“Two Treatises of Government”
An essay
Merhawi Bitsuamlak
Inez van Soolingen
Group number: 11
Words: 2103
Introduction
John Locke, in his “Two Treatises of Government” defines political power as the right to make laws for the protection and regulation of property. In his view, these laws only work because the people accept them and because they are for the public good. He claims that all men are originally in a state of nature, which means that a man in this original state is bound by the laws of nature, but he is otherwise able to live, act, and dispose of his possessions as he sees fit. He goes on by stating that all men have been given a moral compass by God and will thus live by those same morals, which will be defined by a so-called …show more content…
The Social Contract is assumed to be the source that tells its contractors how to behave. But in order to hold to the morals given by the Contract and not to violate them, one must already have a certain source of moral behaviour. After all, in order to refrain from violating the Contract, there must be a morality that tells the contractors that violation of that same Contract is immoral. In short: one must have a pre-existing idea of what is good and bad, prior to the Contract, in order to withhold the level of morality given by that same Contract. However, Locke considers the Contract itself to be the source of morality. The Social Contract is considered to be the beginning of the concept of morality. Thus, it is only after the Social Contract is agreed upon that a certain level of morality can be put into practice. This way, Locke fails to emphasize what the source of the moral level for the Social Contract itself must be, since the Contract practically cannot be both the source of morality that says the Contract needs to be preserved, and the moral level that has to be preserved at the same time. So in the end, there has to be a source that forms the basis of the Social Contract, and in its own way, this pre-existing source of morality also needs a pre-existing source of morality, and so on. So in the end, since there is no pre-existing source for …show more content…
Like stated before, Locke assumes that all men share the same moral compass. But human differences inevitably lead to different morals. After all, a single glance at the person next to one will be enough proof for the fact that all human beings are different. In the end, whether it is physically or mentally: some people are stronger in certain circumstances than others. This is part of human nature, just like it is part of human nature to always strive for more or better in comparison to others. So, when one man is stronger than another, he might see a good chance of winning a dispute. As a consequence, only very few men will choose to waive their right to self-enforcement and hand it to a civil community or some kind of authoritative leader that will settle the dispute for him. After all, he will have a good chance of winning the dispute if he plays his own judge, whilst renouncing his right to self-enforcement means to hand over the dispute to a third party and thus risk being disadvantaged. Hence, agreeing to a Social Contract will not be out of free will, but out of necessity, if not force. And if the political society is designed in a way that all men must agree with a certain set of rules and moral codes, then the value of a Social Contract is
An essay
Merhawi Bitsuamlak
Inez van Soolingen
Group number: 11
Words: 2103
Introduction
John Locke, in his “Two Treatises of Government” defines political power as the right to make laws for the protection and regulation of property. In his view, these laws only work because the people accept them and because they are for the public good. He claims that all men are originally in a state of nature, which means that a man in this original state is bound by the laws of nature, but he is otherwise able to live, act, and dispose of his possessions as he sees fit. He goes on by stating that all men have been given a moral compass by God and will thus live by those same morals, which will be defined by a so-called …show more content…
The Social Contract is assumed to be the source that tells its contractors how to behave. But in order to hold to the morals given by the Contract and not to violate them, one must already have a certain source of moral behaviour. After all, in order to refrain from violating the Contract, there must be a morality that tells the contractors that violation of that same Contract is immoral. In short: one must have a pre-existing idea of what is good and bad, prior to the Contract, in order to withhold the level of morality given by that same Contract. However, Locke considers the Contract itself to be the source of morality. The Social Contract is considered to be the beginning of the concept of morality. Thus, it is only after the Social Contract is agreed upon that a certain level of morality can be put into practice. This way, Locke fails to emphasize what the source of the moral level for the Social Contract itself must be, since the Contract practically cannot be both the source of morality that says the Contract needs to be preserved, and the moral level that has to be preserved at the same time. So in the end, there has to be a source that forms the basis of the Social Contract, and in its own way, this pre-existing source of morality also needs a pre-existing source of morality, and so on. So in the end, since there is no pre-existing source for …show more content…
Like stated before, Locke assumes that all men share the same moral compass. But human differences inevitably lead to different morals. After all, a single glance at the person next to one will be enough proof for the fact that all human beings are different. In the end, whether it is physically or mentally: some people are stronger in certain circumstances than others. This is part of human nature, just like it is part of human nature to always strive for more or better in comparison to others. So, when one man is stronger than another, he might see a good chance of winning a dispute. As a consequence, only very few men will choose to waive their right to self-enforcement and hand it to a civil community or some kind of authoritative leader that will settle the dispute for him. After all, he will have a good chance of winning the dispute if he plays his own judge, whilst renouncing his right to self-enforcement means to hand over the dispute to a third party and thus risk being disadvantaged. Hence, agreeing to a Social Contract will not be out of free will, but out of necessity, if not force. And if the political society is designed in a way that all men must agree with a certain set of rules and moral codes, then the value of a Social Contract is