John Locke's Second Treatise

In John Locke’s Second Treatise: “The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government,” he discusses the natural state of man, and the privileges that a man living in his natural state has. A man in his primitive, or original, state is allowed perfect freedom to all the resources that he may use. He is allowed the right to “punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree,” (Locke) but he must also work to preserve the rest of mankind that is operating within the natural state. Locke goes on to explain why a man may relinquish his natural rights to join a commonwealth and some of the consequences that may arise from doing so. Many of Locke’s ideas about civil government are a direct critique on absolutism. Locke addresses the state of nature to define political power as he sees it. He defines the state that all men are naturally in as “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, …show more content…
He argues that an absolute monarchy places all of its power in one person, which impairs the entire system. He also argues that since a monarch can encroach people’s property and life without redress the people lack incentive to contribute to the collective well-being of the society. Locke challenges the idea of an absolute monarchy based on the idea that an absolute monarch who abuses the “property” or life of any civil member is in violation of natural law. He suggests that to prevent this, authority should be placed in a collective body and that no one person should be above the law. The textbook states that Locke believed “government […] had been instituted to protect life, liberty, an property; no political authority could infringe these natural rights. The law of nature was, therefore, an automatic and absolute limitation on every branch of government.” (p.