John Locke, the State of Nature, and Political Society

In addition to reading Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson for an upcoming paper I have to write, I have also been having to think about another paper I signed up to do at the beginning of the year on John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government.

The more I look over my notes and the rough outline I drew up for the paper, the more one thing strikes me as problematic with Locke’s theory. Why, if the state of nature was so positive (Locke says it is equivalent to a state of “peace, good will, mutual assistance and preservation“), was there any need at all to move from this state to form political society?

Given, Locke does present the state of war to oppose to the state of nature. And, although all men would have the right to punish someone who violated the natural rights of an individual (at least to some extent), it is understandable that some individuals would perhaps prefer a political body to personal responsibility for dealing with such conflicts.

But in reading over the section about the state of nature, in which all men live by the dictates of reason, etc. the language and description is just so positive. In my opinion, any attempt to truly explain the genesis of political society must do its best to show why the state of nature is negative rather than positive (i.e. Hobbes). They must give an original impetus towards political society. Admittedly Hobbes had his problems as well, and his view is perhaps somewhat too negative; but in my opinion the view of Locke is too positive. Even when expounding on the state of war conflict resolutions all just sounded so easy, so natural. Why, given such positive aspects of pre-political living, would anyone be convinced to change?

Though Locke does give an explanation, it is for me not all that sufficient; most of my paper will probably center around this problem. I understand that Locke’s writings were supposed to be more of a “normative genesis” rather than an actual account of how things were, however it just seems to me that, as set up, his arguments don’t hold much weight. If one were creating a normative genesis, why not create it as such that it best supported later arguments?