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Summary Of John Locke's Second Treatise Of Government

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In chapter IX of his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke initiates his interpretation of the ends of political society and government. He begins this discussion with two thought-provoking questions regarding the reasoning behind an individual voluntarily parting with natural liberty. This is a legitimate inquiry, considering once a man enters civil society he submits himself to certain laws and the people who make them. Although Locke does not view government as a natural state for human beings, he asserts that the state of nature lacks certain comforts that can only be achieved through a political society. Therefore, although man does enjoy certain powers within the state of nature, government is ultimately needed to ensure peaceful and comfortable living. This paper will analyze Locke’s interpretation of the ends of political society and government, by discussing the following: natural and civil liberty and the inadequacies in the state of nature. A government can only be established through the consent of those who are governed. When individuals consent to a …show more content…

The state of nature lacks three matters, which he distinguishes as the main motivations for seeking and establishing a new form of society. Firstly, the state of nature lacks an established, settled, and known law. In the state of nature, individuals are only governed by their own reason. Locke supports this idea in Chapter II when he states: Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another (Locke,

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