ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 is a discussion of John Locke’s theory of majority rule, which seems to contradict later liberal presumptions about the inherent danger of majoritarianism. On the one hand, it emphasizes Locke’s debt to the medieval theories of majority tyranny; on the other, it tries to explain why his outlook was significantly more optimistic. The reliance on the natural law of the “greater force,” which moves physical and political bodies alike, and entails a sort of pre-ordered harmony between what is and what ought to be is one part of the explanation. The other is Locke’s belief in the fundamental rationality of human beings, which may not prevail in everyone, but suggests that at least the people’s majority will always be rational enough to avoid tyrannical abuses.
