John Locke

[tnu]

I figured some people would know more about the subject then I do but, I find it hard to reconcile this man. He was both a proponent of the Social Contract and Natural Law/Rights. As well as being the one who coined "Life, Liberty, and property." If I recall correctly. How does this work? The two notions don't seem compatible.

[MrBogosity]

I figured some people would know more about the subject then I do but, I find it hard to reconcile this man. He was both a proponent of the Social Contract and Natural Law/Rights. As well as being the one who coined "Life, Liberty, and property." If I recall correctly. How does this work? The two notions don't seem compatible.

Locke's view of the social contract differed massively from Hobbes's. Locke's argument was that, since people are morally bound not to harm each other, government exists to enforce that moral boundary to protect everyone from harm. The sole purpose of the state, then, was to protect people from what today's libertarians would call the initiation of force.

Locke believed that the state only had legitimacy where the people would have legitimacy to act individually. So, since people can legitimately act in self-defense or defense of each other, so too does the state have legitimate power to act on behalf of those people and defend them from force. But since those people have no right to steal or murder, the government has no legitimacy in claiming to steal or murder on their behalf. The people can only bequeath to the government the powers they can morally exercise themselves.

This is in total contrast to the Hobbesean social contract, which says that humans are by nature primitive and brutish and that we need the state to create an ordered society.

[tnu]

Makes a little more sense. Hobbes anturally amkes no sense. If people are brutish then how will a state made of people corect that?

[MrBogosity]

Makes a little more sense. Hobbes anturally amkes no sense. If people are brutish then how will a state made of people corect that?

It would just mean that the state itself is equally--if not more--brutish.

[tnu]

One of my biggest confusions that still remains on the issue is that government naturally initiates force in order to combat the initiation of force. It creates a monopoly and finances it at the barrel of a gun.

[AnCap Dave]

One of my biggest confusions that still remains on the issue is that government naturally initiates force in order to combat the initiation of force. It creates a monopoly and finances it at the barrel of a gun.

Which is why we need to be rid of the institution all together and allow the market to handle the demand.

[MrBogosity]

One of my biggest confusions that still remains on the issue is that government naturally initiates force in order to combat the initiation of force. It creates a monopoly and finances it at the barrel of a gun.

David Hume's point precisely. This is the reason for the ability of the people to cancel the government they have and form a new one. The Declaration of Independence is an expression not just of Lockean but also of Humean values.