Raamin Mostaghimi
November 7, 2006
Occ Civ Section 8

SUMMARY FOR JOHN LOCKE'S SECOND TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT

Locke in his second treatise moves away from directly answering his contemporaries (read: Filmer's Patriarcha) to expounding more on his ideals of how a government should be run and why it is established in the first place. Interestingly (perhaps considering Locke's background and pride in his nobility), Locke's ideals result in something approaching popular sovereignty and rule by will of the people. This may just be the best case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' that I've seen in a while, because while Locke most likely sets out only to protect his own power from the government by assuring limited powers of monarchy and limiting rule by fiat, he ends up giving huge powers to the rest of society as well as a simple matter of philosophical consistency (it's much much easier to generalize and say 'all people have the right to revolt' than it is to say 'group x but not group y has the right to revolt' because then you have to individually justify each decision you make). Locke's idea that resistance is a RIGHT rather than a DUTY, and reserved to ALL people ALL the time, rather than select few in moments of extraordinary need is really something revolutionary at the time, and even today for that matter. The idea that the people of America, for instance, should have the right to just up and say 'we don't like the government, let's have a new one' is something that I at least find a bit troubling, an idea that may lead to great preservation of individual liberties but makes for terrible consistency in governance. Another revolutionary aspect of his thought was the idea that all men are born in a state of equality, rather than some noble and some non-noble, etc. I find this interesting, once again especially coming from such a proud member of the gentry.

QUESTIONS
1) How did Locke reconcile his beliefs of equality with his noble status?

2) Did Locke really 'sell out' when he wrote the Carolina constitution, or was that actually consistent with his writings?