John Locke:

Political power = the right to make laws, to regulate and preserve property, and to employ the
force of the community in enforcing those laws

Chapter 2:
- What is man’s natural state?
o State in which we are perfectly free
o Only like this when there is no power
 Natural state is equality
- Richard Hooker: Obligation to love one another
o Duty to help one another
- Locke thinks: Hooker describes a state of liberty but not license (no constraints on how
people behave)
- No one should harm anyone in his life, liberty, and property
- Suicide is bad
- Law of nature is everyone’s obligation
- If someone breaks the law of nature, he is saying he is free to live against the rule of
common fairness and Reason (going against God)
o Dangerous man
o Offense against all of humankind
- Every man has the right to enforce the law of nature and to punish offenders
- When someone is harmed, they have a right to seek reparation

2 Rights:
1) The right everyone has to punish the criminal
a. Magistrate can cancel the punishment of a criminal offence when the public
doesn’t demand that the law be enforced
2) The right that an injured party has to seek reparation
a. The magistrate cannot cancel the “satisfaction” due to the private man for any
damage he has received

What is Locke’s definition of the natural state of man, and how does it defer from Hobbes’s
definition?
- More peaceful
- Equality, freedom, reason = 3 elements of natural state of man

Reason

Law of nature protects the state of nature

What is Locke’s definition of the state of war and how is it different from Hobbes?
- War is natural

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 - You have a right to destroy what would destroy you
- Men should be in a society and not a state of nature because when they are in a state of
nature, there is no one to decide between contenders in an argument  war.

Chapter 5: Property
- God gave men everything on Earth for them to use at their own convenience
- Your own hands are yours, so when you take something, using your own labor, it is now
your property.
o The item is removed from the common state of nature

2/6/17

What makes the commonwealth sustainable?

- Majority power system
- Choice to join

Description of civil society:

- Voluntarily joined

Tacit agreement vs. Explicit agreement

What aspects of human nature does Locke attempt to modify with the invention of the
commonwealth?
- Men are naturally free, equal, and independent, but in joining a commonwealth, they
give up many of those freedoms.

Humans are:
- Peaceful and do not have a desire for war
- Self-preserving
- Free, equal, and independent
- Reasonable
- Not strict observers of fairness and justice

We are obliged to love one another (more law of nature)

To protect our property, we need…

1) Good law = legislative
2) Good judge = judicial
3) Good power = executive

We have 2 powers in the state of nature:

1) To do whatever you see fit in order to preserve yourself and others
2) Power to punish crimes

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2/8/17

Chapter 11 = boundaries/powers of legislature

- Law of nature is unwritten (found only in the minds of men)
- The laws formed by legislature fall under the state of nature

Branches of government: legislative, judicial, executive