Locke and Environmental Political Theory
Few philosophers’ ideas have had as significant an impact on the natural world as those of John Locke; in particular, an examination of Locke’s account of property is central to any attempt at revealing environmentally significant themes in the traditional political theory canon. many readers have taken Locke’s theory to be utterly inimical to the use of state power to further environmentalism; this is taken to be its main advantage by opponents, and a crippling disadvantage by supporters, of environmental regulation. But a more nuanced reading suggests two ways Locke’s theory can be revised to yield more environmentally friendly results goals. On the one hand, his labor theory of value might be revised, using the notion of natural services to weakens the link between labor and private property in land. On the other hand, his view that there are provisos on the accumulation of property in the state of nature can be extended to civil society, thus providing a basis for regulation of practices that degrade natural services. Finally, I will argue that the labor theory initiates a line of thinking, running through Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Marx, which sees economic life as taking place in a setting human beings themselves have created through their labor. Thus, because Locke places property at the center of his political theory, we can read Locke as placing the environment at the center of politics.