POL S 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Civil Society
20 Oct 2016
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Thursday, September 24, 2015
1.1 The Second Treatise of Government (1690)
JOHN LOCKE
-Locke is responding to Thomas Hobbes who thought that people were not smart
enough to control themselves and thus naturally born leaders must be honored and
obeyed (advocation of the monarchy)
-Locke: in the state of nature (not civil society) - people have total freedom with life,
liberty, estate. Because of the this, they have the right to punish those who violate
their property
-Civil society occurs when all members give up their individual rights to the state: but
only as long as the primary job of the state is to protect individuals’ rights (4-5)
-State has two powers: legislation and execution of the laws and rules (5)
- If people ignore the rules they are in a state of nature (5)
-Section 90: Locke says that living in a monarchy (as Hobbes advocates for) is
actually just living in a state of nature because the monarch is considered to be
above the law (they haven’t given up their individual rights to the state)
-See page 6 and separation of legislative and executive power
-Section 91: the monarchy takes away the ability for the individual to maintain their
right to property
-Section 92: absolute power corrupts and doesn’t correct for human fallibility
-Section 94: variation in representation, sole purpose of government is the
preservation of property, civil society is a collective enterprise, no man is above the
law
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Document Summary
Locke is responding to thomas hobbes who thought that people were not smart enough to control themselves and thus naturally born leaders must be honored and obeyed (advocation of the monarchy) Locke: in the state of nature (not civil society) - people have total freedom with life, liberty, estate. Because of the this, they have the right to punish those who violate their property. Civil society occurs when all members give up their individual rights to the state: but only as long as the primary job of the state is to protect individuals" rights (4-5) State has two powers: legislation and execution of the laws and rules (5) If people ignore the rules they are in a state of nature (5) See page 6 and separation of legislative and executive power. Section 91: the monarchy takes away the ability for the individual to maintain their right to property. Section 92: absolute power corrupts and doesn"t correct for human fallibility.
