John Locke's Second Treatise of Government Practice Flashcards 1-5

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key concepts from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, including the definition of political power, the state of nature, the law of nature, and the origins of property and money.

Sir Robert Filmer

The author whose teachings Locke refutes regarding the theory that government and authority are derived from Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction.

Political Power

A right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury; all for the public good.

State of Nature

A state of perfect freedom for men to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, and a state of equality where all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal.

Law of Nature

Reason, which teaches all mankind that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Executive Power of the Law of Nature

The right put into every man's hands in the state of nature to punish transgressors of the law of nature to such a degree as may hinder its violation.

Punishment (Two Reasons)

Reparation and restraint; the only two reasons why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which must be proportionate to the transgression.

Civil Government

The proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature, specifically the disorder that arises when men are judges in their own cases.

Natural Liberty of Man

The state of being free from any superior power on earth, not under the will or legislative authority of man, but having only the law of nature for a rule.

Liberty of Man in Society

The state of being under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, and no restraint of law but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it.

Freedom under Government

Having a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it, with liberty to follow one's own will in all things where the rule prescribes not.

Slavery

The perfect condition of the state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive, where one is under the absolute, arbitrary power of another.

Property in one's person

The principle that every man has a property in his own person, meaning the labour of his body and the work of his hands are properly his.

Acquisition of Property

The process of removing something out of the state that nature provided and mixing it with one's labour, thereby annexing something to it that excludes the common right of other men.

Lockean Proviso (Sufficiency)

The condition that an individual can appropriate property through labour only at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.

Measure of Property

The limit set by nature where a man can fix a property in as much as he can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; whatever is beyond this share belongs to others.

Value of Labour

The principle that labour puts the difference of value on everything; Locke estimates that in most products, $\frac{99}{100}$ of the value is wholly to be put on the account of labour rather than nature.

Money

A lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful but perishable supports of life, allowing for unequal and larger possessions.

Tacit Consent (Money)

The voluntary agreement by which men put a value on gold and silver and agreed to the use of money, making practicable an inequality of private possessions outside the bounds of society.