Locke (and Hobbes) on “Property” in the State of Nature

Abstract

Anyone reading the second of Two Treatises of Government after Leviathan must notice how much more civil Locke’s state of nature is in comparison to Hobbes’s. Many readers may also notice how much space the Second Treatise gives the subject of property. While Hobbes has only a few scattered sentences on property, Locke has the famous chapter five, which constitutes about a tenth of the whole Second Treatise (§§25–51). Private property in the state of nature seems to be what protects Locke’s Second Treatise from the absolutist conclusion of Hobbes’s Leviathan. The Second Treatise’s account of private property achieves that without even a minimal theory of property. What Locke offers instead in chapter five is a proof that property of a quite limited sort is possible in the state of nature. He does not—and need not—claim that this possibility was ever realized (as one must do in order to have even a minimal theory of property). Insofar as Locke offers a theory of property, it is the same as what Hobbes offers. ANyoNe ReAdINg THe SeCoNd of the Two Treatises of Government after reading the Leviathan must notice how much more civil Locke’s state of nature is compared with that of Hobbes. There is mention of disputes, crimes, vigilantes, and other common disorders, but nothing like the war of all against all. Many readers also have noticed how much space the Second Treatise gives to the subject of property. While Hobbes has only a few scattered sentences, Locke has the long fifth chapter, about a tenth of the whole Second Treatise (§§25–51). The only chapters approaching chapter five in length are those most important for the Second Treatise’s practical purpose: paternal power (§§52–76), the beginnings of political society (§§95–122), conquest (§§175–96), and dissolution of government (§§211–43). These two features of Locke’s state of nature, civility and property, are, of course, related. The existence of private property explains (or, at least, is intended to explain) why Locke’s view of the state of nature can be so much more civil than that of Hobbes. The civility of Locke’s state of nature explains why Locke can separate To reduce endnotes, I generally give references to the Second Treatise in parentheses in the text, using section numbers rather than page numbers for ease of reference independent of edition. All quotations are from the online, standard, and easily searched version of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, London, 1764: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=222 (accessed August 11, 2012). For more on the practical purposes of Two Treatises, see Michael davis, “Locke on Consent: The Two Treatises as Practical ethics,” Philosophical Quarterly 62 (2012): 464–85, as well as works cited there. While (for simplicity of presentation) I write as if Locke were in direct dialogue with Hobbes, I should point out that Locke never explicitly cites any work of Hobbes in Two Treatises, seems never to have had International Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 53, No. 2, Issue 210 (June 2013) pp. 271–287