On Locke's State of Nature

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Abstract
John Locke's Two Treatises use the ‘state of nature’ to refer (1) to a core condition in which human persons lack an authoritative, common, human superior, (2) which is the original condition of all human peoples, but which (3) became such an inconvenience for some peoples as their social and economic life develops that they leave it by forming government, but which (4) remains as the condition of some peoples, Locke thought, in his own day, and (5) is a constant potential and actual feature of all human communities in respect of the possibility of tyranny, or absolute monarchy, or revolution, or withdrawal. Closely examining the Treatises suggests that obeying the natural law leads human persons and their communities to pass from usage 2 to usage 3.

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