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Biju
P R
Author,
Teacher, Blogger
Assistant
Professor of Political Science
Government
Brennen College
Thalassery
Kerala,
India
My Books
1. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media,
(Routledge 2017), Amazon https://www.amazon.in/
2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/
1. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media,
(Routledge 2017), Amazon https://www.amazon.in/
2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/
English philosopher and political
theorist John Locke (1632-1704) laid much of the groundwork for the
Enlightenment and made central contributions to the development of liberalism.
Trained in medicine, he was a key advocate of the empirical approaches of the
Scientific Revolution. In his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” he
advanced a theory of the self as a blank page, with knowledge and identity
arising only from accumulated experience. His political theory of government by
the consent of the governed as a means to protect “life, liberty and estate”
deeply influenced the United States’ founding documents. His essays on
religious tolerance provided an early model for the separation of church and
state.
John Locke was among the most famous philosophers
and political theorists of the 17th century. He is often
regarded as the founder of a school of thought known as British Empiricism, and
he made foundational contributions to modern theories of limited, liberal
government. He was also influential in the areas of theology, religious
toleration, and educational theory.
John Locke was born in 1632 in
Wrington, a small village in southwestern England
Locke was successful at Westminster
and earned a place at Christ Church, Oxford. He was to remain in Oxford from
1652 until 1667.
Locke left Oxford for London in 1667.
Locke travelled in France for several
years starting in 1675.
It was around this time that Locke
composed his most famous political work, the Two Treatises Concerning
Government.
Locke fled to the Netherlands to
escape political persecution. While there Locke travelled a great deal
(sometimes for his own safety) and worked on two projects. First, he continued
work on the Essay. Second, he wrote a work entitled Epistola de
Tolerantia, which was published anonymously in 1689. Locke’s experiences in
England, France, and the Netherlands convinced him that governments should be
much more tolerant of religious diversity than was common at the time.
Following the Glorious Revolution of
1688-1689 Locke was able to return to England. He published both the Essay
and the Two Treatises
Books
Essay
Concerning Human Understanding(1690)
Locke’s insight was that before we can
analyze the world and our access to it we have to know something about ourselves.
We need to know how we acquire knowledge. We also need to know which areas of
inquiry we are well suited to and which are epistemically closed to us, that
is, which areas are such that we could not know them even in principle. We
further need to know what knowledge consists in.
According to Locke, ideas are the
fundamental units of mental content and so play an integral role in his
explanation of the human mind and his account of our knowledge. Locke was not
the first philosopher to give ideas a central role; Descartes, for example, had
relied heavily on them in explaining the human mind. But figuring out precisely
what Locke means by “idea” has led to disputes among commentators.
Locke’s
Two Treatises on Government
Locke’s
two treatises on government were published in October 1689 with a 1690 date on
the title page. While later philosophers have belittled it because Locke based
his thinking on archaic notions about a “state of nature,” his bedrock
principles endure. He defended the natural law tradition whose glorious lineage
goes back to the ancient Jews: the tradition that rulers cannot legitimately do
anything they want, because there are moral laws applying to everyone.
“Reason,
which is that Law,” Locke declared, “teaches all Mankind, who would but consult
it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.” Locke envisoned a rule of law: “have a
standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by the
Legislative Power erected in it; A Liberty to follow my own Will in all things,
where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant,
uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man.”
Locke
established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: “every
Man has a Property
in his own Person.
This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands,
we may say, are properly his.” He continues: “The great and chief end
therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under
Government, is the
Preservation of their Property.”
Locke
believed people legitimately turned common property into private property by
mixing their labor with it, improving it. Marxists liked to claim this meant Locke
embraced the labor theory of value, but he was talking about the basis of
ownership rather than value.
He
insisted that people, not rulers, are sovereign. Government, Locke wrote, “can
never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without
their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all.”
He makes his point even more explicit: rulers “must not raise Taxes on the Property of the
People, without the
Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies.”
Locke
had enormous foresight to see beyond the struggles of his own day, which were
directed against monarchy: “’Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is
proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well
as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government
of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other
ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary
and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether
those that thus use it are one or many.”
Then
Locke affirmed an explicit right to revolution: “whenever the Legislators endeavor to take
away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to
Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the
People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to
the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and
Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative
shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition,
Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor
to grasp themselves, or
put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives,
Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power,
the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves
to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.”
To
help assure his anonymity, he dealt with the printer through his friend Edward
Clarke. Locke denied rumors that he was the author, and he begged his friends
to keep their speculations to themselves. He cut off those like James Tyrrell
who persisted in talking about Locke’s authorship. Locke destroyed the original
manuscripts and all references to the work in his writings. His only written
acknowledgment of authorship was in an addition to his will, signed shortly
before he died. Ironically, the two treatises caused hardly a stir during his
life.
Philosophy
In the Essay Concerning Human
Understanding Locke examines the nature of the human mind and the process
by which it knows the world. Repudiating the traditional doctrine of innate
ideas, Locke believed that the mind is born blank, a tabula rasa upon
which the world describes itself through the experience of the five senses.
Knowledge arising from sensation is perfected by reflection, thus enabling
humans to arrive at such ideas as space, time, and infinity.
Locke distinguished the primary
qualities of things (e.g., solidity, extension, number) from their secondary
qualities (e.g., color, sound). These latter qualities he held to be produced
by the impact of the world on the sense organs. Behind this curtain of
sensation the world itself is colorless and silent. Science is possible, Locke
maintained, because the primary world affects the sense organs mechanically,
thus producing ideas that faithfully represent reality. The clear, common-sense
style of the Essay concealed many unexplored assumptions that the later
empiricists George Berkeley and David Hume would contest, but the problems that
Locke set forth have occupied philosophy in one way or another ever since.
Our knowledge does not extend beyond
the scope of human ideas. ideas are limited by experience, and we cannot
possibly experience everything that exists in the world, our knowledge is
further compromised. However, Locke asserts that though our knowledge is
necessarily limited in these ways, we can still be certain of some things. For
example, we have an intuitive and immediate knowledge of our own existence,
even if we are ignorant of the metaphysical essence of our souls. We also have
a demonstrative knowledge of God’s existence, though our understanding cannot
fully comprehend who or what he is. We know other things through sensation. We
know that our ideas correspond to external realities because the mind cannot
invent such things without experience. A blind man, for example, would not be
able to form a concept of color. Therefore, those of us who have sight can
reason that since we do perceive colors, they must exist.
A
Natural Foundation of Reason
Locke argues that God gave us our
capacity for reason to aid us in the search for truth. As God’s creations, we
know that we must preserve ourselves. To help us, God created in us a natural
aversion to misery and a desire for happiness, so we avoid things that cause us
pain and seek out pleasure instead. We can reason that since we are all equally
God’s children, God must want everyone to be happy. If one person makes another
unhappy by causing him pain, that person has rejected God’s will. Therefore,
each person has a duty to preserve other people as well as himself. Recognizing
the responsibility to preserve the rights of all humankind naturally leads to
tolerance, the notion that forms the basis for Locke’s belief in the separation
of church and state. If we all must come to discover the truth through reason,
then no one man is naturally better able to discover truth than any other man.
For this reason, political leaders do not have the right to impose beliefs on
the people. Because everything we understand comes through experience and is
translated by reason, no outside force can make us understand something in
conflict with our own ideas. Locke insists that if men were to follow the
government blindly, they would be surrendering their own reason and thus
violating God’s law, or natural law.
Political
Theory
Locke
is most renowned for his political theory. Contradicting Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that the original
state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance. In that
state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm
another's "life, health, liberty, or possessions." The state was
formed by social contract because in the state of nature each was his own
judge, and there was no protection against those who lived outside the law of
nature. The state should be guided by natural law.
Rights
of property are very important, because each person has a right to the product
of his or her labor. Locke forecast the labor theory of value. The policy of
governmental checks and balances, as delineated in the Constitution of the
United States, was set down by Locke, as was the doctrine that revolution in
some circumstances is not only a right but an obligation. At Shaftesbury's
behest, he contributed to the Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas; the
colony's proprietors, however, never implemented the document.
In his works "A Letter Concerning
Toleration" (1689) and "The Second Treatise On Civil Government"
(1690), philosopher John Locke created what would become the philosophical
source for the founding principles of the United States.
Although not strictly a political
work, "A Letter Concerning Toleration" presents a view of the means
of understanding moral truths that has strong political implications. For
although its specific focus is the separation of church and state, in essence
it deals with a much wider issue, which is that it is impossible for the state
to compel moral behavior. Thus, when more broadly applied, it provides a
philosophic foundation for free speech and for the freedom of action that
follows from free thought.
In the letter, Locke maintains that
there must be an absolute separation between the church and the state,
Further, since this relationship only
exists between an individual mind and reality, political leaders are in no
superior position to grasp the truth than any other men are, and therefore have
no right to even attempt to force their opinions on others.
Finally, Locke maintains that there
must be a separation between church and state since the state exists not to
enforce public morality, but to protect man's rights from being violated by
other men.
A year after publishing "A Letter
Concerning Toleration," Locke published "The Second Treatise On Civil
Government
There is no way to prove that one has
a right to hold political power by reference to one's ancestry. Since forming a
government on such a basis leads to rule by brute force, and consequently, to
civil disorder, another way must be found to choose political leaders, one
derived from an understanding of men's relationships to each other before the
existence of government, i.e., of men's relationships to each other in a state
of nature.
In a state of nature, each man, as the
possessor of reason and free will, is cognitively independent and equal, and
so, by implication, politically independent and equal.
Thus, according to Locke, the basis of
the equality, independence, and ultimately, the freedom that exists between all
individual men is their mutual possession of reason. As an example of this
principle, he notes that children do not possess the freedoms possessed by
adults until they have reached the age whereby their reason has developed.
In Locke's conception, a proper
government exercises three distinct and separate powers, the "legislative,
executive, and federative power of the commonwealth."
The first power of government to be
established is "the legislative power," which "is that which has
a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be employed for
preserving the community and the members of it
Once the legislative force creates
laws, there arises the need of an executive power "which should see to the
execution of the laws
The third power of government, the
federative, arises from the fact that, although in relation to one another the
members of the commonwealth "are governed by the laws the society, yet…
the whole community is one body in the state of Nature in respect of all other
states or persons out of its community
The last major topic treated by Locke
in the Second Treatise is the right of the citizens to revolt against
tyrannies, i.e., governments wherein "the governor… makes not the law, but
his will, the rule, and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation
of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition,
revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion." Such a ruler
"ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be
opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another.
State of Nature
The State of Nature is a useful
philosophical model which allows social contract theorists to present their
understanding of human nature and offer a justification for the erection of
government.
Locke begins his second chapter with
the explanation that all men exist in a state of perfect freedom and equality.
Their actions and choices are unfettered and cannot be limited by other men.
All men are born in the exact same state, with no one individual having privileges
or advantages over another. Only God is able to bestow some advantage in power
upon one man over another.
Locke uses the state of nature as the
starting point for his second, and most salient, Treatise. This is a condition
where there is for men “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions and
dispose of their Possessions, and Persons as they think fit, within the bounds
of the Law of Nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the Will of any
other man.”[1] From this
very first sentence, it is evident that Locke follows in the Natural Law
tradition which states that men inherently have a moral sense which restricts
them from engaging in certain acts.
By virtue of being children of God, we
know what is right and wrong and by extension what is lawful, and we can
therefore resolve conflicts fairly consistently. As a result, for Locke, the
state of nature is not a state of License because man “has not Liberty to
destroy himself, or so much as any Creature in his Possession, but where some nobler
use, than its bare Preservation calls for it.
Reason teaches us that we ought not to
harm one another in life, health, liberty or possessions, and that in fact we
have an active obligation to others, much as Cicero had earlier contended. At
the same time, we all have “a right to punish the transgressors of [the Law of
Nature]”[3] and as such
we are all executioners of natural law. However, man is disposed to be partial
in his own case and therefore act as a biased judge. This is indeed one of the
great shortcomings in Locke’s state of nature. The other two failings are the
absence of protection of property rights and the inclusion of irrationals.
Nevertheless, it is crucial that man has united even in the absence of
government. In all, such a state is inconvenient for man, but not altogether
corrupt, and it is characterized by tolerance, reason and equality.
In Chapter 2, Locke explains the state
of nature as a state of equality in which no one has power over another, and
all are free to do as they please. He notes, however, that this liberty does
not equal license to abuse others, and that natural law exists even in
the state of nature. Each individual in the state of nature has the power to
execute natural laws, which are universal. Locke then posits that proof of this
natural law lies in the fact that, even though a person cannot reasonably be
under the power of a foreign king, if a person commits a crime in a foreign
country they can still be punished. Locke states that natural law simply
demands that punishment fit the crime--a person in the state of nature can
redress any crime to discourage the offender from repeating it. Locke concludes
by noting that all people are in a state of nature until a special compact or
agreement between them (which he promises to describe later) makes them members
of a political society.
Natural Law and Natural Rights
Perhaps
the most central concept in Locke's political philosophy is his theory of
natural law and natural rights. The natural law concept existed long before
Locke as a way of expressing the idea that there were certain moral truths that
applied to all people, regardless of the particular place where they lived or
the agreements they had made.
One of the intellectual traditions
which stands behind modern classical liberalism is that of natural law and
natural rights. This tradition emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries and
argues that the world is governed by natural laws which are discoverable by
human reason. Human beings, because of their particular natures have a number
of natural rights, or what Tom Paine described as “imprescriptible rights”.
According to the founding fathers of the American constitution these rights are
the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. A key
aspect of this intellectual tradition is the notion that natural rights are not
created by government but exist anterior to it and that governments are in fact
created to “secure these rights.” During the 19th century the natural
law/rights traditions was overtaken by English utlitarianism which argued that
the government should pursue policies which would do “the greatest good for the
greatest number.”
He
professed the idea that man has a natural right to life, to liberty, and to
property, and he justified his beliefs on the foundation of natural law.
Locke’s view of natural law was simple: there are certain laws whose content is
set in nature by God and that have validity everywhere.
Locke
believed in the natural rights of man, but he also believed in the sin nature
of man, which is why he saw the need for government. He said that we should
have government because due to the “corruption and viciousness of degenerate
men” they would not be able to defend their rights. Without government, man’s
sin nature would overcome their sense of natural law, and their rights would be
exploited for evil. “The great chief end” for men to have government “is the
preservation of their property; to which in the state of nature there are many
things wanting,” he wrote. It was his strong opinion that men should give up as
much power as is needed to defend themselves in exercising their natural
rights, an idea called the “social contract theory.”
John
Locke made a major advance to our understanding of natural law, by emphasizing
the nature of man as a maker of things, and a property owning animal. This
leads to a more extensive concept of natural rights than the previous
discussions of natural law. From the right to self defense comes the right to
the rule of law, but from the right to property comes a multitude of like
rights, such as the right to privacy “An Englishman's home is his castle."
Further, Locke repeatedly, in ringing words, reminded us that a ruler is
legitimate so far as he upholds the law.
A
ruler that violates natural law is illegitimate. He has no right to be obeyed,
his commands are mere force and coercion. Rulers who act lawlessly, whose laws
are unlawful, are mere criminals, and should be dealt with in accordance with
natural law, as applied in a state of nature, in other words they and their
servants should be killed as the opportunity presents, like the dangerous
animals that they are, the common enemies of all mankind.
John
Locke's writings were a call to arms, an assertion of the right and duty to
forcibly and violently remove illegitimate rulers and their servants.
This
provided the moral and legal basis for many great revolutions, and many
governments. After the American revolution the North Americans were governed
more or less in accordance with natural law for one hundred and thirty years.
John
Locke was writing for an audience that mostly understood what natural law was,
even those who disputed the existence and force of natural law knew what he was
talking about, and they made valid and relevant criticisms. In the nineteenth
century people started to forget what natural law was, and today he is often
criticized on grounds that are irrelevant, foolish, and absurd.
Social
Contract
According
to Locke, the State of Nature, the natural condition of mankind, is a state of
perfect and complete liberty to conduct one's life as one best sees fit, free
from the interference of others. This does not mean, however, that it is a
state of license: one is not free to do anything at all one pleases, or even
anything that one judges to be in one’s interest. The State of Nature, although
a state wherein there is no civil authority or government to punish people for
transgressions against laws, is not a state without morality. The State of
Nature is pre-political, but it is not pre-moral. Persons are assumed to be
equal to one another in such a state, and therefore equally capable of
discovering and being bound by the Law of Nature. The Law of Nature, which is
on Locke’s view the basis of all morality, and given to us by God, commands that
we not harm others with regards to their "life, health, liberty, or
possessions" (par. 6). Because we all belong equally to God, and because
we cannot take away that which is rightfully His, we are prohibited from
harming one another. So, the State of Nature is a state of liberty where
persons are free to pursue their own interests and plans, free from
interference, and, because of the Law of Nature and the restrictions that it
imposes upon persons, it is relatively peaceful.
The
State of Nature therefore, is not the same as the state of war, as it is
according to Hobbes. It can, however devolve into a state of war, in
particular, a state of war over property disputes. Whereas the State of Nature
is the state of liberty where persons recognize the Law of Nature and therefore
do not harm one another, the state of war begins between two or more men once
one man declares war on another, by stealing from him, or by trying to make him
his slave. Since in the State of Nature there is no civil power to whom men can
appeal, and since the Law of Nature allows them to defend their own lives, they
may then kill those who would bring force against them. Since the State of
Nature lacks civil authority, once war begins it is likely to continue. And
this is one of the strongest reasons that men have to abandon the State of
Nature by contracting together to form civil government.
Property
plays an essential role in Locke's argument for civil government and the
contract that establishes it. According to Locke, private property is created
when a person mixes his labor with the raw materials of nature. So, for
example, when one tills a piece of land in nature, and makes it into a piece of
farmland, which produces food, then one has a claim to own that piece of land
and the food produced upon it. (This led Locke to conclude that America didn’t
really belong to the natives who lived there, because they were, on his view,
failing to utilize the basic material of nature. In other words, they didn’t
farm it, so they had no legitimate claim to it, and others could therefore
justifiably appropriate it.) Given the implications of the Law of Nature, there
are limits as to how much property one can own: one is not allowed to take more
from nature than one can use, thereby leaving others without enough for
themselves. Because nature is given to all of mankind by God for its common
subsistence, one cannot take more than his own fair share. Property is the
linchpin of Locke’s argument for the social contract and civil government
because it is the protection of their property, including their property in
their own bodies, that men seek when they decide to abandon the State of
Nature.
According
to Locke, the State of Nature is not a condition of individuals, as it is for
Hobbes. Rather, it is populated by mothers and fathers with their children, or
families - what he calls "conjugal society" (par. 78). These
societies are based on the voluntary agreements to care for children together,
and they are moral but not political. Political society comes into being when
individual men, representing their families, come together in the State of
Nature and agree to each give up the executive power to punish those who
transgress the Law of Nature, and hand over that power to the public power of a
government. Having done this, they then become subject to the will of the
majority. In other words, by making a compact to leave the State of Nature and
form society, they make “one body politic under one government” (par. 97) and
submit themselves to the will of that body. One joins such a body, either from
its beginnings, or after it has already been established by others, only by
explicit consent. Having created a political society and government through
their consent, men then gain three things which they lacked in the State of
Nature: laws, judges to adjudicate laws, and the executive power necessary to
enforce these laws. Each man therefore gives over the power to protect himself
and punish transgressors of the Law of Nature to the government that he has
created through the compact.
Given
that the end of "men's uniting into common-wealths"( par. 124) is the
preservation of their wealth, and preserving their lives, liberty, and
well-being in general, Locke can easily imagine the conditions under which the
compact with government is destroyed, and men are justified in resisting the
authority of a civil government, such as a King. When the executive power of a
government devolves into tyranny, such as by dissolving the legislature and
therefore denying the people the ability to make laws for their own
preservation, then the resulting tyrant puts himself into a State of Nature,
and specifically into a state of war with the people, and they then have the
same right to self-defense as they had before making a compact to establish
society in the first place. In other words, the justification of the authority
of the executive component of government is the protection of the people’s
property and well-being, so when such protection is no longer present, or when
the king becomes a tyrant and acts against the interests of the people, they
have a right, if not an outright obligation, to resist his authority. The
social compact can be dissolved and the process to create political society
begun anew.
Because
Locke did not envision the State of Nature as grimly as did Hobbes, he can
imagine conditions under which one would be better off rejecting a particular
civil government and returning to the State of Nature, with the aim of
constructing a better civil government in its place. It is therefore both the
view of human nature, and the nature of morality itself, which account for the
differences between Hobbes' and Locke’s views of the social contract.
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