John Locke Quiz

Who was John Locke?

• Famous British liberal philosopher

• Influential on American political theory → writings were absorbed by Thomas Jefferson when her wrote the US Declaration of Independence

• Created the liberal constitutional theory of the state

• Called a “the master of taciturnity”

John Locke’s writings → where did he get influence from?

• Took inspiration from Hobbes’ doctrine of sovereignty, who took Machiavelli’s ideas from The Prince

• Took inspiration from the Hobbesian sovereign → impersonal, representative government, etc.

What was Locke’s life like?

• Spent many years in Oxford as a student & a fellow

• Worked as a private secretary and physician to Anthony Cooper, the Lord of Shaftesbury → has a group of followers who were opponents of the monarchy, leading to exile in 1683

  • Locke followed then, spending several years in Holland before returning to England

What did Locke advocate for?

• Natural liberty

• Equality of human beings

• Natural rights of life, liberty and estate

• Religious toleration

What does Locke believe a legitimate government should be? What does he advocate for in regards to revolutions?

• Runed by the consent of the people

• Has limited powers

• Constituted by a separation of powers

• People have the right to revolution when their government becomes repressive

Second Treatise

• Positive theory of government → his theory of parliamentary supremacy, constitutional government and rule of law

• Intended as a practical book addressed to Englishmen

• Shows his ability to take revolutionary ideas and express them in an easy language to reach a common audience

Locke’s belief on the state of nature?

• NOT a condition of ruling and being ruled, but a condition of perfect freedom

• Condition without civil authority of civil obligations

• Man are “free, equal, and independent”

What is Locke’s view of perfect freedom?

• Natural rights to life, liberty and property → believe to be necessary to the continuation of that life or “self preservation”

• Only restriction on individual freedom in the state of nature is the law of nature → states that man can only enjoy his freedom as long as they don’t violate the liberty of others

Locke’s view on human nature?

• Most man are reasonably & will obey the law without violating the rights of others

• If all men in the state of nature were self-controlled, there would never be any reason to establish government

• Man’s restraint is internal, and reasonable men do not disregard the law of nature and willfully invade the rights of others

John Locke’s beast of prey

• These people are not fully human because they don’t use reason → not tied to common law of reason and may be treated as “beast of prey”

• Might be killed as a wolf or as a lion because in the state of nature every individual possess the right to defend himself against offenders of the Law of Nature

What is the fundamental law of nature

• Right of self-preservation

What is the view of private justice in the state of nature?

• Issue → individuals become judges in their own cases

• Individuals cannot be fair, and impartial judges in cases that directly affects themselves

Why should governments be established?

• Be an impartial judge and punish offenders of others rights to life, liberty and property

• Government is the proper remedy to the inconveniences of the state of nature

Locke’s state of nature and religion

• His state of nature states that we are the “workman of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker” → we should not harm anyone in their lives, liberties or possessions

• Weaving the tradition of natural law with Christian ideas of divine workmanship and different strands of the philosophical tradition & making them into one whole

Locke’s state of peace → what happens when a individual doesn’t follow natural law?

• It vanishes and turns into a condition of war when individuals serves as the judge and executioner of the natural law

Locke’s political society → how does government emerge?

• Describes the emergence of government through a social contract from the inconveniences of the state of nature

• Protection against the “injuries and attempts of other men”

Locke’s government

• Establish by consent to protect individuals natural rights → the right to property by applying laws equally and impartially

• Men are willing to give up their right to punish offenders in exchange for a government that fairly arbitrates violations of Natural rights

• Allow for individuals to secure enjoyment of their properties

• States can not invade natural rights, because they are created to serve them

What happens if the state interferes with natural rights ?

• If the state has absolute arbitrary power the people have the right to rebel & dissolve the social contract

• Establish a new government to preserve the rights

John Locke’s social ethics

• Termed as negative → standard of goodness is what one doesn’t want to do to others

• An ethical person in society is one that does not violate the natural rights of others

• Each person has the right to life, liberty and property as long as their actions do not disturb others’ rights

How does Locke say about what it means to be good?

• Not violate others rights to life, liberty and property

• Leave them free to enjoy their liberty and property as they see fit

Locke and property

• We are property acquiring beings

• We enter a society to protect our property

• Claims to property derive from work → we have expended our labor & work on something that gives us a title to it

• Labor confers value and is the source of all values

Locke’s value of labor

• Accounts for ten times the amount of value that is provided by nature alone

• The value of anything is improved a thousand-fold due to labor

Locke and Property → state of nature

• The state of nature is a condition of communal ownership, given to all men in common

Locke and labor → connection to improvement

• The world was created to be improved → those who work to improve and develop nature through the labor of their body & hands are the true benefactors of mankind

  • Duty from God

• Gave this power to the industrious and rational not the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious

Locke’s opinion on ancient theories

• Disagrees with the idea that commerce/property is a subordinate to the life of a citizen

• And the belief that the economy was always subordinate to the polity

  • Plato → instituted a type of communism of property among the guardians of his kalipolis

• Find pleasure that was never enjoyed in ancient and medieval worlds → material goods, focus on pleasure that glory, honor, and virtue

Locke’s view on property/capitalism and its relation to European vs. Indigenous practices

• Viewed European practices as “improving” nature and giving it greater “value”

  • These forms of labor could grant property rights, other modes of production would not

• Viewed Indigenous as the opposite

Role of government in terms of property

• Protect of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property

• Gives back to commerce, money making, acquisition

• Seek sober, ordinary and pleasure-seeking approaches

Social contract

• Agreement pertaining to the political and moral obligations between state and individual → grants state authority over the individual and responsibility for maintaining social order

Locke’s social contract

• Individual is granted certain rights

Critiques on social contract → W. Mills

• Inherently racialized → only focuses on white people

  • States have a clear racist prioritization, that distinguishes between color, religion, and ethnicity

• Key philosophical thinkers have based their theories and concepts using a racial classificatory schema that divides people into the categories of humans and sub-humans

• White Europeans are associated with spirit, mindfulness and rationality compared to non-white who are seen as lacking cognitive power for reason, authority and governance

Mill’s theory of the racial contract → 3 claims

• White supremacy, both locally and globally, exists and has for many years

• White supremacy should be thought of as a political system

• As a political system, white supremacy can be theorized based on a contract between whites → a racial contract

Locke’s state of nature vs. Hobbes

• Locke attempted to modify Hobbes’s harsh teachings

• Hobbes emphasized the absolute fearfulness of the state of nature

• Locke sees it as a condition continually beset by unease, anxiety, and insecurities → why labor is the only way to ease ourselves

Locke’s bourgeois ascendancy

• Second Treaties is a work of the new middle class → believed the world is intended for the use of the industrious and rational

• Rules rests on not heredity or tradition, and not from its claims to nobility

• It is a class that rules nationally and internationally

• “Self made man” → has insecurities, anxieties and restlessness

Capitalist ethic and moral duty

• Weber argued that moral duty became the limitless accumulation of capital

• Moral attitude to acquire property and money

• What gives man power → similar to Machiavelli

Locke’s influence on economics

• Help build ideas of economics, and the rise of the school of political economy → foundation of Adam Smith

Locke’s reinvention of morals and politics

• Morals in to acquisition of property → gives dignity

• Government and politics into a tool for the protection of property and property rights

The idea of consent → relation to government

• Origin of all legitimate government is said to derive from consent of the government

• Idea was implicit in Hobbes’ theory of the covenant, but Locke’s gives much greater pride of place

What he believes is the ends of society

• Is comfortable, safe, and peaceful living

• Only comes when one divests himself of his natural liberty and joins civil society → agreeing with all others to join and unite in a community

The role of majority

• Whenever enough people have consented to make a single community, they make on body politic

• The majority has the right to act and conclude for the rest → legitimacy comes from the consent of the subjects

• Only governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed → Second Treaties

What form of government people should consent to

• Little on what form of government the people should consent to

Second treaties is _______ to forms of government?

• Neutral

Idea of government

• Dismisses absolute monarchy → no ceding of our rights entirely to another individual

• Is relatively open to what people may wish to consent to

Locke’s idea of consent

• Must be given at a certain age → age of discretion

• Must be given consciously, fully, rationally, in a ceremony → Oath or civil agreement

• Once given the consent to the form of government remains perpetual → people are bound by it

• One’s word is one’s bond