Is Locke’s State of Nature Already an Implicit State of War?



There exists a clear disparity between Locke and Hobbes in their diagnosis of mankind’s state of nature and their ideation of a society following this state. Hobbes believes that mankind is driven to constant quarrel by competition, diffidence (insecurity), and glory. The State of War, in which there exists unending violence, leads to the nonexistence of rights, justice, and property. Every man is temporarily entitled to that which he can safely defend from the territorial advances of others, but the impermanence of his entitlement makes ownership impossible. With the existence of an absolute sovereign, however, rights and ownership are both feasible endeavors. 


Locke, who harbors a less pessimistic view, proffers a State of Nature in which every man is guaranteed rights and property preceding the existence of the state. Humans are accorded, by nature of their absolute, god-given equality, the right to the enforcement of natural law and the ability to judge and punish transgressors (those who offend the self-preservation of others). Following the same premise of equality, Locke purports that a man’s property is himself and that which he bestows labor upon. He advances his theory of property by providing two provisos as qualifiers, both of which inhibit the redundant & unproductive accumulation of property. The Spoilage Proviso claims that one may not claim ownership of property which they let spoil, curtailing the excessive hoarding of perishable goods, which Locke persists are created by god, for humankind en masse. His second proviso states that one cannot extract from nature in excess to the point that others are deprived. This proviso delimits the acquisition of property by ensuring one cannot bring about harm to others by depriving them of their chance to use resources.


What is particularly intriguing to me, however, is Locke’s discussion of how quickly the state of nature can devolve into a state of war. Locke’s notion of the state of nature, as I mentioned earlier, is one in which humans resort to individual administration of punitive action as a means to safeguard the collective “self-preservation of mankind”. I believe that such a diagnosis, allowing each to judge and misjudge at their own discretion, traps society in an unending State of War. As long as the threat of violence exists, and the potential to misjudge violence exists, humans will always assume the worst of a (potentially) offending party, and this ceaseless violence is the exact definition of a State of War.


Locke diagnoses the state of war as a “declared design of force, upon the person on the other”.  Each individual, and in particular the harmed party, is accorded the ability to punish the transgressor. When one person attempts to divest another of their livelihood, goods, or personhood, the harmed party is fully justified in taking extreme action; the harmed party may perceive this as an invitation to a state of war, no matter how trivial the infraction, and can rightly take the life of the perpetrator. Locke writes, “I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else. And therefore it is lawful for me to … kill him if I can”. 


This is where Locke’s idea of a self-governed society not being in a State of War is vulnerable to collapse. I believe that if the threat of violence exists, as Locke acknowledges will always be the case, then a state of war also exists. Hobbes defines a State of War as one in which man contends to resolve disputes with an “inclination to contend in battle”. A constant battle is not necessary for the state of nature to exist; merely an inclination towards it is enough. Given Hobbes’s definition that an enduring inclination toward violence constitutes a state of war, and Locke’s admission that violence is always present in the state of nature, how can Locke consistently maintain that the state of nature is not itself a state of war? And if a centralized government is the only solution to such a condition, then is it not an ongoing State of War that the government is resolving?

Comments

  1. Paul HurleyJanuary 22, 2026 at 8:43 AM

    A really interesting challenge! Your suggestion, as I understand it, is that although they start from very different places (For Locke, rights to equal treatment and property rights; for Hobbes, single-minded pursuit of one's own preservation), they end up at the same place, a state of war all against all. This does raise the question whether what is really doing the work here is not where they end up, but the very different places from which they get there.

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