An Introduction to John Locke’s Political Philosophy

John Locke was a British physician and philosopher. He is best known for his foundational ideas about political liberalism and his philosophical treatments of mind and knowledge, all of which profoundly influenced successive generations of philosophers and political thinkers. His writing was crucial to developing ideas around liberty, natural rights, the social contract, religious tolerance, and the right of revolution.

John Locke lived in a time of significant tumultuous change in Europe. A key figure of the Enlightenment, he wrote his most influential works from 1687 to 1693, during which his home of England changed radically and irrevocably. The following is a brief outline of his life and work:

• Early years: John Locke was born in the village of Wrington in Somerset, England, in 1632. His father was a Protestant revolutionary in the English Civil War. Locke studied at the Westminster School in London, then earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Christ Church at the University of Oxford. He was interested in recent philosophical ideas, such as those of René Descartes.
• Medical training: Locke was interested in philosophy, but he focused on learning medicine at Christ Church, Oxford. He served as the personal physician to Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, an English aristocrat and politician. While studying medicine, he also kept writing about politics and philosophy, encouraged by Lord Ashley, who became his patron. (Lord Ashley was the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, then Lord Chancellor.) Locke also spent some years in France (1675–1679) while Shaftesbury was out of favor.
• Exile in the Netherlands: Locke, via his association with Lord Ashley, became involved in the Whig party. Locke’s suspected involvement in the party’s plot on the King’s life led him to flee to Holland in 1683, where he laid low and wrote extensively.
• Return to England: After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, King James II was deposed, and the country moved away from absolute monarchy. Parliament controlled the balance of power, and Locke returned to England. The beginnings of civil government, plus the country’s increase in tolerance, gave Locke a receptive audience for his writings, and so he began actively publishing.
• Later life: In his later years, Locke continued to write and discuss ideas with the day’s luminaries, such as John Dryden, Isaac Newton, and Voltaire. When he died in Essex in 1704, the Whigs considered him an intellectual hero.
• Influence: Locke’s ideas were popular throughout England and abroad, particularly in the American colonies. His writings influenced the notion that governments are made legitimate by the consent of the people, a belief that replaced the divine right of kings.

John Locke’s political theory was instrumental to the development of the political philosophy of liberalism. Locke’s writings feature ideas on civil rights and human rights, the separation of powers, republicanism, and the separation of church and state.

1. 1. Political authority: Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government (1689) became hugely influential during the run-up to the American Revolution, influencing the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and other American Founding Fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence. In it, he seeks to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate forms of political authority. In tracing the development of human societies from a state of nature, he attempts to show how early societies based in natural law, or the law of nature, gave way to more organized societies, such as commonwealths, which included government-granted legal rights.
2. 2. Reason and tolerance: Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke’s views on human nature were shaped by reason and tolerance. Hobbes believed that in the absence of strong central authority, human beings would be in a perpetual state of war. Locke agreed that some form of civil authority, such as a state, was necessary, but that if it became unjust, the people had a right to overthrow this authority. This view was especially appealing to the American revolutionaries. Locke’s belief in the separation of powers was crucial to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution.
3. 3. Fundamental rights: Locke developed the idea that civil society was made possible through deliberation and the state’s protection of inalienable rights. The state had to protect and follow the laws of nature, including peoples’ fundamental rights, which could not be changed. However, the legislative authority could change if it becomes illegitimate by violating these laws.
4. 4. Christianity: Locke was a lifelong devout Christian. Unusual for Locke's time, he did not believe the state should meddle in the affairs of religion, believing in religious toleration of Catholics, Quakers, and others. In writings such as his A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), he advanced views of religious tolerance that were progressive for the time, and his opinion that religious beliefs ought to be kept separate from politics eventually came to be widely embraced.
5. 5. Limited government: Locke was also an economic theorist. His idea of limited government, which held that it ought to restrict its role to the protector of individual rights and private property, was also highly influential. The Lockean notion that private property rights are fundamental to a peaceful society was taken up by Libertarian thinkers and remains influential today.

In addition to political thought, the other main focus of Locke’s work is epistemology or the study of knowledge. Locke’s beliefs around knowledge include the following:

1. 1. Human beings are born with no knowledge. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Locke put forth the ideas that became known as empiricism. Relying on the concept of the tabula rasa, or blank slate, Locke’s theory claimed that human beings are born with no innate ideas, and everything we learn comes from experience of an external world.
2. 2. Education can help children become rational. Locke’s attitudes about how knowledge is acquired by humans informed his views on education, which he felt should assist with developing rationality in young people. These ideas were spelled out in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693).
3. 3. Personal identity is founded on consciousness. Locke’s discussions of personal identity, which were informed by his empiricism, influenced later philosophers such as David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

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