Philosophy E166: Ethical Theory

1. Philosophy E166: Ethical Theory Week Five: Locke on Religion and Morality

18. Locke and the Threat of Atheism • When we think of Locke today, we do so because of the continuing relevance • of his political views (liberal, libertarian) to our secular society • of his empiricism to our secular conception of knowledge and reality

19. Secular Influence of Essay • The conception of knowledge that Locke develops in the Essay is tied to a secular conception of knowledge • It isn’t an account of how knowledge is based on authority or scripture, but of how it’s tied to observation and science • So it is an important contribution to thinking about how knowledge is possible in a secular society • Most of the thinking about Locke today is done in secular terms

20. Secular Influence and Locke’s Religion • Overlooks how deeply religious most of his writing is • The secular influence of Locke conceals the degree his works • were inspired by religious questions and • are devout in the positions they took on religious questions

21. From the Essay’s Epistle to the Reader • One indication in his “epistle to the reader” at the start of Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke’s work on the nature of knowledge • We do not ordinarily recall it as concerning religion or morality • Locke wrote that the book originated with a discussion we can date to 1671: • “Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side.”

22. Locke “chamber” in 1671 • Locke was living in Exeter, the London residence of Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury • Locke had met Shaftesbury in 1666 when Shaftesbury had come to Oxford to be treated for a liver problem • Locke had been trained as a physician • Locke became his personal physician, and he even moved in with Shaftesbury • Before long, Locke became Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, Shaftesbury’s group that administered the Carolina colony

25. Among “five or six friends meeting” at his chamber was James Tyrrell • We know that among those Locke calls the “five or six friends meeting at my chamber” was James Tyrrell • Tyrrell’s Patriarcha non Monarcha (or The patriarch Unmonarched) was a reply to Robert Filmer’s defense of royalism in Patriarcha • Tyrrell’s book has been thought by many to have been the model for Locke’s own attack on Filmer in his First Treatise of Government • Also a source for many of Locke’s ideas in the Two Treatises as a whole • We know that Tyrrell was there because of an annotation Tyrrell made in his personal copy of the Essay • Tyrrell noted that the subject of the meeting was “the principles of morality and revealed religion”

27. The Origin of the Essay • Locke continues: • “After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry….”

28. “hasty and undigested thoughts” • “Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted….” • What exactly Locke and his friends had been discussing – what exact “principles of morality and revealed religion” and what the “wrong course” had been – are uncertain • As are the “hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject [he] had never before considered”

29. Religious Controversy on Locke’s Mind • We know that religious matters were on Locke’s mind during this period • Four years before, in 1667, Locke had written the unpublished Essay Concerning Toleration • responded to the ongoing opposition to the Church of England from Nonconformists, and the new policy of intolerance adopted by the Church • Church’s policy included penalties for those who failed to attend and larger penalties who worshipped elsewhere

30. Intolerance After Restoration • The Church of England was a state church • Under Cromwell, there had been toleration, at least toward non-Catholics • Charles II was restored in 1660 • After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, this toleration ended • The Uniformity Act of 1662 ordered that • all ministers be ordained in the state church • all religious ceremonies follow the Book of Common Prayer • only adherents could hold public office

31. Locke’s Response to Uniformity Act: Worship a “Private Matter” • At the time of the Uniformity Act, Locke had responded in his Second Tract on Government • Argued that worship was a private relationship between a person and God, not a public one • On this premise he argued against religious freedom • Argued that the state could regulate the public aspects of religion without interfering with worship • Locke apparently saw this as necessary to maintaining public order in the aftermath of the English Civil War

32. Reverses Himself in An Essay Concerning Toleration (1667) • Locke reversed himself five years later in the Essay Concerning Toleration (1667) • Argued that worship had a public aspect that was not the concern of the state: • “Religious worship being that homage which I pay to that God I adore in a way I judge acceptable to him, and so being an action or commerce passing only between God and myself, hath in its own nature no reference at all to my governor or to my neighbour, and so necessarily produces no action which disturbs the community. For kneeling or sitting at the sacrament can in itself tend no more to the disturbance of the government, or injury of my neighbour, than sitting or standing at my own table.... “

33. The State Has No Role Enforcing Religious Practices • He argued that the state has no role in enforcing religious practices: • “Can it be reasonable • that he that cannot compel me to buy a house should force me [in] his way to venture the purchase of heaven, • that he [who] cannot in justice prescribe me rules of preserving my health should enjoin me methods of saving my soul, • he that cannot choose a wife for me should choose a religion?...”

34. The Only Force Appropriate • The only force appropriate: • “But if God (which is the point in question) would have men forced to heaven, it must not be by the outward violence of the magistrate on men’s bodies, but the inward constraints of his own spirit on their minds, which are not to be wrought on by any human compulsion, the way to salvation not being any forced exterior performance, but the voluntary and secret choice of the mind….”

35. Toleration Extended to Morality • He recognized that there was a close connection between religion and morality • Religions prescribe moral rules for their followers • Whether or not one follows those moral rules is seen as determining if one goes to heaven: • “actions, which are thought good or bad in themselves, … are the vigorous active part of religion, and that wherein men’s consciences are very much concerned.” • Nevertheless, he extended toleration even to such actions

36. Extending Toleration to Moral Actions • “Yet give me leave to say, however strange it may seem, that the lawmaker hath nothing to do with moral virtues and vices, nor ought to enjoin the duties of the second table [of the Ten Commandments] any otherwise, than barely as they are subservient to the good and preservation of mankind under government. For could public societies well subsist, or men enjoy peace or safety, without the enforcing of those duties, by the injunctions and penalties of laws, it is certain the lawmaker ought not to prescribe any rules about them, but leave the practice of them entirely to the discretion and consciences of his people…..”

37. Morality a Matter Between God and Souls • “[T]hey would then become only the private and super-political concernment between God and a man’s soul, wherein the magistrate’s authority is not to interpose. God hath appointed the magistrate his vicegerent [delegate] in this world, with power to command; but ’tis but like other deputies, to command only in the affairs of that place where he is vicegerent…. The magistrate hath nothing to do with the good of men’s souls or their concernments in another life but is ordained and entrusted with his power only for the quiet and comfortable living of men in society one with another…”

38. But Locke Not a Secularist • We have been viewing Hobbes as a secularist • I used the term “secularism” to refer to the view that atheism and morality are compatible • It might seem from these passages that Locke was, like Hobbes, what I called “a secularist” • But it would be a mistake to label Locke a “secularist” in this sense • It was Locke’s view that toleration had it limits

39. No Toleration for Catholics • “As to the papists,” Locke wrote, “ ’tis certain that several of their dangerous opinions which are absolutely destructive to all governments but the pope’s ought not to be tolerated….”

40. No Toleration for the Intolerant • “ For it is unreasonable that any should have a free liberty of their religion, who do not acknowledge it as a principle of theirs that nobody ought to persecute or molest another because he dissents from him in religion.”

41. No Toleration for Atheists • Even though “purely speculative opinions” he argued, should always be tolerated, atheists could not fall back on this principle for protection: • “I must only remark before I leave this head of speculative opinions that the belief of a deity is not to be reckoned amongst purely speculative opinions, for it being the foundation of all morality, and that which influences the whole life and actions of men, without which a man is to be counted no other than one of the most dangerous sorts of wild beasts, and so incapable of all society.”

42. The Carolina Constitution • Two years later in 1669, as secretary for the Carolina group, Locke participated in the drafting of the constitution for the Carolinas • The constitution had the same religious toleration that Locke had argued for in the Essay Concerning Toleration • But it had the same intolerance for atheists

43. No Controversy Because Unpublished • One reason Locke never generated the hostility that Hobbes did was Locke didn’t publish An Essay Concerning Toleration • He also tended to withhold from publication other works of his that contained controversial views • These unpublished works ended up passing into Tyrrell’s hands at Locke’s death

44. What Is Said about Atheists in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) • Locke elaborated on intolerance to atheists 18 years later in A Letter Concerning Toleration: • “Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the Being of a God. Promises, Covenants, and Oaths, which are the Bonds of Humane Society, can have no hold upon an Atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all. Besides also, those that by their Atheism undermine and destroy all Religion, can have no pretence of Religion whereupon to challenge the Privilege of a Toleration.”

45. Protecting Society from Atheists’ Immorality, Not Changing Them • The problem on Locke’s view was not just that the atheist could not swear an oath • since the atheist would have nothing to swear on • The problem was that atheists do not follow moral rules at all • Locke assumes anti-secularism • This was one of the practical aspects of Locke’s response to the threat to ethics • Intolerance was not intended to change the minds of atheists but merely to protect society from their potentially immoral ways

46. The Fundamental Law of Nature: the Foundation of Morality • These issues of toleration are practical aspects of Locke’s anti-secularism • A more theoretical aspect of Locke’s response is given at the start of the Second Treatise • The account that Locke gives of the foundations of moral value • For Locke at the foundation is what Locke in §16 of the Second Treatise calls “the fundamental law of nature” • (He uses the phrase in §§134, 135, 159 and 183 as well)

47. The Basic Statement of the Fundamental Law of Nature • He sets out this “fundamental law” in §6: • “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions….”

48. The Fundamental Law of Nature (cont.) • Locke’s counterpart to Hobbes’s Fundamental Law: • “…. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.”

49. What Is the Foundation of Locke’s Fundamental Law of Nature? • In his first chapter on Locke, Rawls discusses the “role and content” of the fundamental law • My interest right now is different • I am interested in its foundation

50. Reason Is Not Itself the Foundation • Locke says in §6 that “reason … is that law” • He says that reason teaches all people who will consult it • But I take it that he should have said not that reason is the law • He should have said that reason has the law as its object • If that’s right, then the question is: • How does reason arrive at the law?