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What is equality? Equality is a loaded term that can be used many different ways. It could be utilized to describe the same political rights that people may have, including males and females. Or it can be applied to describing the identical opportunity for one to accrue wealth. With a myriad of different uses and interpretations, equality is a confusing concept that can be hard to grasp. However, John Locke in the Second Treatise of Government outlines his theory of equality and how it works in his political society, known as the common-wealth.
This political community, as will be discussed in greater detail, is constituted of all people because they are inherently born with the natural right to be free from subjugation. This natural equality is the foundation for civilization as it leads people out of an isolated existence into a political community. The aforementioned is envisioned through the passage of humans traveling from the state of nature into family organizations that gain properties and then ultimately towards a political society. Prior to substantiating the argument of Locke's theory of equality as the foundation for his common-wealth state, it must first be understood. The natural equality of all people, as written by Locke in the Second Treatise emphasizes that all men are born in an equal state.
No one is greater or lesser than another and therefore subject to no one, unless one willfully permits. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another that creatures of the same race and rank should also be equal one amongst each other without subordination or subjection. This type of equality stresses that all people are free from being ruled or dominated by another person or group. However, Locke writes later in the same paragraph that they are equal and free unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, and undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
In this passage, Locke directly refers to the monarchy. During his lifetime, it is still widely believed that the kings and queens of the world are selected by God to rule over that particular kingdom. During the coronation ceremony, for example, the sovereign is anointed with oil to symbolize this divine ordination. Besides the aforementioned, humans are inherently equal, and as such, free from subjugation by another, unless they surrender that right by choice.
As naturally born people both free and equal, humans can build a common-wealth. This can begin by understanding and moving out of the state of nature. Before entering into a civil society, John Locke writes that man exists in a state of nature much similar to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan. Locke describes the state of nature as: a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.
However, unlike Hobbes, Locke highlights that there are natural laws that govern the state of nature. These natural laws govern how one should act. Also, it gives a person viable grounds to retaliate if he is assaulted or affected by another's negative actions. In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security Every man hath a right to punish the offender and be executioner of the law of nature. Although there are natural laws that guide people in the state of nature, it is necessary to coalesce into a community of persons, known as a society. This society creates civil laws for the security of all those that enter that common-wealth.
God, having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment, it is not good for him to be alone, puts him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fit him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. With the understanding of natural equality and the state of nature that is inherent in man, one can delve into understanding how it is essential to building the commonwealth state in the Second Treatise. The first step from the state of nature towards a civil society is the family. The family unit is essential to the construction of the common-wealth because it gathers equal men and women together to preserve the human race and allow it to progress towards a political community. The first society is between man and wife, which gives beginning to that between parents and children. The family is part of the natural equality in Locke's Second Treatise because all men are created equal, thus free from the rule by another.
As a result, men and women freely come together to form a basic, familial community. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman yet it draws with it mutual assistance and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their common off-spring Although Locke uses the term man as being created equal and is used throughout the book, it calls into question if women are included as well. Women are free and equal in the state of nature and in political society. Even though the male is dominant, his influence cannot affect the females choices and actions. The last determination naturally falls to the mans share, as the abler and the stronger. But this reaching but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than she has over his.
The males may have more influence and be physically stronger, but Locke believes that the females are still naturally equal, in his eyes. Even though a woman may not be able to perform as many actions or are restricted by men, women still share in the same inalienable rights as males. A man can not dominate a woman, take away her property, or force her into marriage or conjugal relations. Thus, man and wife join together as natural equals into the first society, from the state of nature. However, the situation is different for their children. Locke states that all humans are born equal.
However, parents have various degrees of control and authority over their children. This appears to be contrary to the egalitarian theory of equality. In response, he writes: Children are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them, when they come into the world and for some time after; but it is but a temporary one. The parents are there to raise and educate their child of the laws, whether natural or civil.
Once the child has reached an age where he or she is able to guide their actions within those boundaries of the law, he or she too will share in the full equality and freedom of their parents as well. The power, then, that parents have over their children arises from the duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their off-spring, during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the action still reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble. The family unit is an extension of Locke's natural equality of freedom as families search for their own material goods and land to own. Locke's theory of equality, which grants human freedom from being subjects of others is applied to the family's right to have material goods for survival.
In Locke's society, everyone has a claim to some sort of property. The earth and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. As a man that is free from being under the rule of another man, he is able to provide for himself and his family through labour. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.
Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. This sort of labour includes the retrieval of drink, the cultivation of crops for food and the raising of cattle. With small families holding properties material goods and land, communities form as nomadic people settle down within the boundaries of their territorial property. But as families increase and industry in large [sic] their stocks, their possessions in large [sic] with the need of them; but yet it is commonly without any fixed property in the ground till they incorporate and settle themselves together and build cities. Stemming from the development of families living in close proximity to each other, c...
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Research essay sample on What Is Equality In John Locke Second Treatise
