John Locke

John Locke stands as a pivotal empiricist/philosopher, who’s temporal writings have contributed greatly to the understanding of governmental development in the late 1600’s. Locke’s The Second Treatise on Civil Government delves greatly into what Locke sees as a utopian governmental structure that would supposedly benefit the people as well as the state. This government is based on the idea of the sovereignty of the people, and is rooted in the institutional ideologies of liberal democratic state in which the people relinquish some natural rights in order to enter this society. Locke’s influence and discussion of “tacit consent”, separation of powers, and the right of the citizen to revolt against an undesired government, posed great insight into possible political structure during the Age of Enlightenment.
In the first chapters of The Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke aims to dispute Filmer’s idea of the divine right of sovereignty. He does so by statin...