review of the second treatise of the government

“Second Treatise of the Government”
(Sir John Locke)

The Second Treatise of John Locke serves as one of the promising political writings in history that entails various revolutionary political thoughts that are sometimes contrary to what were laid before. In a manner, this paper gives my insights and interpretations of what is known to be significant in the realm of politics and how Sir Locke contributed to the present perspective in the study of power distribution.

Chapter 1
Even the title itself is a response to the work of Sir Robert Filmer, a political scientist who profess the idea of a “patriarch” government in which men are subjected to the descendants of Adam, the first human created by God. He alleged that all men are covered by the dominion of Adam and his descendants that are called as the monarchs. In addition to that, Filmer (in the perspective of Locke) viewed men’s superiority over women which is strongly contrary to the feminists beliefs of the contemporary politics. Locke refuted as to the reason that descendants of Adam is difficult since the genealogy records are no more available and distorted, thus it is hard to distinguish who’s the real descendant of the first man created among the large population. Second rebuttal is that men are born with freedom and equality, meaning that there are no superior and inferior in the society. Third is the idea of feminism that arouse in which Locke rebutted the idea of patriarchy with the belief that men should never be undermining women even in the political aspect. Accordingly, Locke believed that there are no scriptural basis of an absolute of husband to his wife and children. Henceforth these and other ideas will be the foundation of this paper of Locke as we continue to asses this book.

Chapter II
Locked discussed about the importance of the concept of equality among people in the second chapter of his work. He instigated that there is no privileged person and that everybody was born with the same concept of freedom and equality. It is the main idea that only God has the superiority and the sole creator of this people; thus absolute obedience must only be rendered to this divine providence who is omnipotent. However, he mentioned that the need of order and protection of the public interest forge humanity to form a government that will cater the interest of all and that will administer God’s creation. The concept of dominion that was mentioned in the Holy Scriptures was only between man and beast (including the management of the resources) and so the concept of dominion should not be apply by human to a human particularly in regards with political power. As the main idea of equality is concerned, the government should always make laws and rulings favorable to the interest of its subjects or the ruled. The people must always be consulted as to what they want to have and that everything must in accordance to the promotion of the common. Locke proposed a monarchial kind of government but not the absolute one who will run people’s affair in the society. In relation to that, he emphasizes the importance of preserving order by installing punishment to those who are impairing its value. People such must be punished justly with the level of violation that they committed against the people. However, murderers are equated to beasts that needs execution for the prevention of more bloodsheds in the society. Every man has the right to liberty, health and possession, if these rights and endangered the government must do the necessary actions for the preservation of the natural rights as the people consented its existence in the very first place to depart on the state of nature where life is governed by sole reason and has absolute freedom.

Chapter III In the third chapter of his work, he discusses the concept of state of war and how it jeopardize the preservation of the relevant tenets of the society and government which is the preservation of the natural rights. He remarked that the violation of these are deemed to be a declaration of a state of war to the injured party and must be met immediately with the appropriate actions. One example that Locke tried to portray is the thief who deliberately robbed a person to satisfy himself. Accordingly, a thief is no more considered to be a person who has right to liberty, freedom and even to life. He can be killed as he violated the natural rights of a person with regards to property; thus making him as a threat to the primary purpose of preserving natural rights. If we try to apply this principle that Locke is trying to imply, he was talking about a situation in which the ruler declare a state of war to his people as he devalued their natural rights. The difference between this proposition of Locke to that of Sir Robert Filmer is that, in Locke’s perspective, it is justified to resist a ruler with such attitude of impairing natural rights that God has bestowed upon its people in the very beginning of their existence. While in Filmer’s perspective, he argued that it is never justified to revolt against a leader/monarch due to the power bestowed upon these leaders as they were considered to be descendants of Adam to whom God granted dominion of all the earth. This is crucial difference between the two political theorists as Locke denied and strongly refute the idea of patriarchy that Filmer was trying to propose. In case of deprivation of justice to the injured party, the only thing left to do as anticipated by Locke is God. One feature of this work is also the use of the scripture (Bible), he intentionally uses the bible as the basis of his proposition and to illustrate some details that seem to be complicated to discuss. In totality, this chapter made a significant attempt to sole the question of justifiable revolution upon a government whose actions threatens natural rights of the masses.

Chapter IV
Slavery poses an important discussion in this paper as Locke continues to give better illustration on the concept of freedom and liberty. Filmer in his paper defined freedom as absolute, and that people are not allowed to have under the rule of a leader who is an absolute monarch because such freedom might bring chaos in the society. However, John Locke responded to this discussion as he gave another definition of freedom. He wrote that freedom could still prevail in a society which is ruled by a government and that the definition of Filmer is an exaggeration of the negative side of freedom. He added that man can attain in a society as long as it does not impend the rights of others and of the government. Man cannot achieve his greatest goal of his life if he is under absolute control of someone. Conversely, he distinguish illegitimate and legitimate form of slavery. The former is when a leader, conqueror or owner put someone into slavery without justification and reasonable cause, while the latter is achieve through war in which the aggressor was defeated and put into subjectivity by the winning party. Illegitimate form of slavery is rampant particularly in an absolute form of monarchy in which the use of bare force is implied as an instrument of controlling this people. This, according to Locke, threatens the natural rights and are not excused as he reevaluate the idea of Filmer. But the latter is the kind of slavery that Locke favors as he described it as a slavery with corresponding agreement between the master and slave. Perhaps Locke was affected by the kind of slavery system that England had during his time. . The conqueror and the conquered can agree to form a compact where the conqueror accedes to limited rule and the conquered promises obedience; in this case, the state of war and slavery are over and natural right is preserved. In explaining this proposition, he used Jews in the biblical times as an example where they sell themselves making slavery as consented and regulated by some terms and agreement. Chapter V
The fifth chapter started its discussion focusing on property with regards to ownership, leading to the question on how can a man cultivate nature and have dominion over the land provided by God. He frequently mentioned the importance of the biblical statements and how does it applies to this political aspect of property owning which encompasses the vast (during his time) available lands and resources that are not being cultured. As the bible says that dominion was inherent among men as God gave superiority to Adam, as a representation of men, to control the features of earth to aid his struggle for survival. In contrary to what Filmer proposed in his work tackling the idea of “patriarchy” referring to the exclusive dominion of Adam and his descendants, Locke disputed it by saying that men, following the second chapter, were born equally. The dominion that the Holy Scripture says entails the whole of humanity and that everyone has claim over the earth’s resources. One of the example that he laid was an Indian (India-former colony of England), if an Indian catches a hare therefore the hare is now his property; hence labor came into the discussion. Locke remarked that personal property is equated to the labor of man. This falls back to the earlier model of discussion on the hare captured and killed by an Indian. If a man reaps an apple from a particular tree then it is his property as he enforce his labor upon the apple. However, Locke is not against the concept of land titling because the word “dominion” itself that is used in the bible promotes the idea of owning. But he was strongly opposing to the idea of excessive property owning. He blamed the invention of money as unit of exchange in the modern world. Money paved the way for the increase of man’s existing greed due to its capability to buy more money, property and even person. These incentivize people to accumulate more land more than what they need to supply their needs. Nevertheless Locke proposed that man should never encroach another man’s land or property, that humans must accept the fact of land owning and respect another man’s land.

Chapter VI In the sixth chapter, Sir Locke elaborated more about his disgust to what Filmer had presented as the “Paternal Domination”. He explained his view on the query of sexism that men are not necessarily superior to women. This is due to his conception to what is written in the Holy Scriptures that children must at all cost honor not only his father but his mother as well. Locke was fond of changing this term of “patriarchal” to “parental” as he tackled the issue of gender with the concept of equality, whereas he describe men and women both born in an equal manner. The substitution of the parental term was extended in his discussion on the function of the parents towards their children. Accordingly, parents are present in the side of their children for the function of molding, nurturing and preparing them for adulthood. They don’t have the right over their children’s liberty and property which is different from the perspective of paternalism. Locke commented that the concept of Patriarchy was for the purpose of embedding an idea that power should only be concentrated on a single person, in other words, an absolute monarchy. However, though parents don’t exercise control over their children, yet these children are still responsible of honoring their parents. This is the same with the idea of rendering respect and honor to the one who enlightened you about the world. Just like in the case of the prince/king, he is still ordered to pay respect to his parents the same with the responsibility of its subjects to their own parents. In some point, Locke reiterated its endeavor to promote gender equality in the political mainstream as he gave intense regard to humanity’s equal rights. He tried to establish the idea of plain rulings even among parents who both contributed to the creation of their children. That none of them should be consider as the superior especially with nurturing their children, and significantly does not exercise control to their children. Parents in Locke’s view departed from the relationship that they had with the children once they reach the stage of maturity; hence they are ready to face the real world, where they will be abiders of the law and provider of peace, as what their parents should teach them.

Chapter VI After discussing more on the equality of men in the family and gender, Locke then shifted his attention on his perspective of a civil society. According to him, man was not created by God to live alone in this planet. That is why God created woman to procreate for the continuation human race. Wife, husband and children or a family as a whole is the basic unit of the society. However, families do not then establish a civil society just because of their existence. They are still living in a state of nature where men are living according to their perception of what is right and wrong. In this status, individuals or family then create themselves as the government of their own unit, thus there are a lot of jurisdiction that may persist in a society. For this unorganized and unsecured mode of living in the society, men resorted to the idea of creating a government where they will submit their respective jurisdiction and natural rights for the benefit of all. This government function as the administration of human affairs and preserve order in the community. If someone (in case) tries to violate this common will of the people which is order and security, the establish government can then punish this person justly according to the level of violation a person has committed against the people. This is then the genesis of the ideas that the state of the government has the legitimacy in the use force in its law enforcement, this is in order for it to achieve its genuine end. Therefore, in this situation a civil society is created. People submit their natural rights or the concept of natural law to the legitimate for the purpose where all of them will benefit. Locke strongly oppose to the concept of absolute monarchy due to this conception of civil society. Accordingly, absolute monarchy does not execute the will of the masses since the basis of his laws and regulation were ego driven. Men cannot appeal their grievances and people’s voice are not heard. In this situation, the king can adjudicate upon cases which concerns citizens to citizens but never between the people and the king. Thus, definition of justice falls on the realm of Machiavelli which is the interest and advantage of the strong. This then gives the sense of democracy in the classical writing on political studies.

Chapter VIII Following the discussion of the government where the people submit their natural rights and jurisdiction, Locke then give his further explanation of political phenomena. In his book, he wrote that political societies begun when people agree or the majority approve the formation of the political institution where their voice and interest will be heard and met. Institutions exists just because of the compact between the people and the state. Many political analysts refuted this claim of Locke by saying that history shows the prevailing monarchs. This is to argue that not all of the political institutions established in history were drive buy the people’s will to create one. These were just due to the force and might that this monarchs came into power. But Locke rebutted it by saying that saying that monarchs were established because of the people’s belief that they are the appropriate one for the society. In this manner, Locke tried to say that not all, although there are some, monarchs are created by the use of coercion. Many of them were established because of the early thought of kings being chosen by God, thus they possess something divine which could solve the problems in their society. Succession of these monarch indeed based on the familial aspect since it is main idea provided by the previous chapter, that parents like those kings raised their children the same way they were molded by their good parents or even by God. In addition to that, Locke cited biblical sources that says, Adam was considered as the head of his family because of the idea that he possess the quality and strength necessary for his family, together with Eve, to survive in the wilderness. Therefore, the notion that monarchs are an example of political institution made not by people’s will was demolished. Locke believe that people do not resist their kings because of its legitimacy, that they possess the quality relevant for the order and organization of the society of mutual understanding.

Chapter IX This chapter summarizes the previous chapters mentioned. He again ask the question why men resorted or decided to leave the law of nature where they are totally free to do whatever they wish to do as long as it is for the purpose of self-preservation. Lock made an attempt to recap what he was trying to imply in his work by answering this question. Accordingly, men decided to leave law of nature because of the danger absolute liberty is posing in the society of men. It is then conceded that persons do have their own conception of what is right and wrong, thus this variety of perceptions can lead to a clash in the society. A person who deliberately took someone’s property for the reason of self-preservation might be a cause of turmoil. It is because that man believe that he is doing the right thing according to his own code of ethics, yet it may be very offensive to the owner since that property was occupied by him without any consent. Second is danger due to the absence of the mediator who will settle the problems among people in the society. Another man’s moral might be someone’s immorality. Since there is no law that governs the majority, then it will be hard for different people to coexist in a society which is in the law of nature. Third is the problem of punishment. People who poses danger to the natural rights of other be punished due to their violations committed, thus it will be hard for the society to punish these violators for the preservation of peace. Necessity to deal with matters like this can be solved by forming a government to whom the people will entrust their liberty and property. This government will organized, at the same time punish violators that threatens the importance of natural rights of every person.

Chapter X and XI
Locke has then started to talk about the commonwealth and the kinds of government. Accordingly, if power if rooted from the people, then it is a democratic society. If power is vested on the few, then it is oligarchy and if in the hands of one, then it is monarchy. A government can be dissolve as long as it is the people will. However it is the first one that is being prescribe by Sir John Locke. In addition to that, he remarked in his paper that for a government to be established, it must first its body of legislators who will enact laws that will promote the welfare of the people. The masses consent this legislative body and accept its existence as legitimate. Legislators must always bear in mind the very intention why they were in such position. It must be clear to them that they are chosen by the people and they are for the people. However, legislator must enact their law clearly and vividly for the people to be aware of the regulations for the society. This laws and regulations would include taxation. But this policy must at all cost be consented by the people, the same with the acquisition of property, it must be corresponded with a just compensation. The fourth limitation of the legislators is not to transfer power to any other body. The people consented their existence and chose them as delegates, and then agreed to follows the laws they promote in the society. Thus it is only the people who can transfer power into any other body of the government. The summary of this chapter is that the limitations on the legislature are the following: laws must be established and unvaried for different citizens; the laws must only serve the public good; the people must consent to taxes; and it may not transfer power to any other body.
Chapter XII and XIII
Even though the legislative branch is considered to be the highest and most important part of the government, yet Locke prescribed the formation of the other two. The executive and the federative branch which are also significant in keeping order within the society, are then defended by the author as co-actors of the legislative. The formation of the executive is for the proper enforcement of laws provided by the legislative. Locke feared that if the legislative will be the law enforcer, there might be a tendency that they will exclude themselves from the laws of the society. It is important to note that the environment Locke was trying to propose is that the one governed by law without anyone being exempted, even the law makers. Thus it is important to have a separate branch to enforce the law in the society. The other one, the federative, concerns the matters of diplomacy. Locke said that it is harder to organize matter outside the state/society. That is why, there is a need to create a branch who will deal with the external matter of the society.
In the second chapter, Locked profess the concept of separation of the legislative and the other two branches of the government. According to him, the legislative is the highest among the three since it formulates laws and regulations the covers all transactions in the society, including the rules on the executive and federative. But, he said that executive then can use the force of the commonwealth if it find that legislative does not function according to the will and consent of the people. In this sense, we can see the balance of power between the two. Executive branch also function for the benefit of the legislative especially during election (if that is the nature). They see to it that procedures regarding with the electoral process will be smooth as it should be. Thus both branches function in mutuality. Although a separate branch, federative somehow function similarly with the executive. But most of the time, it is under the regulation set by the legislative. At the end of the day, the three branches still need the consent of the people since they are the one who agreed for their creation, thus it is the people that are superior in the commonwealth.
Chapter XIV and XV “We cannot expect the legislative to have a session consistently”. Locke assumes that sometimes the legislative do not function as swift as it should be. This is very lethal especially when time is in need of an immediate response to the situation. Thus, the executive branch can give laws on its own as a substitute to the red tape in the legislative branch. This course of action is called the prerogatives. Prerogatives are intended to meet the demand of the society which need an immediate respond. However, it is still very important to keep this intention favorable to the public. Executive is only allowed to do such action only if the people will benefit out of it. Otherwise, it is never acceptable to let the system do prerogatives driven by selfishness and tyranny. It is illogical to say that people left the law of nature just to under a lion who oppressed the people. The second chapter gave the summary of the powers discussed earlier which are the parental and political power. The Parental is the power which constitutes the relationship of the parents to their children. As mentioned in the early chapter, parents have the control over their children on their years of naivety. But parents don’t exercise authority over the liberty and property of their children. Their duty as parents are just to mold them to become productive law abiding citizens in the future. If the children have already arrive at their point of maturity, then they will now be gaining their full independence from parental control. Thus, it’s up then for the parents if they will separate from their matrimonial vows since they have played their role after all. The Political on the other hand is different with the parental power because it is rooted upon the compact between people and the government for the purpose of human race preservation. Parental is just a manifestation of nature, as their children needs nurture since they are not yet matured while political is a voluntary agreement between the people and its legitimate government. Moreover, Locke added one type of power which is the despotic. In his definition, despotic power is what we often refer to tyranny. This is an absolute power of one person to another, where a person declares war against another person for selfish purposes. He controls his wealth, property and liberty. And the winning person conquers all of another’s natural rights. As an evaluation, the parental is the lower level of power in which the characteristics of natural law still persist, evident in the liberty of the child after immaturity. The political power is at the middle level since its power based on the mutual agreement of the government and the people for the benefit of the governed. While despotical power surpass the political by acquiring power through war (does not necessarily means the armed one) with other person by controlling them absolutely without considering their consent.
Chapter XVI and XVII
This chapter talks about the unjust conqueror and the opposite. Since war is inevitable, Locke has set his dogma regarding on matters that entail subjectivity and control over the conquered. There are a lot of reason why a commonwealth invades another. This could be economic based or mere political interests. However, he remarked that a conqueror only controls those who fought against him but not with those companions who fought for his side. Thus for example, Hitler only have the right over those people who were willing to lose their lives just to resist the conquest. But he does not have power over those Italians and Japanese who together in favor of his side, hence they are of equal. In addition to that, Locke gave his controversial comment over the matter. He said in his paper that the conqueror has control over the lives of his new subjects, but not to their properties. That is because, these people fought putting their lives at stake. Children and wife of the opposing soldier are free from control and so do their properties for they did not fight against the new ruler. Furthermore, if the conqueror wanted to have the property of his conquered subject, he should assure that something will be left for the family of that person, since the main thought is preserve the natural rights of every human, which is the right to live. Dogmatic as it sounds, yet this is how the bible classified just rulers in history.
Chapter XVIII In this chapter, he defined the characteristic of the tyrant. Although, it is already known to the world what a tyrant means, but Locke gave further explanation on how a tyrant can be evaluated. With regards to the natural rights, Locke defined the tyrant as the violator of people’s rights such as liberty, property and other right which are inherent to human being. Going back to the concepts discussed earlier, the tyrant violates the compact that he had with the people during the establishment of the commonwealth. He views the world as for his own benefit and not for the people. His intention are all self-driven and intended for the purpose of self-satisfaction and egoistic happiness. While the just ruler promoted the interests and the intention of the people, order and peace, which is the ultimate end of the commonwealth. According to Locke it is the law that covers the government and the people, thus a ruler who goes beyond to what is set by the law can be considered as the tyrant who is violating the law of the people. However, tyranny does not only isolate in the situation which is monarchial. It could also prevail in democratic and oligarchic commonwealth. They are vulnerable as long as they become oppressive to the people and goes beyond the setting of the law. But in the last part of the chapter, Locke warned the tyrants the danger that they pose against the people. It is then justified to use violence if necessary, just like a person who is robbed. It is then justified to kill the robber on the spot since he threatens the natural right of the victim which is the right to life.
Chapter XIX
It is here then where Locke set the conditions on how a government dissolute or degenerate. His first condition is when the legislative is altered. It is then perceived that the legislative represents the will of the people. The fear is that when a king or a ruler tries to change the system, perhaps by changing the election or any other means where the interests of the people are no more heard and considered. Then it is the fault of the prince or the tyrant why the government degenerated. Second is when the executive no more function in the commonwealth. If the enforcer cease to function, then the promise of peace and order now will be neglected. We noted that the reason why the people decided to accept the existence of the government in the very first place was for tranquility which is hard to attain in a state of nature where everyone is absolutely free. And also the threat of rebellion comes in. Indeed, there will be faction who not agree to the system and create turmoil. It is then the duty of the executive to meet this threat and enforce the law. However rebellion is justified when the commonwealth do not serve the interest of the people. As being tackled in the previous chapter, the people left the natural order since it does not guarantee the emergence of the human race. That is why they form the commonwealth, but if it does not function any more according to the will of the founder then it is justified to rebel. Locke was against the idea of Barclay, another renowned political analyst, which is the rebellion without the use of force. Locke said that it now logical to use such arms in order to oust a tyrant who is powerful. Therefore promoting the method of armed rebellion against the powerful armed tyrant. After the degeneration of the government, the people then goes back to the laws of nature where they will live with absolute freedom and do whatever they believed as right, until they again come to an agreement to form a commonwealth who will again try to solve the transgression of the society
Conclusion
Sir Locke has contributed something that is quite revolutionary in the political sphere of understanding. If we will try to compare, the thought of Locke was the extension of what was Stephen Junius Brutus was trying to pose in his paper against tyranny. Locke has given more emphasis on the schema that people from the very start live in a nature where they live in absolute freedom, with different code of morale. This is the main point of his paper which is quite absent in the writing of Stephen Junius Brutus. Although they both share the same religious insight on the matter yet Locke was more practical in his methodology on resisting the tyrant. Brutus never mention the justifiability of an armed rebellion against the tyrant unlike him who even promoted it as a means to regain the natural rights that was once taken by a tyrant. He gave us the idea that people are rational because they resorted to the belief that a government will take order upon them and it is not God who chose the kings. Locke’s idea was a combination of his predecessors in the discipline. Aside from Brutus, we can also see here the “polity” that Aristotle was talking about regarding the politics within the family. His opposition on the patriarchal concept domination makes him a little feminist in letters and patriot of equality. He profess the idea that human disregarding gender are all equal since they are both creations of the divine. By setting the reasons behind establishment of political power (compacted power), we can now basically determine what the nature of tyranny is In my own interpretation of the whole masterpiece, Locke was trying to convince the monarchs of his time to follow the dogmatic founded thought that he proposed. As British, he was trying to create an impression to the Monarch of his time that they should be a good servant of the people since they were credited with legitimacy by the faith of the masses, which is for the restoration of everybody’s moral interest on liberty, property and life. The foremost notion was to consult the people in every matter that concerns them, whether on legalities or even conquests, and never be a tyrant to your own nation. The branches of the government must at all times promote the public good and welfare. Thus prevent the society from going back to law of nature where survival is reserved for the fittest. He addressed the second treatise as the treaty or agreement between the people and the state, where the state provides while the people abides

“The Second Treatise of the Government”

An Article Review
Presented to
Dr. Zainal Kulidtod
Department of Political Studies
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Mindanao State University
Marawi City

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for the Course
Political Science 100 (Ancient and Medieval Political Thought)
First semester, AY 2013-2014

By
Lorie Jhun Cubil Laurente
AB Political Studies
October 2013