According to john locke, what is the primary force guiding humankind?

Question

According to john locke, what is the primary force guiding humankind?

Answer 1

Who the F***K is John Locke???

Who cares what he thinks.I think mankind is governed by GREED!

Answer 2

self intrest if I remember correctly.

Answer 3

Reason.

Answer 4

Rational Self-interest

enlightenment era British and Scottish philosophers and economists believed that men are guided by their will to better their lives.

Call it greed, call it what you will. A father who works at a job to support his children is acting in his own rational self-interest (his children are his self-interest). A kid who sells lemonade on the street corner is acting in his own self-interest (he wants money). A resistance force, fighting off an invading army, is acting in their own self interest (they want to keep their liberty)

John Locke notes that when everyone acts in their own rational self-interest, there is an equilibrium within the society. Call it a fortunate byproduct, if you will. Adam Smith called it the Invisible hand, that despite the fact that everyone is acting in their own self-interest, society continues to develop and grow. Virtues like duty and sacrifice are frequently, if not always, the hallmark virtues of a tyranny that seeks to treat its citizens like numbers on a wall. The grocer is a grocer because there's money to be made being a grocer (and he may in fact like the job, but nobody works for free). He relies on you for his pay, and you rely on him for food. Furthermore, you don't buy food in order to give the grocer money, you buy the food because you need to eat. And he doesn't become a grocer because of some duty to society, but because it is in his self-interest to be employed.

John Locke was perhaps the most influential philosopher on the founders of America. Virtually all of them owed some philosophical debt to him. In fact, Thomas Jefferson's famous saying that all people have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was directly based off of John Locke's original quote that all men are entitled to their life, liberty, and property. Jefferson considered the pursuit of Happiness to be equal in theory and superior semantically, because in his opinion, being well off allowed you to pursue that which makes you happy.