State of Nature Response

"How did Locke use the idea of a "state of nature" to try to establish or figure out what the purpose of government should be?"

In a state of nature, people would be trying to protect their own rights; their own lives. Because people are not all born with the same amount of strength of intelligence, the stronger people would use their strengths to take things away from the weaker people, thus improving their own lives. In this state, there would be a ruling 'elite' who bully people in order to keep their power, and who don't let anyone else benefit.

Of course, no one is going to take this for too long, so the weaker ones would band together as a way to defend themselves and their allies. This would cause the few that are stronger to be very worried, because even though they are strong, they would be outnumbered....Both sides would feel unsafe all the time.

John Locke thought that the best course of action is to come together and work out a system of rules and regulations that every person would agree to abide by...That way no one would feel threatened. If someone decided to break those rules, there would be a group that the entire community gave power to, who would decide on a punishment, so that the rules would be upheld. That is where the idea of government comes in, but John Locke also said that if the government becomes corrupt and only uses its power for the gain of those controlling the government, then the people would be able to take away that power, and change it to something that suits them.