John Locke · Published 1689 · title page dated 1690
Read Second Treatise of Government with context
Locke asks how people who are naturally free can become subject to legitimate government. Consent supplies an answer, but its meaning becomes harder to settle when he turns to property, residence, inheritance, and the use of public roads. Follow the argument through its examples: where does a limit on arbitrary power hold firm, and where do the assumptions needed to sustain it become contestable? You can read the text, save notes and quotes, and follow the passage paths below.
Key Reading Paths
- Making the common into property: Labour joins something owned by the person to something held in common. Locate the step that turns an action into a claim excluding others.
- What must be left for others?: The comparison with drinking from a river makes appropriation seem harmless. Under what conditions would that analogy cease to persuade?
- Agreement and unequal possessions: Money appears as an agreement permitting larger holdings. Ask whether agreeing to a medium of exchange also means agreeing to the inequalities it makes possible.
- Can travelling on a road imply consent?: A short stay or use of the highway counts as tacit consent. Compare receiving a benefit with freely undertaking an obligation.
- Acting beyond the written law: Prerogative permits action for the public good without, or even against, the law. Who can tell necessity from an official’s convenient claim of necessity?
Questions for comparison
- Compare Locke’s political trust with Hobbes’s account of authorization. Where does each argument locate the power to judge a ruler?
- Put Locke’s account of property beside Equiano’s purchase of freedom. What happens when a person’s labour and the legal ownership of that person point in opposing directions?
Teaching with these readings
Begin with the road example. Ask students to describe a case in which using a public benefit would and would not amount to agreement. Return to Locke’s precise terms to determine which objection his argument can answer.
Draw the sequence from common resources to labour, enclosure, money, and larger holdings. Assign a group to each transition and require it to name the assumption doing the work. End by testing the argument against an example that strains its account of consent.