Joe Greathouse
John Locke, the “great definer”, describes liberty as the power to do what one wishes in the interest of preserving property and well-being. Reason, the key to survival; to look past one’s individual needs in order to see the outweighing needs of society, which beckon the individual to join for reciprocal benefits. Man, not unlike most beasts, is naturally inclined to preserve himself through reason and to be subject to God’s and only God’s will and to oppose any other subjugation. It is within man’s best interest to sacrifice certain liberties in order to reap the benefits of an organized, civil society.
Men have two powers in the law of nature
1.The power to do whatever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself, and others within the permission of the law of nature.
2.The power to punish the crimes committed against that law.
Men have three wants, which, if met, can persuade them to relinquish these natural powers to some degree for the benefit of the community.
1.Common Law agreed by all members and the common measure to differentiate between right and wrong.
2.The Indifferent Judge with authority to determine those differences according to the established law.
3.Power to back and support the sentence and give it due execution.
Locke defines a community as only a place where “any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public,” and continues to elaborate that “there and there only is a political, or civil society.” A group of people living as individuals each according to the law of nature, or each doing whatever he may in order to preserve himself is the absence of a body politic called an anarchy. A group of people living as individuals under the will of some other individual besides God or nature is called a despotism.
The form of despotism in which one ruler, who has inherited the role through family lineage, rules undisputedly in a civil society is called a monarchy. The role of the monarch is to protect his public, most of whom are born under his rule, from invaders and criminals. Historically, the decision of what is best for the society should never be left in the hands of one powerful individual, but in the majority of the members of that society instead. While individuals are easily corrupted by power, a distribution of that power among a proportionate few of the population can limit the amount of damage done by such corruption. Practically speaking, the throne of oligarchic power is all too often subject to blood-feuding. The assassination or usurpation of a King can put a large and powerful community under the rule of a weak, irrational or dishonorable ruler.
The republic, a government controlled directly by the members of society, is preferable to a despotism. A monarch doesn’t need to obtain honor or reason in order to rule, the kingdom and it’s people are inherited by him and his ancestors. Whereas the people, if awarded the privilege to select their own rulers as in the republic, will be less likely to choose those candidates that are without honor, reason and strength.
During John Locke’s time, to speak unfavorably of the ruling monarch was considered treason, punishable by imprisonment and death. It was “as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity.” Inequality is the trademark of despotic power, and the chief monarch in such a political body may continue accumulating power and property within that community at the expense of it’s members until their well being is so threatened that they become slaves, criminals or enemies of it. In order to represent the well-being of the whole civil society, its leaders must also be subject to the common law. In regards to the common law: all members of that society must be treated as equals.
This critical element of equality, which is necessary for any fair and civil social structure to function is not to be taken too literally. “Though I have said above that all men by nature are equal,” Says Locke “I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age or virtue may give men a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level: birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due: and yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another; which was the equality I there spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that every man has, to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man.” Men are obviously unequal in liberty, the powers of self-preservation and power to punish those others who threaten their well-being or property, but all have equal right to pursue their own self preservation, which is natural law. If a political body denies that right to it’s members, they become slaves to that government.
Liberty is the power one wields in achieving survival and well-being, whereas the right to self preservation is permission by God to want for such privileges; to have law, justice and power. “All men would be necessarily equal,” Says Voltaire “if they were without needs. It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not the inequality which is the real misfortune, it is the dependence. It matters very little that so-and-so calls himself “his highness,” and so and so “his holiness” but to serve the one or the other is hard.” Knowing this, it would be foolish to suggest that those born in poverty have the liberty to be wealthy no matter how badly they want to be. If the poor wished to be poor, they have the liberty to do so, but the wealthy are have liberty to be either poor or wealthy.
Liberty is, therefore, the power of being able to satisfy those wants which promote self-preservation. Since the poor are not at liberty to be wealthy, they should naturally want a system of laws, fair judgment, and the power to enforce those laws as much as the wealthy should have such wants to protect themselves from criminals who should seek to take their property. The resulting system prevents those who are at war with the community, or criminal who has refused to join it, from enslaving, killing, or in any way threatening the livelihood of those members who are otherwise easily subjugated.
Locke’s second treatise of government presumes that members within that civil society, born under a state of natural equality, exercise a level of reason which separates them from the criminal and anarchist, who refuse to relinquish executive powers in exchange for social benefits. Locke says “The freedom then of man…is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.” Those people who are unable to reason, that is: those who refuse to submit to the will of others, have no real share in civil society.
If no paternal figure has cultivated such reason in the individual, and the child born into that society has no other tutor in this regard, it should be taken upon by the state to educate them. “Children, I confess are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it” Locke says. Children are born not as individuals, but property of a master with the potential of becoming members of society. If they are unable to achieve that level of reason which qualifies them as productive members of society, they are simply denied the benefits of such a political body “and so”, Locke adds, “ lunatics and idiots are never set free from the government of their parents.”
All men are created equal except lunatics, idiots and children, and any other member of society who acts without reason, that is: acting in the interest of their own preservation at the expense of other members of the community. Locke’s weak connection between liberty and reason enables animals and other beings, particularly those mammals considered to be of exceptional intelligence and reasoning ability such as gorillas and dolphins, to be accepted as potential members of a cooperative, civil society.
Locke implies that children are the born property of their parents, but never attempts to clarify how or when the child develops reason, only that “the law allows the son to have no will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or guardian, who is to understand for him.” There is an implied duration in which the father fills in, but he provides very little insight toward the progressive implantation of reason in the individual. The burden on the parents, and on society in general, is to interrupt the passions and many instincts of the individual that conflict with the interests of the many. Only when a stronger, contradictory idea determines the activity of their body can the individual achieve Locke’s definitive “reason.”
This contradictory idea which has the power to override the natural state of self preservation in favor of society as a whole is, at least for the young: the lawful accumulation of property and wealth. For the older members of society this liberty is the power of piety; wealth and prestige being passed down to future generations that preserves life. Those children who inherit such wealth from their parents are equipped with reason insofar as it allows them to exploit their inheritance. “He who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind” says Locke. The son who receives a wholesome inheritance also inherits the political responsibilities which surround that inheritance. They have as much interest in becoming productive members of society as their parents did.
Money, Land and Children, until they reach the arbitrary age of entering into the commonwealth, are all included in Locke’s definition of property. “The great and chief end, therefore,” says Locke “of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.” The power to raise children in a civilized community is both in the overall best interest of its members, who are responsible for the child’s adherence to the will of the civil society so as not to become an enemy or criminal of it, and to the parent themselves, whose offspring represents self-preservation on a large scale.
Locke’s “reason” itself; the appeal to the individual for abandoning certain natural rights for the greater good, is not enough to rationally relinquish power from individual’s experiencing an abundance of property and wealth, regardless of it’s affect on the community, when in conflict with natural law.
Acts in favor of the commonwealth at the expense of the individual’s welfare only truly take place in a unbalanced, civil society when there is considerable reason to believe that the act will reciprocate. Needless to say, these cases are rare. Education by paternal authorities leading to better understanding of the community’s goals and effective reasoning by all of it’s members and altruistic acts by those who possess an abundance of wealth or property are two extremely conditional and foundational aspects upon which Locke’s philosophy is built.
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