Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power

Chapter 15 draws together the three kinds of authority Locke has discussed at various points in the treatise — paternal, political, and despotical — and examines them in explicit contrast, because their confusion is, in his view, the source of most errors in political philosophy. Each has a distinct origin, a distinct scope, and a distinct basis of legitimacy.

Paternal or parental power is natural and temporary. Parents have authority over children only until the children develop the reason to govern themselves — which is exactly the purpose the authority was designed to serve. It is aimed entirely at the benefit of the child, produces no permanent subordination, and ends the moment its aim is achieved. It cannot serve as a model for political authority, because political authority governs consenting adults, not children who are temporarily incapable of rational self-direction.

Political power is what every person in the state of nature has given up into the hands of society, and through society to the governors it has appointed. It operates over consenting adults for the protection of their rights. It is limited by its purpose, revocable when abused, and its claim to obedience depends entirely on its fidelity to the trust. Despotical power is altogether different again: it is the absolute, arbitrary power one person has over another who has forfeited his right to life by an act of aggression — a captive in a just war. It rests not on consent but on forfeiture; it is not limited by the captive's rights because those rights have been forfeited; and it is not in any way a model for ordinary political authority, since it presupposes a prior act of unjust aggression on the captive's part. The three are incommensurable, and treating any one as a model for another is the beginning of political tyranny.