that if I catch a person engaged in petty pilfering I have, apparently, by the law of nature, a right to
shoot him.
Property is very prominent in Locke's political philosophy, and is, according to him, the chief
reason for the institution of civil government:
"The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under
government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of nature there are many
things wanting."
The whole of this theory of the state of nature and natural law is in one sense clear but in another
very puzzling. It is clear what Locke thought, but it is not clear how he can have thought it.
Locke's ethic, as we saw, is utilitarian, but in his consideration of "rights" he does not bring in
utilitarian considerations. Something of this pervades the whole philosophy of law as taught by
lawyers. Legal rights can be defined: broadly speaking, a man has a legal right when he can appeal
to the law to safeguard him against injury. A man has in general a legal right to his property, but if
he has (say) an illicit store of cocaine, he has no legal remedy against a man who steals it. But the
lawgiver has to decide what legal rights to create, and falls back naturally on the conception of
"natural" rights, as those which the law should secure.
I am attempting to go as far as is possible towards stating something like Locke's theory in
untheological terms. If it is assumed that ethics, and the classification of acts as "right" and
"wrong," is logically prior to actual law, it becomes possible to restate the theory in terms not
involving mythical history. To arrive at the law of nature, we may put the question in this way: in
the absence of law and government, what classes of acts by A against B justify B in retaliating
against A, and what sort of retaliation is justified in different cases? It is generally held that no
man can be blamed for defending himself against a murderous assault, even, if necessary, to the
extent of killing the assailant. He may equally defend his wife and children, or, indeed, any
member of the general public. In such cases, the existence of the law against murder becomes
irrelevant, if, as may easily happen, the man assaulted would be dead before the aid of the police
could be invoked; we have, therefore, to fall back on "natural" right. A man