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Life of John Locke

Political Philosophy of John Locke

Introduction

John Locke was a British philosopher who is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment. His philosophy on liberty and anti-authoritarianism was influential to the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and political leaders of the American Revolution. Many of his ideas were incorporated into the Declaration of Independence and his ideas on economics influenced Adam Smith. John Locke's philosophy was of the first to articulate the fundamental economic principles of capitalism.

In his own time, John Locke was not only a philosopher, but also a medical researcher, academic of Oxford, adviser to the British government on trade and colonies, political activist and inevitably, a revolutionary. His philosophy extended from Empiricism, which asserts the origins of knowledge are rooted in sensual experiences, to political doctrines on social contract theory (natural law, origins of civil society and government, and concepts of political power). Of his most influential works are An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Empiricism) and Two Treaties on Government (social contract theory). Other notable essays include Letters Concerning Toleration (Religion), The Reasonableness of Christianity and Some Thoughts Concerning Education.

Life of John Locke

Born on August 29, 1632, in Wrington, Britain, John Locke lived during one of the most extraordinary times in British history. The history of his time was defined by the conflicts between the British Parliament and the monarchy, as well as religious conflicts among Protestants, Anglicans, and Catholics. In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate sought the abolishment of the monarchy and the Anglican church, only to see its efforts fail upon Cromwell's death and the restoration of Charles II to the thrown. Ongoing power-struggles would ensue throughout the following decades, which would ultimately end in the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the consolidation of power under William of Orange and his wife Mary.

Locke's father was a Puritan and country lawyer who served as a captain for the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War (1642 – 1649). John Locke was exposed to a quality education through his father's associate, Alexander Popham, who was his commander. Through Popham, John Locke found his way to Westminister school in 1647, where he became a King's Scholar. However, it wasn't until 1652 that Locke was admitted into the highly competitive Christ Church in Oxford where he would receive a Bachelor of Arts degree. It was through his curriculum that Locke was exposed to both traditional Aristotelian philosophy as well as new experimental philosophies of nature and medicine.

John Locke continued his education and pursued a Master of Arts degree beginning in 1658 and became a Senior Student at the college. In 1660, he became a lecturer in Greek, and by 1663, a lecturer in Rhetoric. From there, Locke decided to become a doctor. His mentor was Robert Boyle, who was an inventor of sorts as well as a mechanical philosopher who theorized that the world could be reduced to matter in motion.

It is hard to underestimate the influence Boyle had on Locke. As his mentor, Boyle exposed Locke to new philosophies not just of his own, but of Descartes as well. This nurtured Locke's desire for philosophy that expanded far beyond Aristotle, a philosopher Locke viewed as uninspiring. Furthermore, Locke refers to Boyle in his writings and compares his genius with that of another scientist whom he admired, Sir Isaac Newton; a person whom Locke would become friends with later on in his life. In his own philosophy, Locke would incorporate many of the ideas from Boyle, Newton, and Descartes.

In 1666, John Locke's life took a drastic turn upon meeting Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the richest people in England at the time as well as the first Earl of Shaftesbury. He befriended Lord Ashley, moved to the Shaftesbury home, and became his personal physician, secretary, and political adviser.

In 1667, Locke continued his studies in medicine and met Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a profound impact on Locke's philosophical works, particularly An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At this point in time, John Locke's knowledge of medicine was not an official profession, but rather, an interest in an unofficial capacity. This knowledge was tested with his treatment of Lord Ashley's liver infection. At one point, Shaftesbury recalled that John Locke had saved his life.

In 1668, John Locke became a secretary for the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lord's Proprietors of the Carolina's. Through Locke's advisement, Lord Ashley persuaded King Charles II to make a Board of Trade and Plantations for the purpose of collecting data and studying trade with the colonies. Locke also played a vital role in advising and writing papers for Lord Ashley on monetary matters during England's currency crisis.

Over the next several years, John Locke's philosophical thinking began to truly expand. He had a meeting in 1671 in Lord Ashley's home, where he began drafting his work on the Essay. This was coupled with his experience as secretary for the Board of Trade and Plantations, which helped shape his philosophical work on economics and the origins of civil society. Lord Ashley was also a founder of the Whig movement, and he heavily influenced Locke's political ideas as well.

When Lord Ashley became Lord Chancellor in 1672, Locke became increasingly involved in politics. Much of Locke's fortunes became dependent on Lord Ashley's political success. Lord Ashley left government in 1674 and soon after, he was imprisoned. However, he was released a year later and his political fortunes changed. Lord Ashley took advantage of an alleged Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and put Charles' Catholic brother onto the thrown. This fear led to Lord Ashley expanding influence in the Parliament.

However, this good fortune did not last. After the conspiracy receded, Lord Ashley was again powerless. He was imprisoned for the second time, but was acquitted from charges of treason. Soon after, Lord Ashley's political party began to plot an insurrection in which the King and his brother would be assassinated. The plots failed and Lord Ashley was forced to flee the country. John Locke, who was closely connected to Lord Ashley, was forced into exile as well.

In 1674, when Lord Ashley had left the government, John Locke went back to school at Oxford, and he received a Bachelor of Medicine degree, which gave him a license to practice medicine in an official capacity. Locke traveled to France upon finishing his studies. It was in France that Locke furthered his philosophy, studying the religious intolerance toward Protestants there. This would help shape his thinking in his Letters Concerning Toleration. When Lord Ashley's fortunes briefly improved and his party gained power in Parliament, John Locke wrote his Two Treatises on Government, in which he rejected the authority of an absolute monarchy and advocated limited forms of government. While he was in exile in the 1680's, he finished his philosophical work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

It was after Locke's return from exile that his works were published. These publications corresponded with the events of the Glorious Revolution, where William of Orange brought a Dutch force to England and effectively removed King James II from the thrown. William and his wife Mary consolidated power in England, and this Glorious Revolution marked the point in England's history in which the Parliament took supreme power from its king. After the revolution, John Locke returned to England.

In the remaining years of his life, John Locke edited four editions of the Essay and engaged in debates with those who found his philosophy controversial, mainly Edward Stillingfleet who was Bishop of Worcester. This resulted in a series of published letters. It was during this time that Locke also wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity and Some Thoughts on Education.

In 1696, John Locke served the English government once again in an official capacity on the Board of Trade. He remained on the board until 1700. He retired in 1700 and lived for another four years at Oates. He died Sunday, October 28, 1704.

Although John Locke had a substantial influence with all of his philosophies, the American Policy Examiner will mainly keep the following review of his philosophy within the context of his Two Treatises on Government, particularly because of its importance to political philosophy and its influence on the principles which founded the United States of America.

The Political Philosophy of John Locke

When Locke wrote his Two Treatises on Government in the late 1670s, England was in the midst of a struggle between the power-wielding Crown and the subjugated Parliament. It is no secret that John Locke's allegiance was with the latter. Locke saw the monarchy as a political force that abused its authority and it inspired him to produce one of the most influential philosophical works in history.

Locke's Two Treaties foreshadowed the Glorious Revolution, which shifted the power away from the Crown and into the hands of the Parliament, the political body that represented the general public. His philosophy is one that rejected the so-called divine right of kings and embraced principles of individual freedom, which Locke explains as being naturally inherent in all men. By espousing a systematic philosophy that claimed the natural freedom of man and placing the role of government as one that protects man's freedom, Locke brought the legitimacy of an authoritarian monarch into question while claiming the Parliament as the rightful body to hold supreme political authority.

John Locke rejected the political doctrine of Sir Robert Filmer who claimed that all government is absolute monarchy and that no man is born free. Locke claims that not only does man exhibit some rights of freedom, but he claims that all men are born free. John Locke devotes his First Treatise to refute Filmer's doctrine and to set up his own philosophy of limited government and the natural freedom of man.

Locke sets up his theory by first defining political power:

"Political Power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death and, consequently, all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good." [Two Treaties, Section 3]

In order to understand how he comes to this definition, Locke first postulates the necessity of accounting for the natural state of man, evolution of civil society and finally, the purpose of the political state.

In their natural state, man is perfectly free and equal. No man is a subordinate of another and all are equally bound by the same advantages of nature, from man's natural abilities to the external world in which he finds himself in. Locke further explains that men are governed by a natural law. For only through law, he explains, are men free.

Locke defines the state of nature as “Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them.” [Two Treaties, Section 19] For Locke, the law of nature is reason. Through reason man is taught not to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. Because man is made equally, he is given similar qualities that he shares in a natural community. People have no right to destroy one another as if another was made for the purpose of one's own gain, as is the case with inferior creatures.

One who violates this natural law makes an act of war, and Locke defines war as being simply the use of force without right, without justice, and without authority. Using force against another without right violates reason, and therefore, Locke views the original state of nature as being one in which man lives peacefully with one another. Although he puts the understanding of nature and war in the context of man's original existence, Locke makes clear that even today, with civil society and governments, the state of nature and war exist. The most apparent example is government, which represent the people of a society, have no superior, and work with other governments without a common superior who has the authority to cast judgment on it.

By defining the state of nature, one can better understand its opposite: civil society. Civil society is characterized as being the state in which exists a common judge with authority to enforce laws created by the people of the society. When, within a civil state, a situation presents itself that makes the enforcement of laws impotent to the prevention of harm done to another, such as an act of robbery or terrorism, the state of war prevails. Therefore, war can still prevail within civil society.

Although situations of war occur in civil society, the civil authorities generally are capable of effectively enforcing civil laws through the existence of a common and impartial justice. What makes civil society so very different from the state of nature is this common judge. The state of nature is inadequate in bringing judgment upon aggressors because without a common and impartial judge, the aggressor has the same independence and right of judgment as the victim. Such a man is unlikely to condemn himself.

The concepts for which John Locke puts forth are quite easy for those in modern western society to understand because many western governments have been created with regard to the principles in which Locke put forth. However, important questions still remain: How did civil society come about, what is its purpose, and how does it relate to modern political affairs? These questions can be answered with one important concept: Self-preservation.

John Locke regards self-preservation as being intricately related to the state of nature. He states that every man is obligated by nature to preserve himself and to preserve mankind. And he sees both goals as necessarily the same in their purpose and their ends. On the one hand, a person whose self-preservation does not come from competition is obligated to take actions that are in adherence with the preservation of mankind's “life, liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” On the other hand, if a man kill's an aggressor through his own self-defense, the aggressors death benefits both man and mankind. He argues that his death would be both “reasonable and just” because it not only adheres to the man's own self-preservation, but it also benefits mankind because the aggressor would no longer pose a threat to others. Furthermore, Locke states that this desire for preserving one's own life and well-being is so fundamental to man's nature that it is a right whose origins come from none other than the Creator of man's existence. Because self-preservation is so fundamental to man's nature, it's very definition would have to be “reasonable behavior,” and is therefore, the central principle to the law of nature.

Because of this central principle to nature's law, self-preservation will be the determining factor to man's behavior. Because of this irrefutable fact, the creation of government must be based on reason, self-preservation, and the law of nature. Civil laws must reflect the desire of self-preservation. Therefore, the principle of self-preservation is important to understanding political power.

Before political power and government can fully be understood, the evolution from the state of nature to civil society must be explained. At the heart of the need for civil society is the concept of private property. On its face, the original nature of man would appear to be one where private property was nonexistent. Man wouldn't have considered himself to own things and of course, no thing would have had monetary value. However, upon further inquiry an argument can be made that each and every person may not have owned things, but they owned themselves. Each person had independent authority over themselves and no other person could rightfully take ownership of them.

Furthermore, Locke explains that the state of nature was one that satisfied the needs of mankind. The resources of the world were infinite while the population of mankind was relatively scarce. Because of this, a fruit taken by a person from a tree will have no affect on other people; if others want fruit, then there is more than enough for them to take. In fact, there would be such an over abundance that most of the resources would be “wasted” and recycled back to the earth.

Although this overabundance of resources would seem to make everything valueless, upon further investigation, it becomes apparent that resources cannot be made usable without man's labor. Whether it be picking an apples, hunting for food, or cultivating land to make crops, labor is involved in making the use of produce possible. Although land was originally common to all, the labor man does in order to produce crops and necessary products for living is not common, but rather, private. Thus, what made land of value was not the land itself, but the labor involved in the production of things.

Therefore, Locke established two original modes of private property: one's own person and one's own labor. Although there was an overabundance of resources, the low population of people made the labor involved in making resources usable scarce and of great value. Through reason, Locke concludes, one who labors over land becomes entitled to it.

In determining what is of value, the abundance of resources, the scarcity of labor, and the quality of the product, all are configured in determining the worth of the said product. Thus, John Locke presented an early form of the law of supply and demand. Furthermore, the determination of value for things naturally led to a progression in agriculture and a desire to produce more than was necessary for one's own family. By producing more than one could consume, man began to trade, but trade was still limiting. A gradual progression from trade to the invention of money resulted.

Through the invention of money, an economic stagnation which characterized the natural state evolved into an increase in economy and standard of living. However, in order to increase, it became necessary for a uniform standard to be implemented for valuing products. Locke suggests the use of gold and silver eventually became the resource in which uniform value was given. The development of money and the need for uniform standards for valuing products led to man coming into agreements to live together in communities, and hence, a political entity.

The invention of value brought with it the ending of man's natural state. Because money made it possible for people to produce more than necessary, it gave them greater economic worth. Because some were able to produce more than others, they became less equal. However, the economy of communities created an increase in standards of living. Therefore, those who were worth less than others still found civil society attractive because even though they were not as economically valuable in comparison to others, they were much better off in comparison to living in their natural state. Thus, the origins of civil society were purely economical.

Although nature is constant and is incapable of increase, through man's labor such increase is made possible. With this increase of economic growth, monetary development, and the gradual increase in inequality of power, new conditions for living emerged. These conditions of labor were separated from property ownership and as a measure for value. Once nature ceased as being a determining factor of man's condition and was no longer sufficient to protect the increase in property and value of possessions, man was driven into a society that must make laws to replace ones that at one time were left to the dictates of nature. It was the desire of self-preservation and the preservation of one's property that was the catalyst for civil governance.

According to Locke, the chief end for governing states is the preservation of property. However, when Locke discusses property, he is not just referring to land, but rather, all that man possesses, which includes his life, his liberty, as well as his estate. This philosophy is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence, which declares man's God-given natural right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The government's role is to preserve these rights.

In order to achieve the preservation of man's property, three objectives must be met: the authority for establishing laws, the authority for impartial justice and interpretation of established laws, and the authority for due execution of laws. Political society is created for the purpose of meeting these objectives.

In order for political society to achieve these objectives, the natural powers of man (self-preservation, preservation of mankind, and the power to punish crimes committed against the natural law) must be transferred to the political society. Thus, through a compact these natural powers become political powers. However, one must not mistake political power for being absolute power. If the political society fails in its purpose of preserving the life, liberty and estates of the citizens for which it represents, the powers with which the government has can no longer be considered “political powers.” By becoming subordinates to the governing body, citizens are reduced to being less than what was given to them naturally, and by reason, cannot be considered authorized power. Furthermore, tyranny must not be considered civil government because it fails to reflect natural law and be consistent with the preservation of society.

By overstepping its authorized power and by failing in its duties to preserve society, man retains his natural rights and is considered to be at war with the government because the government is considered to have used force without right. This gives justification to the right of citizens to rebel against such governments. This principle of Locke's philosophy is also reflected in the American Declaration of Independence, which states:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [ the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ...”

Therefore, the supreme power in any civil society ultimately lies with the people; governments power is authorized by the citizens and therefore, political sovereignty (political power and independence) is retained by the citizens. Furthermore, because of the defined role government has in preserving the rights of the citizens, the nature of its power is strictly limited. A government whose power is not limited, is not legitimate.

The political sovereignty of a society is best understood in the form of government that reflects the will of its citizens. Locke argues that all governments are founded on majority consent and therefore, the sovereignty is retained through “majority rule.” Locke uses a concept of greater force to describe the way in which governments function. When a society best reflects the natural state of man, a state of equality, the will of the majority of citizens will naturally hold the greater force and be the decider in the fate of the society as a whole. However, this greater force may not necessarily be a majority of citizens because in civil society citizens are not equal. Therefore, if the society is more unequal, those who hold the greatest power may be the deciders of the societies fate. So long as the government does not exceed its purpose, its internal makeup can range from a democratic republic to a monarchy.

However, John Locke clearly adheres to principles of separation of powers. He argues that the supreme power of government lies with the legislature. The legislature makes the laws that represent the rules for preservation and the will of citizenry. The power of the executive is to enforce the laws created by the legislature, and to represent the political body on the international stage. Although a judiciary is necessary for the interpretation of the law, Locke does not give it a separate branch, but maintains that the judicial powers lie with the legislature. Locke believed that the separation of powers was necessary because the temptation of power involved in not only making law but executing them as well was too great to leave in the hands of one body.

Lastly, the executive's purpose on the international stage is to represent and protect the citizens of the society. There is no representative body bigger than the state and therefore, states live in the state of nature; there are no governing authorities over the sovereign states. Because no law is adequate to regulate states, societies must always be prepared for war with hostile neighbors. The greatest way to preserve society from these hostile neighbors who use force without right is through increase. By expanding ones powers through economic increase, the state is more capable of providing what is necessary of the defense of the society.

The principles of John Locke's philosophy can be found throughout American society. Locke's principles of economics are fundamental in the free-market that defines the American economy. The principles of natural rights inspired the American Revolution and the foundations of the United States as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. The form of government dictated in the American Constitution adheres to Lockean principles of limited government and separation of powers. Lastly, America's drive for power economically and politically represents Locke's belief that society must increase in order to gain power and better protect the natural rights of the citizens that it represents. For these reasons and for the influence his philosophy had on the thinking of America's founding fathers, John Locke is often referred to as America's philosopher.

Primary Sources: Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960.
                  American Declaration of Independence

Secondary Sources: Robert A. Goldwin's essay "John Locke" printed in History of Political Philosophy, edited by Joseph Cropsey and Leo Strauss, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987.