The people are willing to go from state of nature to politically organized society not because they are afraid of death, but because they understand that it would be safer for them to live in the organized society rather than in the state of nature, as a consequence it is necessary to form a government, which itself is formed by accepting the civil contract and uniting into commonwealths (Locke J., Two Treatise of Government, Yale University Press, p. 154). The commonwealths is agreed between people and government. Each individual gives up his rights towards the rule of majority, but nevertheless people do not have to give up their natural rights and the state of nature is still in use in government, defining the aims, limitations of political rule, and characteristics. The major aspect of the Lockean government is the doctrine of legislation which has the power to dissolve the government when it sees that the government has broken the trust of the people.
After the agreement, the people remain the judge that decides the legitimacy of the contract, by checking whether the government is correctly doing the assignments that they are obliged to do. If the government does something against the law or doesn’t abide by them then the people have the right to terminate the contract with the government, and using the right to self-preservation, have even the right to start a rebellion. According to Locke the civil contract is not signed for once and all, and corrections are part of it. The contracts between people and government are a regularly updating process. The people have the all right to deny it, when the political power goes to absolutism or despotism.
For the natural rights of human not to remain in the level of moral requirements, they have to be legally recognized by government. The main duty and the aim of any country is to present a legal warranty for the rights and freedom. In Locke’s theory of government, the state represents the set of people who incorporated in a single whole under aegis by them established general law and have created judicial instance, established the general law, competent to settle conflicts between them and to punish criminals. As a result of the civil agreement the guarantor of the natural rights and freedom became the government. It was allocated with the right to publish the laws, applying sanctions, and to use force of a society for observance of these laws. However, the state should not encroach on these rights, as the limit of its authority at all forms of rule is the natural rights of its citizens. The government cannot incur the right to rule by means of any despotic decrees; on the contrary, it is obliged to create justice and to define the rights of citizens by means of declaration of constant laws and representatives on that judges. Locke considered that the government itself should obey to the laws established in a society; otherwise citizens have the full right to return to their initial rights and to transfer them to a new authority, and people should be judges when the government disobeys the set rules (Locke J., Two Treatise of Government, Yale University Press, p. 207).
Locke emphasizes, that the person is not born as a citizen of one or the other state. The person chooses under what authority of the government, which citizen of the state it wishes to become, ‘Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to an earthly power, but only his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man’s consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government’ (Locke J., Two Treatise of Government, Yale University Press, p.152). Thus, it is not only that the origin of the government is contractual, but also that the form of a contractual establishment of citizenship with reference to each person. Such concept of contractual attitudes between people as a whole and individuals, on the one hand and the state on the other, assumes the mutual rights and duties of agreeing parties, and not the unilateral absolute right of the state and lawlessness of citizens as it takes place in Hobbesian interpretations of the contractual theory of establishment of the state.
From all other forms of collectivity, the state differs that only it embodies political power, which is the right in the name of the public blessing to create laws for regulation and preservations of the property, and also to apply force of a society for execution of these laws and protection of the state against an attack from the outside. In that state the law dominates, where the natural inalienable property rights, individual freedom and equality are granted. Locke was considering freedom of people in a lawful state as to have a constant rule for life that is general for everybody in this society, and is established by the legislature, and to be able to follow everybody’s own desire in all cases, when the law does not forbid, and to not be dependent from constant, uncertain, and unknown autocratic will of the other person (Locke J., Two Treatise of Government, Yale University Press, p.128).
Locke's Philosophic-legal doctrine is penetrated with the idea of natural fundamental laws and freedom of the person in a civil condition. He sharply differentiated the state and the society, having created one of the main doctrines of the liberalism. The society is much more important than the government and will last longer than the government. The disintegration of the state does not entail the disintegration of the society; usually the state perishes under the swords of the conquerors. But if the government fails from the internal reasons, having betrayed trust of people, Locke does not expect any chaos or disorder, as the society will create the new government. However, if the society disappears, then no government for sure will resist.
The absolute monarchy for Locke is not a form of government; it is something that is worse than the barbarian society. In the latter, at least everybody is a judge in his own case, while in former only monarch is free. Every government has to obey the common laws, and the philosopher supported this idea by demanding to differentiate the executive power from the legislative. These ideas about the theory of government in the Second Treatise of Government were supporting the idea of overthrowing the king, James II, and as the constitutional-parliamentary monarchy for the author was the best form of government, an output of the revolution was considered as erroneous and dangerous, leading to terrible shock.
Locke directed his readers to a conclusion that the revolution against monarchic despotism was the peak of the civil reasoning and validity, but the future revolutionary transformations were senseless for England. It became that after getting rid of the royal arbitrariness the people of England were completely settled their right to revolution and a principle of its sovereignty, though losing the practical sense.
The compromising position between absolute monarchy and republic, which Locke defended, were supported by real political conditions, and soon historical backup came when the parliamentary elections were won by the bourgeois block. In his theory, he concretizes this position as the theory of division of the authority. According to principle of differentiation of prerogatives, supreme power, the legislation belongs to bourgeois parliament that decides according to ‘the will of the majority’. This ‘will’ fixes the bourgeois understanding of freedom of worship, speech, press, assemblies, and certainly, the private property. The executive power includes to itself judicial, military, and federal, and is transferred to the cabinet, and only partially to the king. All these powers are precisely defined and adjusted by laws, strictly supervised by parliament. Locke also acknowledges the federative, which is responsible for representing the commonwealth in foreign countries.
Locke’s theory of knowledge and social philosophy has rendered deep influence on history of culture and a society, in particular on development of the American constitution. He is considered as the founder of the liberalist views, and the basic theorists of a democratic state system. His ideal is English constitutional monarchy, in which there is balance of interests of the person, and the government. Locke does a great job by putting the people over the government, and making them the creators of the latter. The way in which people can disobey the rules is still a question, but their right to revolt is absolutely justified, from the author’s perspective. By making the society be more important than the government in his theory, Locke actually writes one of the first amendments of the constitution stating that the Supreme power is the people and all the power belongs to it. Formation of the checks and balances through differentiating the executive and legislative power just proves how crucial it is in modern world, where every country tries to maintain the balance.
Bibliography
- Locke J., Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003.
- Hobbes T., Leviathan, Penguin Classics, 1985.
- Mackie J., Problems from Locke, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976.
- Russell B., The history of Western Philosophy, Moscow, 1950.
- Yolton J., ed. John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, 1969.
- Nersesants V.S., Philosophy of the Law, Norma, Moscow, 2001. (in Russian)
- Spirkin A. Q., Philosophy, Gardarica, Moscow, 2002. (in Russian)
- Bellamy R. and Ross A.(eds), A Textual Introduction to Social and Political Theory, Manchester, 1996
