John Locke

In John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government” many interesting ideas regarding the relationship between the individual and society are developed. The assumption that Locke starts with as the first step into developing his argument, is that all men are born in “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and personas as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature” .

It is important to stress that although this stage is one of complete individual liberty, it is restricted regarding society as a whole. Ruled by the law of nature, an individual must seek his self preservation, avoiding however any kind of invasion to the rights of others. This is the key principle, according to Locke, that governs every reprimand or punishment that can be taken upon a transgressor. Empowering the individual to take drastic measures to ensure his individual rights, transgressions of such a nature are to be considered as a trespass against the whole species as well as its peace ands safety. The individual is thus empowered to restrain and/or destroy things noxious to himself and society, giving him the right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature. It is this principle that actually lays the foundation of the conception that John Locke has on the nature of Civil Government. For he states that it is the collective renouncing of this absolute, individualistic natural power intrinsic in each individual, that creates a civil society: “Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society, as to quit everyone his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there, and there only, is a political civil society” . This is actually how Locke perceives the apparently impossible transition between a fully individualistic state of law into an unexceptional collective one: “And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society” .

Locke believes that humans are, due to our reasoning capabilities, quickly driven into a social order, as when balancing the privileges of the state of nature, but also its uncertainties and volatility, humans quickly realize that being subjects to an egalitarian, civil government. In this essay the author even goes one step further and quickly provides a rebuttal to the argument often appealed by individuals that don’t agree to being punished within a society; that of haven’t explicitly consented to that civil government. Locke relies on the concept of tacit consent, in which every man that has had any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any government is thereby giving his tacit consent to the regulations stipulated by such government. One of the important differences that must be noted though, in Locke’s conception of the civil government and that of Thomas Hobbes’, for example, is the distinction of majorities and minorities within the system: “And thus that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society” . Locke further develops other characteristics of this Civil Government, but these are the most relevant foundations portrayed in his essay.

In the film Breaker Morant can be easily related to many of the topics and ideas that are developed in John Locke’s essay. The relationship between the plot in the movie and Locke’s conception of Civil Government vary considerably depending on who you consider to be such a government. Evidently, the criminals, the transgressors of the law code provided by the civil government are Morant and his two subordinates. Their guilt, however, proves to me a much more complicated issue. There are many variables to consider, all which are accurately personified in a character of the movie. The president of the tribunal in charge of hearing the case of the accused represents the Civil Government in all its might. Setting aside the fact that the British Empire needed escape goats in order to avoid German support to the Boers, it clearly seems that he applied the principle, that in Locke’s own words stipulates “And thus it is that every man in the state of nature has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends I from everybody….he has declared war against all mankind and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tiger” .