John Locke

This article is part of the Basic Liberalism Course -> Module 2: Liberalism and its ethical foundations

Introduction

John Locke is often called the father of classical liberalism, but that is not the case; in reality he was its precursor, the pioneer of liberalism.

Locke was the one who gave a philosophical and ethical basis (incomplete and in parts contradictory) to the nascent liberal thought of the 17th century, which over time evolved with other philosophers to reach the current idea of liberalism. In a context where absolute monarchy and the idea of the king's divine power still dominated, he proposed that political authority arises from the consent of the governed, not from God or tradition. He introduced key concepts such as:

Natural right to life, liberty and property. (It is known that Locke read authors from The School of Salamanca)
Social contract: the State exists to protect those rights, not to violate them.
Limitation of power and possibility of resistance against the tyrant.

That gave liberalism an ethical and philosophical north, a rational and moral justification of individual liberty. We continue with the details of his life

Personal Life

Life and Education

Childhood and Education (1632-1656)

Birth: August 29, 1632 in Wrington, Somerset (England), in a middle-class Puritan family.
Education: He studied at Westminster School and then at Christ Church, Oxford (1652). There he was trained in Aristotelian logic, but became more interested in medicine, experimental chemistry, and the ideas of Descartes.
Early influences: He worked as a tutor and physician; he met Robert Boyle (pioneer of modern chemistry) and became involved in scientific experiments.
He trained as a physician and worked as an assistant to the physician Thomas Sydenham, which reinforced his vision centered on experience and observation.

Political Career and Exile (1660-1689)

Politics: His life unfolded during a very turbulent period in English history, marked by the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution.
Service to Lord Ashley (later Earl of Shaftesbury): From 1667 he was secretary, physician, and advisor to this Whig politician. This introduced him to English politics, associating him with Shaftesbury.
Exile in Holland (1683-1689): After the fall of Shaftesbury and accusations of treason against King Charles II, Locke fled to the Netherlands. There he wrote much of his main works and connected with liberal circles.

What did he draw inspiration from for his ideas?

Area / Main Idea	Author or current that influenced Locke	How it is noticeable in his work
Theory of natural law	Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) (De iure belli ac pacis, 1625) and Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694) (De iure naturae et gentium, 1672)	He takes the idea of a rational and universal natural law, prior to the State and accessible by reason. Locke simplifies it and makes it more secular.
Contractualism and state of nature	Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651) – although he rejects it in almost everything	He uses the same structure (state of nature + contract), but inverts the result: instead of absolutism, he arrives at limited government and inalienable rights.
Religious tolerance	Socinians (Polish Unitarians), Dutch Arminians, and Anglican "latitudinarians"	Letter on Toleration (1689): the State should not impose beliefs; faith is a private matter.
Separation of Church and State and freedom of conscience	Dutch Remonstrants (especially Philip van Limborch, personal friend of Locke)	Direct influence during his exile in Holland (1683-1688).
Philosophical empiricism	Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle and the Royal Society (English experimentalism)	Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690): the mind is a "tabula rasa", all knowledge comes from sensible experience.
Property as a natural right	Scholastic tradition (Thomas Aquinas → labor as title to property) + Grotius	Second Treatise, ch. V: one's own labor mixes one's person with things and generates legitimate property.
Separation of powers (embryonic)	James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana, 1656) and English republicans of the Commonwealth	Although he does not develop the classic tripartite division, he already distinguishes legislative and executive, and speaks of the "federative power".
Direct political experience	English Revolution (1640-1660), exile in Holland, Glorious Revolution (1688) and the Shaftesbury circle	The Two Treatises are a philosophical justification of the Glorious Revolution and the new parliamentary regime.
Classical readings	Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch	Stoic language of "reason", "natural law" and civic virtue.
Critique of innatism	Reaction against Descartes and the Cambridge Platonists (Herbert of Cherbury, Lord Herbert)	Essay: denies innate ideas and innate practical principles.

Strongest influences

Hugo Grotius and Pufendorf → framework of modern natural law.
Thomas Hobbes → as a "useful adversary" (contractual structure that Locke corrects).
English scientific empiricism (Boyle, Sydenham, Royal Society).
Dutch theologians and jurists during his exile (tolerance and moderate republicanism).
His own English political experience 1680-1689 (defense of the Whig and parliamentary regime).

In summary: Locke is the great synthesizer who takes the secularized natural law of the continentals, infuses it with English empiricism, corrects it against Thomas Hobbes and applies it to justify a limited constitutional government. That is why he is considered the "father of classical liberalism".

Influences from the period of the English Civil War

For more detail on the period, read -> The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution (1642-1689)

Locke was a child/adolescent during the revolution of 1640 (he was only 8 years old when it began).
His father was a lawyer who fought as a cavalry captain in the Parliamentary army against the King. Locke grew up in an environment where absolute authority was questioned, which shaped his iusnaturalist thought.
Locke lived through the chaos and violence of Cromwell's dictatorship and the subsequent monarchical Restoration. This led him to write his most famous works to justify why the people have the right to rebel against a tyrant.
The right to revolution: Locke argued that if a ruler breaks the social contract and violates natural rights (life, liberty and property), the people have the "divine" right (based on natural reason) to overthrow him.

Main Works

Locke's fame lies in his role as a precursor of Empiricism and Classical Liberalism.

Empiricism: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
- His masterpiece, argues that the human mind at birth is a "Tabula Rasa" (a blank slate). All knowledge comes from experience, which is obtained through sensation and reflection. With this, he wanted to refute the rationalist idea of innate ideas (like Descartes).
Political Liberalism: In his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), he laid the foundations of liberalism:
- Natural Rights: He maintained that people have inalienable rights given by nature: life, liberty and property.
- Social Contract: Legitimate government arises from the consent of the governed and its sole purpose is to protect those natural rights.
- Separation of Powers: He defended the need to separate the powers of government (mainly the legislative and the executive) to avoid despotism.
- He rejects the divine right of kings (which were rather ideas of the Catholic Church).
- If the government violates natural rights (life, liberty, property), the people have the right to rebel.
- He directly influenced the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the Declaration of Independence of the USA.
Letters on Toleration (1689-1692): Defends religious liberty, although with limits (in some cases excluding atheists and Catholics).

What did John Locke think about the state?

Good day! Let's see what John Locke thought about the state (or "commonwealth", as he calls it), based primarily on his key work: Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), especially the Second Treatise.

1. The state of nature

Locke starts from a hypothetical state of nature before any organized government:

Men are free and equal by nature.
All are governed by the natural law (discovered by reason), which commands the preservation of the life, liberty and property of oneself and others.
There are inalienable natural rights: life, liberty and property (the latter is central in Locke).
In this state there is general peace, but also inconveniences: there is no impartial judge nor a common power to enforce natural law, which can lead to conflicts (although Locke is much more optimistic than Thomas Hobbes: it is not a "war of all against all").

To overcome those inconveniences, men freely consent to form a political society through a social contract:

They do not cede all their rights (as in Thomas Hobbes), but only what is necessary for the government to better protect their natural rights.
The main purpose of the state is to protect the life, liberty and property of citizens.
The state arises from a voluntary pact between equal individuals; it is not an absolute concession to the sovereign.

3. Legitimate government

The power of the state is fiduciary: rulers are trustees who act on behalf of the people. If they abuse power, they break the contract.
Locke defends a limited government with separation of powers (although not as detailed as in Montesquieu):
Legislative power: supreme, makes the laws.
Executive power: applies the laws.
Federative power: foreign relations.
He prefers constitutional monarchy or a mixed government (with monarchical, aristocratic and democratic elements), but what is important is that it is subject to the law and respects natural rights.

4. The right of resistance or revolution

One of the most revolutionary points of Locke: - If the government systematically violates natural rights (tyranny), the people have the right to resist and even to overthrow it. - This "appeal to heaven" justifies armed resistance as a last resort. - This idea directly influenced the Declaration of Independence of the United States (1776).

Summary of the Lockean vision of the state in key points

Aspect	Locke's Thought
Origin of the state	Voluntary social contract to overcome the inconveniences of the state of nature
Main purpose	Protect life, liberty and property
Nature of power	Fiduciary and limited; rulers are accountable to the people
Preferred form of government	Constitutional government with separation of powers; legislature supreme
Legitimacy	Depends on the consent of the people and respect for natural rights
When the state loses legitimacy	If it becomes tyrannical → right of resistance/revolution of the people

In contrast to Hobbes (absolute state to avoid chaos) and Rousseau (general will and more direct democracy), Locke is the father of classical liberalism: the state should be minimal in its intervention, but strong in protecting individual liberties and private property.

What did Locke think about iusnaturalism?

To understand John Locke as an iusnaturalist, we must place him in the transition between medieval thought and modernity. Locke is considered the father of rationalist iusnaturalism. In his work Second Treatise of Civil Government, he argues that the origin of law is not the will of the monarch, but human nature itself and reason.

1. The State of Nature and Natural Law

Unlike other thinkers who saw the "state of nature" as chaos, Locke maintains that, even before governments and written laws existed, human beings were already subject to a Natural Law. This law is:

Universal: It applies to all men equally.
Rational: It can be discovered through human reason, without the need for direct divine revelation.
Eternal: It does not change according to the whim of the ruler.

2. Inalienable Natural Rights

Locke affirms that from natural law emanate certain rights that man possesses by the simple fact of being born. These rights are prior to the State and no sovereign can legitimately take them away:

Life: The right to self-preservation.
Liberty: The right not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another.
Property: The right to possess the fruits of one's own labor.

For Locke, the purpose of creating a government (the social contract) is not to cede all our rights to the king, but to better protect those natural rights. The State is only legitimate if it acts as an impartial judge that guarantees life, liberty and property.

4. The Right of Resistance (The limit to power)

This is the point where his iusnaturalism directly challenges the idea of the "King chosen by God". Locke maintains that:

If a ruler violates natural law and attacks the rights of citizens, he becomes a tyrant.
By violating the higher law (the natural one), the ruler loses his authority.
The people then have the Right of Resistance or rebellion, because the law of nature is superior to the law of the king.

"Where the law ends, tyranny begins." — John Locke.

Philosophical Criticisms

Problem of the “tabula rasa”

Locke maintained that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa and all knowledge comes from experience.

Rationalist philosophers (like Leibniz) said that there are ideas or mental structures prior to experience.
Today, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology also point to predispositions and innate structures.

Political Criticisms

His theory of property

Locke defended that property arises when someone mixes their labor with nature. The text that received the most criticism is: ...Uncultivated land is common… whoever cultivates it, owns it...

Criticisms:

Critic	Argument	Possible response
Jean-Jacques Rousseau	Property is the origin of inequality: "The first man who enclosed a piece of land…"	Locke: Inequality is natural if it comes from labor; money amplifies it, but it is consensual.
Karl Marx	The labor theory justifies exploitation: the worker does not receive the full value of his labor. - Property is theft (Proudhon).	Locke does not contemplate industrial capitalism; his model is artisanal.
Colonial criticisms (C. B. Macpherson, indigenists)	Locke justified colonization ("unworked" land = empty).	Locke says: "uncultivated land = common", but ignored indigenous agriculture.

Limited religious tolerance

Locke defended tolerance… except for:

Atheists (he believed they would not keep promises without fear of God)
Catholics (he feared loyalty to the Pope instead of the English State)

He is criticized for not being fully universalist.

Personal and Moral Criticisms of John Locke

Limitations and contradictions: Freedom for all?

Locke's ideas were not perfect and reflected the limitations of his time (17th century). He himself could not (or did not want to) resolve inconsistencies, and this is where the criticism comes in that his liberalism was selective:

Hypocrisy with slavery: In the 17th century, everyone (even republicans) accepted prisoners of war as slaves. Locke invested in the Royal African Company, which trafficked slaves (as prisoners of war), and helped draft the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669), which explicitly allowed slavery. In his Second Treatise, he justifies slavery as the result of a "just war", where captives lose their freedom. This clashes with his defense of natural liberty, as it implies that not all humans deserve the same rights —for example, enslaved Africans did not enter his vision of "free men". Left-wing critics, as in Jacobin articles, accuse him of hypocrisy, arguing that his philosophy served to justify colonialism and private property at the expense of others.
Exclusions in tolerance and rights: His religious tolerance did not include everyone; it excluded atheists (for not believing in God, they were not trustworthy) and Catholics (for loyalty to the Pope). Furthermore, his emphasis on property as a natural right was linked to labor, which marginalized indigenous people or groups without "productive property" in European terms.
Modern criticisms: Some historians argue that the label of "father of liberalism" was invented by Marxist or conservative critics to attack liberalism in general, highlighting its failures. Others, from the right, see his liberalism as dissolving traditions and religious values. And in recent debates (even in 2025), the tension between public security and individual liberty in his thought is discussed.

Locke originated many liberal ideas, but his vision was elitist and Eurocentric, limited by his historical context. He did not extend liberty to slaves, women (in full equality) or non-Christians in a consistent way. This was "polished" with later thinkers: Adam Smith and David Hume in economics, John Stuart Mill in utilitarianism and broader individual rights, and abolitionists like William Wilberforce, who used Lockean principles to combat slavery. Modern liberalism (or "classical" in its pure form) evolved towards a universality that Locke did not achieve.

Why does he remain important?

Despite the criticisms, Locke remains central because:

He founded classical liberalism
He influenced modern constitutions (USA, United Kingdom)
He contributed to empiricism, the theory of knowledge and education

His work is a starting point and set the direction for liberal ideas.

Some phrases from John Locke in his books

Phrase	Comments
...Men are born free, equal and independent by nature...."
...Where there is no law, there is no liberty....."
...The great and chief end which men propose to themselves when uniting in communities and submitting to government is the preservation of their property....."
...Government has no other end than the preservation of property...."	(Two Treatises of Civil Government, Second Treatise, Ch. IX)
...Every man has a property in his own person. Nobody has any right to it but himself...."
...All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions..."
...True religion consists in the inward conviction of the spirit; it cannot be imposed by force...."
...When legislators attempt to destroy and reduce the people to slavery, they put themselves in a state of war with them...."	(Civil Government, ch. XIX, §222.)

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Last updated: 2025-11-10

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