POLITICAL COMMUNITY
AND THE RIGHT TO RESIST
JOHN LOCKE
THE SECOND
TREATISE
LECTURE 2-4
JANUARY 6-11, 2016
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. John Locke
2. State of Nature
3. Property and Money
4. Social Contract
5. Executive Prerogative
6. The Right to Resist and the Appeal to Heaven
JOHN LOCKE
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1632, Born in England
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Secretary to Lord Shaftesbury
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Whigs and Dissenters
1683, Flees to Holland
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Letter Concerning Toleration (1685)
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1688, Returns to England
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1689, Second Treatise published
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1704, Dies
READING THE SECOND TREATISE
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Ch1 / Recap of First Treatise
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Critique of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680)
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Filmer defended the divine right of kings as
heirs of Adam
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Locke: Fatherhood is not a permanent dominion,
and the lines of descent are nonsensical
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So then, what is political power?
STATE OF NATURE
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SoN as more than a rhetorical device
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Contrast with Hobbes’s version
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Hobbes: SoN = State of War
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Locke: Nature is not necessarily war
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Trust is possible, even assumed
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Perfect freedom and equality in SoN
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Authority and reciprocity at stake
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In practice, each is judge of law of nature in all
cases
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Result: “Inconveniences” (§124-7)
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Lacks established, settled, known law
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Lacks indifferent judge
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Lacks power to enforce the law
Potential solutions (§93)
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Absolute authority (Divine right, Hobbes)
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Political society
PROPERTY
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Definitions: (1) Material possessions and (2)
Possessions inclusive of rights
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Labor Theory of Value
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t + L = t’
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Not as Adam’s heirs, but all in common
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Property in own person (§27)
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Labor adds value to things, creates property
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Natural limit: Usage (no spoilage)
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Land as property
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Justification for colonizing America
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Native Americans do not improve the land, so
they have no property in it
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Edenic quality of America (§49)
Permissible because of abundance
MONEY
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Subverting the natural limits (spoilage)
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Invention of money (§36)
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Tacit agreement to give it value
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Never spoils!
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Accumulation does not harm others (§46)
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Shows people consent to unequal property (§50)
Legacy: Libertarians, Marx and the Industrial
Revolution
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL COMMUNITY
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Political community and government (Ch8)
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Consent to form community (§95)
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Unanimous election to leave SoN
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And to establish decision-rule (majority)
Objection: All born under government!
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Tacit consent, exit, and membership
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Individual must give up his or her
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Right to decide about self-preservation (lawmaking)
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Right to punish (law-enforcing)
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Government limit: Public good
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Locke’s two step vs Hobbes’s one step
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Examples: Iraq and Glorious Revolution
DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY
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Hobbes: Sovereignty is a unity
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Locke: Division of powers within the sovereign
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Legislative: Supreme power, makes laws
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Law is general (not arbitrary)
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Within bounds established by the people
Salus populi suprema lex
EXECUTIVE PREROGATIVE
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Executive powers: Enforce laws, rules day-to-day,
judges application of laws to particular cases
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Definitions (§158, 160, 166)
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“Power of doing public good without a rule”
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Operates on trust of particular people
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Not a right or rule; a privilege
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People ultimate judge of prerogative (§168)
POLITICS REQUIRES BALANCE
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In nature, individual is the legislator, executive, and
judge
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Locke’s balanced political society
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Center: Legislature making laws
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Executive administers laws, acts in the gaps
Forces of politics: Prerogative—Law—and what?
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The people’s role in politics…
TYRANNY AND DISSOLUTION OF
GOVERNMENT
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Tyranny: Exercise of power beyond right (§199)
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Dissolution of government
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Vs Dissolution of community
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People’s power and right
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Reasons: Change, failure of government or trust
is broken
RIGHT TO RESIST
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People are slow to resist (habit is status quo)
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Does the right lay the ground for frequent
rebellion? (§224)
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Ill treatment of the people causes resistance, not
acknowledging their right to resist
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Great mistakes accepted; it’s about trust
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Right to resist is a defense against abuse
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Reversal of rebellion language
THE APPEAL TO HEAVEN
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Who shall be judge? (§240-2)
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Political dispute resolution
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Appeal to law. If no resolution…
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The people (as community) judge
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God as final judge; every individual decides in the present
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Make an “appeal to heaven”
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Each must “put himself on it” (§242)
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Conscience and responsibility
But if the prince, or whoever they be in administration,
decline that way of determination [decision by the
body of the people], the appeal then lies nowhere but
to heaven; force between either persons, who have no
known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal
to a judge on earth, being properly a state of war,
wherein the appeal lies only to heaven; and in that the
injured party must judge for himself, when he will think
fit to make use of that appeal, and put himself upon it.
(§242)
CONCLUSIONS
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Political power is a special authority relationship
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Key is relationship between individual, community,
and government
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Is the appeal to heaven like the state of nature?
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Right to resist as revolutionary and conservative
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Are individuals the same in nature as they are in
community? Or do we change?