Second Treatise Of Earth John Locke Summary

Rodrigo Mantica
PHIL H296
J. Peterson
Spring 2015
Locke Short Paper
John Locke in his
Second Treatise of Government attempts to provide a justification for private property grounded on natural rights. Locke develops a theory of the “original common possession of Earth” which justifies the equal ownership of the world by humans. The theological argument claims that since God gave man dominion over the Earth, everyone has a right to some portion of the Earth. Secondly, Locke provides a natural reason argument which says that men have a right to self­preservation and anything that nature affords for subsistence.
The right to self­preservation implies the right to the means of self­preservation and since God gave us all the Earth we have a claim to an equal portion of it. Locke maintains that the Earth in
Locke provides a solid justification for private property in a state of nature, but lacks a universally applicable deontological foundation.
Private property is arguably best justified by Locke’s labor theory of property. This is not to be confused with the labor theory of value which suggests that the more work put into something, the more valuable it becomes. Rather, the labor theory of property claims that a person comes to own something found in nature by mixing one’s labor with it. The body of a

person is undoubtedly that person’s property and so whatever labor is performed is the property of the laborer. In today’s society we may come to own things by either laboring on our property, someone else’s property through consent, or by trading private goods (or money) for foreign goods. The only time when property may come to be owned without the consent of others is when no one else has a claim to some natural resource and labor is mixed with it. Other than
Locke believes that we can claim the Earth because God has given it to us, but how can this logic be applied to communities which have different beliefs or none at all?
Locke would need to adapt his theory to a secular audience. Without God, how can we come to own things? Well, we might imagine in the absence of God, a natural rights framework cannot include such things as a right to property, we can only assume, as Hume did, that humans are motivated psychologically by certain virtues and so these might provide a natural inclination towards good behavior. However, there are no divine laws that clearly distinguish right from wrong (Wootton 281).
So without a good deontological approach for how we can come to own things, Locke’s theory lacks a basis to explain why we can appropriate things from the state of nature. So if we cannot determine right from wrong and people are simply free to do as they like, how can Locke persuade everyone that private property and civil life in general is more favorable to a Hobbesian state of nature? We can take a consequentialist approach and say that life is better when we

follow certain rules. If morality and ethical behavior then become not about what ought to