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Chapter 3: Of the State of War
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Second Treatise of Government, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Nature, War, and Civil Society
Consent of the Governed and the Role of Government
Power and Absolute Monarchies
The Dissolution of Government
Summary
Analysis
Everyone has a natural liberty, Locke says, to not be held under the will of another, but the liberty of one in society is not the same as the liberty of one in nature. The liberty of one in society is to not be held under the will of any legislative power other than that which has been consented to by the people. Sir Robert Filmer, Locke writes, defines liberty as the freedom to do whatever a person wants without restraint of law or authority. Yet people who live in society have agreed on a governing power, as long as that power is not arbitrary. Freedom in a state of nature, according to Locke, still requires one to live under the law of nature.
Locke’s understanding of liberty assumes one can never be free in the way Filmer imagines. One must always live under the law of nature, which assumes one does not have absolute power over their own life, since one is never permitted to do harm unto their own body. One isn’t free in society either, since they must obey laws. The point, according to Locke, is that consent is freely given to the legislative power to govern over the people, and that power does not exceed the power that one naturally has over their own body in nature.
Themes
If one holds another under their will, as is done in slavery, this is nothing but a continued state of war, Locke contends. However, if two people enter into an agreement in which one has limited power and the other is obedient, the state of war ceases for as long as the agreement lasts. According to Locke, no one can agree to enslave themselves to another because no one can give away more power than they possess, and slavery gives one power over another’s life.
Locke considers slavery a continued state of war because under slavery, one does not have freedom and a right to self-preservation. Slavery usually does not involve consent either, and even if it did, the power would be illegitimate because one can never have absolute power over their own body, thus it can never be transferred to another.
Themes
