Locke realised in order to define a just government, one must define a just government's duties. In order to define a just government's duties, one should look at a scenario in which there is no civil government at all and reason as to why it was first created. Locke came up with a set of "natural rights" to which all men under the state of nature are entitled: life, liberty and property. These are rights that are unchallengeable and since everyone has a right to them, they must be protected.
Locke's state of nature functions both as a ahistorical standard against which to judge the optimal form of political institutions and an implicit critique of traditional power relations and unproductive elites. Due to man's placement to fulfil a somewhat divine teleology, knowledge of this condition is vital as it lays the groundwork for the formation of a universal social morality. Locke's fundamental argument is that people are equal and invested with natural rights in a state of nature which they live free from outside rule. In the state of nature, natural law governs behaviour, with each person having license to execute that law against someone who wrongs them by infringing on their rights. .
He views natural equality as a somewhat shared position in the "order of a divine creation, freedom as a law abiding autonomy and rationality as the capacity to perceive divine law through the light of natural reason". For this to function, Locke feels freedom cannot exist without law, therefore there must be an operative law of nature in the state of nature with which he introduces God's Law. This development of a universal law into the state of nature is inscribed forever in the mind of man as the basis of all moral existence. The execution of the law of nature is the individual's own responsibility. Violation of this law by an individual places that person in a state of war with his peers, consequentially allowing them the right to punish the offender.
