John Locke

Overview

John Locke wrote the Two Treatises of Government during the political crisis of the early 1680s and published them after the revolution of 1688. The first treatise dismantles the argument for the divine right of kings; the second, far more read, sets out his own account. People in the state of nature hold natural rights to life, liberty and property, and Locke ties property to labour: mixing your work with what nature provides makes it yours, within limits he then has to defend. Government exists as a trust, established by consent in order to protect those rights, and a government that acts against them dissolves its own authority, at which point resistance is not rebellion but the reclaiming of a delegated power. His accounts of tacit consent and of original acquisition are the parts most argued over, and his involvement in the administration of England's American colonies sits uneasily with his stated principles. Start with the Second Treatise, chapters 2, 5, 8 and 19.

Where to start reading

• Second Treatise of Government 1689

  The positive half of the Two Treatises: natural rights, property through labour, government as a trust, and the right of resistance when the trust is broken.

  Read it in the library

• A Letter Concerning Toleration 1689

  An argument that civil authority has no business enforcing religious belief, since belief cannot be compelled and the magistrate has no special access to truth.

Part of

• Liberalism

Sources

1. Locke's Political Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. Locke, John: Political Philosophy Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
3. Two Treatises of Government Wikipedia