John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government” is a political philosophy essay in which Locke describes natural law and man’s right to self preservation. In this paper, I will be arguing that while the basic fundamental ideas of Locke’s Second Treatise are relevant, his ideology is too religious, contradictory and has weak stances for it to be taken seriously in modern society. I will be specifically using his arguments on the state of nature and the state of slavery in chapters two and four.
Chapter two of Locke’s Second Treatise is focused on the state of nature and what he calls natural law. Natural law is the concept of what human nature is in the absence of authority and that every man is equal and shouldn't have authority over each other unless God explicitly declares someone as unequal. In nature, every being has the right to self preservation because we all are the “work of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker” (Locke, 4). In nature, nobody has the license to harm another for their life, liberty or possessions. If a man commits a crime upon another, “the person who has been harmed has… the general right of punishment that he shares with everyone else [and] a particular right to seek reparation from the person who harmed him” (Locke, 5). This right ideally would prevent the crime from being committed again and will bring justice to the injured party in the interest of their self preservation.
Locke focuses on the idea of self preservation through the scope of slavery in chapter four. Locke writes that “man is to be free from… any superior power on earth… [and that man] is to be under no legislative power except the one established by consent” (Locke, 9). Due to this ideal, no one can voluntarily submit to slavery because no man can give more power than he has and no man has the power to take lives, whether that be in the fashion of suicide or submitting to slavery. The only exception to this right is when one has committed such a terrible crime that he must forfeit his right to freedom and owes the injured party his life. To Locke, slavery is not a state of nature but a state of war. The state of war is where an attacked party has the right to retaliate in self defense in the name of self preservation. Once one accepts the powerful conqueror as his master, it is no longer slavery, but rather, voluntary acceptance of dominance. Therefore, while man cannot voluntarily be enslaved, he also agrees to this limited power in exchange for death.
Locke’s work, while having a generally good concept on the natural rights of man, is too rooted in the idea of religion to have a huge influence in modern society. In modern society, religion has no place in politics and I advocate for the idea of secularism. Religion as a foundation for nature cannot be valid because there is no factual evidence, only belief. In the case of the United States, we were created as an ideally secular nation, yet one of Jefferson’s greatest influences for writing the Declaration of Independence was Locke’s “Second Treatise”. What does this mean for the United States? The basic framework of Locke’s ideals are correct in the sense that we all are equal, but we must acknowledge that religion is a huge basis. We must be able to separate the religious ideology from the general message in order to use Locke’s ideas and remain secular and unbiased.
I found Locke’s work to be contradictory. This is shown through his initial statement about natural law. Locke argues that all men are created as the same species in the same nature and equal abilities, but then goes on to say unless God explicitly has said that a person is unequal. While it is nice to think that everybody’s the same, all humans are not created equally. Humanity is meant to be diverse but this diversity cannot verify the inequality of others. All humans have the right to freedom and personal autonomy. No one is inferior, even if stated in the bible. The truth of the matter is that biologically, no one is created better or worse, rather, created to survive. I wholeheartedly agree with Locke’s stance of self-preservation and the natural equality of humankind. I cannot agree for the inequality of others for any reason. Nobody is unequal or should be treated as such. He also claims that when it comes to enslavement, one has the choice to either accept death as a possibility for not submitting to enslavement or allowing the conqueror to have dominance over you. This heavily contradicts Locke’s earlier idea of self-preservation. Everyone has the right to self-preservation and a higher quality of life and no one has the right to cause harm on to others. When someone is enslaved, why must they either chose death or being coerced into a lesser quality of life? This idea of man accepting slavery is ignorant of the actual conditions of slavery. It places the responsibility of slavery on the slaves rather than chastatizing the slave holder. The slave holders should be held accountable for impeding on people’s right of freedom in order to benefit himself.
Locke’s stance on the state of slavery is very weak. He writes that no man can voluntary agree to slavery in the name of self preservation and that it’s an agreement to submit to those in high positions. However, he disregards the most common form of slavery in that time period: the enslavement of Africans and indigenous people in the New World Trade. Locke writes from a hegemonic narrative that does not give him insight to the conditions of the slave trade. The type of slavery he writes about seems to be in the sense of being prisoners of war. He briefly touches upon this in the context of the Jews’ enslavement in which he states because they sold themselves into drudgery, yet not slavery – making it a different case. However, Locke doesn’t provide a valid answer about his stance on this. He acknowledges that those in slavery do not have the power to not be at the mercy this despotic power, yet there is no valid explanation on to why this is valid, and if it is not, what is the solution? He only focuses on what he believes is legitimate slavery. Does this imply that illegitimate slavery, such as the aforementioned plantation slavery, is what is not explicitly stated in his work? This allows for terribly loose interpretation of the most common form of slavery. In reference to the slavery of someone who commits a crime, this implies to me that if you become a criminal, you are not longer subjected to the same rights as a freeman and are now the property of whoever you wronged. This is a barbaric ideology that is still seen in the United States’ prisons. Prisoners are stripped of their natural rights and treated as slaves. Slavery is not a justifiable mode of punishment for crime and has no place in such a developed nation like the United States. In this case, the punishment of the initial crime through enslavement is the worse crime. Locke’s argument on slavery seems to be the weaker and less thought out of his points.
The basic foundations of “Second Treatise of Government” are important ideas. The right to self preservation and the idea that everybody is created equal are ideologies that we should believe. Locke’s execution of the explicit details on the rights of man is poorly done, heavily contradictory and too heavily engraved in his religious beliefs and the societal sentiments of his time.