“A Trespass against the Whole Species”: Universal Crime and Sovereign Founding in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government

• Date: 01 August 2018
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591717752468
• Author: Sinja Graf
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591717752468

Political Theory

2018, Vol. 46(4) 560 –585

© The Author(s) 2018

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0090591717752468

journals.sagepub.com/home/ptx

Article

“A Trespass against

the Whole Species”:

Universal Crime and

Sovereign Founding in

John Locke’s Second

Treatise of Government

Sinja Graf1

Abstract

This essay theorizes how the enforcement of universal norms contributes

to the solidification of sovereign rule. It does so by analyzing John Locke’s

argument for the founding of the commonwealth as it emerges from his

notion of universal crime in the Second Treatise of Government. Previous

studies of punishment in the state of nature have not accounted for Locke’s

notion of universal crime which pivots on the role of mankind as the subject

of natural law. I argue that the dilemmas specific to enforcing the natural law

against “trespasses against the whole species” drive the founding of sovereign

government. Reconstructing Locke’s argument on private property in light

of universal criminality, the essay shows how the introduction of money in

the state of nature destabilizes the normative relationship between the self

and humanity. Accordingly, the failures of enforcing the natural law require

the partitioning of mankind into separate peoples under distinct sovereign

governments. This analysis theorizes the creation of sovereign rule as part of

the political productivity of Locke’s notion of universal crime and reflects on

an explicitly political, rather than normative, theory of “humanity.”

1Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, National University of

Singapore, Singapore

Corresponding Author:

Sinja Graf, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, National

University of Singapore, AS1, #04-45, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore.

Email: polgsu@nus.edu.sg

752468PTXXXX10.1177/0090591717752468Political TheoryGraf

research-article2018

Graf 561

Keywords

universal crime, political productivity, natural law, sovereignty, John Locke

Introduction

Recent studies on the relationship between human rights and modern state-

hood in political and international relations theory have challenged the popu-

lar assumption of a conflict between universal norms and sovereignty.1 For

instance, Christian Reus-Smit critiques the assumed antagonism between

universal norms and sovereignty that defines most of contemporary liberal

international thought and documents the constitutive role of individual rights

in the passage from a world of empires to a world of sovereign states.2 This

scholarship demonstrates that individual rights, far from simply limiting sov-

ereign power, were key to the creation of modern states.

This essay furthers this critical agenda. Through a close reading of John

Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, my argument explores the counter-

intuitive connection between universal norms and sovereign government by

theorizing how the dilemmas of enforcing universal norms further the con-

solidation of the state. At the centre of analysis is Locke’s concept of a “tres-

pass against the whole species” (§8), which I call his notion of universal

crime. Locke’s notion of universal crime remains one of the least examined

ideas in the text.3 Even recent interpretations of the Second Treatise from

international and colonial perspectives4 have not interrogated this concept,

despite its explicit connection to Locke’s universalism. Indeed, studies of Locke’s

political theory rarely offer interpretations of crime in the state of nature.5 To

address this lacuna, I show how Locke connects his discussion of the failures

of punishing universal crimes in the state of nature to his argument for the

state, which offers a clear demonstration of the nexus between the vagaries of

universal norm enforcement and sovereign founding. I maintain that the

uncertainties of punishing universal crimes in the state of nature are produc-

tive of the partitioning of humanity into separate peoples under sovereign

governments in the Second Treatise.

Studies of punishment as an institution key to modern politics and sover-

eign power span traditions of political theory. Regarding the Second Treatise,

scholars have documented how the dilemmas of punishment in the state of

nature lead to the founding of the commonwealth.6 What has eluded attention

is that punishment in the state of nature is punishment of universal crimes.

Given that Locke articulates mankind as the subject of natural law, enforcing

the latter means to punish in the name of humanity. Moreover, Locke’s argu-

ment for the natural executive right derives from his notion of universal

crime. It thus behooves us to account for the universalist dimensions of both