John Locke's Second Treatise Of Government

John Locke discusses within in his book, “Second Treatise of Government,” the concepts of natural rights of individuals as well as the legitimate exercise of political power. Within his writing, Locke links his abstract beliefs to a theory of personal property wholly protected from governmental invention. This joining of ideas helps Locke make an argument against absolutism and unjust governments. In addition to his argument, Locke aims to explain how he believes that people have the right to rebel against their own government. In fact, he promotes people to rebel against their own government because everyone should have a government that they trust. Overall, this is what Locke aims to make apparent in his book.

Locke’s integration of his concepts of natural rights as well as the legitimate exercise of political power begins immediately in the first chapter. Locke begins with an idea of a community of free, equal individuals, all possessed of natural rights. Since these individuals will want to acquire goods and will ultimately come into conflict, Locke invokes a natural law of morality to govern them before they enter into society. Locke presumes people will

For example, he notes that children do not possess the freedoms possessed by adults until they have reached the age where their reason has developed. Locke states, “Thus we are born free as we are born rational; not that we actually have the exercise of either: age that brings one, brings the other with it too” (34). These restrictions of freedom which parents place upon their children are only present to the degree to which the children are incapable of fully exercising their rational faculties. Thus, as the children get older, the domain of their freedom continues to grow until they are equal in their freedoms to their