Locke’s Political Zoology: Law, Animal and the Sovereign

The political picture of humanity is a giant zoo. Political thought has often been constructed and expressed through a metaphorical language including animals negatively or positively. In the classical political discourse, the sovereign has been represented by powerful animals. A jungle-like state of nature ordered by animals has always been affirmed. Whereas the law/order owes its presence to the power of sovereign, the sovereign owes its presence to his own power. In this article, I will demonstrate the idea that the powerful animals in John Locke’s analogies turn into a negative symbol and I will relate this idea with his political theory. In Locke’s political philosophy, which rigorously defends the constitutional order, animals which are allegedly the symbol of power transform into a negative image as the symbol of savagery and unlawfulness. Animals are excluded out of the political and jurisdictional order because animals that are not subject to the law and leave the reason by appealing to the brute force pose a threat to and danger for human life. This absolute image of the sovereign cannot take any place in the political/civic order in which the law occupies the role of sovereign