John Locke on historical injustice: the redemptive power of contract

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to argue that Locke proposes a coherent theory of restorative justice regarding historical crimes. In two cases that he sets out in the Second Treatise, that of the Greek Christians living in the Ottoman Empire and Englishmen living in the wake of William I’s conquest, the preliminary standard of historical redress is whether the descendants of the conquerors and conquered possess equal political rights. Conquered peoples cannot simply be subsumed or annexed into an existing political order. They must have some say in articulating or agreeing to the laws that govern them. In this respect, Locke’s theory of historical redress emphasizes the redemptive power of contract to overcome historical crimes. Furthermore, the disposition a community has to reimagine its body politic, to enfranchise the dispossessed by forming one body of people, speaks to the degree to which historical injustice is likely to occur.