Locke’s view on freedom of will and action have influenced the field of moral psychology greatly. John Locke, commonly referred to as the father of liberalism, was one of the most outstanding philosophers and thinkers in the 17 th century. He defined freedom as the right one has to health, life, liberty and more specifically property. According to Locke, freedom is the power and ability to act as one wills. He further associated freedom to the acquisition of new or private property, thus coming up with his own theory of property ( Locke, 2014) .
Locke’s theory of property revolves around the concept of self-ownership. He says, “He that is nourished by the Acorns he picks up under an Oak, or the Apples he gathered from the Trees in the Wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No Body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he eat? Or when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he picks them up?”(Locke, 17). His answers to these questions by pointing out that the Acorns become private property the moment that are picked up. This is because labor is extended in gathering the acorns. Locke uses the term property to mean dominion over something. This property can be represented in form of time, emotions, labor and freedom. He also include external goods such as life, estate, and liberty in his definition of property such that the fight to protect property rights was all-inclusive.
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The questions arising from Locke’s theory include how property that is supposed to be used by all in its natural state could be claimed by one as private. The answer he gives to this maintains the fact that human being naturally lean towards self-preservation. Waiting to have consent to acquire property from the public will, therefore, lead to starvation. Locke goes ahead to give two arguments relating to the inequality of property. The first argument revolves around labor in that if an individual puts in labor to create a property, then that property is rightfully theirs. This argument shows that although there exists inequality in property, man had an alternative to create their own property from the resources available ( Locke, 2014) .
The second argument Locke gave was on expediency, justifying that private ownership was measured by the social benefits the property conferred. He gives a hypothesis where land that has been cultivated is far much valuable than the same measurement of land that is left alone with no kind of husbandry. He emphasizes that labor, in this case, is more valuable than the land itself ( Locke, 2014) . This hypothesis explains the inequality of property by pointing out that labor property tends to overbalance community land.
Robert Nozick, argues in favor of Locke’s theory of property in his book, Anarchy , State and Utopia . He claims that acquisition of property by an individual leaves enough for others, (Nozick, 1974). He also points out that although taxation may be viewed as forced labor, the two may be considered to be at par with each other, owing to his interpretation of acquisition of property, private ownership and coercion, (Kymlicka, 126). Nonetheless, both Nozick and Locke reveal that the problem of inequality of property can be ruled out by claiming resources are exploited on different capacities by individuals, making them enough for all.
References
Kymlicka, W. (2002). Contemporary political philosophy: An introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Locke, J. (2014). Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government . John Wiley & Sons.
Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia . New York: Basic Books.
