...Reconstruction of John Locke’s View on Private Property In chapter 5 of Locke’s Second treatise on Civil Government, Locke gives his view on property. He starts off stating that the earth serves as common property to all man. However, he starts the chapter with the main question of how one’s own self property came to exist. Locke states that the problem that arises is how to differentiate all of mankind’s common property to one’s own. Locke states “there must of necessity by a means of appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man” (Locke, 286). Thus, Locke states that man must have a way to claim his or her own property through a certain manner where they can now claim it their own, and not all of mankind. This thing is done through labor. “The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provide, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and therby makes it his Property” (Locke, 287-288). Each individual has their own body and therefore owns their own labor since it is produced by their body. Mixing one’s own property, such as their labor, with a common property or foreign property shared amongst others then makes that specific property one’s own. Locke further mentions how labor puts a distinction between what one owns and what is shared by all mankind. He gives an...
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...John Locke looked at the world to gain knowledge and wrote books to show the empiricism in philosophy. John Locke wrote many books and essays to show his beliefs and views. John Locke’s A letter Concerning Toleration with the concerning the true extant and end of civil government was written in 1689 in Gouda, Holland. His beliefs and views shaped the world as it is today. John Locke start off his essay with writing about political power. He states, “Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property,” John Locke defines political power as the right to make certain laws to protect and regulate property. These laws are put...
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...power right, Locke explains how we must understand the state of all men; a state also of equality. In Book 2—Chapter 2 Of the State of Nature, Locke begins to explain that all men live in a state of perfect power, equality and freedom. Men are all born naturally equal in the same state, where no one has power or privilege over another. Their actions and behaviors cannot be bound by other men. Locke states that the only time a man should obey authority and obedience, is in the presence of God; God is allowed to bequeath some dominance in power of man. He then goes to quote Richard Hooker— an influential Anglican Theologian—who writes that men crave things that satisfy them, such as affection. If they crave these things...
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...leaders were planning. It was a truly revolutionary work. Supposing that the Two Treatises may have been intended to explain and defend the revolutionary plot against Charles II and his brother, how does it do this? What do reflections on the state of nature and the state of war have to do with distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate civil government? The First Treatise of Civil Government is a polemical work aimed at refuting the patriarchal version of the Divine Right of Kings doctrine put forth by Sir Robert Filmer. :Locke singles out Filmer's contention that men are not "naturally fre e" as the key issue, for that is the "ground" or premise on which Filmer erects his argument for the claim that all "legitimate" government is "absolute monarchy." -- kings being descended from the first man Adam. Early in the First Treatise Lo cke denies that either scripture or reason supports Filmer's premise or arguments. In what follows, Locke minutely examines key Biblical passages - so Locke's emphasis in the First Treatise is on refuting Filmer's scriptural claims for the divin e right of kings doctrine. Reason has the subordinate role. TheSecond Treatise provides Locke's positive theory of government - he explicitly says that he must do this "lest men fall into the dangerous belief that "all government in the world is merely the product of force and violence." Locke's accou nt involves several devices which were common in seventeenth and eighteenth century political...
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...“state of nature”. The hypothetical state of nature describes the condition in which people lived before a civil society. Hobbes believed that this state was full of chaos, fear, and self-reliance. Men were free to do as they pleased and there was no order to ensure their protection. In order to maintain a beneficial society, men would have to surrender their rights and freedoms to an authority in exchange for protection of life and freedom. One individual, a monarch, would have absolute power over the community and his rule is not to be questioned. Hobbes knew that monarchy rule did not always offer the best results but he did believe that it was better than returning to a war-bound state of nature. In Two Treatises of Government, John Locke expresses his disagreement...
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...“John Locke vs. Thomas Jefferson” John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence are two of the most significant texts of all time. Many countries around the world have used these texts as the foundation for their declaration of independence. These authors laid the base for the knowledge of the State of Natural Rights of human being which is the establishing bases of our government. We can understand that The Second Treatise of Government and the Declaration of Independence are very identical in their message, which clearly substantiate Locke's work influenced Jefferson. Unpredictably as it is, Jefferson has been suspect over the times for plagiarizing John Locke. The most significant similarity between both writings is that they are strongly focused on the belief that all men are created equal and have the right to be happy in their life. Locke enlightens us that humans have natural rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of property. Jefferson restates this claim as absolute rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Simply both documents mention that no person is above or superior to another person and that everyone is equal. The natural law of man is not under the authority of man, but ruled by the Natural Laws. Also they state that those natural rights...
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...English king by English subjects in the years preceding the Whig revolution, the Glorious Revolution of 1689 (as it’s called). Involved in plots, Locke fled from England to Holland in 1683 and stayed there until 1689. The First Treatise is an attack on the theory of absolute monarchy defended by Sir Robert Filmer. The Filmer theory traces the rights of the monarch to the establishment of monarchical power in Adam (the first man of the Bible) by God. This absolute authority to rule then gets passed along down to the present king of England. So the king is answerable only to God and the subjects are obligated to obey the king’s commands come what may, says Filmer. * Explain what, according to Locke, gives a person their right to property. As stated in the textbook, " everyman has a property in his own Person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labor something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men" (p.209, Halbert and Ingulli, 2009). Labor, for Locke, includes picking up acorns from the ground, gathering apples from wild trees, tracking deer in the forest, and catching fish in the ocean; labor...
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...word merit is relative, however in this case, it relates to how the people can benefit from either form of government. According to John Locke, Constitutionalism is “…to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people” (82). Generally speaking, Constitutionalism has a more positive connotation than Absolutism because people associate constitutionalism with the idea of free will. However, there can never be total free will in a collective effort. Locke actually does not approve of the idea of total free will, “…the enjoyment of it is very uncertain…very unsafe, very insecure” (80). Locke addresses the states of Nature and why they are and can be destructive. “…passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far…negligence and unconcernedness, makes them too remiss in other men’s…They who by an injustice offended will seldom fail where they are able by force to make good their injustice” (80-81). In addition, Locke does not view men coalescing to make a constitutionalist government as giving up one’s rights, but rather the opposite, proclaiming that it indirectly preserves them instead, “…give up equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature…the power of the…legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good…obliged to secure every one’s property by providing against…mentioned that made the state of Nature so unsafe and uneasy” (82). On the other hand, Absolutism deals with the idea...
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...there needed to be some sort of government to help enforce those rules. He just wasn’t sure how to go about getting that government set up. He thought that a government should in place basically to help us keep our promises to each other. A government wouldn’t really had out punishment but just enforce the rules that we had already set. Those rules I believe were set by each individual. What I might think is the right thing to do, may not be the right thing for someone else. It depends I think on how you are raised and what you morals are. Therefore it was hard to enforce rules that are different for everybody. Locke was nicknamed “the father of empiricism”. His theory on the state of nature has three forms. A state in which there is no government. A time when there is a partial government. Lastly the there was an illegitimate government. Locke...
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...John Locke The Unofficial Founder of America John Locke is one of the most important, but largely unknown names in American history. A well renowned English philosopher, educator, government official, and theologian. The Impact of John Lock’s theses had on the Revolutionary war and the subsequent founding of the United States, is apparent to most who study his writings. Arguably Locke’s most influential work is his Second Treatise of Government. His argument was that government should be built on a mutual agreement (contract theory) and when consent of the governed is loss, or when the natural rights and liberties are violated, it is the right of the people to rise up and replace the current government. This theory can easily be seen in the Deceleration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Locke’s arguments for...
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...Dreze Griffin Humans in a State of Nature Without an overarching authority, the comfortable life we know today would not be possible. The purpose of government is to protect property rights and to provide for security of its people. In a state of anarchy, this protection and security would be non-existent. This would cause humans to have to provide their own security and protect their own property. The debate on how humans would act under these circumstances was greatly examined by 17th centuries philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Each philosopher has different views on how humans would behave in a state of nature. Thomas Hobbes in particular is the most accurate in his description of how humans would behave and interact with each other. Like Hobbes, I believe that humans are only out to maximize their self-interests and in a state of nature, they will do so by any means possible. In The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes takes on a realist perspective as he describes how he believes humans will behave in a state of nature. He writes that in such circumstances, humans are only out to maximize their own self-interests (Leviathan, Shifdar). I also take this perspective believing that in a state of nature, the main goal of humans is to obtain and preserve power. Basing my beliefs after Hobbes, I believe that to obtain such power, humans will attempt to do so by any means. In a state of nature, the most common way people will...
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...amidst Locke’s teachings. John Locke believes in the body being the property of the person and since everyone has the right to life, liberty and property, no one should be allowed to decide what happens to someone’s body. This would support the claim that abortion is right and should be legal. However, Locke has also stated that humans are created by God and are sent to Earth to serve him. He also goes on to say that this means that the bodies of mankind are not a possession of their own, and rather a possession of God’s. This makes one question the right of self-ownership...
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...of Private Property Diana Vazquez University of Redlands Author Note This paper was prepared for Business, Ethics and Society, taught by Mr. Jensen Analytical Essay: The Right of Usage of Private Property The Right of Usage of Private Property. The city of Santa Monica, California is facing a dilemma, which is not unique to Santa Monica as this is a situation affecting other cities throughout Southern California as well as the rest of the United States. The question is, do private property owners have a right to freely rent or lease their property on a short term basis or does the local government have a right to institute laws and restrictions on private property owners wishing to rent or lease their property on a short term basis? What is private property? According to Business dictionary.com (2015), private property is… “Tangible and intangible things owned by individuals or firms over which their owners have exclusive and absolute legal rights, such as land, buildings, money, copyrights, patents, etc. Private property can be transferred only with its owner's consent, and by due process such as sale or gift.” John Locke was an influential English political philosopher who believed that God gave man the earth in common, meaning everyone had a right to it. That man had the right to use all that the earth produced, fruits, vegetables, water, animals… the necessities to maintain life and to allow human comfort. He believed that man was property too, but not...
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...minimal state and the unjust actions of wealth distribution, he draws out the reasoning of how a classic liberationist is the plan for an honest community. Robert Nozick makes a statement in the very first sentence of his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights) (Nozick ix).” He makes a foundationalism stand point on his beliefs of what are labeled Nature Rights. These moral rights are called natural rights because the precede everything from government to society and are rights that we are born with. All individuals hold these natural rights. The major natural rights are usually listed as just three but according to 1600s philosopher John Locke there are a few more,” The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions… (and) when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the...
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...Enlightenment Philosophers One of the earlier Enlightenment philosophers is Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes was an English philosopher, scientist, and historian. One of Hobbes's most important writings is “The Leviathan”. It argues the necessity of absolute sovereignty during unstable wartimes, and doubles as an autobiography. Thomas Hobbes believed that people were “cruel, greedy, and selfish”. Hobbes is quoted with “Life without laws would be nasty, brutal, and short”. John Locke lived 1632 to 1704 in New England. Locke lived as a graduate of University of Oxford Westminster School. His education led to studies in medicine, political philosophy,epistemology, and education. Many modern philosophers believe he laid down the basics...
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