Locke’s political philosophy

•	state of nature:  a state of perfect freedom to order one’s activities, etc. within the bounds of the law of Nature; a state also of equality among persons.
•	law of Nature:  “no one ought to harm another in his life, health or possessions” (513); nor has anyone the right to destroy himself. Reason teaches us this law.
•	a state of war occurs when someone fails to consult reason and therefore violates the law of Nature (making himself like a wild beast), imperilling others.  In this case, the law of Nature is overridden in order to defend the “innocent” party.
•	Aristotelian elements:  man a social animal, social structures present at first in families, then in households, then in increasingly large/complex communities.
•	in the state of nature, one also has the power to judge and punish others who violate one’s property (broadly conceived as life, liberty and estates).
•	when we form (or join) a civil society, we make a compact to give up this power, or rather to hand it over to some body in that society.
•	for Locke, even if one lives in a group, if the group does not have a structure that provides for making and enforcing laws, then that group is not a civil society.  These people are still living in a state of nature.  That is, you can tell who’s in a civil state and who’s in a state of nature by determining who has a legal system.  Thus, absolute monarchies are not civil societies (since the citizens of these do not have recourse to a legal system).
•	people can only enter into a compact by their own consent (therefore, Locke places limits on, for instance, slavery).
•	perfect consensus impossible; we must therefore be majoritarian.  Individuals must agree in advance to abide by the majority’s decision, and must be held to this, or the compact would fall apart.
•	why would free people unite in such a compact (and thereby relinquish certain powers)?  To protect their property.

Three ways that civil society protects property better than state of nature:
1.	Law.  The law of Nature requires rationality, but we can’t count on all agents in the state of nature to be rational; we therefore need a conventional (versus natural) law with “teeth”.
2.	A judge.  Since, when individuals are their own judge and jury, they are guided by passion/bias rather than reason.
3.	Power to enact the sentence.  

Reminder re: papers.  Revised reading list for balance of term.