WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS AND LIMITS OF POLITICAL POWER / TUTORIALOUTLET WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS AND LIMITS OF POLITICAL POW | Page 9

good. Simmons also claims that other
interpretations often fail to account for the fact that there are some
people who live in states with legitimate
governments who are nonetheless in the state of nature: visiting aliens
(2.9), children below the age of
majority (2.15, 118), and those with a “defect” of reason (2.60). He
claims that the state of nature is a
relational concept describing a particular set of moral relations that
exist between particular people, rather
than a description of a particular geographical territory. The state of
nature is just the way of describing the
moral rights and responsibilities that exist between people who have
not consented to the adjudication of
their disputes by the same legitimate government. The groups just
mentioned either have not or cannot give
consent, so they remain in the state of nature. Thus A may be in the
state of nature with respect to B, but
not with C.
Simmons' account stands in sharp contrast to that of Strauss.
According to Strauss, Locke presents the state
of nature as a factual description of what the earliest society is like, an
account that when read closely
reveals Locke's departure from Christian teachings. State of nature
theories, he and his followers argue, are
contrary to the Biblical account in Genesis and evidence that Locke's
teaching is similar to that of Hobbes.
As noted above, on the Straussian account Locke's apparently
Christian statements are only a façade
designed to conceal his essentially anti-Christian views. According to
Simmons, since the state of nature is
a moral account, it is compatible with a wide variety of social
accounts without contradiction. If we know
only that a group of people are in a state of nature, we know only the
rights and responsibilities they have
toward one another; we know nothing about whether they are rich or
poor, peaceful or warlike.
A complementary interpretation is made by John Dunn with respect to