On The Status Of The State Of Nature In Locke's Political Philosophy

The legitimacy of political power is an important theme to which was paid close attention by political philosophers, one of whom is Locke whose resolution affected later political philosophy and real political system deeply. This discourse tries to comb Locke's argument logic of political philosophy so as to explore the position of natural state in his political philosophy, by which the author thinks that natural state is the logical starting for establishing natural rights and political power and a conference frame commenting political power.At first, Locke's political philosophy came from describing natural state and supposed that human nature is free, equal and rational, and so on, because of which he demonstrated the dominating role of natural law in natural state, and concluded that everyone should enjoy natural rights according to the universal validity of natural law, which is the core of Locke's political philosophy, the logical premise of Contractualism which is also the necessary pivot by which he expounded the legitimacy of political power. Therefore, natural state is the logical starting at which Locke built up his natural rights and political power.Secondly, when Locke explored the legitimacy of natural political power, he always used natural state as conference frame, and put forward Contractualism, which argued for the origin of political power, the theory of commonwealth, which delivered the aim of political power, the theory of limited government, which demonstrated the valid field of political power, the theory of people's sovereignty, which treatised on the nature of political power, denouncing the theory that sovereignty is endowed by God, all of whose conference frames are natural state. The origin, aim, limit and nature of Locke's political power can be expounded only by referring natural state, which is accordingly not only the logical starting of Locke's political philosophy, but also the valid reference standard by which he built up the theory of political power. At last, the author gives own viewpoints on Locke's reasoning chain and the validity and limit of his theory mode whose logic starting is natural state, and further expounds the historical problem, social problem, and arbitrary problem of natural state.