## 1. Natural Law and Natural Rights



Perhaps the most central concept in Locke's political philosophy
is his theory of natural law and natural rights. The natural law
concept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing the idea that
there were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless
of the particular place where they lived or the agreements they had
made. The most important early contrast was between laws that were by
nature, and thus generally applicable, and those that were
conventional and operated only in those places where the particular
convention had been established. This distinction is sometimes
formulated as the difference between natural law and positive law.



Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in
the Christian tradition, normally referred to those laws that God had
directly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers. Natural
law can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, while
divine law can be discovered only through God's special
revelation and applies only to those to whom it is revealed and whom
God specifically indicates are to be bound. Thus some
seventeenth-century commentators, Locke included, held that not all of
the 10 commandments, much less the rest of the Old Testament law, were
binding on all people. The 10 commandments begin "Hear O
Israel" and thus are only binding on the people to whom they
were addressed (*Works* 6:37). (Spelling and formatting are
modernized in quotations from Locke in this entry). As we will see
below, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart from
special revelation, he saw no contradiction in God playing a part in
the argument, so long as the relevant aspects of God's character
could be discovered by reason alone. In Locke's theory, divine
law and natural law are consistent and can overlap in content, but
they are not coextensive. Thus there is no problem for Locke if the
Bible commands a moral code that is stricter than the one that can be
derived from natural law, but there is a real problem if the Bible
teaches what is contrary to natural law. In practice, Locke avoided
this problem because consistency with natural law was one of the
criteria he used when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblical
passages.



The language of natural rights also gained prominence through the
writings of thinkers in the generation before Locke, such as Grotius
and Hobbes, and of his contemporary Pufendorf. Whereas natural law
emphasized duties, natural rights normally emphasized privileges or
claims to which an individual was entitled. There is considerable
disagreement as to how these factors are to be understood in relation
to each other in Locke's theory. Leo Strauss (1953), and many of
his followers, take rights to be paramount, going so far as to portray
Locke's position as essentially similar to that of Hobbes. They
point out that Locke defended a hedonist theory of human motivation
(*Essay* 2.20) and claim that he must agree with Hobbes about
the essentially self-interested nature of human beings. Locke, they
claim, recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations
where our own preservation is not in conflict, further emphasizing
that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may
have.



On the other end of the spectrum, more scholars have adopted the view
of Dunn (1969), Tully (1980), and Ashcraft (1986) that it is natural
law, not natural rights, that is primary. They hold that when Locke
emphasized the right to life, liberty, and property he was primarily
making a point about the duties we have toward other people: duties
not to kill, enslave, or steal. Most scholars also argue that Locke
recognized a general duty to assist with the preservation of mankind,
including a duty of charity to those who have no other way to procure
their subsistence (*Two Treatises* 1.42). These scholars regard
duties as primary in Locke because rights exist to ensure that we are
able to fulfill our duties. Simmons (1992) takes a position similar to
the latter group, but claims that rights are not just the flip side of
duties in Locke, nor merely a means to performing our duties. Instead,
rights and duties are equally fundamental because Locke believes in a
"robust zone of indifference" in which rights protect our
ability to make choices. While these choices cannot violate natural
law, they are not a mere means to fulfilling natural law either. Brian
Tierney (2014) questions whether one needs to prioritize natural law
or natural right since both typically function as corollaries. He
argues that modern natural rights theories are a development from
medieval conceptions of natural law that included permissions to act
or not act in certain ways. 



There have been some attempts to find a compromise between these
positions. Michael Zuckert's (1994) version of the Straussian
position acknowledges more differences between Hobbes and Locke.
Zuckert still questions the sincerity of Locke's theism, but
thinks that Locke does develop a position that grounds property rights
in the fact that human beings own themselves, something Hobbes denied.
Adam Seagrave (2014) has gone a step further. He argues that the
contradiction between Locke's claim that human beings are owned
by God and that human beings own themselves is only apparent. He bases
this argument on passages from Locke's other writings
(especially the *Essay Concerning Human Understanding*). In the
passages about divine ownership, Locke is speaking about humanity as a
whole, while in the passages about self-ownership he is talking about
individual human beings with the capacity for property ownership. God
created human beings who are capable of having property rights with
respect to one another on the basis of owning their labor. Both of
them emphasize differences between Locke's use of natural rights
and the earlier tradition of natural law. 



Another point of contestation has to do with the extent to which Locke
thought natural law could, in fact, be known by reason. Both Strauss
(1953) and Peter Laslett (Introduction to Locke's *Two
Treatises*), though very different in their interpretations of
Locke generally, see Locke's theory of natural law as filled
with contradictions. In the *Essay Concerning Human
Understanding*, Locke defends a theory of moral knowledge that
negates the possibility of innate ideas (*Essay* Book 1) and
claims that morality is capable of demonstration in the same way that
Mathematics is (*Essay* 3.11.16, 4.3.18-20). Yet nowhere
in any of his works does Locke make a full deduction of natural law
from first premises. More than that, Locke at times seems to appeal to
innate ideas in the *Second Treatise* (2.11), and in *The
Reasonableness of Christianity* (*Works* 7:139) he admits
that no one has ever worked out all of natural law from reason alone.
Strauss infers from this that the contradictions exist to show the
attentive reader that Locke does not really believe in natural law at
all. Laslett, more conservatively, simply says that Locke the
philosopher and Locke the political writer should be kept very
separate.



Many scholars reject this position. Yolton (1958), Colman (1883),
Ashcraft (1987), Grant (1987), Simmons (1992), Tuckness (1999),
Israelson (2013), Rossiter (2016), Connolly (2019), and others all
argue that there is nothing strictly inconsistent in Locke's
admission in *The Reasonableness of Christianity*. That no one
has deduced all of natural law from first principles does not mean
that none of it has been deduced. The supposedly contradictory
passages in the *Two Treatises* are far from decisive. While it
is true that Locke does not provide a deduction in the *Essay*,
it is not clear that he was trying to. Section 4.10.1-19 of that
work seems more concerned to show how reasoning with moral terms is
possible, not to actually provide a full account of natural law.
Nonetheless, it must be admitted that Locke did not treat the topic of
natural law as systematically as one might like. Attempts to work out
his theory in more detail with respect to its ground and its content
must try to reconstruct it from scattered passages in many different
texts.



To understand Locke's position on the ground of natural law it
must be situated within a larger debate in natural law theory that
predates Locke, the so-called
"voluntarism-intellectualism," or
"voluntarist-rationalist" debate. At its simplest, the
voluntarist declares that right and wrong are determined by
God's will and that we are obliged to obey the will of God
simply because it is the will of God. Unless these positions are
maintained, the voluntarist argues, God becomes superfluous to
morality since both the content and the binding force of morality can
be explained without reference to God. The intellectualist replies
that this understanding makes morality arbitrary and fails to explain
why we have an obligation to obey God. Graedon Zorzi (2019) has argued
that "person" is a relational term for Locke, indicating
that we will be held accountable by God for whether we have followed
the law.



With respect to the grounds and content of natural law, Locke is not
completely clear. On the one hand, there are many instances where he
makes statements that sound voluntarist to the effect that law
requires a legislator with authority (*Essay* 1.3.6, 4.10.7).
Locke also repeatedly insists in the *Essays on the Law of
Nature* that created beings have an obligation to obey their
creator (*Political Essays* 116-120). On the other hand
there are statements that seem to imply an external moral standard to
which God must conform (*Two Treatises* 2.195; *Works*
7:6). Locke clearly wants to avoid the implication that the content of
natural law is arbitrary. Several solutions have been proposed. One
solution suggested by Herzog (1985) makes Locke an intellectualist by
grounding our obligation to obey God on a prior duty of gratitude that
exists independent of God. A second option, suggested by Simmons
(1992), is simply to take Locke as a voluntarist since that is where
the preponderance of his statements point. A third option, suggested
by Tuckness (1999) (and implied by Grant 1987 and affirmed by
Israelson 2013), is to treat the question of voluntarism as having two
different parts, grounds and content. On this view, Locke was indeed a
voluntarist with respect to the question "why should we obey the
law of nature?" Locke thought that reason, apart from the will
of a superior, could only be advisory. With respect to content, divine
reason and human reason must be sufficiently analogous that human
beings can reason about what God likely wills. Locke takes it for
granted that since God created us with reason in order to follow
God's will, human reason and divine reason are sufficiently
similar that natural law will not seem arbitrary to us.



Those interested in the contemporary relevance of Locke's
political theory must confront its theological aspects. Straussians
make Locke's theory relevant by claiming that the theological
dimensions of his thought are primarily rhetorical; they were
"cover" to keep him from being persecuted by the religious
authorities of his day. Others, such as Dunn (1969) and Stanton
(2018), take Locke to be of only limited relevance to contemporary
politics precisely because so many of his arguments depend on
religious assumptions that are no longer widely shared. Some authors,
such as Simmons (1992) and Vernon (1997), have tried to separate the
foundations of Locke's argument from other aspects of it.
Simmons, for example, argues that Locke's thought is
over-determined, containing both religious and secular arguments. He
claims that for Locke the fundamental law of nature is that "as
much as possible mankind is to be preserved" (*Two
Treatises* 2.135). At times, he claims, Locke presents this
principle in rule-consequentialist terms: it is the principle we use
to determine the more specific rights and duties that all have. At
other times, Locke hints at a more Kantian justification that
emphasizes the impropriety of treating our equals as if they were mere
means to our ends. Waldron (2002) explores the opposite claim: that
Locke's theology actually provides a more solid basis for his
premise of political equality than do contemporary secular approaches
that tend to simply assert equality.



With respect to the specific content of natural law, Locke never
provides a comprehensive statement of what it requires. In the *Two
Treatises*, Locke frequently states that the fundamental law of
nature is that as much as possible mankind is to be preserved. Simmons
(1992) argues that in *Two Treatises* 2.6 Locke presents (1) a
duty to preserve one's self, (2) a duty to preserve others when
self-preservation does not conflict, (3) a duty not to take away the
life of another, and (4) a duty not to act in a way that "tends
to destroy" others. Libertarian interpreters of Locke tend to
downplay duties of type 1 and 2. Locke presents a more extensive list
in his earlier, and unpublished in his lifetime, *Essays on the Law
of Nature*. Interestingly, Locke here includes praise and honor of
the deity as required by natural law as well as what we might call
good character qualities.


## 2. State of Nature



Locke's concept of the state of nature has been interpreted by
commentators in a variety of ways. At first glance it seems quite
simple. Locke writes "want [lack] of a common judge, with
authority, puts all men in a state of nature" and again,
"Men living together according to reason, without a common
superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly
the state of nature." (*Two Treatises* 2.19) Many
commentators have taken this as Locke's definition, concluding
that the state of nature exists wherever there is no legitimate
political authority able to judge disputes and where people live
according to the law of reason. On this account the state of nature is
distinct from political society, where a legitimate government exists,
and from a state of war where men fail to abide by the law of
reason.



Simmons (1993) presents an important challenge to this view. Simmons
points out that the above statement is worded as a sufficient rather
than necessary condition. Two individuals might be able, in the state
of nature, to authorize a third to settle disputes between them
without leaving the state of nature, since the third party would not
have, for example, the power to legislate for the public good. Simmons
also claims that other interpretations often fail to account for the
fact that there are some people who live in states with legitimate
governments who are nonetheless in the state of nature: visiting
aliens (*Two Treatises* 2.9), children below the age of
majority (2.15, 118), and those with a "defect" of reason
(2.60). He claims that the state of nature is a relational concept
describing a particular set of moral relations that exist between
particular people, rather than a description of a particular
geographical territory where there is no government with effective
control. The state of nature is just the way of describing the moral
rights and responsibilities that exist between people who have not
consented to the adjudication of their disputes by the same legitimate
government. The groups just mentioned either have not or cannot give
consent, so they remain in the state of nature. Thus A may be in the
state of nature with respect to B, but not with C.



Simmons' account stands in sharp contrast to that of Strauss
(1953). According to Strauss, Locke presents the state of nature as a
factual description of what the earliest society is like, an account
that when read closely reveals Locke's departure from Christian
teachings. State of nature theories, he and his followers argue, are
contrary to the Biblical account in Genesis and evidence that
Locke's teaching is similar to that of Hobbes. As noted above,
on the Straussian account Locke's apparently Christian
statements are only a facade designed to conceal his
essentially anti-Christian views. According to Simmons, since the
state of nature is a moral account, it is compatible with a wide
variety of social accounts without contradiction. If we know only that
a group of people are in a state of nature, we know only the rights
and responsibilities they have toward one another; we know nothing
about whether they are rich or poor, peaceful or warlike.



A complementary interpretation is made by John Dunn (1969) with
respect to the relationship between Locke's state of nature and
his Christian beliefs. Dunn claimed that Locke's state of nature
is less an exercise in historical anthropology than a theological
reflection on the condition of man. On Dunn's interpretation,
Locke's state of nature thinking is an expression of his
theological position, that man exists in a world created by God for
God's purposes but that governments are created by men in order
to further those purposes.



Locke's theory of the state of nature will thus be tied closely
to his theory of natural law, since the latter defines the rights of
persons and their status as free and equal persons. The stronger the
grounds for accepting Locke's characterization of people as
free, equal, and independent, the more helpful the state of nature
becomes as a device for representing people. Still, it is important to
remember that none of these interpretations claims that Locke's
state of nature is *only* a thought experiment, in the way Kant
and Rawls are normally thought to use the concept. Locke did not
respond to the argument "where have there ever been people in
such a state" by saying it did not matter since it was only a
thought experiment. Instead, he argued that there are and have been
people in the state of nature (*Two Treatises* 2.14). It seems
important to him that at least some governments have actually been
formed in the way he suggests. How much it matters whether they have
been or not will be discussed below under the topic of consent, since
the central question is whether a good government can be legitimate
even if it does not have the actual consent of the people who live
under it; hypothetical contract and actual contract theories will tend
to answer this question differently.


## 3. Property



Locke's treatment of property is generally thought to be among
his most important contributions in political thought, but it is also
one of the aspects of his thought that has been most heavily
criticized. There are important debates over what exactly Locke was
trying to accomplish with his theory. One interpretation, advanced by
C.B. Macpherson (1962), sees Locke as a defender of unrestricted
capitalist accumulation. On Macpherson's interpretation, Locke
is thought to have set three restrictions on the accumulation of
property in the state of nature: (1) one may only appropriate as much
as one can use before it spoils (*Two Treatises* 2.31), (2) one
must leave "enough and as good" for others (the
sufficiency restriction) (2.27), and (3) one may (supposedly) only
appropriate property through one's own labor (2.27). Macpherson
claims that as the argument progresses, each of these restrictions is
transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a meaningful
restriction with the invention of money because value can be stored in
a medium that does not decay (2.46-47). The sufficiency
restriction is transcended because the creation of private property so
increases productivity that even those who no longer have the
opportunity to acquire land will have more opportunity to acquire what
is necessary for life (2.37). According to Macpherson's view,
the "enough and as good" requirement is itself merely a
derivative of a prior principle guaranteeing the opportunity to
acquire, through labor, the necessities of life. The third
restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually held at
all. Though Locke appears to suggest that one can only have property
in what one has personally labored on when he makes labor the source
of property rights, Locke clearly recognized that even in the state of
nature, "the Turfs my Servant has cut" (2.28) can become
my property. Locke, according to Macpherson, thus clearly recognized
that labor can be alienated. As one would guess, Macpherson is
critical of the "possessive individualism" that
Locke's theory of property represents. He argues that its
coherence depends upon the assumption of differential rationality
between capitalists and wage-laborers and on the division of society
into distinct classes. Because Locke was bound by these constraints,
we are to understand him as including only property owners as voting
members of society.



Macpherson's understanding of Locke has been criticized from
several different directions. Alan Ryan (1965) argued that since
property for Locke includes life and liberty as well as estate
(*Two Treatises* 2.87), even those without land could still be
members of political society. The dispute between the two would then
turn on whether Locke was using "property" in the more
expansive sense in some of the crucial passages. James Tully (1980)
attacked Macpherson's interpretation by pointing out that the
*First Treatise* specifically includes a duty of charity toward
those who have no other means of subsistence (1.42). While this duty
is consistent with requiring the poor to work for low wages, it does
undermine the claim that those who have wealth have *no* social
duties to others.



Tully also argued for a fundamental reinterpretation of Locke's
theory. Previous accounts had focused on the claim that since persons
own their own labor, when they mix their labor with that which is
unowned it becomes their property. Robert Nozick (1974) criticized
this argument with his famous example of mixing tomato juice one
rightfully owns with the sea. When we mix what we own with what we do
not, why should we think we gain property instead of losing it? On
Tully's account, focus on the mixing metaphor misses
Locke's emphasis on what he calls the "workmanship
model." Locke believed that makers have property rights with
respect to what they make just as God has property rights with respect
to human beings because he is their maker. Human beings are created in
the image of God and share with God, though to a much lesser extent,
the ability to shape and mold the physical environment in accordance
with a rational pattern or plan. Waldron (1988) has criticized this
interpretation on the grounds that it would make the rights of human
makers absolute in the same way that God's right over his
creation is absolute. Sreenivasan (1995) has defended Tully's
argument against Waldron's response by claiming a distinction
between creating and making. Only creating generates an absolute
property right, and only God can create, but making is analogous to
creating and creates an analogous, though weaker, right.



Another controversial aspect of Tully's interpretation of Locke
is his interpretation of the sufficiency condition and its
implications. On his analysis, the sufficiency argument is crucial for
Locke's argument to be plausible. Since Locke begins with the
assumption that the world is owned by all, individual property is only
justified if it can be shown that no one is made worse off by the
appropriation. In conditions where the good taken is not scarce, where
there is much water or land available, an individual's taking
some portion of it does no harm to others. Where this condition is not
met, those who are denied access to the good do have a legitimate
objection to appropriation. According to Tully, Locke realized that as
soon as land became scarce, previous rights acquired by labor no
longer held since "enough and as good" was no longer
available for others. Once land became scarce, property could only be
legitimated by the creation of political society.



Waldron (1988) claims that, contrary to Macpherson (1962), Tully
(1980), and others, Locke did not recognize a sufficiency condition at
all. He notes that, strictly speaking, Locke makes sufficiency a
sufficient rather than necessary condition when he says that labor
generates a title to property "at least where there is enough,
and as good left in common for others" (*Two Treatises*
2.27). Waldron takes Locke to be making a descriptive statement, not a
normative one, about the conditions that initially existed. Waldron
also argues that in the text "enough and as good" is not
presented as a restriction and is not grouped with other restrictions.
Waldron thinks that the condition would lead Locke to the absurd
conclusion that in circumstances of scarcity everyone must starve to
death since no one would be able to obtain universal consent and any
appropriation would make others worse off.



One of the strongest defenses of Tully's position is presented
by Sreenivasan (1995). He argues that Locke's repetitious use of
"enough and as good" indicates that the phrase is doing
some real work in the argument. In particular, it is the only way
Locke can be thought to have provided some solution to the fact that
the consent of all is needed to justify appropriation in the state of
nature. If others are not harmed, they have no grounds to object and
can be thought to consent, whereas if they are harmed, it is
implausible to think of them as consenting. Sreenivasan does depart
from Tully in some important respects. He takes "enough and as
good" to mean "enough and as good opportunity for securing
one's preservation," not "enough and as good of the
same commodity (such as land)." This has the advantage of making
Locke's account of property less radical since it does not claim
that Locke thought the point of his theory was to show that all
original property rights were invalid at the point where political
communities were created. The disadvantage of this interpretation, as
Sreenivasan admits, is that it saddles Locke with a flawed argument.
Those who merely have the opportunity to labor for others at
subsistence wages no longer have the liberty that individuals had
before scarcity to benefit from the full surplus of value they create.
Moreover, poor laborers no longer enjoy equality of access to the
materials from which products can be made. Sreenivasan thinks that
Locke's theory is thus unable to solve the problem of how
individuals can obtain individual property rights in what is initially
owned by all people without consent.



Simmons (1992) presents a still different synthesis. He sides with
Waldron (1988) and against Tully (1980) and Sreenivasan (1995) in
rejecting the workmanship model. He claims that the references to
"making" in chapter five of the *Two Treatises* are
not making in the right sense of the word for the workmanship model to
be correct. Locke thinks we have property in our own persons even
though we do not make or create ourselves. Simmons claims that while
Locke did believe that God had rights as creator, human beings have a
different limited right as *trustees*, not as makers. Simmons
bases this in part on his reading of two distinct arguments he takes
Locke to make: the first justifies property based on God's will
and basic human needs, the second based on "mixing" labor.
According to the former argument, at least some property rights can be
justified by showing that a scheme allowing appropriation of property
without consent has beneficial consequences for the preservation of
mankind. This argument is overdetermined, according to Simmons, in
that it can be interpreted either theologically or as a simple
rule-consequentialist argument. With respect to the latter argument,
Simmons takes labor not to be a substance that is literally
"mixed" but rather as a purposive activity aimed at
satisfying needs and conveniences of life. Like Sreenivasan, Simmons
sees this as flowing from a prior right of people to secure their
subsistence, but Simmons also adds a prior right to self-government.
Labor can generate claims to private property because private property
makes individuals more independent and able to direct their own
actions. Simmons thinks Locke's argument is ultimately flawed
because he underestimated the extent to which wage labor would make
the poor dependent on the rich, undermining self-government. He also
joins the chorus of those who find Locke's appeal to consent to
the introduction of money inadequate to justify the very unequal
property holdings that now exist.



Some authors have suggested that Locke may have had an additional
concern in mind in writing the chapter on property. Tully (1993) and
Barbara Arneil (1996) point out that Locke was interested in and
involved in the affairs of the American colonies and that
Locke's theory of labor led to the convenient conclusion that
the labor of Native Americans generated property rights only over the
animals they caught, not the land on which they hunted which Locke
regarded as vacant and available for the taking. David Armitage (2004)
even argues that there is evidence that Locke was actively involved in
revising the  *Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina*  at the
same time he was drafting the chapter on property for the *Second
Treatise*. Mark Goldie (1983), however, cautions that we should
not miss the fact that political events in England were still
Locke's primary focus in writing the the *Second
Treatise*. 



A final question concerns the status of those property rights acquired
in the state of nature after civil society has come into being. It
seems clear that at the very least Locke allows taxation to take place
by the consent of the majority rather than requiring unanimous consent
(2.140). Nozick (1974) takes Locke to be a libertarian, with the
government having no right to take property to use for the common good
without the consent of the property owner. On his interpretation, the
majority may only tax at the rate needed to allow the government to
successfully protect property rights. At the other extreme, Tully
(1980) thinks that, by the time government is formed, land is already
scarce and so the initial holdings of the state of nature are no
longer valid and thus are no constraint on governmental action.
Waldron's (1988) view is in between these, acknowledging that
property rights are among the rights from the state of nature that
continue to constrain the government, but seeing the legislature as
having the power to interpret what natural law requires in this matter
in a fairly substantial way.


## 4. Consent, Political Obligation, and the Ends of Government



The most direct reading of Locke's political philosophy finds
the concept of consent playing a central role. His analysis begins
with individuals in a state of nature where they are not subject to a
common legitimate authority with the power to legislate or adjudicate
disputes. From this natural state of freedom and independence, Locke
stresses individual consent as the mechanism by which political
societies are created and individuals join those societies. While
there are of course some general obligations and rights that all
people have from the law of nature, special obligations come about
only when we voluntarily undertake them. Locke clearly states that one
can only become a full member of society by an act of express consent
(*Two Treatises* 2.122). The literature on Locke's theory
of consent tends to focus on how Locke does or does not successfully
answer the following objection: few people have actually consented to
their governments so no, or almost no, governments are actually
legitimate. This conclusion is problematic since it is clearly
contrary to Locke's intention.



Locke's most obvious solution to this problem is his doctrine of
tacit consent. Simply by walking along the highways of a country a
person gives tacit consent to the government and agrees to obey it
while living in its territory. This, Locke thinks, explains why
resident aliens have an obligation to obey the laws of the state where
they reside, though only while they live there. Inheriting property
creates an even stronger bond, since the original owner of the
property permanently put the property under the jurisdiction of the
commonwealth. Children, when they accept the property of their
parents, consent to the jurisdiction of the commonwealth over that
property (*Two Treatises* 2.120). There is debate over whether
the inheritance of property should be regarded as tacit or express
consent. On one interpretation, by accepting the property, Locke
thinks a person becomes a full member of society, which implies that
he must regard this as an act of express consent. Grant (1987)
suggests that Locke's ideal would have been an explicit
mechanism of society whereupon adults would give express consent and
this would be a precondition of inheriting property. On the other
interpretation, Locke recognized that people inheriting property did
not in the process of doing so make any explicit declaration about
their political obligation.



However this debate is resolved, there will be in any current or
previously existing society many people who have never given express
consent, and thus some version of tacit consent seems needed to
explain how governments could still be legitimate. Simmons finds it
difficult to see how merely walking on a street or inheriting land can
be thought of as an example of a "deliberate, voluntary
alienating of rights" (Simmons 1993, 69). It is one thing, he
argues, for a person to consent by actions rather than words; it is
quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that
they have done so. To require a person to leave behind all of their
property and emigrate in order to avoid giving tacit consent is to
create a situation where continued residence is not a free and
voluntary choice. Simmons' approach is to agree with Locke that
real consent is necessary for political obligation but disagree about
whether most people in fact have given that kind of consent. Simmons
claims that Locke's arguments push toward "philosophical
anarchism," the position that most people do not have a moral
obligation to obey the government, even though Locke himself would not
have made this claim.



Hannah Pitkin (1965) takes a very different approach. She claims that
the logic of Locke's argument makes consent far less important
in practice than it might appear. Tacit consent is indeed a watering
down of the concept of consent, but Locke can do this because the
basic content of what governments are to be like is set by natural law
and not by consent. If consent were truly foundational in
Locke's scheme, we would discover the legitimate powers of any
given government by finding out what contract the original founders
signed. Pitkin, however, thinks that for Locke the form and powers of
government are determined by natural law. What really matters,
therefore, is not previous acts of consent but the quality of the
present government, whether it corresponds to what natural law
requires. Locke does not think, for example, that walking the streets
or inheriting property in a tyrannical regime means we have consented
to that regime. It is thus the quality of the government, not acts of
actual consent, that determine whether a government is legitimate.
Simmons objects to this interpretation, saying that it fails to
account for the many places where Locke does indeed say a person
acquires political obligations only by his own consent.



John Dunn (1967) takes a still different approach. He claims that it
is anachronistic to read into Locke a modern conception of what counts
as "consent." While modern theories do insist that consent
is truly consent only if it is deliberate and voluntary, Locke's
concept of consent was far broader. For Locke, it was enough that
people be "not unwilling." Voluntary acquiescence, on
Dunn's interpretation, is all that is needed. As evidence Dunn
can point to the fact that many of the instances of consent Locke
uses, such as "consenting" to the use of money, make more
sense on this broad interpretation. Simmons objects that this ignores
the instances where Locke does talk about consent as a deliberate
choice and that, in any case, it would only make Locke consistent at
the price of making him unconvincing.



Recent scholarship has continued to probe these issues. Davis (2014)
closely examines Locke's terminology and argues that we must
distinguish between political society and legitimate government. Only
those who have expressly consented are members of political society,
while the government exercises legitimate authority over various types
of people who have not so consented. The government is supreme in some
respects, but there is no sovereign. He also argues (2017) that one
could give actual consent in Locke's day by declaring
one's intent to cast a vote, rather than by voting for a
particular candidate. The former is more plausibly interpreted as an
act of affirmative consent to be a member of a political society.
Registering to vote, as opposed to actually voting, would be a
contemporary analogue. Van der Vossen (2015) makes a related argument,
claiming that the initial consent of property owners is not the
mechanism by which governments come to rule over a particular
territory. Rather, Locke thinks that people (probably fathers
initially) simply begin exercising political authority and people
tacitly consent. This tacit consent is sufficient to justify a
rudimentary state that rules over the consenters. Treaties between
these governments would then fix the territorial borders. Hoff (2015)
goes still further, arguing that we need not even think of specific
acts of tacit consent (such as deciding not to emigrate) as necessary
for generating political obligation. Instead, consent is implied if
the government itself functions in ways that show it is answerable to
the people.



A related question has to do with the extent of our obligation once
consent has been given. The interpretive school influenced by Strauss
emphasizes the primacy of preservation. Since the duties of natural
law apply only when our preservation is not threatened (*Two
Treatises* 2.6), then our obligations cease in cases where our
preservation is directly threatened. This has important implications
if we consider a soldier who is being sent on a mission where death is
extremely likely. Grant (1987) points out that Locke believes a
soldier who deserts from such a mission (2.139) is justly sentenced to
death. Grant takes Locke to be claiming not only that desertion laws
are legitimate in the sense that they can be blamelessly enforced
(something Hobbes would grant) but that they also imply a moral
obligation on the part of the soldier to give up his life for the
common good (something Hobbes would deny). According to Grant, Locke
thinks that our acts of consent can, in fact, extend to cases where
living up to our commitments will risk our lives. The decision to
enter political society is a permanent one for precisely this reason:
the society will have to be defended and if people can revoke their
consent to help protect it when attacked, the act of consent made when
entering political society would be pointless since the political
community would fail at the very point where it is most needed. People
make a calculated decision when they enter society, and the risk of
dying in combat is part of that calculation. Grant also thinks Locke
recognizes a duty based on reciprocity since others risk their lives
as well.



Most of these approaches focus on Locke's doctrine of consent as
a solution to the problem of political obligation. A different
approach asks what role consent plays in determining, here and now,
the legitimate ends that governments can pursue. One part of this
debate is captured by the debate between Seliger (1968) and Kendall
(1959), the former viewing Locke as a constitutionalist and the latter
viewing him as giving almost unlimited power to majorities. On the
former interpretation, a constitution is created by the consent of the
people as part of the creation of the commonwealth. On the latter
interpretation, the people create a legislature which rules by
majority vote. A third view, advanced by Tuckness (2002a), holds that
Locke was flexible at this point and gave people considerable
flexibility in constitutional drafting.



A second part of the debate focuses on ends rather than institutions.
Locke states in the *Two Treatises* that the power of the
Government is limited to the public good. It is a power "that
hath no other end but preservation" and therefore cannot justify
killing, enslaving, or plundering the citizens (2.135). Libertarians
like Nozick (1974) read this as stating that governments exist only to
protect people from infringements on their rights. An alternate
interpretation, advanced by Tuckness (2002b, 2008a), draws attention
to the fact that in the following sentences the formulation of natural
law that Locke focuses on is a positive one, that "as much as
possible" mankind is to be preserved. On this second reading,
government is limited to fulfilling the purposes of natural law, but
these include positive goals as well as negative rights. On this view,
the power to promote the common good extends to actions designed to
increase population, improve the military, strengthen the economy and
infrastructure, and so on, provided these steps are indirectly useful
to the goal of preserving the society. This would explain why Locke,
in the *Letter*, describes government promotion of "arms,
riches, and multitude of citizens" as the proper remedy for the
danger of foreign attack (*Works* 6: 42).


## 5. Locke and Punishment



John Locke defined political power as "a right of making laws
with penalties of death, and consequently all less Penalties"
(*Two Treatises* 2.3). Locke's theory of punishment is
thus central to his view of politics and part of what he considered
innovative about his political philosophy. But he also referred to his
account of punishment as a "very strange doctrine" (2.9),
presumably because it ran against the assumption that only political
sovereigns could punish. Locke believed that punishment requires that
there be a law, and since the state of nature has the law of nature to
govern it, it is permissible to describe one individual as
"punishing" another in that state. Locke's rationale
is that since the fundamental law of nature is that mankind be
preserved and since that law would "be in vain" with no
human power to enforce it (*Two Treatises* 2.7), it must,
therefore, be legitimate for individuals to punish each other even
before government exists. In arguing this, Locke was disagreeing with
Samuel Pufendorf (1934). Samuel Pufendorf had argued strongly that the
concept of punishment made no sense apart from an established positive
legal structure.



Locke realized that the crucial objection to allowing people to act as
judges with power to punish in the state of nature was that such
people would end up being judges in their own cases. Locke readily
admitted that this was a serious inconvenience and a primary reason
for leaving the state of nature (*Two Treatises* 2.13). Locke
insisted on this point because it helped explain the transition into
civil society. Locke thought that in the state of nature men had a
liberty to engage in "innocent delights" (actions that are
not a violation of any applicable laws), to seek their own
preservation within the limits of natural law, and to punish
violations of natural law. The power to seek one's preservation
is limited in civil society by the law, and the power to punish is
transferred to the government (*Two Treatises*
2.128-130). The power to punish in the state of nature is thus
the foundation for the right of governments to use coercive force.



The situation becomes more complex, however, if we look at the
principles which are to guide punishment. Rationales for punishment
are often divided into those that are forward-looking and
backward-looking. Forward-looking rationales include deterring crime,
protecting society from dangerous persons, and rehabilitation of
criminals. Backward-looking rationales normally focus on retribution,
inflicting on the criminal harm comparable to the crime. Locke may
seem to conflate these two rationales in passages like the
following:



> 
> And thus in the state of nature, one Man comes by a power over
> another, but yet no absolute or arbitrary Power, to use a criminal
> when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats,
> or boundless extravagancy of his own will, but only to retribute to
> him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictates, what is
> proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for
> reparation and restraint. For these two are the only reasons, why one
> man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that [which] we call
> punishment. (*Two Treatises* 2.8)
> 



Locke talks both of retribution and of punishing only for reparation
and restraint. Simmons argues that this is evidence that Locke is
combining both rationales for punishment in his theory. A survey of
other seventeenth-century natural rights justifications for
punishment, however, indicates that it was common to use words like
"retribute" in theories that reject what we would today
call retributive punishment (Tuckness 2010a). In the passage quoted
above, Locke is saying that the proper amount of punishment is the
amount that will provide restitution to injured parties, protect the
public, and deter future crime. Locke's attitude toward
punishment in his other writings on toleration, education, and
religion consistently follows this path toward justifying punishment
on grounds other than retribution. Tuckness claims that Locke's
emphasis on restitution is interesting because restitution is backward
looking in a sense (it seeks to restore an earlier state of affairs)
but also forward looking in that it provides tangible benefits to
those who receive the restitution. There is a link here between
Locke's understanding of natural punishment and his
understanding of legitimate state punishment. Even in the state of
nature, a primary justification for punishment is that it helps
further the positive goal of preserving human life and human property.
The emphasis on deterrence, public safety, and restitution in
punishments administered by the government mirrors this emphasis.



A second puzzle regarding punishment is the permissibility of
punishing internationally. Locke describes international relations as
a state of nature, and so in principle, states should have the same
power to punish breaches of the natural law in the international
community that individuals have in the state of nature. This would
legitimize, for example, punishment of individuals for war crimes or
crimes against humanity even in cases where neither the laws of the
particular state nor international law authorize punishment. Thus in
World War II, even if "crimes of aggression" was not at
the time recognized as a crime for which individual punishment was
justified, if the actions violated the natural law principle that one
should not deprive another of life, liberty, or property, the guilty
parties could still be liable to criminal punishment. The most common
interpretation has thus been that the power to punish internationally
is symmetrical with the power to punish in the state of nature.



Tuckness (2008a), however, has argued that there is an asymmetry
between the two cases because Locke also talks about states being
limited in the goals that they can pursue. Locke often says that the
power of the government is to be used for the protection of the rights
of its own citizens, not for the rights of all people everywhere
(*Two Treatises* 1.92, 2.88, 2.95, 2.131, 2.147). Locke argues
that in the state of nature a person is to use the power to punish to
preserve his society, which is mankind as a whole. After states are
formed, however, the power to punish is to be used for the benefit of
his own particular society. In the state of nature, a person is not
required to risk his life for another (*Two Treatises* 2.6),
and this presumably would also mean a person is not required to punish
in the state of nature when attempting to punish would risk the life
of the punisher. Locke may therefore be objecting to the idea that
soldiers can be compelled to risk their lives for altruistic reasons.
In the state of nature, a person could refuse to attempt to punish
others if doing so would risk his life and so Locke reasons that
individuals may not have consented to allow the state to risk their
lives for altruistic punishment of international crimes.


## 6. Separation of Powers and the Dissolution of Government



Locke claims that legitimate government is based on the idea of
separation of powers. First and foremost of these is the legislative
power. Locke describes the legislative power as supreme (*Two
Treatises* 2.149) in having ultimate authority over "how the
force for the commonwealth shall be employed" (2.143). The
legislature is still bound by the law of nature and much of what it
does is set down laws that further the goals of natural law and
specify appropriate punishments for them (2.135). The executive power
is then charged with enforcing the law as it is applied in specific
cases. Interestingly, Locke's third power is called the
"federative power" and it consists of the right to act
internationally according to the law of nature. Since countries are
still in the state of nature with respect to each other, they must
follow the dictates of natural law and can punish one another for
violations of that law in order to protect the rights of their
citizens.



The fact that Locke does not mention the judicial power as a separate
power becomes clearer if we distinguish powers from institutions.
Powers relate to functions. To have a power means that there is a
function (such as making the laws or enforcing the laws) that one may
legitimately perform. When Locke says that the legislative is supreme
over the executive, he is not saying that parliament is supreme over
the king. Locke is simply affirming that "what can give laws to
another, must needs be superior to him" (*Two Treatises*
2.150). Moreover, Locke thinks that it is possible for multiple
institutions to share the same power; for example, the legislative
power in his day was shared by the House of Commons, the House of
Lords, and the King. Since all three needed to agree for something to
become law, all three are part of the legislative power (1.151). He
also thinks that the federative power and the executive power are
normally placed in the hands of the executive, so it is possible for
the same person to exercise more than one power (or function). There
is, therefore, no one-to-one correspondence between powers and
institutions (Tuckness 2002a).



Locke is not opposed to having distinct institutions called courts,
but he does not see interpretation as a distinct function or power.
For Locke, legislation is primarily about announcing a general rule
stipulating what types of actions should receive what types of
punishments. The executive power is the power to make the judgments
necessary to apply those rules to specific cases and administer force
as directed by the rule (*Two Treatises* 2.88-89). Both
of these actions involve interpretation. Locke states that positive
laws "are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of
nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted"
(2.12). In other words, the executive must interpret the laws in light
of its understanding of natural law. Similarly, legislation involves
making the laws of nature more specific and determining how to apply
them to particular circumstances (2.135) which also calls for
interpreting natural law. Locke did not think of interpreting law as a
distinct function because he thought it was a part of both the
legislative and executive functions (Tuckness 2002a).



If we compare Locke's formulation of separation of powers to the
later ideas of Montesquieu (1989), we see that they are not so
different as they may initially appear. Although Montesquieu gives the
more well known division of legislative, executive, and judicial, as
he explains what he means by these terms he reaffirms the superiority
of the legislative power and describes the executive power as having
to do with international affairs (Locke's federative power) and
the judicial power as concerned with the domestic execution of the
laws (Locke's executive power). It is more the terminology than
the concepts that have changed. Locke considered arresting a person,
trying a person, and punishing a person as all part of the function of
executing the law rather than as a distinct function (Tuckness
2002a).



Locke believed that it was important that the legislative power
contain an assembly of elected representatives, but as we have seen
the legislative power could contain monarchical and aristocratic
elements as well. Locke believed the people had the freedom to create
"mixed" constitutions that utilize all of these. For that
reason, Locke's theory of separation of powers does not dictate
one particular type of constitution and does not preclude unelected
officials from having part of the legislative power. Locke was more
concerned that the people have representatives with sufficient power
to block attacks on their liberty and attempts to tax them without
justification. This is important because Locke also affirms that the
community remains the real supreme power throughout. The people retain
the right to "remove or alter" the legislative power
(*Two Treatises* 2.149). This can happen for a variety of
reasons. The entire society can be dissolved by a successful foreign
invasion (2.211), but Locke is more interested in describing the
occasions when the people take power back from the government to which
they have entrusted it. If the rule of law is ignored, if the
representatives of the people are prevented from assembling, if the
mechanisms of election are altered without popular consent, or if the
people are handed over to a foreign power, then they can take back
their original authority and overthrow the government
(2.212-17). They can also rebel if the government attempts to
take away their rights (2.222). Locke thinks this is justifiable since
oppressed people will likely rebel anyway, and those who are not
oppressed will be unlikely to rebel. Moreover, the threat of possible
rebellion makes tyranny less likely to start with (2.224-6). For
all these reasons, while there are a variety of legitimate
constitutional forms, the delegation of power under any constitution
is understood to be conditional.



Locke's understanding of separation of powers is complicated by
the doctrine of prerogative. Prerogative is the right of the executive
to act without explicit authorization for a law, or even contrary to
the law, in order to better fulfill the laws that seek the
preservation of human life. A king might, for example, order that a
house be torn down in order to stop a fire from spreading throughout a
city (*Two Treatises* 2.159). Locke defines it more broadly as
"the power of doing public good without a rule" (2.166).
This poses a challenge to Locke's doctrine of legislative
supremacy. Locke handles this by explaining that the rationale for
this power is that general rules cannot cover all possible cases and
that inflexible adherence to the rules would be detrimental to the
public good and that the legislature is not always in session to
render a judgment (2.160). The relationship between the executive and
the legislature depends on the specific constitution. If the chief
executive has no part in the supreme legislative power, then the
legislature could overrule the executive's decisions based on
prerogative when it reconvenes. If, however, the chief executive has a
veto, the result would be a stalemate between them. Locke describes a
similar stalemate in the case where the chief executive has the power
to call parliament and can thus prevent it from meeting by refusing to
call it into session. In such a case, Locke says, there is no judge on
earth between them as to whether the executive has misused prerogative
and both sides have the right to "appeal to heaven" in the
same way that the people can appeal to heaven against a tyrannical
government (2.168).



The concept of an "appeal to heaven" is an important
concept in Locke's thought. Locke assumes that people, when they
leave the state of nature, create a government with some sort of
constitution that specifies which entities are entitled to exercise
which powers. Locke also assumes that these powers will be used to
protect the rights of the people and to promote the public good. In
cases where there is a dispute between the people and the government
about whether the government is fulfilling its obligations, there is
no higher human authority to which one can appeal. The only appeal
left, for Locke, is the appeal to God. The "appeal to
heaven," therefore, involves taking up arms against your
opponent and letting God judge who is in the right.


## 7. Toleration



In Locke's *Letter Concerning Toleration*, he develops
several lines of argument that are intended to establish the proper
spheres for religion and politics. His central claims are that
government should not use force to try to bring people to the true
religion and that religious societies are voluntary organizations that
have no right to use coercive power over their own members or those
outside their group. One recurring line of argument that Locke uses is
explicitly religious. Locke argues that neither the example of Jesus
nor the teaching of the New Testament gives any indication that force
is a proper way to bring people to salvation. He also frequently
points out what he takes to be clear evidence of hypocrisy, namely
that those who are so quick to persecute others for small differences
in worship or doctrine are relatively unconcerned with much more
obvious moral sins that pose an even greater threat to their eternal
state.



In addition to these and similar religious arguments, Locke gives
three reasons that are more philosophical in nature for barring
governments from using force to encourage people to adopt religious
beliefs (*Works* 6:10-12). First, he argues that the care
of men's souls has not been committed to the magistrate by
either God or the consent of men. This argument resonates with the
structure of argument used so often in the *Two Treatises* to
establish the natural freedom and equality of mankind. There is no
command in the Bible telling magistrates to bring people to the true
faith, and people could not consent to such a goal for government
because it is not possible for people, at will, to believe what the
magistrate tells them to believe. Their beliefs are a function of what
they think is true, not what they will. Locke's second argument
is that since the power of the government is only force, while true
religion consists of genuine inward persuasion of the mind, force is
incapable of bringing people to the true religion. Locke's third
argument is that even if the magistrate could change people's
minds, a situation where everyone accepted the magistrate's
religion would not bring more people to the true religion. Many of the
magistrates of the world believe religions that are false.



Locke's contemporary, Jonas Proast (1999a), responded by saying
that Locke's three arguments really amount to just two, that
true faith cannot be forced and that we have no more reason to think
that we are right than anyone else has. Proast argued that force can
be helpful in bringing people to the truth "indirectly, and at a
distance." His idea was that although force cannot directly
bring about a change of mind or heart, it can cause people to consider
arguments that they would otherwise ignore or prevent them from
hearing or reading things that would lead them astray. If force is
indirectly useful in bringing people to the true faith, then Locke has
not provided a persuasive argument. As for Locke's argument
about the harm of a magistrate whose religion is false using force to
promote it, Proast claimed that this was irrelevant since there is a
morally relevant difference between affirming that the magistrate may
promote the religion he thinks true and affirming that he may promote
the religion that actually is true. Proast thought that unless one was
a complete skeptic, one must believe that the reasons for one's
own position are objectively better than those for other
positions.



Jeremy Waldron (1993) restated the substance of Proast's
objection for a contemporary audience. He argued that, leaving aside
Locke's Christian arguments, his main position was that it was
instrumentally irrational, from the perspective of the persecutor, to
use force in matters of religion because force acts only on the will,
and belief is not something that we change at will. Waldron pointed
out that this argument blocks only one particular reason for
persecution, not all reasons. Thus it would not stop someone who used
religious persecution for some end other than religious conversion,
such as preserving the peace. Even in cases where persecution does
have a religious goal, Waldron agrees with Proast that force may be
indirectly effective in changing people's beliefs. Some of the
current discussion about Locke's contribution to contemporary
political philosophy in the area of toleration centers on whether
Locke has a good reply to these objections from Proast and Waldron.
Tuckness (2008b) and Tate (2016) argue that Locke deemphasized the
rationality argument in his later writings. 



Some contemporary commentators try to rescue Locke's argument by
redefining the religious goal that the magistrate is presumed to seek.
Susan Mendus (1989), for example, notes that successful brainwashing
might cause a person to sincerely utter a set of beliefs, but that
those beliefs might still not count as genuine. Beliefs induced by
coercion might be similarly problematic. Paul Bou Habib (2003) argues
that what Locke is really after is sincere inquiry and that Locke
thinks inquiry undertaken only because of duress is necessarily
insincere. These approaches thus try to save Locke's argument by
showing that force really is incapable of bringing about the desired
religious goal.



Other commentators focus on Locke's first argument about proper
authority, and particularly on the idea that authorization must be by
consent. David Wootton (1993) argues that even if force occasionally
works at changing a person's belief, it does not work often
enough to make it rational for persons to consent to the government
exercising that power. A person who has good reason to think he will
not change his beliefs even when persecuted has good reason to prevent
the persecution scenario from ever happening. Richard Vernon (1997)
argues that we want not only to hold right beliefs, but also to hold
them for the right reasons. Since the balance of reasons rather than
the balance of force should determine our beliefs, we would not
consent to a system in which irrelevant reasons for belief might
influence us. Richard Tate (2016) argues that the strongest argument
of Locke for toleration is rooted in the fact that we do not consent
to giving government authority in this area, only the promotion of our
secular interests, interests that Locke thought a policy of toleration
would further. 



Still other commentators focus on the third argument, that the
magistrate might be wrong. Here the question is whether Locke's
argument is question-begging or not. The two most promising lines of
argument are the following. Wootton (1993) argues that there are very
good reasons, from the standpoint of a given individual, for thinking
that governments will be wrong about which religion is true.
Governments are motivated by the quest for power, not truth, and are
unlikely to be good guides in religious matters. Since there are so
many different religions held by rulers, if only one is true then
likely my own ruler's views are not true. Wootton thus takes
Locke to be showing that it is irrational, from the perspective of the
individual, to consent to government promotion of religion. A
different interpretation of the third argument is presented by
Tuckness. He argues that the likelihood that the magistrate may be
wrong generates a principle of toleration based on what is rational
from the perspective of a legislator, not the perspective of an
individual citizen or ruler. Drawing on Locke's later writings
on toleration, he argues that Locke's theory of natural law
assumes that God, as author of natural law, takes into account the
fallibility of those magistrates who will carry out the commands of
natural law. If "use force to promote the true religion"
were a command of natural law addressed to all magistrates, it would
not promote the true religion in practice because so many magistrates
wrongly believe that their religion is the true one. Tuckness claims
that in Locke's later writings on toleration he moved away from
arguments based on what it is instrumentally rational for an
individual to consent to. Instead, he emphasized human fallibility and
the need for universal principles.


## 8. Education and Politics



Locke's epistemological positions in the *Essay Concerning
Human Understanding* lead him to take education to be extremely
important for his political philosophy. His attack on innate ideas
increases the importance of giving children the right sort of
education to help them get the right sorts of ideas. He also notes in
the *Essay* that human beings govern themselves by a variety of
different laws, the most practically efficacious of which is the
"*Law of Opinion or Reputation*." (*Essay*
2.28.10) Since people are often highly motivated to be well thought of
by others, the moral standards that are operative within a society for
allocating praise and blame are powerful and important. Ideally, these
social norms will reinforce natural law and thus help stabilize
political society. Locke's educational writings suggest how
children might be raised in such a way that they will be the sorts of
citizens who function well in a liberal society (Tarcov 1984). Some
think that Locke's approach to education, which centers
education within the family, gives the state too little influence over
the formation of future citizens (Gutmann 1999), while others think
Locke actually gives the state considerable power to regulate
education (Tuckness 2010b).



Locke's main educational writing is *Some Thoughts Concerning
Education*, and it is based on letters of advice that Locke wrote
to his friend Edward Clarke. This context means that the book assumes
a person of relative wealth who will be overseeing the education of
his son. The book was extremely popular and went through numerous
editions in the century after its publication. One of the striking
features of the book is the way parents are encouraged to develop and
augment the child's love for praise and esteem (*Some
Thoughts*, 56-62). Cultivating this desire helps the child
learn to hold in check other harmful desires, such as the desire for
dominion, and to learn to control impulses by not acting on them until
after reflecting on them.



Some contemporary critics of Locke, inspired by Foucault, argue that
Locke's education is not a recipe for liberty but for forming
children who will be compliant subjects of liberal regimes (Baltes
2016, Carrig 2001, Metha 1992). Locke encourages parents to tightly
regulate the social environments of children to avoid children being
corrupted by the wrong ideas and influences. Locke hopes for children
who have internalized strong powers of self-denial and a work ethic
that will make them compliant in an emerging modern economy. If
parents are tightly controlling the child's educational
environment with the goal of producing a particular sort of child, and
if in reality people are primarily guided by the repetitional norms
that govern praise and blame, critics claim that this reveals the
autonomous liberal subject to be, in reality, a guise for imposed
conformity.



Defenders of Locke argue that this critique underestimates the
orientation of Locke's education toward meaningful freedom.
There are reasons for thinking that, under normal circumstances, the
law of nature and the law of reputation will coincide with each other,
minimizing the potential harms that come from people following the law
of reputation (Stuart-Buttle 2017). Locke's education is
designed to increase compliance with natural law (Brady 2013). Much
depends on whether one thinks conformity with natural law decreases or
increases freedom. While it is true that Locke recognizes the social
nature of the Lockean subject, Locke does not think habituation and
autonomy are necessarily opposed (Koganzon 2016, Nazar 2017). Because
human beings naturally conform to the prevailing norms in their
society, in the absence of a Lockean education people would not be
more free because they would simply conform to those norms.
Locke's education is designed to give children the ability, when
they are older, to evaluate critically, and possibly reject,
prevailing norms. Locke also assumes that the isolation of early
childhood will end and that adolescent children will normally think
differently from their parents (Koganzon 2016). In fact, Locke may
even use custom to help people rationally evaluate their customary
prejudices (Grant 2012).