John Locke, Natural Rights, and the Preservation of the Environment

British philosopher John Locke was born on this day in 1632.  Locke is best known today for his beliefs in private property and natural rights, as well as for his theory that the purpose of government is to protect those rights; all this paved the way for most of what, 350 years later, we refer to as “Western Civilization.”

Of course, as always, the “devil is in the details,” and this becomes obvious as the world population expands (there are 14 times more people on Earth today than there were in the 17th Century), and technology develops to the point that these “rights” begin to put pressure on one another.  Do people have a right to clean drinking water, or should water be private property?  To what degree do people have rights to behave in ways that have adverse effects on the environment?

One can argue that Locke’s ideas raise more questions than they answer, yet we nonetheless need to credit him with getting us started off in a productive and fair-minded direction.