John Locke Research Paper

Locke (1632-1704)

In order to gain the proper perspective and fullest understanding of philosophy of property will now examine the works of John Locke.

Locke’s life The Philosopher John Locke was born on the 29th of August of 1642 in Somerset England, the son of a Parliamentary Army Captain; and was able to be educated at the churches college at Oxford, focusing on both philosophy and medicine. He was initially a traditionalist and taken in by the philosophies set down by Hobbes; only to later develop his own arguments and theories to explain the proper workings of mankind and the world. His own line of philosophical thinking would include; freedom, equality and rights to property and dissent. These lines of reasoning might be linked to

This was an argument designed to contour the ideas advanced in the Patriarcha by Robert Filmer; these ideas had include the biblical based arguments that the King is ordained by God through a hereditary line set down from David and was awarded absolute and divine authority over fellow man. Locke managed to attack this theory on several points to include that only God could transfer such power and authority by his hand and not simply by a human baring offspring. And also, that a parent authority over their offspring is never complete and absolute but instead a shared authority between one’s parents, which by the way is demonstrate throughout the bible. In addition, Locke argues that while Filmer see Adams power and authority coming from God granting him sovereignty and ownership over the entire world, Locke instead limits Adam’s effective authority to the beasts and the land, but not by extension to fellow mankind. Many of these themes and ideas are later revisited and further refined and expressed in his Second

Within the Second Treaties Locke first covers the origins of mankind by declaring that we are all born as free and equal persons under God, much as that declared earlier by Thomas Hobbes. Then he goes on to describe our need for a common superior authority in order to live in a civil state of harmony with one another, and thus avoid a state of war and suffering. Next he lays out his thoughts on our sovereign right to property (as previously mentioned). And then finally, in his Second Treaties Locke describes our need to be ruled by the consent of the majority, complete with the inherent need for separation of powers in order that no one person or entity of government should ever grow so strong and so bold as to take over total rule and arbitrary singular governance over