Punishment And Balances In John Locke's State Of Nature

With the implementation of a political scaffolding (laws in civil society), there becomes an inherent need for punishment. Locke’s view differs from the typical norm, being that only political monarchs could punish. Similar to how the law of nature governs the state of nature, individuals have the natural ability to play all legislative roles (judicial, legislative, executive). The flaw is that an individual could be their own judge, and this explains the transition into civil government. Locke describes punishment “whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quite the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his

The legislate power has absolute authority over how the commonwealth should be run. The executive power is responsible for enforcing the law in different distinct cases. The last power introduced is what’s known as the federative power, or the right to act freely in any international area, as long as the law of nature is followed (moral standards). The federative power is valid, assuming that each country (area) are all operating in the state of nature. This is where the two forms of consent, tacit (inferred) and expressed consent become relevant to citizenship of an area. It becomes clear here that Locke attempts to differentiate powers from institutions. A ruler does not follow fundamental laws of the commonwealth if “his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion” (Locke 108). Even with Locke’s ideas regarding the distribution of power, it’s still something that’s variable, depending the constitution in use. The mechanism by which a political government is formed, and a person becomes a member is consent. Any government that has members that are not expressly apart of it is a not a legitimate

Locke’s property system is based on merit, in that a man is to be always working to sustain that property, and thus working to sustain value of self. Aristotle would argue that in addition to labor, once there’s this “trust” developed between man and property, man then has leisure time. Locke emphasizes how property expansion meets all human ends – it provides comfort, fulfills desires. The key is that the individual is the center of the economic unit. In viewing this as a type of free-market capitalism, Aristotle provides inequalities that naturally form in the capitalistic market. Aristotle argues, “suppose people constituted a community and came together for the sake of property; then their participation in a city-state would be proportional to their property…for it is not just that someone who has contributed only one mina to a sum of one hundred minas should has the one who has contributed all the rest” (Aristotle, 1998, 80). A man’s merit in the community should not be based proportional to property possession, Aristotle argues, which is essentially counter to Locke’s idea that man is defined by his property. Freedoms were not meant to be exploited for purpose of