Locke in Wikipedia, Sanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Glorious Revolution of 1688
Locke was born in Somerset, England to a Puritan family. His father was a country lawyer and justice of the peace who had fought on parliament's side in the English Civil War. Locke attended Westminster school in London, then Oxford University. But he preferred the modern philosophy of the 17th century to the scholastics taught at Harvard. Locke studied medicine and was a doctor through most of his life.
In 1666, he met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for a liver infection. Cooper was impressed with Locke when Locke successfully operated on his liver and persuaded Locke to become part of his retinue. Locke would become the tutor of Shaftesbury's grandson, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury who would become a philosopher himself.
Locke went to Holland for several years when Cooper fell from grace with the King and Locke was suspected in the Rye House plot. In Holland, Locke mingled with some of Spinoza's radical Protestant friends. During 1680s Locke's politics became increasingly liberal. Although Locke kept his views quiet, his liberalism was suspected.
After the Glorious Revolution, Locke returned to England with Mary, William of Orange's wife and the new Queen of England. Locke's political writings were written for the English public, not for legal experts. They were published anonymously after he returned to England. They were seen as a justification for the Revolution and the basis for the English Bill of Rights.
British "Common Sense" philosophy:
William of Ockham (1287 - 1347)
Scottish Enlightenment (18th century) David Hume, Adam Smith
Jeremy Bentham (18th - 19th century)
John Stuart Mill (19th century)
A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell
20th/21st century "analytic philosophy"
Epistemology:
Major Work: Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
Tabla Rasa - The mind is a blank slate which experience writes on (no innate ideas). Locke's theory troubled later philosophers who believed Locke had undermined a shared rationality between humans that prohibited a commonality of mankind.
The mind as tabla rasa was problematic for philosophers following Locke. It seemed to deny that humans had any underlying commonality or universal understanding, most problematically in the areas of ethics and social arrangement (government). The idea that there was some type of "natural sociability" between humans was as old as the ancient Greeks and had carried through the medieval scholastics. While many early modern philosophers were happy to discard Aristotle's physics and metaphysics, his claim that man was, by nature, a "political animal" who thrived in a social setting was harder to denounce. Along with Hobbes' and Grotius' idea that man was intrinsically self-interested, Locke's tabla rasa painted a bleak picture of the human situation for philosophers that followed him. Voltaire said that Locke "in rightly challenging innate ideas, seems to believe that there are no universal principles in the world."
The main response was the development of a shared emotional disposition ("pity", empathy, moral sentiment) developed in the works of Samuel Pufendorf, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, the Scotsmen Francis Hutchinson, David Hume, Adam Smith and French philosophes like Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
John Locke's Theory of Knowledge
1. How to evaluate the certainty of my ideas.
2. How to evaluate the legitimacy of my assertions.
3. Rejects that truths can be "self-evident;" all truths need to be demonstrated
4. Innate ideas would have to be universal (they would exist in every mind, in every place, throughout time). Locke gives examples that this is not so. American Indians, children, idiots.
5. Even if an idea had universal consent, this would not prove the idea was innate.
Ideas:
1.A. Simple ideas: impressions made on our minds by the sensations of objective qualities of objects in external reality that the mind receives passively.
1.B. Accompanying simple ideas: Simple ideas that come along with basic simple ideas: pain, pleasure, causation (cause and effect), existence.
2. Even though Locke denies innate ideas, he believes the mind has active "natural operations;" built-in processes or functions:
a. It can distinguish and compare simple ideas from sensory input.
b. It can abstract ideas from sensory input.
c. It can retain ideas (memory), call them back into consciousness for further thought (reflect on them) through the mind's natural operations.
d. It can combine simple ideas to make complex ideas. There are complex ideas of
1. substances - a sheep / flock of sheep
2. modes:
simple - e.g. quantity
mixed - e.g. obligation, a lie, murder, gratitude, beauty
3. relations - whiter, brighter, hotter, faster, larger
Primary and secondary qualities:
Primary (objective) qualities are perceived by two or more senses, such as sight and touch. Size, shape and motion are the three primary qualities. Primary qualities cannot be removed from their possessor.
Secondary (subjective) qualities a perceived by only one sense. They include color, sound, tastes, and heat. A secondary quality is nothing but a power to produce a sensation in us.
Locke's theory has many problems. For example...
1) the shape of an object can be changed and an object can go from in motion to a state of rest. Therefore, primary qualities can be removed from their possessor.
2) to be poisonous is having the power to produce a sensation in us. Yet, whether something is poisonous can be determined objectively.
Personal Identity:
What makes a person the same person throughout time? Locke argued it was not the physical body or having the same soul, but continuity of memory. Personal identity goes to the issue of moral and social responsibility, and punishment for crimes.
Plutarch's Ship of Theseus
Locke's Political Philsophy:
Major Work: Two Treatises on Government (1689) (online text)
The State of Nature and Natural Law
The state of nature is a "condition of perfect freedom."
What is human nature like in the absence of authority?
The state of nature is not an amoral condition that generates war (as in Hobbes), there are moral laws in Locke's state of nature. Locke's natural law dictates the peace and preservation of all mankind.
Natural Law is what we must obey; Natural Rights are what we are entitled to.
Locke's Natural Rights: Equal rights to life, liberty, and private property
Locke's Natural Law: Do not interfere with another's rights. Preserve peace and help those who cannot provide for themselves. Locke argued that nature was a product of divine workmanship.
In the state of nature, a person has the right to appropriate goods and services from someone, (or even kill them) who has broke the law of nature and stolen from or otherwise harmed you.
Scholars debate whether Locke's theory of natural law one of duties and obligations to preserve mankind, or do natural rights that makes the highest priority one of self-preservation?
Property:
For Locke, humans are a property acquiring animal. First, we are born with a property in ourselves, we are property. Second, when a person adds his labor to something in nature, the result becomes our property. People have a natural right to property; government is established to protect this right. Locke said that God gave the world to the "rational and the prosperous," not the "quarrelsome and contentious." Locke suggests that commerce is God's favored plan for man and Locke's government secures God's plan. (This is in conflict with both Plato, Aristotle, and Medieval philosophers who maintained that property was a subordinate aim of government).
Early in Locke's chapter on property, he suggests that the accumulation of property is limit to its use and against its spoilage. But as he goes on, money makes possible the acquisition of "property" beyond what can be used. ("The protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property is the first obligation of government." James Madison, Federalist Paper #10.) Locke's view of the right to the mass accumulation of property will influence the laissez faire philosophy of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776).
Locke's philosophy of government replaces old notions of nations based on glory, honor and virtue with a more sober practicality. He believed that commerce softens men's inclinations for war and violence. Locke's theories champions the rising middle class.
Government:
For Hobbes, the state of nature was violent and a source of continual dread. For Locke, the state of nature is basically good, but conflicts often shatter the peace. These conflicts are inconvenient.
Government is needed to settle disputes over property rights that cannot be resolved in the state of nature.
Limited government as opposed to Hobbes' absolute sovereign.
Separation of powers: executive and legislative branch.
Consent:
"MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest."
Locke appears only to be saying that the majority of people decide what form of government to form; he is not necessarily arguing for democracy.
Explicit - a person is not born a citizen of Locke's government. At the "age of discretion," one must give a "mark" (an oath?) of ascent to the government.
Tacit - Anyone who enjoys the protection of government has given her tacit consent to the government. But how does one know who has consented? Locke never resolves this problem.
Restrained/Limited Government
Constitutional government - rule of law, not rule of the sovereign
Legislature branch - The law making branch. The primary (strongest) branch.
The Executive branch - carries out the will of the legislature. The executive does have "Godlike powers" when it comes to matters of war. The executive can transcend positive law in cases of emergency. Locke asks what limits there are to this, but does not answer his question.
Tyranny and Revolution:
"AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a
right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no
body can have a right to. And this is making use of the power any one
has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for
his own private separate advantage. When the governor, however intitled,
makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions
are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people,
but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any
other irregular passion."
Make an "appeal to heaven" = throw a revolution
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Other Works by Locke:
A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689.
(1690) A Second Letter Concerning Toleration
(1692) A Third Letter for Toleration
Religious toleration was much debated in Holland during Locke's stay and in October 1685 Louis XIV of France Revoked the Edict of Nantes that had guaranteed religious toleration for French Protestants.
Unlike Hobbes, who saw uniformity of religion as the key to a well-functioning civil society, Locke argues that more religious groups actually prevent civil unrest. Locke argues that civil unrest results from confrontations caused by any magistrate's attempt to prevent different religions from being practiced, rather than tolerating their proliferation. Locke's primary goal is to "distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion." He claims that government is instituted to promote external interests, relating to life, liberty, and the general welfare, while the church exists to promote internal interests, i.e., salvation. The two serve separate functions, and so, must be considered to be separate institutions.
(1693) Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Locke was influential in advancing the idea of teaching reasoning (critical thinking). Teaching children virtue was another of his main tenets. He advised parents to be careful about what ideas children were exposed to from infancy on during the mind's development period.
(1695) The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures
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