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All men by nature are equal in that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man; being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Oct 21, 2011 · Locke’s emphasis can be explained by turning our attention to a view of human nature that lies at the root of Locke’s account. Locke tends to be fairly pessimistic about the degree to which most humans appreciate the inherent righteousness of morality.
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19 Sourced Quotes. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
In a state of nature, anyone can harm anyone else, whenever and however it suits them. Someone's power is dictated by their strength and intelligence. Locke believed that a state of nature...
Conventional wisdom describes Locke as an “optimist” about human nature; some scholars go further and say that he denied the Christian view that human beings are naturally sinful. But Locke's works, including the Two Treatises , clearly and firmly hold that human nature has a consistent tendency to desire selfishness and evil.
- Overview
- The state of nature in Locke
- The state of nature in Rousseau
- John Rawls
- Robert Nozick
For Locke, by contrast, the state of nature is characterized by the absence of government but not by the absence of mutual obligation. Beyond self-preservation, the law of nature, or reason, also teaches “all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, or possessions.” U...
For Locke, by contrast, the state of nature is characterized by the absence of government but not by the absence of mutual obligation. Beyond self-preservation, the law of nature, or reason, also teaches “all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, or possessions.” U...
The idea of the state of nature was also central to the political philosophy of Rousseau. He vehemently criticized Hobbes’s conception of a state of nature characterized by social antagonism. The state of nature, Rousseau argued, could only mean a primitive state preceding socialization; it is thus devoid of social traits such as pride, envy, or ev...
The notion of a state of nature, real or hypothetical, was most influential during the 17th and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, it has also influenced more-recent attempts to establish objective norms of justice and fairness, notably those of the American philosopher John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice (1971) and other works. Although Rawls rejecte...
The American philosopher Robert Nozick, Rawls’s contemporary, also turned to a hypothetical state of nature in his main work of political philosophy, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), to argue for a position that was markedly different from that of Rawls. According to Nozick, the minimal state (one whose functions are limited to protecting the nat...
Sep 2, 2001 · John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher. Locke’s monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is one of the first great defenses of modern empiricism and concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics.
