42 pages • 1 hour read
Second Treatise of Government
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Key Figures
John Locke
John Locke (1632-1704) was a prominent Enlightenment thinker and political theorist. His ideas were influential in his own time and became wildly more so a hundred years later, when they helped foment the American Revolution after being adopted by the Founding Fathers.
Locke built on ideas that had come before him—such as the state of nature, the state of war, property rights, and a theory of the mind—and constructed a philosophy of political thought centered around the notion of a dual independence/dependence that human beings share with each other. His conceptions of personal freedom wedded with a belief in a citizen’s obligation to their community and their government altered the framework of many Western countries, such as the United States, Great Britain, and France, to name a few.
Despite what some may assume, Locke wasn’t necessarily a proponent of democracy but of any system of government that could ensure basic rights and protections for the people. One of his most groundbreaking viewpoints was that citizens do indeed have an obligation and responsibility to their government, but that they also have a right to their own lives, and if they feel their government is threatening that right, they are justified in deposing that government and raising a new one in its place.
Robert Filmer
A noted political scientist of his time, Robert Filmer (1588-1653) was well known for his ardent defense of the divine right of kings—which made him the perfect polar opposite and metaphysical antagonist, so to speak, of Locke’s two Treatises.
Filmer believed that the natural state of man was not one of independence but subjection, and that because of this, any attempt to promote equality was bound to fail and end in ruin. The only true way to secure human beings was to orient them toward a monarch, or some ultimate sovereign figure, who would provide civil guidance and grounding. Filmer’s philosophy is detailed in Patriarcha (1680), his most well-known book, which was published posthumously. The text defends patriarchalism and the absolute power of the monarchy, and much of the political theory in the two Treatises is a critique against Filmer’s ideas, with the First Treatise refuting Filmer’s arguments point by point, and the Second Treatise more thoroughly articulating Locke’s own philosophy of government.
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