Two Treatises of Government
Locke's foundational text of liberal political philosophy — natural rights, consent of the governed, and the right of revolution
Tradition: Early modern liberal political philosophy
Government rests on the consent of the governed — and when it fails to protect life, liberty, and property, the people may resist
The Two Treatises of Government is the foundational text of Anglo-American liberal political philosophy. The First Treatise demolishes Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, which derived political authority from Adam's divinely appointed dominion. The Second Treatise — the philosophically substantive part — develops Locke's positive theory: human beings are naturally free and equal, possessing natural rights to life, liberty, and property; political authority rests on the consent of the governed; government exists to protect natural rights; when government becomes tyrannical, the people retain the right to resist and dissolve it. The work shaped the American Founders (Jefferson cites Locke in drafting the Declaration), the French and American Revolutions, and the broader tradition of constitutional liberal democracy.
Author
Editions cited
- Two Treatises of Government (Peter Laslett, Cambridge, 2nd ed. 1988 — student standard)
- Locke: Political Writings (David Wootton, Hackett, 1993)
- Two Treatises of Government (Mark Goldie, Everyman, 1993)
School Embodiments
Locke's political realism — natural rights are real, government is tested by what it actually produces for citizens — has been the foundation of pragmatic liberal political theory ever since.
"Government has no other end but the preservation of property." (Second Treatise §94)
Lockean political realism: there are real natural rights that government is supposed to protect; political failures are real moral failures, not merely procedural.
"All men by nature are equal." (Second Treatise §54)
Locke's natural-rights doctrine has theological grounding (God as creator and proprietor of human persons); his Reasonableness of Christianity develops the liberal-Protestant religious framework of his political philosophy.
"Men, being all the workmanship of one omnipotent Maker, are His property." (Second Treatise §6)
Locke's broader empiricism (the Essay) is the epistemological background of his political philosophy; natural rights are knowable by reason on the basis of careful empirical reflection on human nature.
"Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it." (Second Treatise §6)
Locke's natural theology — God as rational creator whose moral law is accessible to reason — is the eighteenth-century Anglophone deist programme in nascent form.
"The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it." (Second Treatise §6)
Although natural rights are real, political authority is constructed through the consent of the governed. The constructivist dimension of Locke's political philosophy is distinct from Hobbes's in being limited rather than absolute.
"Men being by nature all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent." (Second Treatise §95)
Lockean natural-rights theory has been a resource for nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberation movements: anti-slavery, anti-colonial, civil-rights. The right to resist tyranny is read across confessional boundaries.
"Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people... they put themselves into a state of war with the people." (Second Treatise §222)
Locke's Anglican-Calvinist religious framework has made the Two Treatises accessible to evangelical political theology, especially in the American constitutional tradition.
"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth." (Second Treatise §22)
Reformed political theology (Althusius, Rutherford, the Puritan covenantal tradition) anticipates and shapes Locke. Modern Reformed political thought (Kuyper, Skillen) continues this conversation.
"Whensoever the power that is put in any hands... is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary will of their legislators." (Second Treatise §201)
Social-contract tradition.
Internal Tensions
Locke's defence of property in the Second Treatise §§25–51 — including its extension to the Americas under the "vacant land" theory — has been criticised by postcolonial scholars as ideologically motivated. The relation between Locke's political philosophy and his personal investment in the Royal African Company (the slave trade) is the subject of ongoing scholarly debate (Jennifer Welchman, Brad Hinshelwood).
I. Time
Real historical time is the medium of political development. The right of revolution presupposes real future-open political possibility.
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II. Space
The territorial state is the natural unit of political community. Substantival, finite, local.
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III. Matter
Property in the state of nature begins with mixing one's labour with material things. Matter is real, substantival.
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IV. Observer
The Lockean observer is the embodied free individual, plural, active in political life. Moral authority is reason (natural law). The metaphysical agency is personal — God as creator and proprietor of persons.
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V. Energy
Not engaged philosophically.
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VI. Information
The covenant of consent generates legitimate political authority. Personal information conserved across death (standard Christian framework).
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How Two Treatises of Government resolves each dilemma
51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions · 6 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.