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JOHN LOCKE
3. Political Philosophy
a. Ethics and morality come from our demonstrative knowledge. Things
are good or evil if they correspond to a pleasure or pain. Thus, being
moral means choosing or “willing” what is good. Obviously there will
be several opinions about what is the good. There will be an opinion
from the community one lives in. There will also be rules from
government, and rules or laws from the Divine. Accordingly, then, we
can say there are laws of opinion, civil laws, and the divine law.
b. Locke’s discussion of God with regard to “divine law” and morality is
interesting because the idea of God is really inconsistent with his
empiricist epistemology. It appears that God is really superfluous with
regard to his actual political philosophy and ethics. If you read his
Treatise on Government you will find that he follows Thomas Hobbes
not Thomas Aquinas when it comes to rights, laws, and morality. Laws
or rights come from nature, hence our “natural rights.” The foundation
of Locke’s political science is the theory of the state of nature, not the
“divine law.” Locke actually goes to great lengths to combat the idea
of the “divine right of kinds” proposed by apologists like Sir Roger
Filmer. The first part of Locke’s Treatise on Government defends
Hobbes against Filmer’s criticisms. Filmer believed that “authority” was
patriarchal in nature. So, as land is passed from father to son at
death, so is the crown. Thankfully, the world decided to follow Locke,
not Filmer on this.
c. State of Nature: Locke begins where Hobbes did with the state of
nature, but Locke’s state of nature differs from Hobbes’ “war of all
against all.” Locke did not believe in the kind of egoistic state that
Hobbes proposed. In the true state of nature (before civilized political
life) there was a moral law that prohibited harming each other.
Individuals are not simply out for self-preservation as they were in
Hobbes’ state. But, like Hobbes, there is no government in the state of
nature.
d. Private Property: Locke thought that private property actually is rooted
in the natural law, not in civil law. This means that even in the state of
nature individuals have natural rights to private property. Whatever
one creates or does with one’s labor is one’s own. This is one of the
founding principles of “libertarianism.” Locke is a “classical liberal”
because he believes in equal rights to privacy, life, property, etc.
Modern day liberalism, socialism, and libertarianism are all weird
descendents of Locke’s ideas in some way or form. Interestingly,
modern followers of Locke do not have the same concept of private
property. For instance, one can seemingly buy as much land as one
can. For Locke, however, there was “common” land that could not be
owned by any one individual. Rather, any one could go on this land
and grow food and take just that food. No one should be allowed to
accumulate so much wealth (food for example) that it “spoils” or
becomes useless to an individual.
e. Civil Government: So, why leave this wonderful state of nature? Why
form political government? Locke thinks that human did this to protect
their right to property. To protect their “life, liberty, and property”
(which our Declaration of Independence changed to “happiness” but
really means property). Thus, some political entity needs to be created
to protect us from losing our “inalienable” or inherent rights. Free
human beings must consent to give up some of their rights and elect a
civil government. Someone has to be a judge and someone needs to
be an enforcer of the law. However, there would not be an absolute
sovereign as there was for Hobbes.