Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

Privacy Rights in the Digital Age

Locke, John (1632–1704)

by Lowell Rudorfer

An English philosopher and the effective inventor of liberalism.

Biography

Locke was born in Wrington, England, in 1632. After completing medical training at Oxford, he came under the patronage of the future Earl of Shaftesbury. He traveled around Europe for reasons both professional and personal: He feared persecution for his writings arguing for religious toleration. After the Glorious Revolution (1688–1689), Locke returned to England for good. Chronically ill, he died in Essex, England, in 1704.

PRDA_p336_001.jpg

Letter Concerning Toleration

Until nearly the eighteenth century, English subjects did not have religious freedom. The Church of England was the state church, and the government did not tolerate dissent from its dogma.

Letter Concerning Toleration—which Locke wrote from Dutch exile and got published anonymously in 1689—is one of the first defenses of religious freedom to garner a wide readership. Presaging his argument in the Second Treatise (discussed below), Locke asks what a state is for. His answer: It is for protecting “civil interests”—safety for oneself and for one's property—and not for ensuring “the salvation of souls.” The state must therefore allow people to believe and practice what they want, excepting such seditious elements as Catholicism.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is a study of epistemology that has little direct relevance to privacy. But it shares two premises with the Second Treatise. First, man's purpose, or “chief end,” is to attain “happiness.” Second, happiness must be attained as each person understands it, according to his exercise of reason and his inclinations and strengths. It is futile for a ruler to set one standard for “Summum bonum,” the highest good.

Two treatises of government

Published in one volume (1689), these treatises comprise a defense of a liberal theory, according to which a legitimate government gets its authority by the popular consent of the governed, not directly from God. In the more substantial second treatise, Locke continues to argue for individual initiative and individual freedom. Men naturally enjoy liberty—the freedom to do as they please as long as that does not interfere with anyone else's freedom to do as they please. This liberty extends to property. God gave the world to men in common, but when one person mixes his labor with some part of nature, it becomes his property.

There is a catch, the so-called Lockean proviso: The appropriator must ensure that “enough, and as good, [is] left in common for others.” Aside from that, the appropriator may make whatever use he wishes of what is now his property—and is entitled to reap whatever is produced as the fruits of his labor.

Influence

The chief author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, cited Locke often; the Second Treatise's capsule definition of property—“life, liberty, and estate”—is echoed in the Declaration's “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today Locke is frequently cited in defense of strong copyright protections. It was largely thanks to his advocacy that the House of Commons in 1695 let lapse England's licensure system. Locke did not elaborate an argument for copyright from first principles; indeed, he may have thought of copyright as less a property right than an expedient trade restriction. Locke was wary of monopolies and argued that anyone should be permitted to print a work that has already been in print for fifty years. Some have argued that the Lockean proviso would exclude copyright protection in the digital world, where little is scarce, after all.

Further Reading

1 

Feser, Edward. Locke. London: Oneworld, 2007.

2 

Waldron, Jeremy. God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

3 

Zemer, Lior. “The Making of a New Copyright Lockean.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, no. 3, 29 (2006): 891–947.

See also: The Enlightenment; First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; Private sphere

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Rudorfer, Lowell. "Locke, John (1632–1704)." Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, edited by Christopher T. Anglim & JD, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=PRDA_0133.
APA 7th
Rudorfer, L. (2016). Locke, John (1632–1704). In C. Anglim & JD (Ed.), Privacy Rights in the Digital Age. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Rudorfer, Lowell. "Locke, John (1632–1704)." Edited by Christopher T. Anglim & JD. Privacy Rights in the Digital Age. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2016. Accessed May 30, 2026. online.salempress.com.