Two Treatises of Government

so in order to get more, in the nature state, men would do whatever they can to achieve those ends, there are no boundaries, no taboos, and no obligations. And people seldom get satisfied even after they have owned security, they will then become diffident. Glory is the third principle attributed to quarrel, which has surprisingly complied with the modern psychology methodology. Although unlike we regard glory as a kind of honor and fame, the way Hobbes used to describe glory is a desire to correct the non-equivalence between others’ contempt and the rate of value that man sets for himself, which also leads to what Hobbes called Warre. Locke rejected that Hobbes equated the natural state with the war state in his Two treatises of government, which he thought these two states are clearly not the identical issues. But both Hobbes and Locke agreed that the war does not merely refer to battles, once a man goes against another, the war state is established. As I follow the logic of Hobbes, he shows that his state of nature is a state that every man against every man, which is a continuous Warre. Under that kind of situation, there is no civilization at all, and industry, agriculture, art, literature and any other things that take time to achieve and preserve, become impossible, due to the uncertainty and chaos. What’s worse, people not only live in an insecure society but will also suffer from their mental state, haunting by the worries and fears of danger and death. Our lives in…

John Locke, who was an English philosopher and physician, wrote the Second Treatise of Government. The Second Treatise of Government focused on having sovereignty into the hands of people and believes there are two states: state of nature and state or war. Locke strongly believed in human rights, equality, and the labor theory of value. However, Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote, The Prince, emphasized on having a government with a ruler having absolute total power over its people. Machiavelli…

In his Patriarcha he argues that removing the king, “Contradicts the doctrine and history of the holy scriptures,”(Filmer, 1844) by using Adam and other biblical patriarchs as examples of absolute power and citing the first commandment as a, “natural law”(1845). Filmer claims, “that all the duties of a king are summed up in an universal fatherly care of his people”(1846). One problem with Filmer’s argument is that he ignores the idea of how to address the problem of a tyrannical king, if a king…

After reading John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, readers witness two vastly different forms of governing. One of The Tempest’s main characters, Prospero, perceives himself as the only one fit to be the sole bearer of power. This form of thinking may be due to his upbringing where he originally had a copious amount of control. Locke on the other hand, trusts people’s rights to be held in the hands of the people. There are a few examples in…

John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government was penned during a turning point in English history: the change from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. This work was written in the days following the Glorious Revolution in England, in which King James II was overthrown by his daughter Queen Mary and her husband William of Orange (King William III). This revolution came about as King James II refused to allow the free practice of religion within England and William promised that he…

One of my most famous writings is “The Two Treatises of Government” In the first Treatise, I disagreed with the common mentality that kings have divine right to rule, and are superior to all other men at birth. Later, I presented my idea of an ideal government. Laws need to be made for the protection of the people and will only work if they are for the common good, and accepted by the people. The government should be in place for the protection of the people with their best interests in mind,…

Both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were political philosophers and pioneers in the belief that humans in a state of normalcy under no government belonged under the category “State of Nature”. Also both were both social contract theorists in the sense that in the need of a government their needs to be some sort of contract/understanding between the people and the structured power. At first agreeing on this premise, they would come to differ in the end both having radically difference of opinions.…

was a poignant leader in providing society what he saw as the proper ideals one should have about the world, and in particular, property. In his Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 5 : Of Property, the origin of the idea of nature being property is created as he explains in various ways how land and “all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property” and how what you take out of nature belongs to you by natural law because “he hath mixed his labour with, and joined…

“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…

Although Locke’s “The Second Treatise of Civil Government” is, as the name implies, a “treatise”, it is imperative to remember that he is writing within a historical context (Laslett) which guides his discussion towards his desired conclusion. Therefore, when studying his discussion of property, we cannot assume his goal is pure dialectics; instead, we must review what is seen as the goal of his essay and see if he correctly connects it to his premises. Following this pattern, I want to explore…