 Locke’s hedonism has a dual function in Locke’s moral theory. It accounts both for how we acquire the ideas of moral good and evil that lie at the root of moral law and for the motivation to comply with moral rules. A prominent feature of Locke’s moral legalism is his view that a law needs to carry the threat of sanctions for it to have normative force. Locke holds this view on the basis of his hedonistic theory of human motivation.