Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Smith

1. Strauss, Leo, and Joseph Cropsey. History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1987. must use book and lesson attached What elements of the political philosophies of Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Smith can you identify in the American political system of today? What elements of Rousseau's thought are nowhere in evidence, and why is this so? Support your arguments with examples minimum of 550 word essay Lesson 4: John Locke Locke's greatest political work - The Second Treatise of Government - is arguably the greatest work in classical liberal political theory. In fact, Thomas Jefferson called Locke "one of the three greatest men that ever lived.” Locke's stature, although well deserved, would have come as a bit of a shock to his contemporaries. Locke (and Hobbes) are like rock bands that are subsequently gained much bigger stature than they had "back in the day." Locke was well connected, but hardly the leading liberal theorist of his day, or even his circle. Among his contemporaries Algernon Sidney and James Harrington were more influential in his day, while earlier theorists like Richard Hooker and George Buchanan were still much esteemed. Locke's 2nd Treatise is much like a classic liberal political theoretical version of Plato's Republic, both works are sweeping in their scope. Although the 2nd Treatise was primarily a justification for resistance to monarchical tyranny, it contains a state of nature and state of war models, theories of property and rights, a labor theory of ownership and value, a theory of the origins of money, a theory of the origins of the state, a theory of divided government, a resistance theory (with individual and lesser magistrated conceptions of resistance), analysis of tyranny and slavery, social contract theory, and an endorsement of the rule of law (natural and positive). As with Plato's Republic, Locke's great work has a linchpin. That linchpin is the state of war. For Locke human beings have a god given duty to preserve themselves and protect their rights and property, whether they live in a civil society with a government or in the anarchy of the state of nature. When a person, individual or institutional, has a design and plan to strip you of your liberty, rights, and property, you not only may, but must defend yourself. Anyone that seeks to have absolute power over you places you in the state of war with them. For Locke, self-preservation is a categorical imperative - a commandment that one must always follow. One defends onself agains wild beasts. One defends oneself against criminals (in Locke's day "highwaymen"). One defends oneself against legislatives (like Parliament) or executives (the King) run wild. For Locke's audience the message was clear - the king is not better than a wild beast or a criminal, no worse. Far from elevating the king to divine status or justifying monarchical power, Locke argues that absolute monarchy create a monster even worse than wild animal predators or common criminals. Why? Because the power of the absolute monarch is so much greater than the powers of a wild beast or a common criminal. Against those who argued that the right of self-defense does not extend to violence against the person of the monarch or king, Locke argued that one had more of a right to defend against the king than the highwayman or thief. Locke’s Political Problem To understand Locke’s political theory, one must understand the political problem his work was address. The Second Treatise of Government is specifically aimed at countering Sir Richard Filmer’s theory of Adamite succession - the theory that monarchs received absolute power over their kingdoms based on the succession of power that God had originally given to Adam over the garden of Eden. But, Locke’s work was most importantly aimed at addressing the problem of absolute monarchy. To understand the problem of absolutism, we must travel across the English Channel to France in the quintessential absolute monarchy – the monarchy of Louis XIV. Louis XIV, who was also called the Sun King, famously said quote “I am the State.” This simple statement is packed with all sorts of implications. The modern state that developed in the 1500s and 1600s is a territorial state. Unlike ancient empires that spread out from a single loci city to control a larger area, the territoriality of the modern state is defined by its borders its outer edges, not its center. Therefore, when Louis says, “I am the state” he is also asserting that he not only controls, but ostensibly owns the territory of France. "I am the State" means, in essence, that "all of this, all of France is mine." As such this statement is not only a theory of sovereignty, but also a theory of property. Louis is not only asserting that he is sovereign ruler of all French terrority, but that the propery of the residents of France comes from him. Obviously, in the strict literal sense, even Louis understood that he was not the actual owner of every piece of property in France. But, the absolutist theory of property, treats the property of non-sovereign individuals as if that property was a gift from the sovereign. Individual property exists because the sovereign allows it to exist. Under this theory of property, the property of any particular individual can be taken for confiscated by the King at any point in time. This absolutist theory of property was problematic for theorists like Locke because it rendered individual property and rights very insecure. A word on terminology. In this period, "property" was used in a broader sense than the modern conception of property in things (possessions and real or business property). Property also included property in one's person (one's body, mind and their capabilities) and also property in the sense of rights. When someone like Locke talks about property, he is also talking about rights. Indeed, to this day, lawyers talk about "property" as a bundle of rights. Thus, the absolutist theory of property as the creation and play thing of the monarch is also a theory that rights are given by the king. The statement “I am the State” is also an assertion by Louis XIV that the "King is law." Under absolutism, law like property is something dispensed by the King, the King is the source of law. And, under the absolutist conception, the King was above the law. Obviously, if the King was the source of law and above the law, then the King likewise was not equal as an executive to either the legislative branch which makes laws or the judicial branch which decides cases and ajudicates laws. Therefore, under absolutism, there was no real separation of powers, the other branches of government were viewed in essence as appendages of monarchical power. I am the State, I am the Law, I am Government. French absolutism was not only politically problematic for Locke, it was also religiously troublesome. France during Locke’s time was also a Catholic country. Under the leadership of Louis XIII and XIV and their left-hand men, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, France was the leader of the Counter-Reformation (the counter offensive of Catholic Europe against the Reformation). In France, the struggle of the Bourbon kings to centralize the French state was inseparable in their minds from the crushing of Protestantism (in the Calvinist or Huegeonot type) in France. Within France the quest for absolute centralized monarchical power overlapped with religious oppression. In the feudal period, Europe had networks of independent, politically autonomous towns. In France, many of these towns were in the Southern part of France, along the important shipping and trade routes. Protestant Huguenots controlled many of these towns in the South. But, these autonomous towns were inconsistent with monarchical control and sovereignty over the whole physical space of France. As a result, the Louis’ quest for absolute monarchical power required not only the political and military subordination of these towns, but also religious suppression. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, an agreement which had created nearly 100 years of relative religious tolerance in France. The Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes, made Protestantism illegal, forbade Protestant religious services, and required Catholic education. The Edict was enforced militarily, prompting a massive exodus of French Huguenots from the country. Many of the oppressed Protestants fled to England or the New World. In addition, Calvin, Calvinists, Huegonots, and others directly influenced theological and political events in England, particularly Scotland. Scott Calvinists, such as John Know and George Buchanan, railed against the Scottish and English attempts to mimic the absolutistm and Catholic religious oppression of France. For example, both viciously attacked Mary Queen of Scots, the Catholic daughter of Mary Guise (the Guise family lead brutal attacks against French Protestants). Buchanan opposed Mary Queen of Scots despite their personal ties - he was her classics tutor). Knox wrote The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women against Bloody Mary and Mary Queen of Scots. Mary Queen of Scots would later say "I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” Thus, for many Englishmen of Locke’s generation and his father’s generation (the English Civil War generation), France was exactly what they feared England could become - an absolute monarchy ruled by a religiously intolerant monarch with little respect for the rights and property of its subjects. As mentioned above, over time, France’s religious problem became England’s religious and political problem. To understand how this happened we need to return to the time of Henry VIII. The Stuart Problem Mary the Queen of Scot's beheading didn’t end the Stuart, French and Catholic threats. When Elizabeth died without an heir, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, James I became King of Scotland. Thus, began the long and troubled rule of the Stuarts on the throne of England. Although the Stuarts rule England on and off for nearly 100 years, their rule was a source of constant strife from three sources. First, although the Stuarts converted to the Church of England, many Englishmen believed that the Stuarts were Papists – closeted supporters of the Catholic Church. By the time of Mary Queen of Scots, France’s Huguenot problem had become Scotland and England’s Huguenot problem. Thus, when the Stuarts took the throne in England, Englishmen not only feared that Scottish intolerance would spread to England and the Stuarts would realign the Catholic Church and the Church of England. Second, English fears regarding the Papism and religious intolerance of the Stuarts was reinforced by their ongoing close relationship with France. When Louis XIII and Louis XIV began their efforts just centralize and strengthen the French throne, they moved to crush their domestic opponents, but to weaken their foreign rivals. Knowing that a divided England was a weaker England, Louis XIV sought to sew political and religious strife via support of the Stuarts. The close ties between the Stuarts and France enabled French meddling in English affairs and the destablization of England. Third, like Louis XIV, the Stuarts espoused an absolutist theory of monarchy. James I, perhaps in response to the anti-absolutist political theory of Buchanan, wrote a tract - The True Law of Free Monarchies – espousing the divine right of kings. Stuarts absolutist tendencies and their close relations with France created fear in England that the Stuarts would run roughshod or even abolish Parliament. The relations between James I and Parliament were often strained. But, it was the relationship between Charles I and Parliament that was even more strained. Those strains eventually led to the English Civil War. The English Civil War basically pitted Charles I, his French allies, papists and conservatives in the English church, and aristocrats favoring absolutism and Catholicism against Parliament, Puritans, and other political and religious dissenters. Eventually, when the parliamentary armies got the upper hand under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, Charles was beheaded. This led to a brief period of parliamentary rule and then a short dictatorship by Cromwell. In 1660, the Stuart monarchy was restored under conditions outlined in the Declaration of Breda. That declaration required religious tolerance and amnesty for conduct during the Civil War. The reign of Charles II hardly ended the problem. Charles II not only fortified the more conservative elements of the Church of England against more radical Protestants, but schemed with the French. In a secret agreement with Louis XIV, he agreed to pursue a French-friendly foreign-policy and to eventually convert to Catholicism in return for French monies. Over time, Charles II’s religious and foreign-policy alienated Parliament. Parliamentary resistance to the Stuarts came to a head over the issue of succession. Parliamentary forces led by Locke’s mentor the Earl of Shaftesbury wanted to exclude Charles II’s brother James (a Catholic) from ascending to the throne and passed a bill excluding him. Charles opposition to that bill contributed to the Rye House plot in which Algernon Sidney, Shaftesbury, Locke and others planned to kill Charles and James. Locke and Shaftesbury fled to Holland. They would eventually return when the glorious Revolution put William and Mary of Orange on the throne. Locke’s political problematic is simple - to lay a theoretical foundation setting limits on the power of the monarchy, establishing a proper place and role for the legislative branch of Parliament, outlining a theory of rights and property against absolutist claims that all rights and property come from the largess of the King, and developing a theory of resistance for situations in which the King goes astray. Locke’s state of nature is his attempt to ground freedom, rights, and property in God, nature, and labor respectively. In stark contrast with monarchical theories of liberty rights and property that placed power over these matters entirely in the hands of the king, Locke contends that the foundations of freedom rights and property lie entirely outside of the king’s control. In essence, Locke draws a kind of boundary around the person, his rights, and his property, and warns the King that any attempt to violate those rights, take that property Park, or harm that person, outside of proper legal means (in other words without the consent of Parliament) will create a state of war. That state of war then allows the subjects of the King to resist that King. For Locke and others like Shaftesbury the political problem to be attacked is the Stuarts. The Stuarts wanted to create absolutism in England, to have absolute power. They want total power over Englishmen. For Locke, such absolutism is characterized by complete monarchical power, the abolition or disregard of Parliament, papists religious intolerance and the imposition of Catholicism in England, and lawless disrespect for the rights and property of English subjects. Locke not only took steps to prevent this in reality (his involvement in the Eclusionary crisis, the Rhye House Plot, and the Glorious Revolution) his Second Treatise is his effort to justify his zealous resistance to Stuart absolutism in the realm of political theory. Locke’s State of Nature The “State of Nature” is an analytical device used to lay bare the normative and logical relationships between political categories. Put another way, it is like a kind of x-ray that political theorists use to uncover the framework of our body politic. It lays bare the inner workings of politics. Three liberal political theorists are famous for their use of the state of nature – Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Indeed these theorists are part of the broad category of “liberal political theory” because of their use of state of nature theory. Whatever their actual political differences, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau all ground their political theory in the state of nature, conceptualize politics as the aggregate of individuals, depict politics as an artificial institution created to protect the rights and property of individuals, and see contract theory as centrally important in the formation of the state. Despite the fact that "state of nature" theory sounds anthropological or (pre)historical in places, it should not primarily be used as an anthropological or historical account of the actual evolution and creation of states. Indeed, even Rousseau, whose state of nature has the most biological, evolutionary, or anthropological elements of the three, warns that his state of nature is not a fact-based work of evolutionary biology or political anthropoly. Rousseau writes: Let us begin, therefore by laying aside facts, for they do not affect the question. The researches, in which we may engage on this occasion, are not to be taken for historical truths, but merely has hypothetical and conditional reasonings fitter to illustrate the nature of things than to show their true origin... Roussseau is saying, in essence, forget the anthropological and historical facts, they don't matter. Why? Because Rousseu understand the difference between analysis and history. And, the state of nature is an analytical device that lays bare underlying relations, causes and effect. The state of nature is our political X-Ray, not our political film documentary. Hobbes state of nature best illustrates the analytical rather than historical character of the "state of nature." His method is not historical in the least. Hobbes was deeply influenced methodologically by the emerging physics that would culminate in the work of Newton. In 1636, Hobbes traveled to Italy and struck up a friendship with the Galileo. His method in the Leviathan resembles that of Galileo. Galileo is famous for his contention that motion must be studied in a vacuum. He contended that the natural motion of particles cannot be understood without removing the resistance particles encounter (like friction or air resistance). Although many believe that Galileo experimented by dropping different shapes and weights of objects from the leaning Tower of Pisa, he actually studied resistance free motion by rolling different sized and waited balls down inclined planes. These inclined-plane experiments allowed Galileo to conceptualize motion in a vacuum. Imitating Galileo, Hobbes uses the state of nature as an experiment in frictionless movement by human political particles. For Hobbes, individual human beings are the basic particles or atoms of politics. Hobbes' state of nature allows him to conceptualize human political motion in a political vacuum, or what we might call “anarchy.” In the state of nature, Hobbes has removed all of the social, legal, and political artifice that make human beings behave themselves. Having freed human "billiard balls" from any such artificial social or political resistance he then investigates how they would behave. The picture he paints is not pretty. With artificial legal and political resistance removed from their state of nature, Hobbes human particles relentlessly smash into one another. His state of nature is not only anarchic, in the sense that it has no government, it is anarchic in the pejorative sense of the term insofar as it is characterized by chaos, fear, violence, and warfare. As Hobbes describes it, human life in this state of nature would be nasty, brutish, and short. Hobbes state of nature is a powerful model for analysis of situations in which government disintegrates (Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda) or does not cast a presence (gang wars, arms races). Hobbes' state of nature generates the prediction that when government is not present or disintegrates, everyone will look out for themselves, and life will be nasty, brutish, and violent. Locke versus Hobbes For Hobbes, who was on the monarchical side of the English Civil War, the solution to the anarchy produced by that Civil War was a contract forming an absolute monarchy. The fact that Hobbes state of nature is a kind of monarchical mirror image of the Locke’s whig republican state of nature sometimes leads students to believe that Locke wrote the Second Treatise to answer Hobbes. In fact, Hobbes’ work was less prominent and influential in the 1600s than it came to be later. The most prominent monarchical theorist of the day was Sir Richard Filmer, who grounded his defense of a monarchy in the Bible. Filmer advanced a theory called Adamite succession - arguing that the absolute power of monarchs over their subjects is akin indeed derives its foundation from the dominion that God gave to Adam over the garden of Eden. In Locke’s First Treatise, he attempts to show that Filmer’s efforts to justification the chains of monarchy merely created chains of sand. Having dispatched Sir Richard in the First Treatise, Locke spends less time on him in the second. The first chapter of the Second Treatise takes a swipe at Filmer and then moves on. The swipe that Locke takes at the monarchist Filmer, is however equally germane to Hobbes. Locke writes: [For him] all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumbled, sedition, and rebellion (things that the followers of that hypothesis so blindly cry out against) . . . Like Plato earlier, Locke argues here that politics is not the imposition of the will of the stronger through physical force or the force of arms. Locke will use his state of nature to argue the opposite - to contend that efforts by Stuart monarchy to impose their absolute will on Englishmen through force of arms is the exact opposite to political justice, violate God-given natural rights and creating a state of war in which Englishmen may justifiably defend themselves, their property and their rights. Locke’s Categorical Imperative - Preserve Yourself Locke’s state of nature is an example of classical liberal political theory because it has the goal is the protection of individual rights and property against the excesses of absolute monarchy, but also because in substance it is quintessentially individualistic. Unlike Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Locke does not see the individual living outside politics as a beast or a god. In Locke’s state of nature, the individual lives in conformity with God’s natural law, eschews behaving like a beast. Locke writes: To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave were depending on the will of any other man. Thus, Locke, like Hobbes, begins his political analysis with self-interested, self-preserving individual human monads. But, unlike Hobbes, and contrary to Filmer, Locke grounds his political analysis in a God-derived natural law - self-preservation. Locke’s state of nature and his natural law of self-preservation are entirely consistent with the Biblical commandment that what God hath put together let no man tear asunder. Human beings have a categorical imperative to preserve themselves in the face of threats, whether natural or human. This natural law duty of self-defense and self-preservation always applies, it never ceases or ends. In this regard, Locke’s work is not original. Since the time of Luther, theorists on both sides of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had been justifying resistance to wayward monarchs and governments based on natural law theories of self-defense. But Locke’s theory is subtly different. For all its theological underpinnings, Locke’s natural law is secular. Locke’s state of nature is also quintessentially liberal, because it is egalitarian. This equality has an ostensible theological derivation - we are all equal before God. But, the secular upshot of that equality is equality of rights. We are all equal in the state of nature. Locke writes that state of nature is – A state also of equality, wherein all the powers and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same facilities, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the Lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, and undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty . . . For Locke then all human beings are equal because God, the Lord and master of “them all,” has not manifestly declared that it is his will that one be set above another. All men are created equal. If Locke and Hobbes are in agreement regarding the quality of men in the state of nature, they are in complete and utter disagreement about the nature of human duties in that state of nature. Locke’s natural law requires that “what God has put together no man can tear asunder.” This then requires not only that human beings in the state of nature preserve themselves and protect their rights, but that they also respect the rights, property and lives of others. Locke writes: [T]hough this is the a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license: though man in that state have an uncontrolled liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, . . . The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone here; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will consult it, that being all equal independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property whose workmanship they are, . . . Unlike Hobbes state of nature, the natural law governing Locke state of nature is not entirely selfish. Our duties extend to the protection and preservation of others. Locke writes: Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his self-preservation comes into competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to be the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. . . . the law of nature . . . willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of a law of nature is, in that state, put in every man’s hands, whereby everyone has the right to punish the transgressors of the law to such a degree. Had he chosen to, Locke could have ended The Second Treatise at this point. He had already outlined a fundamental law of nature that must be observed at all points in time and a right to defend one-self and others. The necessary foundations for his theory of resistance to Stuart monarchy were complete. In geometric terms, Chapter II of the Second Treatise lays out the axioms for the remainder of the work, the rest are simply corollaries of these axioms. With the natural rights of self-preservation and self-defense in place, Locke can now move on to their application. In thinly veiled language, he likens the Stuart monarchy to criminals: In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tie, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon his score, by the radio have to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it be necessary, destroy things noxious to them. . . The Stuarts are, for Locke, little different from criminals – they are noxious things. They are “degenerate” “noxious creatures” he writes in §10. Having compared those who violate natural law to criminals and noxious creatures, Locke then compares them to wild beasts. He argues that because they have “declared war against all mankind” that they may “be destroyed as a lion or tiger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security.” Just as Locke’s grounding of resistance in a natural law duty to defend oneself is not new, his contention that we can defend ourselves against errant monarchs as we can against wild beasts is not a novel argument. As the Schonfeld article on Luther’s later theories of resistance that you read earlier in this course correctly points out, Luther writing argued that resistance to the Holy Roman Emperor was justified because he was like an animal, a wild beast, a "Beerwolf." The most important new distinction to emerge from [the debate in 1539] was Luther's concept of the "Beerwolf," who, in contrast to a mere tyrant, not only broke the law but also overturned the entire moral order upon which it was based. All the subjects of such a ruler, and not just the inferior magistrates, had the right to resist and even to kill him and all his supporters. The point, of course, was that Luther thought the Emperor and the Pope were just such apocalyptic tyrants, and that the present situation justified all efforts to resist them. Luther’s “Beerwolf” theory could be used to justify an individualistic theory of resistance (as opposed to an inferior magistrates theory). For Luther and for Locke, this meant that individuals need not wait for inferior magistrates (like Parliament) to act in cases where the monarch goes astray (i.e., when the King unkings himself). This is particularly important for Locke because in the view of Locke and other Rhye House plotters, the Cavalier Parliament failed to see the danger posed by the restored Stuart monarchy. With Parliament asleep at the switch, Locke and his cohorts thereby had the right to act privately to defend their rights. The resemblance between Luther’s theory and Locke's in this regard is not simply a matter of vague similarities. George Buchanan, of Scottish Calvinist, had advanced such a theory earlier to justify opposition to Stuart oppression in Scotland. Locke was not only familiar with Buchanan’s work but mentions Buchanan in the Second Treatise. The next part of this lesson examines the tension between the private, individual resistance theory and the inferior magistrates theory in Locke’s work. As argued above Locke’s Second Treatise could have ended at the end of Chapter II or III. At that point, he has accomplished his main goal of a theoretical justification for resistance to Stuart monarchy. Locke’s work, however, also has the related goal of drawing a line around the individual that no other may cross. Obviously attacks on the person violate natural law and cross that line. But, practically speaking, it is important that Locke laid foundation for criticism and defense of lesser violations of the rights of Englishmen by the Stuart monarchy. Not all monarchical violations of the rights of individuals put their lives in peril. For Locke, lesser violations of the rights of individuals, and lesser infractions against their property rights, are politically significant because they sometimes serve as a prelude to life-threatening conduct by the monarch. Locke’s theory of resistance would be of little practical utility if one literally had to wait for the knock on the door of the monarchs henchmen, to defend oneself. Locke once to justify what one might call anticipatory resistance, resistance based on a pattern or long train of lesser abuses, which indicate monarchical designs on absolute power. And, hence it is, that he would attempt to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself in a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life: for I have reason to conclude, that he would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he got me there, and destroy me to when he had a fancy to it; for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it is to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom . . . He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to anyone in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a designed to take away everything else that freedom being the foundation of all the rest. Practically and historically speaking, this part of Locke’s work is very important. One need not wait indeed one should not wait until one’s neck is in the noose or one’s head is in the chopping block to defend oneself. By that time, it is too late. Instead, the natural right of self-defense and reason dictate that we must read the signs and in some circumstances, based on a long string of smaller violations of our rights and property, prepare to defend ourselves. Obviously, this sort of theory plays a central role in the American Revolution. Our Founding Fathers justified rebellion and the severance of our relationship with the British crown on the grounds that George had engaged in a long string of abuses. Like Locke, the Founders did not believe that there right to self-defense would only be triggered by wholesale attacks on their life by the monarch. One need not wait for all-out war or genocide to defend oneself. As a result, the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence arose from a long string of tyrannical actions which while short of life-threatening indicated that the British monarchy believed it could do whatever it pleased with the colonies. (All Locke passages are quoted from John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis Indiana). 4 sources

Clear understanding of main ideas and mentions at least three concepts from the required weekly readings. No irrelevant comments and information is on point. Provides examples that tie in with the course material.

Replied to more than two classmates. Replies are two or three paragraphs, demonstrate careful analysis of other's opinions, and incorporate several terms, concepts or theories from the required readings.

Used more than 2 acceptable sources outside of the required reading for research.

Free of grammatical errors and made proper reference to the course text or to other materials. Statements are well organized with a clear thesis statement and concluding thoughts.