I. What kind of equality exists in the state of nature?

A. Locke does not deny that human beings are different in a whole host of ways. But he insists on what we might call the moral equality of the state of nature. This moral equality has two components:

1. Everyone is morally obligated to follow the law of nature and which prohibits taking anyone’s life, liberty and property.

2. No one has any authority or right to exercise political power over anyone else in the state of nature.

B. The moral equality of human beings is based

1. in the religious version of the argument, on our being the workmanship of God who has created us.

2. in the secular version of the argument on our having the same fundamental faculties and capacities. We all have desires and reason.

a) Reason allows us

(1) to satisfy our desires

(2) to follow rules which is necessary if we are to

(a) engage in the distinctive practices that constitute human life

(b) follow moral laws

(3) to modify and change our own desires.

b) Differences in our intellectual, physical and even moral capacities (to the extent that we exist) do not undermine the claim that all normal, adult human beings evidently have the same basic capacity to reason.

II. Why, for Locke, are we equal in the sense of having equal rights under the law of nature?

A. The religious and moral arguments

1. Locke’s argument has been interpreted in three different ways. The first two, which I call the moral and religious arguments are clearly found in the text and have a common structure.

2. The first question is why should we grant each other moral rights or why should we respect each other as moral equals? There is a religious and secular justification for doing so.

a) The religious argument is that we are all the workmanship of God. Thus we are morally equal and should treat each other as God would have us be treated.

b) The moral argument is based upon our shared faculties and capacities, and, in particular, that we all have reason. Locke suggests (in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that moral notions (and the moral language in which they are expressed) are essentially devised by human reason to suit our own purposes.

(1) To understand what the law of nature requires of us, then, we must know how these moral notions should rationally be constructed.

(2) The use of moral notions and moral language, however, like any other ideas and language, cannot be an idiosyncratic construction of one person or another.  Rather they are the product of the reason we all share and they are created to serve the purposes we human beings all share. For all have the capacity to reason and thus to create moral laws and live up to them.

(a) One person in the state of nature cannot plausibly claim that the law of nature says that “everyone should respect my rights, but I can take anyone else’s life, liberty or property if I choose.”

(3) Thus the law of nature must be general or symmetrical: it must give everyone the same rights and duties.

(4) This interpretation of Locke’s argument sees him as offering a defense of human equality that prefigures arguments made by Kant in the 18^th century and Habermas in the 20^th century.

3. Once we assume that the law of nature must treat us as equals and grant us the same rights we must answer a second question, what rights do we have? 

a) Locke’s answer is that we have rights to those goods that everyone in the state of nature seeks.

(1) Human beings, as we saw, have very different ends, goals and purposes and thus gain happiness in different ways.

(2) But there are certain goods that we all seek: life, liberty and property.

(3) That we all seek these goods tells us

(a) for the religious argument, that God wants us to have these goods and thus that God’s law require that no one take these goods from us

(b) for the secular argument, that we all would claim a right to these goods. That is, reason in constructing the moral law would insist that law prohibit anyone from taking these goods from us.

b) Our particular rights include:

(1) Life

(a) Most human beings seek life.

(b) Even those human beings who do not want to live, want to make the choice whether, when and how to die.

(2) Liberty

(a) No matter what other goods we seek, we all desire the liberty to choose one good or another or to have one purpose rather than another.

(b) Given the diversity of human ends, liberty is especially important to us. For as we saw, no one knows better than we do what desires to satisfy if we would like to be happy.

(3) Property: see the pages devoted to this topic.

B. The prudential argument 

1. Some interpreters of Locke argue that, in addition to the religious and secular arguments, Locke offers a prudential argument for obeying the law of nature.

a) This interpretation takes Locke to be making a Hobbesian argument, that it is in our own self-interest to follow the law of nature. For if we take the life, liberty or property of someone else, they or their family will try to take our life, liberty or property.

(1) The prudential argument, then, is that crime does not pay and is not necessary to our own survival.

2. The best evidence that Locke may be encouraging us to think that we have prudential as well as religious and moral reasons for accepting the law of nature is that he insist in section 6 that each person we ought to follow the law of nature in all circumstances “except when his own preservation comes not in competition…” Since Locke seems to assume that most people will more or less try to follow the law of nature, he

3. Given that Locke clearly does make the religious and moral arguments, the prudential argument is somewhat disguised in the Second Treatise.

a) Some interpreters further argue that the prudential the only argument that Locke takes seriously. The argue that Locke was a hidden Hobbesian, who did not want to explicitly endorse the Hobbesian argument for two reasons:

(1) Hobbes was a scandalous figure, who had been attacked for his supposed atheism.

(2) Locke wanted to convince people who might not agree with the prudential argument that they had moral and, more importantly, religious reasons for obeying the law of nature

b) I very much doubt this claim. For it seems to me that the moral argument is, in broad outline, a good and plausible argument, one that Locke is likely to have taken seriously.

4. How can Locke argue that it is in our own self-interest to follow the law of nature while Machiavelli argues that it is in our own self-interest to violate the law of nature and accumulate as much power and property as we can, if only to defend ourselves against those who are eager to oppress us?

a) The key difference is Locke’s view that human effort and inventiveness can increase the sum total of good produced at any one time.

(1) Machiavelli assumes that there is only a limited supply of the good things of life. Thus if we want more, we have to take from others.

(2) Locke holds (especially in his argument about property) that the supply of the good things of life is not limited. We can get more of those things by being “industrious” rather than by taking from others.

b) So, for Locke, the ambitious people who would like more power and wealth can attain their goal in other than political means. They can, and in Lockean political communities, do go into business as well as politics. We can call this “the strategy of the diversion from politics to economic.”

(1) In The Ends of Government, we will consider how effective this strategy is in the state of nature

III. Why, for Locke, are we equal in that no one has any authority or right to exercise political power over anyone else in the state of nature?

A. The lack of authority or right to exercise power over anyone else in the state of nature follows directly form the absence of government in the state of nature.

1. If there is no government, then no one has moral authority to tell anyone else how to live his or her life.

2. Everyone has the authority to punish those who violate the law of nature. This claim can be defended in two ways.

a) It is a prudential argument based upon the situation of the state of nature. If there is no government, the only way to protect our life, liberty, and property is through our own actions.

b) It is a moral argument that follows from the rights to life, liberty, and property established above.

B. Locke’s claim is both original and radical. In making it, he is challenging both religious and secular arguments that try to show that certain people, either by God or nature,  have the legitimate right to govern others

1. Locke rejects the religious claim by:

a) Pointing to the absence of any explicit revelation from God declaring that some person or persons have political authority over others.

b) Undermining the equation of paternal and political power.

(1) Fathers have the right to govern their children only until the children come of age.

(2) In denying that paternal power is the basis of political power, Locke fathers undermines a common the argument for the divine right of kings. He denies that Kings inherit their paternal/ political power from their fathers.

2. Locke rejects two possible objections to his argument.

a) The Platonic-Aristotelian objection would be that some people are by nature and / or nurture better suited to rule over others. The have the moral or intellectual capacities we should seek in rulers. Locke’s could respond as follows:

(1) The Platonic-Aristotelian claim might be true and thus might justify a partly monarchical or aristocratic form of government once government is created.

(2) But there is no government in the state of nature, which is to say that government is not necessary to human beings.

(3) Thus the intellectual or moral superiority of some people over others cannot justify them exercising political power in the state of nature.

(4) Moreover, if government is optional and no one is inherently justified in exercising political power by their moral or intellectual capacities then people have the right to determine for themselves when to create a government and what form of government to create.

(a) This claim is strengthened by the notion that we have rights to life, liberty, and property in the state of nature.

(b) The creation of government involves giving up one’s own authority to enforce the law of nature in the state of nature.

(c) We thus are free to determine when and how we give up this authority.

(5) So the presumed moral or intellectual superiority of some people over others does not give them a title to rule even in civil society unless they first convince the majority that they should rule.

b) The Machiavellian objection would be that some people who are particularly strong and clever (or virtuous in Machiavelli's sense) would be able to gain power over others in the state of nature. Locke could respond in two ways.

(1) The mere exercise of force is not the same thing as legitimate political power which, given the response to the Platonic-Aristotelian doctrine, only comes from consent.

(2) No one person is strong, clever or virtuous enough to rule over many others by themselves. The weak can always gang up on the strong. Thus the strong need the consent of at least some other people to their rule.