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Political Theory: Liberalism · Locke and Natural Rights

How John Locke grounded government in natural rights, property and consent, and when he thought people may resist it.

Political Theory · 27 questions

Try 3 questions

1. How does Locke describe the state of nature, before any government exists?

  1. Freedom bounded by a law of reason
  2. A war of all against all
  3. A life with no rules of any kind
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Answer: Freedom bounded by a law of reason

For Locke people are free and equal there, yet still bound by natural law, which reason lets everyone know.

2. Which thinker, often contrasted with Locke, called life without government 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'?

  1. Thomas Hobbes
  2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  3. Montesquieu
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Answer: Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes, writing in Leviathan (1651), argued that only an absolute sovereign could rescue people from that condition; Locke rejected that remedy.

3. Which trio of natural rights is most closely associated with Locke?

  1. Liberty, equality and fraternity
  2. Life, liberty and estate
  3. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness
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Answer: Life, liberty and estate

Locke spoke of 'lives, liberties and estates', which he grouped under 'property'; the other trios belong to the French and American revolutions.

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