THOMAS
HOBBES 1588-1679, De
cive (1642), Leviathan
(1651, in the context of the English Civil War.
John Locke's ideas were influenced by action and
reaction by the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, writing in favour
of political absolutism (absolute monarchy) but on purely natural grounds.
·
Hobbes starts by presuming social atomism: people are basically
egoistic and not very good for each other, a denial of the social nature of
human beings. Man is a wolf to man. Without government, there is continual fear
and the danger of violent death, the life of man is poor, solitary, nasty,
brutish and short.
·
To get out of such a pitiable
state, people make a contract with each other, a social contract, to hand over all their rights to the sovereign,
the great LEVIATHAN, the mortal god, to whom and to whom alone people owe their
peace and defence.
This latter is all the state has to give them,
though, and as long as it does that much a person has to maintain loyalty:
given its reason for coming into existence, the function of government is a
purely negative one, to maintain
peace within and repel aggression from without,
=
the 'night watchman' concept of the
role of government, pretty much the same as in Locke and typical of political
liberalism.
·
A citizen has no rights
against the sovereign except to refuse to kill or maim himself or to not resist
someone who assaults him/her.
John Locke takes over the social contract idea and
the largely negative function to be assigned to government, but begins his
story with a much more benign picture of the State of
LIBERALISM (cf. Esp. Bertrand Russell, a
History of Western Philosophy, pp. 577ff.)
·
So called in so far as it gives priority to
·
In its most general form a kind of individualism: it advocates that
humankind's progress, in whatever sphere, is to be achieved only by the free
enterprise of the individual, unrestricted by government or tradition or church
hierarchy. Its effects can be seen in
all departments of life, intellectual, political, economic and religious.
·
The political form (i.e. political liberalism): the state has a purely negative function, to
provide protection from external aggression and to guarantee the individual
right to life, liberty, and the property which s/he owns. ("Life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness", as the Americans would say.)
The idea of liberalism in modern times probably
goes back to the Protestant Reformation: the necessity for the individual
response in faith, the spirit speaking in the heart of the individual
believer. Despite this, the Protestants
were no more tolerant than the Catholics.
But this was followed by hundreds of years of wars of religion, and
people just had to find a way of reconciling intellectual and religious
difference with ordered social life.
It is notable, perhaps, that John Locke, the most
influential of the theorists of political liberalism, the apostle of the
English Revolution of 1688 and the inspirer of both the French and American
Revolution, also wrote Three Letters on Toleration.
Modern Philosophy is also very individualistic, in
both content (esp. Descartes and including Kant) and in form at least until the
time of Kant - the affair of gifted individuals, mostly outside the classroom,
Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. This is in contrast with Medieval Philosophy,
which is an affair of schools.
JOHN LOCKE 1632 - 1704.
John
Locke was born the son of a Puritan. He
studied at
1689: Letter Concerning Toleration
1690: Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Two Treatises of Civil Government
Second Letter on Toleration
1691 Third Letter on Toleration
1693 Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
In virtue of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke is also known as the
initiator of a school of philosophy called British Empiricism.
The
two Treatises of Civil Government
are, in effect, a justification of the Revolution of 1688, a revolution
engineered by and in favour of a combination of
landed aristocracy (later on 'Tories', but this also including people who lost
out in 1688) and big business (later on 'Liberals'). That he is writing in favour
of the Revolution of 1688 is made explicit in his Preface, where he expresses
the hope that what he has written is sufficient "to establish the throne
of our great restorer, our present king William, to make good his title in the
consent of the people."
The
first Treatise, An Essay Concerning
Certain False Principles, is a refutation of the doctrine of the divine right
of kings, conceived after the analogy of the divine right of fathers and
supposedly going back to Adam. In the
second, An Essay Concerning the True
Original, Extent and End of Civil Government, he sets out to give his own
political philosophy. We will read
enough of this latter to at least get the general idea.
AN ESSAY
CONCERNING THE TRUE ORIGINAL, EXTENT AND END OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT (1690)
Suggested
Chs I-II, pp. 117-124, the State of
[Chs III-V, pp. 125-141,
war, slavery, property]
Ch. VII-XII, pp. 154-192, the origins of political
society and government, the purpose, nature and functions and extent of
government.
Ch. XIX (last chapter, pp. 224-242) of the
dissolution of government.
BRIEF EXPOSITION of the central features of Locke's Political Philosophy in the
second Treatise:
(a)THE STATE
OF
Locke's answer:
·
a state of liberty: uncontrollable liberty to
dispose of ones person and possessions,
·
but not a state of licence and not a state
of war: most people would still live according to the law of nature, which they recognize by their reason. All men[1] are created equal, equal and independent, and people have certain natural rights: rights to life, liberty
and property
liberty = the right to do what I want, within the laws of nature, provided I
don't interfere with the life, health, liberty or possessions of others.
property = whatever it is with which I have mixed my labour.
·
In the state of nature, the
execution of the law of Nature is in every man's hand: everyone has the right
to punish the transgressors of that law to such degree as may hinder its
violation.
So the state of nature is not a state of war, in
which the life of man is solitary, nasty, brutish and short. Still, it does have its inconveniences:
1) not all people keep the
law - the peace is constantly upset by the corruption and viciousness of
degenerate men;
2) no person is a good judge
in their own case;
3) the law is not always
clear, particularly once production becomes fairly complicated. Some way is needed to clarify the law, to
make it more specific and to enforce it.
4) punishment for law
breakers is very uncertain.
It is because of such inconveniences that people
get themselves into society and under governments.
(b)THE
ORIGIN OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT in the consent of free and
independent people, gathering together to remedy such inconveniences.
In order to escape such
inconveniences, men freely consent to unite themselves into commonwealths and
put themselves under government. They do
so in order to render more secure their property, which is to say their life,
liberties and estates. For this is
needed:
Firstly, a proclamation and
clarification of our natural rights,
Secondly, an indifferent
judge to determine who is in the right,
Thirdly, effective
re-enforcement.
These purposes determine the function of
government: that is to say, the functions of government are determined by the
reasons for people entering into it.
(c)THE
FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT
The
form of government can be whatever the majority decides: a perfect democracy,
an oligarchy (government by a few), an elective or hereditary monarchy. With Locke of course preferring something
very like the English constitution post 1688.
But whatever form it takes, there will be three functions or powers
which it needs to perform:
the legislative: to make
the laws,
the executive: to see to
the execution of the laws that are made, and
the federative: the power
of war and peace, leagues and alliances.
This is a distinct function from that of the executive, which is the
execution of the laws already made: it
is very difficult to make legislation governing foreign affairs, and the
executive itself will often make policy.
Even so, though the executive and the federative be distinct powers,
they can hardly be separated and placed in the hands of distinct persons.
On the other hand, Locke argues (pp. 190ff.) for a
separation of legislative and executive. He regards the legislature which makes the
laws as supreme, because it is only through the legislature that the laws get
the consent of the people.
[NOTE: the doctrine of separation of powers in its
fully fledged form as we have it in the American Constitution goes back to the
French theorist Montesquieu. Locke
merges executive and judiciary.]
(d)THE RIGHT TO ALLEGIANCE on the
part of government has its origins in the social contract: the right to
allegiance follows from the free consent of the citizens, and nothing else.
A
man can't be got into civil society and subjected to government without his own
consent. He does this by way of a
contract, or agreement with other men, to join and unite into a community for
their comfortable, safe and peaceable living.
It is the consent of the individuals in it which makes a community one
body, with the power to act as one body, according to the will and
determination of the majority. Every man
by consenting with others to make one body politic puts himself under an
obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the
majority of that society.
So
the contract is with each other, other members of the society, not with the
government as such as in Hobbes: we contract with other citizens. The source of all legitimacy is the consent
of the people, the people are the source of all authority, "We, the
people...".: neither civil society nor government without the consent of
the governed.
Everyone
has to consent. A father can't oblige
his children, for example: when they grow up they have to decide for
themselves. Locke however makes a distinction
between express consent and tacit consent. Tacit consent: every man that hath any
possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominion of any government doth
thereby give his tacit consent to be obliged to obedience to the laws of that
government. The difference is that
consent by natural agreement and express declaration obliges for life, unless
the government comes to be dissolved (see later), whereas tacit consent begins
and ends with the possession and enjoyment of the benefits and protection of a
particular society.
(e)SUCH A
GOVERNMENT IS BY ITS VERY NATURE LIMITED
Locke has a number of arguments (pp. 160ff.):
1) Absolute monarchy does not get us out of the
State of
2) The powers of government legislative and
executive are powers which we agree together to hand over to it: the power of
government is a delegated power from the people. But we can't hand over powers which we don't
have, and in the state of nature we do not have the power to take away the life
or property of another.
The power of government is limited to the public
good of society, which interprets out (in Locke) as the preservation of the
life and properties of its participants and their protection from external
aggression.
3) Even if we could hand over more power, it
cannot be supposed that we would want to.
4) The law of nature does not cease with the
coming into existence of civil society, "the obligations of the law of
Nature cease not..." p. 185. This
obliges also the government.
5) It would be contrary to the end of government,
which is the preservation of property.
The power of government is limited to the making and
enforcement of laws for the public good of society, = for the preservation of
the lives and properties of its participants and their protection from external
aggression. It does not have arbitrary
power over life and liberty and cannot take from any man any part of his
property without his own consent.
[This looks like it ought to rule out taxes without his own consent, and so it
does; but he gets out of trouble by interpreting 'consent' in this case to be
the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or by
representatives chosen by them: "no taxation without
representation".]
(f) THE
DISSOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT
Finally,
there are two situations in which a government can be regarded s having been
dissolved, no longer existing, so that the people are at liberty to provide for
themselves, as in the English Revolution of 1688, either by changing the form of government or keeping the
old form and putting new people in.
The first
situation: if the form of government should be changed
without their consent. For example,
·
if the king tries to make
laws without the consent of parliament,
·
or if he interferes with the
working of parliament, or if he tries to stack the parliament by changing the
ways of election,
·
or if the executive neglects
and abandons his charge, so that the laws made are no longer put into
execution,
The second
situation: where either the legislative or the executive
acts contrary to the trust reposed in them.
For example, if they endeavour to invade the
property of the subject, or to make themselves or anyone else masters or
arbitrary disposers of the lives and liberties of the people. After all, the reason why men enter into
society is the preservation of their property.
It can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the
legislature should have a power to destroy that which everyone designs to
secure by entering into society, and for which the people submitted to
government of their own making in the first place.
The important point: Locke does allow people to
dissolve their governments, indeed he has to, in order to justify 1688. On the other hand, Locke does not think that
this will make for frequent rebellion:
-- people are conservative by
nature, not easily got out of their old forms.
It takes a long train of abuses all tending the same way to rouse them
enough to endeavour to put the rule in better hands;
-- in any case, if the nature of
government is changed against their will or the trust reposed in government is
broken, it is the people in government who are guilty of rebellion, not the
subjects [cf. Aquinas w.r.t. tyrants]. Cf. pp. 232, 234.
NOTE 1: The labour
theory of property, which he gets from the Scholastics, as well as the notion
of natural law. This looks good, but he
occasionally gives the game away, as on p. 130, paragraph 27, "Thus, the
grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut... The labour that was mine..." So 'my labour'
doesn't quite mean what it seems to mean: the capitalist employer of labour in a factory or the large landowner, according to
this idea, is actually entitled to the labour product
created by his servant. Marx takes over this labour
theory (of value in Marx's case) but makes it more consistent. Locke also spoils it in another direction:
the natural limitations incoporated in the theory on
amassing great wealth for its own sake and differences between rich and poor
disappear once money is invented.
NOTE 2: Locke defends slavery. Locke and his followers are not the origin of
the abolition of slavery. That belongs
to a fortunate combination of evangelical christians
and the industrial revolution.
NOTE 3: in practice Locke ignores women and he
ignores the poor.
NOTE 4: the various governments of independent
States are now in a state of nature towards each other. This means that they are still subject to the
Law of Nature. A state of nature is not
a state of war. There are still rules
which should govern international relations, even though what they are is
sometimes not all that clear and even though their enforcement belongs to
individual nations. This is not Machievelli even between states, and certainly not within
the state.
For more on Locke, see:
F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 5, Ch. 7:
mainly summary.
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (Allen and Unwin,
London, 2nd edition 1961), Ch. XIV: well worth reading, very witty.
Richard I. Aaron, John Locke (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 3rd edition 1971), Part II,
Section II Political Theory, also Appendix V.
R. S. Woolhouse, “Locke”,
in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy,
edited Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James
(Blackwell, Oxford, 1996), pp. 541-554.
[1]. Locke ignores women almost
completely. In further exposition I will
not even try to use non-sexist language: it would only make Locke look a lot
better than he is.