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  • The Ground of Locke's Law of Nature

  • Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Jeffrey Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Fred D. Miller, Jr, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book:
    Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy
    Published online:
    05 June 2014
    Print publication:
    27 August 2012, pp 1-50

  • Summary

    This chapter deals with John Locke's teaching and his theory. The real ground of Locke's teaching is found in his understanding of the conditions of human happiness. Locke gives us two arguments that profess to explain how we know that we are governed by the law of nature, and part of what that law requires of us. Locke's awareness of inequality of parts leads him to revise the ground of the teaching of the law of nature regarding "the equality, which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another". Locke provides as little evidence for his divine workmanship argument as he does for his argument from equal talents. Locke's treatment of the parental desire to have children, "propagating their kind, and continuing themselves in their posterity", is similar to Aristotle's. Locke shows that nature by itself is too ambiguous to guide human life.