John Locke and Natural Law

Abstract

The standard modern view of Locke portrays him as a simulacrum of John Stuart Mill or John Rawls. This chapter decisively shifts the terms in which Locke is understood away from this standard view. It shows that with Locke religious worship is neither private nor optional, and is a matter of duty rather than right primarily — a duty prescribed by natural law. Natural law led Locke to jurisdiction, and, more precisely, to two corresponding jurisdictions, the eccesiastical and civil. The different ends implied in these two jurisdictions and the different ways in which they were established made church and state free from each other's direction. Worship is not tolerated by the state, for the state has no jurisdiction over it; rather, it is free. Conversely the state is required to coerce religious or irreligious groups, whether Roman Catholics or atheists, who undermine the possibility of independent civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions.