John Locke Research Paper

Decent Essays
Celina Cejas
Mark Ackerman
US Government
10/7/2015
John Locke's Philosophy of Natural Law
John Locke is known as one of the founders of Liberal philosophy, a worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. It is also used as the primary foundation for the American Constitution and many of today's western political systems. In Two Treatises of Government, Locke's greatest attest to his political view, he presented his view of "natural" rights, natural law.
Natural law is defined as an ethical belief or system of beliefs supposed to be inherent in human nature and discoverable by reason rather than revelation. In Locke's Two Treatises of Government, he states,i "The natural liberty of man is to be free from

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Born in 1632, John Locke, an English political philosopher, is an important figure of the early European Enlightenment. Locke reasons that natural rights are inalienable, and that God’s rule overruled government authority. Government official, crucial and intolerable to Locke’s work during the seventeenth, temporarily ban this radical man known as the Father of Liberalism. However, Locke’s writings continue to prompt intellectual discussion, including maintaining order while reserving the laws of…

    • 1160 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Locke’s theory can be examined through the American Declaration of Independence. This document declares citizens have rights such as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This is a clear connection of Locke’s beliefs on Natural rights. Locke expressed that all individuals are equal as they are born with certain "unalienable" natural rights. These rights are God-given and can never be taken or even given away.…

    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Locke was one of the men during the Enlightenment period who believed that the citizens have certain rights that cannot be taken away. These rights include life, liberty, and protection of one’s property. He believed that the people should have the right to choose the government, who protects these rights. In America, the colonies were being ruled by Great Britain and were forced to abide by any laws that they had set into motion for them. Thomas Jefferson took Locke’s ideas and made his own rights, that include, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the people stated in The Declaration of Independance.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Leah Schulz Professor Jennifer Hanson History 2- 81010 September 07, 2017 Hobbes vs. Locke Both, Hobbes and Locke, were known as social contract theorists as well as natural law theorists. Hobbes is well known for writing Leviathan and Locke is well known for writing Treatises on Government. However, they are different in regards to their stand and conclusions in several laws of nature. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher from Malmesbury. He first started rising to fame when his book Leviathan, laid the foundation of Western political philosophy.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He believed in consent of the governed. This is when the authority of the government depends on the consent of the people, which may be expressed by votes in elections. One of Locke’s biggest ideas was natural rights. This was the right to life, liberty, and property. As stated in the Icivics article, “Life refers to the fact that people want to live and will fight to survive, Liberty means that people want to be as free as possible to make their own decisions.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Locke an english philosophe says in the Second Treatise on Civil Government, “a state of perfect freedom to order their possessions and to order actions… within bounds of the law of nature… ”(Document A). In other words John Locke argues that people should have freedoms within limits. According to Locke, if the government fails the people, the people have the power to overthrow the government. Freedom was the main idea of Locke’s thoughts about government because, all…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Dark Ages Dbq

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There’s was a time that The Dark Ages took fear in people's life but in the late 17th and 18th century The Enlightenment Ages was born. In Europe, well known philosophers from all over the world help the world with new ideas and invention that changed people's point of views and people's principles. The philosophers that really took the world by storm with the ideas and views were Voltaire, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and John Locke. These brilliant Piliphersers…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In other words, Locke believed that each person is born naturally free and should be protected by the state of nature, which he defines as the government. Locke first established that to understand political power one first has to understand the law of nature. Locke believed that all men are equal unless God said contrarily. Locke viewed equality as the foundation of his beliefs and that under…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    " In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke writes “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” In this book Locke so perfectly describes the role that government should take in its citizenries lives and this quote is often simplified to mean the government should protect three basic natural rights: life, liberty, and property. John Locke wrote these everso impeccable words long before the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was ratified, but it is foolish to suggest that the founders of the United States of America did not implant John Locke†™s philosophy into these documents. The founders were deeply inspired by the ideas of philosophers such as Locke, Montesquieu,…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Enlightenment was a movement that claimed the minds of a majority of liberal thinkers and was a time of political awakening that became revolutionary. Spreading throughout Europe and describing a time in western philosophy, the Enlightenment was the time scholars and intellectuals were free to speak their mind without fear of authority. Individuals of this certain time period, which was known as the “Age of Reason” spoke on fundamental concepts that were faith in nature, belief in human progress, reason and liberty. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century the Enlightenment brought a new wave of information and thought into a society at the time that was controlled by aristocrats and people who held high positions in the church.…

    • 1510 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Locke’s philosophies are characterized as one of the first forms of liberalism. His political thought was a source for the founding principles of the United States. Locke’s philosophies advocate liberty, equality and freedom from oppressive government. Yet, in The Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke justifies the colonization and disempowerment of Native Americans and Africans in his discussions of freedom, property and slavery. In The Racial Contract, Charles W. Mills exposes the contradictions in Locke’s political and theoretical thought, particularly his deviation from the law of nature when it came to non-European people of color.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This paper will demonstrate the apparent contrast or correlation between Locke 's beliefs and these three individuals. Johns Locke, an English political thinker, believed that Men have real freedom, expresses the power of their mind when they are happily directed. This free man in its conquest of happiness is the man of the state of nature. He has a life of its own and has the right and duty to preserve. The state of nature refers to the state before human existence became socially organized.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Locke’s work and stress on “Natural rights” got Americans pay more attention to their liberty and their rights. Locke’s work influences the American Revolution and later, sets the basic principles of the U.S.…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He was positive towards human nature and believed that humans were born with natural rights. He expressed his beliefs in documents called Two Treaties of Government and The Second Treatise of Civil Government. “Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man…” is a quote from The Second Treatise of Civil Government. It is shown in both documents that Locke believed that governments were formed only to maintain and protect natural rights. He disagreed with the idea of an absolute monarchy, but instead said that limited power was more effective.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Throughout history, there has been many debate over theorist in which set of laws is right to live by. Natural Law is one of the oldest theory of law that deals with human nature and sets of moral principles from god. Natural Law theorist such as, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and John Locke obey the laws that promote the greater good for society. The other law is Positivism; Positivism is the opposite of natural law where humans such as, the government and legislatures create the laws. Positivist theorist such as, Jeremy Bentham, John Austin believed in a society where they obey laws that were created by the public opinion.…

    • 1769 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays