John Locke

John Locke

        John Locke has twenty six published works and many of them have a theme of human rights or responsibility and often include both.  Locke was born in Wrington, England in 1632 and was a well-known philosopher (Anonymous).  He was educated at the University of Oxford where he studied medicine (Anonymous).  One of the things he is most known for is impacting the Declaration of Independence.  In Locke’s works, he proposes people should have natural rights, have the right to be a part of government, and also that people should be held responsible to gain and use knowledge from their experiences.

                Locke believes that people have certain rights because they are human beings.  “Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to have as human beings before ever government comes into being” (Uzgalis).  He thinks that the government should not be able to determine people’s natural rights because those are the rights people have as human beings.  “So we have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are natural rights, that is they are rights that we have in a state of nature before the introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights equally” (Uzgalis).  Locke believes that humans should have these four rights and the government should not give more of these rights to certain individuals.  “I should conclude that I should not violate their rights to life, liberty, health and property.  This is the law of nature. It is the Golden Rule, interpreted in terms of natural rights” (Uzgalis).  Locke believes everyone should be treated how they want to be treated and people should not violate these four rights of human beings.  Many of Locke’s principles are used in America.  The four natural rights: life, liberty, health and property are used in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.  The Golden Rule is a world-wide trait taught to people. Through these quotes, the reader can see Locke has a strong opinion towards humans’ natural rights and the government and other humans should be held responsible to respect those rights.

        Locke is against any type of Monarchy or a government with something similar to a king, and believes citizens should have the right to participate in governmental decisions.  He also feels the government should be held responsible to give their citizens natural rights.  “Sir Robert Filmer argued that all ‘legitimate’ governments are ‘absolute monarchy’” (Uzgalis). Locke disagreed in his First Treatise of Government by saying that Scripture does not back Filmer’s opinion.  “Locke argued that people should agree with one another to give up some of their freedom in exchange for protection and security… This agreement is called a social contract” (Uzgalis).  Locke helped create the Social Contract which said the people should have the right to be part of the decisions government makes.  “The aim of such a legitimate government is to preserve, so far as possible, the rights to life, liberty, health and property of its citizens” (Uzgalis).  Locke believed that for a Civil Government to work well, it needs to emphasize these natural rights. Following Locke’s principles, America made their government very similar to what Locke says about promoting natural rights and not being a monarchy.  Locke persuades people to believe he is against monarchy because it does not give people the rights they deserve.

In John Locke’ first two books of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding he discusses how people are born without innate knowledge and are held responsible to gain knowledge from ideas acquired from experience.  “Locke is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists” (Uzgalis).  When Uzgalis states Locke is an empiricist, it means he believes experience leads to knowledge.  “Locke rejects the claim that there are speculative innate principles, practical innate moral principles or that we have innate ideas of God, identity or impossibility” (Uzgalis).  Locke has a strong opinion that when people are born, they do not have any knowledge of these principles.  “So, at birth, the human mind is a sort of blank slate on which experience writes” (Uzgalis).  As Uzgalis states, Locke believes people are born without knowledge, and once they have experience they begin to gain knowledge and add wisdom to their blank slates.  “In Book II Locke claims that ideas are the materials of knowledge and all ideas come from experience” (Uzgalis).  This affects the way people think about things and how they educate themselves and others.  Locke proposes that humans are given the responsibility to educate themselves by using their experience and then apply it to their lives to gain knowledge and ideas.