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Importance of Property For Civil Government - Online Essay

Importance of Property For Civil Government

Property plays an essential role in Locke’s argument for civil government and the contract that establishes it. According to Locke, private property is created when a person mixes his labor with the raw materials of nature. So, for example, when one tills a piece of land in nature, and makes it into a piece of farmland, which produces food, then one has a claim to own that piece of land and the food produced upon it. (This led Locke to conclude that America didn’t really belong to the natives who lived there, because they were, on his view, failing to utilize the basic material of nature. In other words, they didn’t farm it, so they had no legitimate claim to it, and others could therefore ...

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property, including their property in their own bodies, that men seek when they decide to abandon the State of Nature.
According to Locke, the State of Nature is not a condition of individuals, as it is for Hobbes. Rather, it is populated by mothers and fathers with their children, or families – what he calls “conjugal society” (par. 78). These societies are based on the voluntary agreements to care for children together, and they are moral but not political. Political society comes into being when individual men, representing their families, come together in the State of Nature and agree to each give up the executive power to punish those who transgress the Law of Nature, and hand over that power to the public power of a government. Having done this, they then become subject to the will of the majority. In other words, by making a compact to leave the State of Nature and form society, they make “one body politic under one government” (par. 97) and submit themselves to the will of ...

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Importance of Property For Civil Government. (2011, April 18). Retrieved May 28, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Importance-of-Property-For-Civil-Government/98143

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/18/2011 10:21:32 AM
Submitted By: jjp0923
Category: Philosophy
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 976
Pages: 4

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