Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
Two Treatises of Government
Against Filmer’s patriarchal divine right of kings: life, liberty, property – and the right of resistance.
Introduction
Locke published the Two Treatises anonymously at the end of 1689, dated 1690, and admitted authorship only in his will. The First Treatise refutes Robert Filmer’s “Patriarcha”, which derived royal power from the authority of Adam. The Second Treatise begins with a state of nature governed by natural law, explains property as arising when people mix their labour with things, bases government on consent and defends the people’s right to resist a ruler who breaks the trust. Locke presented the book as a defence of the Revolution of 1688, but Peter Laslett showed in 1960 that most of it was written earlier, probably during the Exclusion Crisis around 1679–1683.
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Connections
Criticizes
- Leviathan1651 · Thomas Hobbes disputed
Taken up in
- The Spirit of the Laws1748 · Montesquieu
- The Social Contract1762 · Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- A Theory of Justice1971 · John Rawls
- Anarchy, State, and Utopia1974 · Robert Nozick
Criticized in
- Some Reflections upon Marriage1700 · Mary Astell
- The Sexual Contract1988 · Carole Pateman
- The Racial Contract1997 · Charles W. Mills
More works by John Locke
Appears in
- Journey ‘What Is Just?’ · Stop 4 of 10
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