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IdentificationJohn Locke (1632-1704) was one of the first philosophers and political thinkers of the English Enlightenment. He became significant as a political thinker due to his association with leading circles in the budding liberal Whig Party, and his most important contribution was the book Two Treatises of Government, which he wrote circa 1679-1683, but which was not published until after “The Glorious Revolution” (1688- 1689). On the surface of it, the Revolution was a mere coup, but the result was a new constitutional form and the Bill of Rights, which became of great importance to British history and the development of democracy; and it was Locke’s book that provided the ideological defence.
Locke's Two Treatises of Government served two purposes: to argue against absolute monarchs and to formulate a defence for the view that human beings have certain rights independent of the specific historical context. These rights impose substantial limitations on what the Government can do and require a division of the powers of the various parts of the Government. Locke’s fundamental view was that all people are, in principle, born with an inalienable right to “life, freedom and property” – in other words, a right not to be killed, not to be exposed to arbitrary force by others, and not to be deprived of lawful possessions. It is the task of the state to protect these rights, and human beings can only be expected to give their consent to a state that does exactly that. A state that, by contrast, violates these rights – even if it is for a good purpose – becomes illegitimate; and once that happens, the citizens have a right to rebel. Therefore, Locke’s preferred political system combined individual freedoms with a division of the political power between an executive power (e.g. a monarch and a government, which he or she has appointed), a parliament (preferably consisting of several chambers) and the courts of law. It was Locke’s particular wish that the lower house in the British Parliament should be elected and be independent of the Government’s control, whilst the legislators themselves should be subject to their own rules – and, as a matter of fact, not convene all the year round, as full-time politicians posed a risk. Locke has also affected democratic thinking through A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689, 1690 og 1692. Before Locke, religious pluralism had been perceived as a problem that was best solved by one religious denomination suppressing the others. Locke, by contrast, saw the suppression as such as a source of conflict. The argument links up naturally with Locke’s view of the fundamental human freedoms and the ideal of political division of power. This refers specifically to Locke’s view that state and church must be separate, and that tolerance must be demonstrated towards different religions. The reason is first of all that it is exclusively the task of the state to guarantee the lives, freedom and property of people. Consequently, it is wrong to force the citizens to join any one religious denomination. The second reason is that religion can only attract new members through peaceful conviction; salvation must be the choice of the individual and cannot be forced on people. Locke himself was not altogether consistent: He would, for example, only extend tolerance to those who were tolerant themselves, and he was not prepared to grant atheists and Catholics full freedom. However, his argument was original and has since been extended to many other parts of social life, and has consequently become of great importance to modern ideas of democracy.
“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any
superior power on earth, and not to be under the
will or legislative authority of man, but to have only
the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in
society, is to be under no other legislative power, but
that established, by consent, in the commonwealth;
nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of
any law, but what that legislative shall enact, (…)
freedom of men under government is, to have a
standing rule to live by, common to every one of that
society, (…); a liberty to follow my own will in all
things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be
subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,
arbitrary will of another man (…).”
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This page is part of the electronic publication "The Danish Democracy Canon"