John Locke

1. John Locke Father of the Enlightenment

2. Life and Legacy: The Elusive Locke John Locke (1632 – 1704) is arguable the most influential of all political theorist. The success of liberal democracy and its embrace even by regimes that are founded on other principles reveals the power of his thought. He published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in his own name in 1690 and established himself as a leading intellectual light.

3. Priority of Community Contrary to the common belief that Locke asserted individual rights at the expense of the community, the Lockean individual is firmly embedded within the community. Natural law teaching was being reinforced the scientific discovery of the laws of nature. An order of mutual obligation is essential to defend natural rights against those standing outside of a community of mutual obligation such as an absolute monarch.

4. Priority of Community - Continued Locke opposed royal absolutism and required the absolute authority to be part of an agreement of mutual obligations. This position is different than Hobbes who allowed the sovereign to be outside of this community of mutual obligations. Both Hobbes and Locke’s sovereign depend upon the consent of the people. Power is important to both Hobbes and Locke, but Hobbes emphasizes it, whereas Locke emphasizes the priority of the moral community.

5. State of Nature • Locke emphasizes the degree that trust can be placed in others. • Hobbes emphasizes what must be done when trust breaks down. • Both thinkers recognize consent is dependent upon the moral reliability of the giver. • Hobbes focuses on a narrow sense of right, whereas Locke is more broadly focused on the good. • Both develop the concept of a social contract. • Hobbes’ uses the term covenant with theological overtones • Locke uses the term compact with an emphasis on enduring trust that does not depend on a purely individualist calculation of returns.

6. State of Nature - Continued 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. For Men being all the Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker; All the Servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order and about his business, they are his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure. (Second Treatise, par. 6)

7. Questions for Reflection Is Aristotle right that man is by nature a political animal? That we cannot really be human without living in community with others? To what extent does Locke confirm this by asking us to think about what life would be like without government, in the state of nature?

8. Property For Locke, the mutual preservation of rights that constitutes the purpose of civil society is primarily accomplished through the security of property. Property secures the right to life and right to liberty. A thief threatens liberty and can be rightfully killed, but the rights to thief’s property are retained by his family whose lives and liberty depend on that property.

9. Property - Continued • Human beings have an inherent property right in their own persons. • What a human takes from nature through the labor of his body and the work of his hands is his or her property. • No one can accumulate more property than can be used before it spoils. • Locke opposes a regime of unlimited acquisition and grounds property in the prepolitical community of the mutual recognition of rights.

10. Questions For Reflection How, according to Locke, does property become private when everything is given to human beings in common in the state of nature? Can you think of any other way of distributing property? Reflect on the inherently social character of any conception of property.

11. Transition to Civil Society Humans are bound together in the state of nature making the step to government relatively simple. Men cannot be judges in their own case, and an absolute ruler (Hobbes) staying outside the law does not move society to civil society since the ruler remains in the state of nature. Civil society gives a common measure by which differences may be resolved. Though kings have played a role in creating civil society, the security of properties is only guaranteed when the Legislature is placed in “the collective bodies of men, call them Senate, Parliament, or what you please.” The common authority requires a transfer of liberty of the legislative function to from the individual to the community. “No man in Civil Society can be exempted from the laws of it.”

12. Limited Government • Consent is the assent to the process by which minorities will be governed by majorities. • Legislative power is to be restrained by recollection of the ends of political society and government. The great chief end of government is the preservation of property. • Restraints on the Legislative authorities: • The legislative power is bound by the laws of nature. • The legislative power is “bound to dispense Justice, and decide the Rights of the Subject by promulgated standing Laws, and known Authoris’d Judges” • The legislative power cannot “take from any Man any part of his property without his consent.” • The legislative power “cannot transfer Power of Making Laws in any other hands.” • The legislative power “being separated again, they are subject to the Laws, they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them, to take care that they make them for the publick good.”

13. Right of Revolution The community retains the right to overrule its legislative leaders. The executive power has the power or prerogative to act decisively in the community’s interest even if it breaches the boundaries of law. No government has the right to obedience from people who have not consented to it. Abrogating this principle removes the possibility of community, a relationship based on anything but force. Force may not be used against legitimate authority but can be used against unjust and unlawful Force.

14. Right of Revolution - Continued • Rebellion recognizes the state when a government has abrogated itself by becoming illegitimate. • The dissolution of government does not return humanity to anarchy but to a prepolitical community that precedes the formation of government. • The community can act through a representative, but the representative needs the community for legitimacy. The breakdown or failure of government is never ultimate since we carry its seeds within ourselves. • Men who abandon the commonwealth are like beasts of prey and should be treated accordingly.

15. Locke and Executive Prerogative Locke defines prerogative as the “power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of law, and sometimes even against it… for since in some governments the law-making power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, and so too slow, for the dispatch requisite to execution; and because also it is impossible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for, all accidents and necessities that may concern the public, or to make such laws as will do not harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigor, on all occasions, and upon all persons that come in their way; therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power, to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe.”

16. Locke and Executive Prerogative - Continued Locke’s recognition of the power of prerogative reveals a tension in his thought between his defense of limited government and the need for executive energy in times of crisis. Can the precarious balance between liberty and security be maintained? Abraham Lincoln used executive prerogative in his prosecution of the Civil War. Does Lincoln make a strong argument for his use of executive prerogative.

17. Questions for Reflection Given Lincoln’s extraordinary use of executive power during the Civil War, some scholars have claimed that he established a constitutional dictatorship. Are Lincoln’s actions consistent with Locke’s view of executive prerogative? Can the notion of a constitutional dictatorship be reconciled with limited and free government?

18. Quest for Religious Consensus Locke argued that rights and community were inseparable. His philosophical and theological works give us insight into Locke’s major project that articulated the above stated truth. Locke sought the common ground of reason by which all intellectual, moral, and religious disagreements might be resolved.

19. Quest for Religious Consensus - Continued An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that embraces a radical empiricism was inspired by the difficulty in finding a common ground regarding philosophical and theological concerns. By attempting to build up knowledge on the basis of the senses and reflections, Locke undertook a radical enterprise in the service of the principles of morality and revealed religion.

20. Quest for Religious Consensus - Continued • Faith was the foundation of Locke’s enterprise. • That God has given a rule whereby men should govern themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to deny. He has a right to do it; we are his creatures; he has goodness and wisdom to direct our actions to that which is best, and he has power to enforce it by rewards and punishments of infinite weight and duration in another life; for nobody can take us out of his hands. This the only true touchstone of moral rectitude.” (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter 28, par. 5)

21. Questions for Reflection Consider the relationship between Locke and the American founders. The Declaration of Independence virtually quotes Locke in asserting a right of revolution, but the Constitution is completely silent about such a right. Is there such a thing as a right of revolution? If so, what kind of right is it – natural or legal?

22. Tolerance as a Core Spiritual Truth Though reason and morality cannot ground themselves Locke rejects theocracy. Moral and political law require divine authorization. Divine authorization cannot replace liberty each individual has for self-government. The liberty of human beings is essential to the meaningful embrace of truth and therefore, tolerance is not an act of weakness, but essential for realizing the highest goods.

23. Tolerance as a Core Spiritual Truth - continued • Religion if it is true to itself must be a religion of liberty. • Men cannot be forced to be saved. • Freedom is the core of human identity and gives the individual transcendent dignity. • The Magistrate cannot tolerate unlawful acts done in the name of religion.

24. Tolerance as a Core Spiritual Truth - continued If an individual’s conscience conflicts with the law, the individual should willing suffer the price of violating that law. Moral teachings that are contrary to the morality essential for human society are not to be tolerated. Treason, Atheism, and Catholicism are not to be tolerated. Equal rights are essential to the order of Locke’s political community and the community cannot long endure the strains of exceptions.

25. Questions for Reflection What is the basis for religious toleration? Does Locke propose it because it will lead to political peace or because it is inherent in the freedom of the person? Think about what your answer may suggest concerning the nature of human rights – the core of the Lockean political language that now dominates our world.