Locke and the Consent of the Governed Flashcards
(12 cards)
I. State of Nature & Natural Law
- According to Locke, what is the state of nature, and how does it differ from Hobbes’ version?
- What is the “law of nature,” and how is it known?
- What are the three core duties derived from the law of nature?
✅ ANSWER 1: According to Locke, what is the state of nature, and how does it differ from Hobbes’?
Locke defines the state of nature as a condition of perfect freedom and equality, where people can:
Govern themselves
Dispose of their property and persons
Within the bounds of the law of nature
📌 “To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom…”
Key Contrast with Hobbes:
🧠 Locke is more optimistic: people can coexist peacefully under reason — but instability arises due to lack of enforcement.
✅ ANSWER 2: What is the “law of nature,” and how is it known?
Locke defines the law of nature as a moral law, grounded in reason (and compatible with divine revelation).
📌 Ch. 2:
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another…”
Key Features:
It is discoverable by reason (and also found in Scripture).
Its goal is the preservation of mankind.
It is binding even without government — this is where Locke diverges from Hobbes.
Since in the state of nature we are all equal and there is no central authority, we each have a right to apply the law of nature for ourselves and to enforce our judgements.
✅ ANSWER 3: What are the three core duties derived from the law of nature?
As derived in your lecture notes and Second Treatise, Ch. 2:
Preserve yourself
Preserve others (when it doesn’t conflict with 1)
Do no harm to another’s life, liberty, health, or possessions
📌 Ch. 2:
“No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
🧠 These are moral duties, not merely strategic advice. Unlike Hobbes, Locke believes morality exists prior to government, and individuals can recognize it through reason.
II. Problems with the State of Nature
- Why is the state of nature, though not a state of war, still an undesirable condition for Locke?
- What three problems make the state of nature unstable or insecure?
✅ ANSWER 4: Why is the state of nature, though not a state of war, still an undesirable condition for Locke?
You recalled the thief example — and that’s key.
📌 Ch. 3 (Of the State of War):
“To be free from violence and injury from others, is a part of the natural liberty of man. But force without right… puts him into a state of war with the aggressor.”
Locke’s state of nature is not a war by default (unlike Hobbes).
BUT — when someone uses force without right (like a thief entering your home), that creates a state of war.
This is worse than murder, because it’s premeditated coercion — a direct threat to your liberty and self-preservation.
When force replaces reason, we’re no longer in a moral order — we’re back in defensive mode.
So: even if the state of nature is peaceful in principle, it is fragile. One unlawful act reverts it to a state of war.
✅ ANSWER 5: What three problems make the state of nature unstable or insecure?
From Ch. 9 (Of the Ends of Political Society and Government), Locke lists:
No settled, known, written law
– Everyone interprets right and wrong by their own judgment.
No impartial judge
– No neutral party to settle disputes fairly.
No power to enforce right judgment
– Even if you’re right, you might not have the force to defend yourself or punish others.
📌 Ch. 9:
“Want of a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences… and of power to back and support the sentence…”
These problems make even a peaceful state of nature unstable and dangerous in the long run.
III. The Original Compact & Consent
- What is the two-step process Locke describes for forming political society?
- Why does Locke reject the idea of historical consent to government?
- What is “tacit consent,” and how do we give it?
✅ ANSWER 6: What is the two-step process Locke describes for forming political society?
To become subject to a common political authority we must each freely give up our powers of private judgement, and transfer them to the collective. Here Locke envisions a two-step process:
Step One: Individuals agree to unite to form a political society. This requires unanimous agreement: anyone who does not consent is not part of the society, and remains in the state of nature.
Creating a political body first means power only comes from a shared process — not coercion.
Step Two: The new collective governs itself in accordance with the good of the whole, which is then determined by the will of the majority.
(NB This does not mean that the government must be ‘democratic’ in the modern sense, but just that it must command majority support.)
✅ ANSWER 7: Why does Locke reject the idea of historical consent to government?
🔍 Historical consent = The idea that we are bound by the consent our ancestors gave to a government long ago.
🔨 Locke rejects this:
Consent must be personal — I can’t be morally bound by someone else’s promise.
Political authority over me must derive from my own will, not inherited obligation.
📌 Ch. 8:
“No one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.”
So: just because your ancestors accepted a king doesn’t mean you’re bound to that king.
✅ ANSWER 8: What is “tacit consent,” and how do we give it?
🔑 Tacit consent = Giving implicit agreement to obey a government by using or enjoying its benefits.
Examples:
Owning land
Renting a house
Walking on public roads
Using public services
Even traveling on the highway implies tacit consent.
📌 Ch. 8, §119:
“Every man that hath any possession… of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent…”
🧠 Key point: You don’t have to say you consent — if you enjoy what the state provides, you’ve already acted as if you consent.
IV. Property
- How does Locke believe private property arises from common ownership?
- What is the “wastage condition” that limits appropriation?
- How does the invention of money affect Locke’s limits on property?
✅ ANSWER 9: How does Locke believe private property arises from common ownership?
You’re partially right — Locke does emphasize productivity, but the mechanism is more specific.
📌 Ch. 5, §27:
“Every man has a property in his own person… the labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.”
🔑 Core Idea:
The earth is given “in common” to all people.
But each person owns themselves, and thus owns their labor.
When you mix your labor with something from nature (e.g., till soil, plant crops), you make it your property.
🧠 So: Labor = transformation = ownership.
✅ ANSWER 10: What is the “wastage condition” that limits appropriation?
📌 Ch. 5, §31:
“As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in…”
🔑 Meaning:
You can appropriate only as much as you can use.
If you take more than you can use and let it spoil, it’s theft from others — since the land is held in common.
💡 So: Productive use is a moral limit on accumulation.
✅ ANSWER 11: How does the invention of money affect Locke’s limits on property?
This is where Locke softens his own limits — and opens the door to inequality.
📌 Ch. 5, §50:
“Men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth… by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to anyone.”
🔑 Summary:
Money does not spoil, so the wastage condition becomes irrelevant.
People consent (tacitly) to unequal accumulation by accepting money in exchange.
🧠 Result:
Once money exists, people can own far more than they use (even if it is unproductive) — and Locke says that’s legitimate, as long as it’s done through exchange, not theft.
V. Rebellion and Political Legitimacy
- Under what condition does Locke think rebellion is justified?
- Why does a tyrannical state lose its authority?
✅ ANSWER 12: Under what condition does Locke think rebellion is justified?
📌 Ch. 18 (Of Tyranny):
“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.”
🔑 Rebellion is justified when:
The government violates the law of nature.
It no longer acts for the preservation of life, liberty, and property.
It becomes a force without right — i.e. an aggressor, not a protector.
💥 That means it has broken the original trust, returning citizens to the state of nature, where they may defend themselves — including through revolt.
✅ ANSWER 13: Why does a tyrannical state lose its authority?
📌 Locke, Ch. 18:
“When governors act contrary to the end for which their power was given them… they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands.”
🔑 Explanation:
Political authority must always rest on the consent of the governed.
If rulers break the trust by abusing their power, they lose their legitimacy.
The state is no longer a civil government but a band of robbers.
🧠 Think: Legitimacy is conditional. Once the government ceases to serve its foundational purpose, it collapses into unjust force — and may be opposed.
Crticism 1:
Is Locke’s idea of tacit consent strong enough to ground political obligation?
✅ 14. Is Locke’s idea of tacit consent strong enough to ground political obligation?
Locke’s theory of tacit consent (e.g., using roads = consent to government) seems morally thin. It risks collapsing into “you benefit, therefore you consent,” which resembles historical or ancestral consent — something Locke himself explicitly rejects.
Is walking on a public highway enough to bind someone to obey all laws, even those they oppose? This weakens the voluntariness Locke wants to preserve.
Crtisicism 2:
Does Locke’s property theory justify inequality or constrain it?
✅ 15. Does Locke’s property theory justify inequality or constrain it?
Locke introduces constraints — the wastage condition and the “enough and as good” proviso — but these collapse once money is introduced. With money, one can accumulate without limit and without spoilage.
This weakens Locke’s claim to uphold equality in natural rights. The very mechanism meant to enable survival ends up morally licensing capitalism.
Criticism 3:
Can Locke avoid Hobbes’ problem of absolute authority while still securing order?
✅ 16. Can Locke avoid Hobbes’ problem of absolute authority while still securing order?
Locke rejects Hobbes’ absolute sovereign by insisting that legitimacy depends on consent, and the people have a right to overthrow government that violates their rights. This preserves moral agency.
But: if rebellion devolves into chaos (e.g., French Revolution), order collapses. Locke’s challenge is to distinguish justified resistance from destructive anarchy.
Criticism 4:
Is Locke’s distinction between legitimate government and tyranny always clear in practice?
✅ 17. Is Locke’s distinction between legitimate government and tyranny always clear in practice?
Locke says tyranny = rule without the consent of the governed, but in practice, modern political systems obscure consent. Manipulated elections or winner-take-all systems can manufacture legitimacy.
So while Locke’s theory offers a moral standard, its practical application is murky — who gets to decide when tyranny begins?
Criticism 5:
Does Locke’s appeal to natural law assume too much about human reason or morality?
✅ 18. Does Locke’s appeal to natural law assume too much about human reason or morality?
Locke assumes that humans can use reason to discover moral duties in nature. But real people are often irrational, biased, or self-interested. If people fail to grasp the law of nature, the state of nature may look a lot more like Hobbes’ war of all.
This raises the question: is Locke’s system too morally optimistic about our capacity for reason?
Criticism 6:
In what ways is Locke’s theory more internally coherent than Hobbes’?
✅ 19. In what ways is Locke’s theory more internally coherent than Hobbes’?
Locke solves the Hobbesian dilemma of being trapped under unjust authority. His use of majority will, the right to rebel, and the idea of government as a trustee make his system morally responsive, not just functionally stable.
But that very openness to challenge also makes his system more fragile — it depends on trust in rational citizens.
Criticism 7:
Does Locke provide a better response to authoritarianism than Hobbes?
✅ 20. Does Locke provide a better response to authoritarianism than Hobbes?
Locke embeds accountability in the very concept of political power: if a government ceases to serve the people’s rights, it ceases to be legitimate.
Hobbes avoids instability by banning resistance, but that protects tyrants. Locke’s response is riskier but morally superior.
