John Locke's Second Treatise of Government: Flashcards 8-9-19

This set of flashcards covers key vocabulary and concepts from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, focusing on the origins of political societies, the goals of government, and the conditions for dissolution.

Body Politic

A community incorporated by the consent of any number of men, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

Original Compact

The agreement whereby an individual with others incorporates into one society, putting himself under an obligation to submit to the determination of the majority.

Leviathan

How Locke refers to a constitution that would be of shorter duration than the feeblest creatures if the consent of the majority did not conclude the whole.

Commonwealth

The end result of individuals entering into or making up a political society by barely agreeing to unite.

State of Nature

The condition of men being by nature all free, equal, and independent, before they consent to make themselves members of some politic society.

Paternal Dominion

The government and administration of a father over his children, which Locke argues is not the foundation of all government or identical to political power.

Elective Monarchy

A form of government where power is placed in a single person, which near its original was commonly based on the choice of the people rather than just paternal authority.

Golden Age

A period before ambition and corruption where governors were better and subjects less vicious, and there was no contest betwixt rulers and people about government.

Nursing Fathers

Governors in the infancies of commonwealths who were tender and careful of the public weal to ensure young societies could subsist.

Express Consent

The positive engagement and promise by which a person actually enters into a society, making them a perfect member and perpetual subject.

Tacit Consent

The obligation to obey the laws of a government that reaches as far as the very being of anyone within the territories, such as travelling on the highway or holding a lodging.

Property

The general name Locke uses to refer to men's lives, liberties, and estates.

Standard of Right and Wrong

An established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to decide controversies between men in a commonwealth.

Indifferent Judge

A known authority with power to determine all differences according to the established law, which is lacking in the state of nature.

Legislative Power

The soul that gives form, life, and unity to the commonwealth; the first and fundamental act of society for the continuation of their union.

Executive Power

The power that employs the force of the community at home for the execution of laws or abroad to prevent foreign injuries.

Dissolution of Society

The cessation of the union of a body politic, usually caused by the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them.

Dissolution of Government

An internal overturning that happens when the legislative is altered or when the prince sets up his arbitrary will in place of the laws.

Rebellion

An opposition not to persons but to authority founded only in the constitutions and laws; a bringing back of the state of war (rebellare).

Appeal to Heaven

The recourse taken by the injured party when there is no known superior or judge on earth to decide a controversy between a prince and the people.

Pro Tempore

The term used for representatives chosen for a time by the people in a legislative assembly.

Iure Divino

The concept of monarchy being by divine right, which Locke claims was never heard of until the divinity of 'this last age.'