounds of our rights were hereditary, Locke identifies rights as
natural and equally distributed amongst humans. This was and continues to be a defining feature of a
humanistic, secular frame, notwithstanding the sometimes theological justifications that Locke provides.
Locke’s theory of natural rights and his deontological account of our natural duties differ sharply from
both virtue theoretic accounts of society and contractarian accounts. Contrary to virtue ethicists, Locke
insisted that we can subject actions to moral scrutiny directly; actions are not merely external signs of
character, which are the basic bearers of value, for such theorists. In contrast to contractarians, such as
Hobbes, Locke believed that individuals have natural rights and duties that are not mere artifacts of
political society. For Locke, natural rights are natural normative facts about us.

This is Locke’s theory of natural rights and its implications for authority (parental, conjugal and political).
It remains one of the greatest defences of individual liberty ever penned, a treatise whose intellectual
accomplishments are matched only by its profound practical effects. It continues to reward careful study
by students today.