John Locke: What Is A Good Citizen

Does John Locke have an answer to Aristotle’s question of: “what is a good citizen”? Aristotle wants to explore and understand nature of different states and constitutions but in order to do that, he argues that first we would have to take a deeper look at the nature of citizenship. Aristotle believes that saying that a citizen is someone who lives in a city or has access to the courts of laws is not enough, he supplements this argument by mentioning other people groups that has access to these things as well, specifically slaves and resident aliens (The Politics of Aristotle, 2009, p. 122). Instead, Aristotle proposes an idea that citizen is someone who upholds the public office and participates in administration of justice, this definition, which he suggests is only applicable to individuals in democratic state, is then further broadened stating that: “a citizen is anyone who is entitled to share in deliberative or judicial office”. To understand if John Locke has an answer to Aristotle’s question or if he’s even interested in such a question it is necessary to look deeper and explore more how Aristotle and John Locke views the states and constitutions, how they explain them and what are their views on citizenship (if they have any). Aristotle points out that though the status of citizenship in most cases are reserved for those who are born from citizen parents (in other words inherited from citizen parents) becomes irrelevant in such cases as constitutional change,