 Reward and punishment are a distinct species of pleasure and pain, specifying the outcomes attending the decrees of a rightful legislator. In this way, Locke’s is a straightforwardly legalistic account of the concepts of moral good and evil. The practical force of moral laws arises when we compare our actions against these laws, determine the degree to which they do or do not conform to the law and consider the pleasure of pain we will privately experience. In fact, for Locke, the very idea that one being has rightful legislative power over another is predicated on the degree to which the former being can effectively impose sanctions on the latter: