John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and the Limits of Our Implicit Consent to Government

In John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, his entire political philosophy hinges upon the fact that humans are moral equals and thus unable to legitimately govern or impose rules upon another without that other person's consent. For Locke, the perfect answer to this is entitled express consent. According to Locke, "[n]o body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government" (Locke 64). Express consent is the perfect way to bind the original members together. This however, raises many difficulties for Locke once critics begin to question how someone can consent to a system of government for which they never expressly consented or gave their agreement; simply stated, they were not the founding members, and thus how can it be argued that they are legitimately ruled by the government? Locke's rebuttal is tacit consent, a method by which any man "that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent" to be ruled by that government (64). Though this seems to be a sound remedy, further holes can be exposed using a hypothetical, but very plausible, situation to demonstrate. The situation is as outlined below:

An adult citizen who was born in this country (and thus never had to take an oath of citizenship) was disgruntled about the lack of funding for education and began protesting on the steps of a government building. Shortly thereafter, a police officer confronts her and informs her that she has broken the law by protesting within 100 feet of the public building without a permit. He attempts to arrest her but she explains that, as a moral equal, she never consented to join the body politic and thus these laws do not apply to her.

Using the above situation, it becomes simple to apply Locke's response, tacit consent. However, to fully understand this issue, a counter argument by the protestor must be offered and tacit consent must be adjusted to include her arguments such that she is still bound by the national law.

Assuming that the police officer is an educated man and familiar with his political philosophy, specializing in Lockean philosophy, his response would be a classic example of tacit consent applied to life. He would start with the beginning - at one point in time, a group of citizens joined together to form a body politic and institute a government on the land now called the United States of America. For the sake of simplifying the situation, one of her direct relatives was amongst these first founders.

The police officer, his name badge proudly displaying his name, Darryl Worley, looked the protestor in the eye. "Look here," he said, taking out his copy of Second Treatise he kept in his pocket, "this relative took an oath to bind his land to the authority of this government; ergo, he showed his express consent, for he both knew to what he was consenting and was voluntarily agreeing." He assumed that the woman knew her philosophy as well, but might not be as versed as he in Locke.