Gio: The State of Nature

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     I like Locke's argumentation throughout the first five chapters of his Second Treatise a lot. I think it is very sound, he constructs a great refutation of Filmer's "divine right of kings" in the first chapter, and he cleverly presents a formulation for the notion of property. However, I have many objections to chapter two wherein he explains what he believes is the state of nature. Funnily enough, it is because Locke's state of nature is so unconvincing that I have a greater appreciation for Hobbes's state of nature. My main problem with chapter two is Locke's law of nature. 

    As professor Hurley pointed out on Tuesday, Locke doesn't believe that liberty is license. Liberty, for Locke, is the freedom to act out your will onto yourself and your possessions without having to depend on someone else's permission. This is different from Hobbes's understanding of liberty—no external force can stop you from doing what you want. While Hobbes believes that this freedom means you can do whatever you want, Locke believes that, even in a state of nature, we are bound by the law of nature. Locke's law of nature says that since we are all equal, there is no hierarchy that would justify us to harm each other's lives, property, or liberty. He arrives to this conclusion through religious premises which I do not agree with. But even if I were to agree with his premises, I could still deny the existence of this law. He says that since we are all equal under God, there is nothing that authorizes us to harm each other. But there's nothing that prevents us from harming each other either, right? Why would people act in accordance with this law? He says that reason will drive people to follow this law, but I doubt that. What line of reasoning would make one follow this rule? In order for this law to work, one would have to presuppose human morality. For Hobbes, he bases his fundamental law of nature on the assumption that people are inherently self-interested and will act in ways that will best preserve themselves. This claim isn't without its critics, but at least it presents a cause that would drive people to act in a certain way. Locke's law of nature seems to be lacking that. I think that if people were dropped into an environment without any government or society, they would have one objective: survive. They would do everything in their power to complete that objective. They wouldn't have reverence for other people's property or being. 

It is very possible that Locke is making a normative claim rather than an empirical claim; after all, he does say "no one ought to harm another" (par 6, emphasis added).

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