Write a “Lockean catechism”, with questions such as, “What is the natural liberty of man?”

A Lockean Catechism

Q. What is the state of nature?
A. A condition where people live without a common superior on earth, equal and independent, governed by the law of nature.

Q. What is the law of nature?
A. Reason, teaching that no one ought to harm another in life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Q. What is the natural liberty of man?
A. To be free from any earthly superior’s will, subject only to the law of nature—not a license to injure others.

Q. Are all people by nature equal?
A. Yes. No one has a natural right to rule another; legitimate authority must arise from consent.

Q. What different kinds of power exist?
A. Paternal (over children until they reach reason), political (over free equals for the public good), and despotic (over those who have forfeited their rights by unjust aggression).

Q. What is property?
A. One’s life and liberty, and also one’s external goods—“estate.”

Q. How does property in goods begin?
A. By mixing one’s labor with what is unowned—for example, cultivating land or gathering fruit.

Q. Are there limits on initial appropriation?
A. Yes: one must leave “enough and as good” for others and not let what one takes spoil.

Q. How can great inequalities arise without violating those limits?
A. By consent to the use of durable money, which lets people exchange and accumulate beyond immediate need.

Q. What inconveniences attend the state of nature?
A. Partiality and uncertainty—each person is judge in his own case, which breeds conflict.

Q. Why do people form political society?
A. To better secure their property—life, liberty, and estate—through settled, known law and impartial enforcement.

Q. What creates a commonwealth?
A. Each person consents to unite into one body politic and to be governed by the will of the majority.

Q. What is the trust given to government?
A. To use its powers solely for the public good—the preservation of the people and their property.

Q. Which power is supreme in a commonwealth?
A. The legislative power, for it makes the standing rules; yet it remains a fiduciary power, limited by the trust.

Q. What limits bind the legislature?
A. It must govern by promulgated, standing laws; aim at the public good; not take property without consent; and not transfer its law-making power to others.

Q. What of taxation?
A. Taxes require the people’s consent, given personally or by chosen representatives.

Q. What is the executive power?
A. The power to apply the law and secure its execution; it may also include a federative power to manage foreign affairs.

Q. What is prerogative?
A. A lawful latitude in the executive to act for the public good without, or even against, the letter of the law—so long as it truly serves that good.

Q. What is tyranny?
A. The exercise of power beyond right, for private advantage, not for the public good.

Q. When is resistance justified?
A. When rulers break the trust—subvert the laws, invade property, or set up arbitrary power—thereby dissolving the government.

Q. Who judges whether the trust is broken?
A. In the last appeal, the people judge; they may resume their original liberty and institute a new government.

Q. What of conquest and slavery?
A. Just war may give a right over an unjust aggressor’s life; sparing that life can yield a form of despotical power, but no right is acquired over the innocent or their estates.

Q. What of parental power?
A. Parents have a temporary authority to guide children to the use of reason; this is not political dominion.

Q. What is religious toleration?
A. The church is a voluntary society; magistrates cannot command belief, and coercion cannot save souls. Civil peace is the aim of the state, worship the aim of the church.

Q. Are there limits to toleration?
A. Locke held that opinions threatening civil order or allegiance may be restrained; yet the general rule is broad toleration for peaceable worship.

Q. What is liberty under government?
A. To live under known, equal laws made by consent, with one standing rule for all—not to be subject to another’s arbitrary will.

Q. What, finally, is the end of political society?
A. The secure and peaceful enjoyment of one’s property—life, liberty, and estate—by means of just laws and accountable powers.