17.03. Introduction to Political Thought
Lecture Outline: Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chs. 1-4
Dates: 1632 Birth
1649 Charles I executed
1660 Restoration (Charles II ruled 1660-1685)
1680 Exclusion Crisis and Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
1683 Locke fled to Holland
1685-88 Rule of James II
1688 William and Mary crowned
1689 Locke returned to England
1704 Death
I. Background
A. Personal
1. Family: Puritan traders; father was captain in Parliamentary army in civil wars of 1640s
2. Service to Earl of Shaftesbury as physician and researcher
B. Locke’s Two Treatises as theoretical justification for resistance to the sovereign
C. First Treatise directed against Robert Filmer’s defense of the divine right of kings
D. Aim of Second Treatise
II. Dilemma of reading Locke: extraordinarily influential but philosophical weaknesses
A. Hobbes more influential philosophically (Rousseau, Kant)
B. Locke’s philosophical weaknesses
1. Assertions of positions without adequate defense (majority rule, property rights)
2. Theological grounds that no longer command widespread assent
C. If Locke is best theoretical defense of liberal democratic institutions and his arguments are
weak, is this a problem for us?
III. State of Nature
A. Locke on human nature
1. Equality
2. Freedom and rationality
3. Sociability
B. Differences with Hobbes
1. God and natural law restrain what people do
a. For Locke state of nature is “a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance and
preservation” (§ 19)
b. State of nature degenerates into state of war because (i) details of law of nature
unclear, (ii) whether and to what extent it has been violated unclear, (iii) not
everyone is disposed to obey it
2. Every man has right to execute the law of nature
a. Objection: unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases
b. Locke’s reply
3. Property rights are pre-political
IV. Liberty
A. Natural liberty
1. To be under no restraint but the law of nature
2. Liberty is not license or freedom to do whatever one pleases
B. Civil liberty
1. Established by consent
2. To have common rules to live by and not to be subject to arbitrary will of another
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