Week 5- Post 2

     Consent is an obvious and familiar idea in moral and political philosophy. Along with Locke's belief of unalienable rights and the law of nature, Locke believes in consent and the role it plays in decision making. When constructing a legitimate government according to Locke's beliefs, these rules about the state of nature and consent play a role in the policies. So, a legitimate government would mean that anyone who violates the law of nature becomes an aggressor and that gives the individual the right to kill the aggressor/just punish them. However, Locke observes that when people are allowed to be the judges in their own situations, people tend to get carried away. This gives rise to the inconvenience in the state of nature. The inconvenience is that, once things start to get aggressive, people feel insecure in the enjoyment of his/her unalienable rights, and they want to leave. The only way to leave the state of nature though, is to consent to give up this power of enforcement, and join a society with legislation and government, and being apart of majority decisions.

     When you abide by the idea of unalienable rights and consent, limits are placed on policies and the actions of the people apart of the society. Even though everyone is free in the state of nature, there is still a sort of unspoken law that restricts how free we are. With property, there is naturally a fundamental right to it, but then it gets difficult to define what property is and what is considered as taking property. Similar to the questions that arise after snowstorms for Boston residents. After putting in the labor to free up a public parking space, people argue about whether that makes it that individual's property.