This article was downloaded by:[2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University]

On: 9 April 2008

Access Details: [subscription number 791473930]
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Military Ethics

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713690728
John Locke's Morality of War
Alexander Moseley a
a
Classical Foundations, Leicestershire, Stathern, Melton Mowbray, UK

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2005

To cite this Article: Moseley, Alexander (2005) 'John Locke's Morality of War',
Journal of Military Ethics, 4:2, 119 - 128
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/15027570510030824
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570510030824

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,
re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be
complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be
independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or
arising out of the use of this material.
 Journal of Military Ethics,
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

Vol. 4, No. 2, 119
128, 2005

/

John Locke’s Morality of War

ALEXANDER MOSELEY
Classical Foundations, Stathern, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, UK

ABSTRACT This article outlines Locke’s theory of war as found in his political writings and
seeks to redress a perceived imbalance in John Locke’s morality of war. Locke’s strident rejection
of any sense of proportionality in warfare against unjust aggression, as read in the Second
Treatise of Government, has to be tempered with his general philosophical programme against
extremism of any sort. Arguably, Locke’s war ethic when read alone is strict, objective, and
emphatic, but when compared with his epistemological work, its righteousness is reduced to
extreme circumstances.

KEY WORDS: Locke, war ethics, philosophy of war

The political philosophy of John Locke presents a coherent theory of war

centred on a powerful defence of inviolable rights, the civil order, and a strict
demarcation of legitimate targets. Whilst Locke’s theory of war provides an
excellent paradigm for modern military ethics in that it seeks to limit the use
of force to wars of self-defence, its apparent moral righteousness in its
absolute condemnation of those who initiate aggression is disconcerting to
modern ears. A broad study of Locke’s philosophical thought leads to more
liberal and intricate possibilities on how and when wars ought to be fought.
This article proceeds by establishing an original theory outlining the three
most important metaethical principles that subsequently support a Lockean
justum bellum. While much of Locke’s applied morality can be garnered from
the Two Treatises, we should not forget his equally important work on
toleration and in the field of knowledge
drawing on his epistemological
/

theories provides a more vigorous interpretation of Locke’s philosophy.

Locke’s Metaethics of War

The first principle depends on the freedom of man’s conscience to relate to his
God as he sees fit. The maturing Locke was all too aware of the troublesome
potential of government to impose unconscionable dilemmas on the people.
Where once he saw religious uniformity as the key to peace, it became obvious
that the forging of any semblance of religious homogeneity would be

Correspondence address: Alexander Moseley, Director, Classical Foundations, 1 Valebrook Road,

Stathern, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire LE14 4EB, UK. Tel: 44 1949 861407. E-mail: alex@classical-
foundations.com

1502-7570 Print/1502-7589 Online/05/01000119
/10 # 2005 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/15027570510030824
 120 A. Moseley
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

counterproductive in unifying dissenters of the official approach, and thereby

conducive of conflict.
All things religious, Locke concluded, should be left to personal conscience
rather than to the dictates of the state (Locke [1681] 2002f: 374), and
preventing strife caused by imposing particular forms of behaviour on the
people is a state duty. Individual conscience forms an inviolable sphere but
also becomes, thereby, the vehicle for proper moral conduct in the absence of
explicit rules in warfare.
While religion and politics should be separated on prudential or
consequentialist grounds, the inviolability of a man’s life and his property is
absolute. The second tier to the Lockean ethic of war is thus established upon
his potent theory of property’s origins, which consequently presents a
definitive framework by which to judge warriors’ actions. Locke’s justification
of property was and remains one of the most powerful philosophical
explanations of ‘thine and mine’, an ethic worth reworking into the jus in
bello criteria in our own day.
Locke begins with the assertion that man, upon reaching maturity, owns
himself. He is thus beholden to no one except by consent. Accordingly,
slavery
‘the most vile condition’
or any attempts to reduce a man’s status
/ /

to that of serf or dependent, are illogical and immoral. An extension to self-

ownership arises when a man mixes his labour with hitherto unowned
resources: that property becomes his by virtue of his working with it. The
connection between self-ownership and proprietorship is logically tight, and
consequently, any violent attack on a man’s property is as unjustifiable as an
attack on his life
the two being inseparable aspects of a free man.
/

The third premise is derived from Locke’s characterisation of the state of

war. This is less an explanation of the causes of war than a heuristic
description of war’s nature. For a moment, it is worth recalling Thomas
Hobbes’s conception of the state of nature, in which no government or
legislation exists, and which is a state of perpetual war and fear. Fear of their
neighbour’s violence drives men to form a society and thereby donate their
liberties to a ruler, whose purpose is to secure the peace both within and
without the commonwealth (Hobbes [1651] 1996: Part II, Ch. 17).
Whereas Hobbes’s state of nature and state of war are synonymous, for
Locke the state of war is a violation of the state of nature. In contrast to the
peaceful state of nature, ‘the State of War’, Locke writes, ‘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 Mans life,
puts him in a State of War’. That war arises when declared by word or action,
and not a ‘hasty’ or a ‘passionate’ action, suggests that a crime de passion
committed under emotional stress may be forgivable, yet it also raises the
possibility that a declared act of war could be a very reasonable or rational
option for an aggressor. For the most part, Locke insists that aggressors have,
by the fact of initiating force, renounced reason, which conflicts with the
implication of his state of war of a cold and calculating, ‘sedate settled
Design’. It is an apparent inconsistency which requires deeper consideration,
for aggressors cannot be both lower than beasts, who are motivated by their
 John Locke’s Morality of War 121
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

appetite, and simultaneously so calculating. To rescue Locke, it could be

argued that at some point a man’s reason bifurcates: one branch producing
rationalisations
calculated excuses for initiating violence; the other branch
/

reflecting and accepting the laws of nature - that freedom recognises the right
of each to live without interference.
Less controversially, Locke is emphatic that war is a state of affairs that a
single person can induce. Against the just war conventions that wars can only

or should only
be declared by sovereigns, Locke rightly focuses on the
/ /

wielding of violence as being the defining element of war: ‘he that has such a
Power by consent, may make War and Peace, and so may a single Man for
himself, the State of War not consisting in the number of Partysans, but the
enmity of the Parties, where they have no Superiour to appeal to’ (Locke
[1690] 1997a: §131). For Locke there is no distinction between the actions of a
criminal or a foreign army
a thesis that has an ancient lineage traceable to
/

the Greeks and repeated by Cicero, Augustine, and Aquinas. But whereas
they maintain a separation of war and criminality, Locke melds the two into a
common form (Locke [1690] 1997b: §16
18, 176, 181).
/

Locke’s characterisation of the state of nature is that it is a state of perfect

freedom and equality, which is a generally benevolent condition of peaceful
individualism (Ibid: Ch. II) in which conscience guides actions, and applied
reason (reflecting the law of nature) highlights the wrongness and counter-
productivity of aggressing against one’s neighbour: ‘Reason must be our last
judge and guide in everything’ (Locke [1690] 1997c: IV.xix.§14). Those who
leave this pacific affair thereby renounce their humanity and act worse than
beasts, and may accordingly be harshly dealt with, for anything that tends to
induce the state of war is immoral.
Why would free people leave the idyllic condition of the state of nature to
form a government? Arguably, Locke falls back on contemporary fears, but
he also offers an indelible conception of human nature
one that contrasts
/

well with Thomas Hobbes’s. Whereas for Hobbes the persistence of fear and
violence compels men into society, for Locke the absence of power produces
‘inconveniences’ and the fear of civil tumult, and where no common law and
impartial adjudicators exist, the advantages of ‘perfect freedom and equality’
are offset by the worries of aggression. Three inconveniences arise: a lack of
knowledge of or agreement concerning laws; the absence of executive powers
and the subsequent vulnerability of small groups; and agents judging their
own cases with little regard to impartiality.
The move to a political society is hence prudential rather than necessary.
Locke is no conservative for whom the state is the natural reflection of man’s
gregariousness, a theory that underpins most philosophical works on politics
and thus war from Aristotle onward. Instead, for Locke, the state is a tool
that provides useful services that are allegedly absent in the state of nature.
This implies first that political power is derived from and conditional upon
the power that every man in the state of nature possesses, but which is given
over to the society that they form: i.e. to the government set up, by a majority,
to create an established and known set of laws, to arbitrate in disputes, and to
preserve the life and property of its members. Second, the state should not
 122 A. Moseley
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

produce the moral criteria of war: the laws of war are to be found in God’s
laws and social codes of honour, not in legislation (Ibid: II.xxviii.5
16). This
/

is not to deny that the state may enact legislation to circumscribe war’s
initiation or its procedures, for Locke agrees that government is right to make
legislation, but such power is an appendage to human society. In its absence,
God’s divine rules and the mutable codes of good conduct guide a man’s
actions; and in the absence of society, a man must refer to his own conscience
(Ibid: I.iii.8).
Locke’s political vision is thus of a minimal state whose justification can
only be that of consent (Locke [1690] 1997b: §176), which must not possess
arbitrary, absolute powers over the lives and property of the civilians. It is
surprising that Locke seeks to justify a government at all; he lingers close to
anarchy and seemingly leaves it with a heavy heart, and this is important for
his ethic of war. The natural state of humanity is peaceful, so any behaviour
or institution that disrupts that condition is to be rejected, or in the case of
government properly controlled and checked. The republics or loosely
governed tribes of the Old Testament appeal to Locke’s sentiments and to
his guiding image of what a commonwealth ought to be
property and peace
/

rule over unregulated monarchy and its tendency to war; but the absence of
an arbitrating power worries him, and there is an almost Hobbesian retreat
evident in Locke’s thinking: ‘where no such appeal is . . . for want of positive
Laws, and Judges with Authority to appeal to, the State of War once begun,
continues’ (Ibid: §20).
Within the commonwealth, that state of war endures when appeal is
lacking, its process is partial, or when justice is perverted by party interests
(Ibid: §20) or tyranny (acting unjustly) (Ibid: §207). It thus exists between all
nations in the absence of international bodies or when they adjudicate
imperfectly or partially.
To summarise the three pillars of Locke’s metaethics of war: a man’s
conscience is naturally and inviolably his own; so too are his body and thus
the fruits of his labour; and in forming a government, he seeks only protection
and security from those who do him injury. Those who deign to wage war on
their fellow men remove themselves from the natural and rational order
which is man’s proper moral demesne.

Just War
The initiation of aggression against his mind, his body, or his property, thus
begins the state of war and the Lockean framework for the justum bellum.
War is not endemic to human society, because it is not rational, and men are
rational beings, or at least potentially so (Locke [1690] 1997c: IV.xxii). The
mature adult mind understands that violence and aggression are inimical to
life, so those who seek to live by violence are irrational, and being irrational
they reject their own nature and lower themselves below the status of
predatory beasts and vermin. Like such dangers to man, thieves, brigands,
tyrants, and soldiers fighting an unjust war are to be rightfully destroyed
(Locke [1690] 1997b: §8, 10, 16, 181).
 John Locke’s Morality of War 123
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

Thus begins the overriding justification of war
the primary principle of

/

Lockean jus ad bellum: self-defence against the initiation of violence against

life, property, or liberty. This angle on just war is forceful and retains its
appeal today in a world sometimes confused by relativist moral orders; it goes
a long way in upholding modern civilisation against regular and irregular
threats, but Locke’s primary duty for humanity is to avoid the initiation of
aggression.
The initiation of aggression is objectively wrong because it constitutes a
violation of the natural order
the right and reasonable order of men seeking
/

to preserve themselves through liberty and property (Ibid: §176). Rights are
natural and inalienable for reasoning men, Locke propounds, and any action
undermining those rights is a declaration of war, which forfeits the aggressor
his rights. The valid inference is that fighting aggression (which includes
fraud) is the only just cause of warfare (Ibid: §177). The offender puts himself
in a state of war with peaceful society and thereby surrenders all his rights to
the righteous: ‘it being reasonable and just that I should have a Right to
destroy that which threatens me with Destruction’ (Ibid: §16).1 Self-defence is
thoroughly justifiable on the grounds that it is right and natural to defend life,
liberty, and property.
The rational order for humanity is thus pacifistic (Ibid: §7, 19) and is only
disturbed by aggressors seeking to impose their will upon others. Yet Locke
does not dismiss the right to wage war on behalf of an oppressed people: ‘And
any other Person who finds it just, may also joyn with him that is injur’d, and
assist him in recovering from the Offender, so much as may make satisfaction
for the harm he has suffer’d’ (Ibid: §10). However, there is no duty to assist
those subject to unjust deprivation of their rights
Locke deploys ‘duty’ for
/

relations between parents and children rather than for going to the assistance
of those in need (Ibid: §58, 60, 67, 69, 71). Arguably though, Locke would
countenance charitable and voluntary interventions on the part of those ‘who
find it just’. All men are equal before God, which implies that an attack
against one is an attack against all, but that does not mean a government can
fight an interventionist war without first gaining the consent of the people to
raise funds (Ibid: §140). Otherwise, a man is free to help his neighbour
(foreign or otherwise) at his own cost.
Nothing, for Locke, can justify initiating aggression, for that would ‘take
away the Freedom, that belongs to any one in that State [of Nature]’ (Locke
[1690] 1997a: §17). Locke’s logical development of the framework is excellent

individuals possess the right of retaliation and defence against aggressors,
/

who, by initiating force, thereby introduce a state of war, an unjustifiable

condition of violence and inequality that leads to enslavement. Waging a war
against aggression is the only acceptable condition of just cause
wars for
/

glory or for honour or religion are impermissible.

However, just cause resulting from the initiation of any kind of aggression
(violence, theft, fraud) is not sufficient for Locke. In the state of nature, the
defending party has a perfect right to preserve his life and to kill the thief who
would steal his property and thus ‘get me into his Power . . . who would
take away my Liberty [and presumably] take away every thing else’ (Locke
 124 A. Moseley
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

[1690] 1997b: §18), but once a social compact is formed and institutions
of law and order are created, that natural right recedes as alternative appeals
open up for the defendant
so long as they are impartial. Nonetheless,
/

when ‘the aggressor allows no time to appeal to our common Judge’, then
the defendant retains that justifiable right to defend himself and kill his
aggressor.
The existence of appeal courts
of judges with authority
tempers
/ /

the right of the individual (and analogously the nation state) to

retaliate independently. However, should that process be warped and
remedy to the injured be denied by party or interest, the state of war is re-
invoked.
When governments are formed, the justification of war thus passes
from individuals to their representatives
but contrary to the traditional
/

acceptance within the just war convention of rulers possessing the right
to declare war by virtue of their sovereignty, Locke rejects any special
status implied in such political sovereignty. First, sovereignty ultimately
resides with the individual; and second, war can be declared by any who bear
arms, not just by those who sit as conditional representatives or rulers of
their people. One man may thus rightly declare and wage war (Locke [1690]
1997a: §130
132). However, this insufficiency in government control over
/

the declaration of war relates solely to civil affairs. In international affairs,

the appointed government of a nation ought to be the sole adjudicator
of international relations and the sole declarer of war (Locke [1690]
1997b: §102).
Echoing Roman political philosophy, Locke warns that injuries done to
any citizen by a foreign power ‘engages the whole in the reparation of it. So
that under this Consideration, the whole Community is one Body in the State
of Nature, in respect of all other States or Persons out of its Community’
(Ibid: §146). This implies that an attack on a civilian constitutes an attack
against his nationality and thereby justifies a response. In the absence of
treatises and courts, that response may have to be a military one to seek
restitution, reparation, and deterrence.
In the state of nature, before each gives up his rights of punishment to the
political authorities, the individual may punish those who violate his property
as he sees fit. One must surmise that this applies analogously to international
affairs
that governments may pursue their interests in punishing those who
/

threaten them. However, it must be noted that Locke’s stress remains on the
relation between a domestic government and its people
foreign forays (and
/

hence balance of power politics) do not register except insofar as they are the
result of repelling an unjust aggression which may spill over into foreign
territory. The reason is that Locke is highly suspicious of standing armies
/

they are to be eschewed as symptomatic of arbitrary government (Locke

[1675] 2000e: 360
365). Without a standing army, a nation is not very likely
/

to get involved in foreign expeditions, and this tempers any militaristic

reading of Locke’s justum bellum.
 John Locke’s Morality of War 125
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

Jus in Bello
The gravest and most intricate argument stemming from Locke’s thoughts on
justice in warfare is that the initiator of aggression absolutely loses his rights.
This overriding moral principle and its asymmetrical conception of moral
status present problems that begin with the permanent termination of the
right to life upon the initiation of force. That renunciation on the part of an
aggressor is, for Locke, absolute and eternally binding on his moral status.
For a Christian, the lack of forgiveness in Locke’s theorising may seem
harsh,2 but Locke’s duty of charity extends only to the poor, not to those who
have abandoned peace and cooperation. The fundamental law of nature,
Locke writes, is that man has a right to preserve himself, and therefore, ‘one
may destroy a Man who makes War upon him, or has discovered an Enmity
to his being’. Such men have vacated the common realm of reason and ‘have
no other Rule, but that of Force and Violence, and so may be treated as
Beasts of Prey, those dangerous and noxious Creatures, that will be sure to
destroy him, whenever he falls into their Power’ (Locke [1690] 1997b: §16).
Irrationality lies beyond the Lockean realm of freedom and moral equality.
It is held in check with children, but when enacted by an adult, irrationality
negates not only his nature but also his moral status for good. This implies
that a prisoner in an unjust war (who is by definition irrational and beastly)
remains at the whim of his captor
he has lost all of his rights to his captor
/

and may justly be killed or enslaved by him. In modern parlance, the initiator
of aggression loses his ‘personhood’, the Roman and Christian ideal
distinguishing humanity from animals. The abnegation of personhood defines
and justifies the Lockean moral response on the part of the defenders to
punish him and deter others, although Locke does accept the possibility that
a defeated unjust warrior may repent (Ibid: §8). This creates a very powerful
distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets in war
those who
/

initiate aggression are justifiable targets but no-one else; it also implies the
possibility of wielding disproportionate force against transgressors, which
stands contrary to the commonly held just war convention that retaliation
ought to be proportional to the level of attack and intent.
Despite the strong evidence in the Second Treatise emphasising the removal
of aggressors from humanity’s moral spheres, the strictness of Locke’s jus ad
bellum criteria (war may only be fought in self-defence) implies that such an
attitude towards aggressors reflects the emergency conditions of war,3 in
which violence is imminent, inherent, and barely avoidable. For once warring
factions have access to legal remedies, the need to destroy recedes, and
proportionality returns. The injured have a right to punish, to reparations,
and to deter others from similar actions in the future (Ibid: §130).
When war begins, Locke’s property theory prescribes the rights of warriors
to cause damage. A nation that wins a just war gains absolute rights over the
conquered aggressors, but Locke insists that the right does not extend to the
property of the guilty or of their families (Ibid: §179). There is a strong,
distinct sense of the principle of discrimination in Locke’s jus in bello: those
who ‘actually assisted, concurr’d, or consented to that unjust force’, are just
 126 A. Moseley
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

targets; but the conqueror does not possess any jurisdiction over those who
were not linked to the war and who should not be harmed (Ibid: §141).
Accordingly, Locke rejects the morality of a realist position in which ethical
guidelines are rejected in favour of securing military goals. He accepts that
war’s confusion often leads to the discarding of morality, but that should not
be so: ‘tis true [Conquerors] seldom trouble themselves to make the
distinction, but they willingly permit the confusion of War to sweep
altogether; but yet this alters not the Right’ (Ibid: §179). Realists and
consequentialists often reject the principle of discrimination as ‘getting in the
way of ending war as quickly as possible’. In rejecting the principle of
discrimination, they allow or excuse the targeting of non-combatants by
reason of their utility to the war machine or their support for the war. But
Locke is emphatic in denouncing such a move and provides an ingenious
rebuttal to collectivists who seek to expand moral guilt beyond the army to
include those indirectly involved in supporting the army. The people, Locke
argues, would not call for an unjust war that their governors initiate. They are
thus, or must assumed to be, morally innocent and hence unconditionally
external to the legitimate theatre of war (Ibid: §179). Nonetheless, those who
‘abet’ the act may be included, and this leaves the reader wondering to whom
that may apply. Nonetheless, war guilt is individually not collectively held
(Ibid: §183).
Consequently, Locke dismisses the possibility of a total war, in which all
the population can be said to be waging war (Ibid: §188). For instance,
children do not bear arms, and, more importantly, are not of mature
moral status to be held accountable for the political actions of their fathers
(Ibid: §182).
An ambivalence arises over the children who are descendants of just and
unjust causes. The former retain a right to repeal and overthrow an unjust
action (Ibid: §176), but this can only be against the descendants of those who
initiated the violence, which leaves their moral status necessarily tainted by
their fathers’ actions. However, Locke later argues that sins cannot be passed
over generations (Ibid: §182), for that would undermine his entire theoretical
enterprise in the First Treatise! The solution may be found in Locke’s theory
of consent: a man can only consent voluntarily, so promises exacted by
violence are worthless; if a conquering army seeks to rule peacefully, it must
gain popular consent
otherwise it possesses no claim to political
/

sovereignty whatsoever.
In terms of jus post bellum, Locke agrees that property may be taken from
defeated soldiers to pay for the war, but this must not entail the destruction of
the nation’s economic base (Ibid: §184). A conquering force does not possess
any moral right to the property of the innocent (non-combatants), although it
may seek reparations for its costs, which may involve a levee on the entire
population: ‘Conquerors in an unjust War, can thereby have no Title to the
Subjection and Obedience of the Conquered’ (Ibid: §176). But those fighting a
just war gain despotic rights over those who fought in an unjust cause. They
may be enslaved or killed, or perhaps may be allowed to repent, although the
 John Locke’s Morality of War 127
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

emphasis, if read without knowledge of his broader philosophy, is always on

the first two policies!

Conclusion
Developing his ethics of war from a position of individual rights to property
and conscience and the natural order of society as being peaceful, Locke
argues consistently that the only just cause for war is response to an act of
aggression, and that aggressors lose their rights when they put people into a
state of war, although non-combatants should not be targeted. The initiation
of aggression is absolutely immoral and deserves retaliation.
On reading Locke, we cannot ignore that fact that the ethics of killing the
guilty parade somewhat righteously in Locke’s Two Treatises. This leaves a
rather disconcerting impression of the man whom many libertarians deem a
founding father of modern liberalism: apparently, there are no excuses for
soldiers who join an unjust cause
they are to be treated as inhumanely as
/

the victors wish.

Yet Locke’s pacifism and his epistemological theories must not be
forgotten: his political philosophy seeks to ensure that the potential for
aggression is minimised by emphasising the rational, peaceful order that is
morally and naturally man’s by right, and concomitantly limiting the sphere
of government intervention in domestic and thereby foreign affairs. The
libertarian sentiment is clear
armies are only required for purposes of self-
/

defence, and governments should not tax beyond that which is necessary to
ensure the proper running of impartial appeal courts, otherwise high taxes
and standing armies are likely to be used for aggression.
After redressing the emphasis in Locke’s political theory away from the
vehemence of his rejection of aggression towards the natural peaceful order of
man, we can add the weight of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding
which stresses the ignorance and folly of man, and thereby the possibility of
error in war, to the essays and letters on toleration which encourage people to
seek understanding of others’ ways and to reject fanaticism and what we
would now call totalitarianism.

Notes
1
Locke echoes the philosophy of his coeval Samuel Pufendorf (1632
/1694), who had an influence on his
thinking and who also saw aggressors as forfeiting their rights: ‘It is the law of war that one may go to
any length in order to destroy one’s enemy’ (Pufendorf [1688] 1934: 323).
2
In the Second Treatise, the word ‘kill’ is used 11 times, ‘repent’ twice, and ‘charity’ twice. ‘Forgiveness’ is
not employed at all, while ‘mercy’ is used thrice.
3
Walzer’s supreme emergency conditions could be employed here to flesh out Locke’s jus in bello principle
of proportionality. (Walzer [1977] 1992).

References
Copleston, F. (1994) A History of Philosophy, vol. V. (New York: Image).
Dunn, J. (2003) Locke: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
 128 A. Moseley
Downloaded By: [2007-2008 National Cheng Kung University] At: 16:39 9 April 2008

Goldie, M. (2002) Introduction, in: Locke Political Essays , pp. xi
/xvii (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Harris, I. (1994) The Mind of John Locke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Hobbes, T. ([1651] 1997) Leviathan R Tuck (Ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Laslett, P. (1997) Introduction, in: P. Laslett (Ed.), Two Treatises of Government , pp. 3
/133 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1689] 1955) A Letter Concerning Toleration (New York: Bobbs Merrill).
Locke, J. ([1690] 1997a) First Treatise on Government, in: P. Laslett (Ed.), Two Treatises of Government
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1690] 1997b) Second Treatise on Government, in: P. Laslett (Ed.), Two Treatises of Government
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1690] 1997c) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London: Penguin).
Locke, J. ([1660] 2002a) First Tract on Government, in: M. Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1662] 2002b) Second Tract on Government, in: M. Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1663] 2002c) Essays on the Law of Nature, in: M. Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1679] 2002d) Politica, in: M Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Locke, J. ([1675] 2002e) A letter from a Person of Quality, in: M. Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. ([1681] 2002f) Critical Notes on Stillingfleet, in: M. Goldie (Ed.), Locke Political Essays
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Locke, J. (1967) Letter On Toleration R. Klibansky and J.W. Gough (Eds) (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Pufendorf, S. ([1688] 1934) De Jure Naturae et Gentium Libri Octo,. C.H. Oldfather and W.A. Oldfather
(Trans) (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Thomas, C. (1991) There to Here: Ideas of Political Society (London: Fontana).
Walzer, Michael ([1977] 1992) Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books).

Biographies
Alexander Moseley (PhD. Edinburgh, 1997) is currently Director of
Classical Foundations, a private and independent educational organisation he
has founded, and sub-editor for political philosophy of the Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was Assistant Professor for the University
of Evansville 1996-2000, and is author of A Philosophy of War (New York:
Algora, 2002), and co-editor of Human Rights and Military Intervention
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). He has also written two novels under the nom-de-
plume William Venator: Wither This Land (London: WPS, 2003) and Vestiges
of Freedom (London: WPS, 2004). He is currently researching the history of
philosophy and war, and working on a third novel.