Locke's State of Nature

Abstract

T HE STATE OF NATURE is in many ways the central concept at work in Locke's Two Treatises of Govertnmnent. It is the concept with which Locke chooses to introduce the Second Treati.se.' And it is only against and by means of the state of nature that Locke offers us accounts of political obligation and authority, the limits on political power, and the occasions for justified resistance. But the state of nature is probably also, as John Dunn has observed,2 the most misunderstood idea in Locke's political philosophy. Progress has been made, of course, largely because of Dunn's own work' and an influential paper by Richard Ashcraft.4 It is, as a result, no longer fashionable to simply dismiss Locke's claims about the state of nature as bad history or bad psychology.f Nor is it as easy as it once was to accuse Locke of blatant inconsistency or deceptiveness in his descriptions of the social conditions men would endure in the state of In spite of this progress, however, widespread obscurities and errors persist in discussions of Locke's state of nature, mistakes that often conceal the nature and virtues of the concept with which Locke chose to work. Most of these mistakes, I will suggest, stem from two sources: running together (in various ways) Lockean and Hobbesian conceptions of the state of nature and taking as definiitions of the state of nature in Locke, his statements of mere coniditionis (necessary or sufficient) for men's being in the state of nature. I will try in this article to remedy those mistakes, but I have three more general aims. First, I want to (finally) present a clear account of and definition of Locke's state of nature. With this definition in hand, many of the familiar worries about Locke's account are much easier to unravel. Second, I will point to what I believe are Locke's true confusions about the state of nature, which lie in rather different areas than is generally supposed. Third, I hope to cast some light on the point and the virtues of the particular concept of the state of nature we find Locke employing in the Two Treatises.