Locke's Political Philosophy

§. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

British Journal for The History of Philosophy, 2006

In the 17 th century when England was politically unstable many people had a conviction that only a monarch with unchallenged power can preserve the country. Thus, there was a consensus on the need for stability and a strong sovereign (Rudolph 3). However, others voiced their concern about the doctrine of divine rights of kings and developed the idea that governments were authorized with power to protect people's natural rights. Some thinkers even went further and empowered people with the right to resist unjust government. John Locke was among those distinguished thinkers who made a major shift in political discourse from silent obedience to the rulers to justified resistance. In his " Two Treatises of Government " Locke discusses the creation of a legitimate government, builds " the most thorough and extensive conception of the natural moral rights of persons presented by any of the classical philosophers " (Simmons 3) and explains the conditions that are necessary and sufficient for resisting the government. As John Dunn states, the book " is a work principally designed to assert a right of resistance to unjust authority, a right, in the last resort, of revolution " (90).

Political philosopher John Locke stood at the beginning of the classical liberal tradition that has shaped Western discourse throughout modernity, emphasising an unprecedented primacy of the freedom and equality of the autonomous individual, leading to the development of notions such as tolerance, secularism, and human rights. The question central to this paper is to what extent Locke’s political philosophy is predicated on Christian theological commitments, and if a bracketing of this religious background could still result in a purely secular but recognisably Lockean political philosophy. Through a close analysis of several parts of Locke’s bibliography, this paper argues that Locke’s theological commitments are foundational for his political philosophy and that the bracketing of such commitments inevitably leads to unintelligibility of this philosophy. Subsequently, Locke’s thought is placed wider historical context, to see how modern notions such as human rights, equality of humans, and secularism are often deeply rooted in Christian thought.

The Review of Politics 77, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 1-22.

This paper aims to illuminate the ongoing significance of Locke's political philosophy. It argues that the legitimacy of political authority lies, according to Locke, in the extent to which it collaborates with individuals so as to allow them to be themselves more effectively, and in its answerability to the consent such individuals should thereby give it. The first section discusses how the free will inevitably asserts its authority; the second shows the inevitability of the will's incorporation of authority as a kind of prosthesis, which in turn transforms the operation of the will; and the third treats the issue of consent, arguing that Locke is less interested in explicit acts of consent than in the norm of consent, in answerability to which structures of authority should be shaped so as to honor the beings whose capacity to consent is definitive for them.

Locke’s literature has three key concepts, particularly developed in Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. They are as follows: Absolutism (in the sense of the Divine Rights of Monarchy, presented by Sir Robert Filmer, and Leviathan by Hobbes; Liberty derived from the preservation of Natural Rights in Lockean Commonwealth; and the sanctity of Private property. Finally, in A Letter Concerning Toleration, he devises a mechanism to keep the state’s affairs and religion apart.

2023

Nowadays, the idea that man as such has rights is almost evident. It is also clear that these rights must not be infringed by others and above all by those who hold political authority. The contemporary debate concerns rather what these rights consist of or what their content is. Even autocratic regimes pay the kind of homage that vice pays to virtue by making hypocritical statements that they violate in practice. There is even a paradoxical correlation: the more declarations of human rights a regime subscribes to, the more likely it is that serious violations of these rights will occur. It is hard for us to imagine that man as such has not always been considered a subject of rights. The ancients, however, did not recognize the rights of man as a man, but only as a citizen. Medieval and even modern people throughout the Ancien Régime thought that rights depended on the body politic, the stance in office or “the corporation” to which one belonged; we can best describe them as “privileges.” Obviously, there are great difficulties in explaining the basis and even the nature of the actual rights that man has as a man, as it may seem that, in the absence of some basic social institutions or civic framework, their content cannot be specified. This is why some think that without a minimum of social context these human rights are as mythical as witches and unicorns. Even these thinkers, however, do not deny that men are holders of rights; they just uphold that rights presuppose a historical and political framework. How is it possible that, suddenly, man became an obvious subject of rights? To understand this, it is important to note that there was a radical shift in emphasis in seventeenth-century political philosophy. Before, citizens had, both in moral life and in civic life, certain natural duties, but from then onwards man was mostly the undeniable holder of certain rights. Natural duties were those precepts of natural law that had been identified by the medievals. For example, when Thomas Aquinas considers what the precepts of natural law are, he begins by saying that they are found when, through practical reasoning about what is good for us, we realize that it is good to live rather than to die, or develop our capabilities instead of not doing so. There is thus a natural precept about the preservation of life and there are also various precepts concerning what is necessary for our well-being as human beings, such as living in harmony with others in our community. This is different from saying that we have a natural right to live rather than die, or a natural right to seek our own well-being. It is, above all, very different from saying that the justification of political society is that political society safeguards our natural rights instead of merely allowing us – as social creatures by nature – to fulfill our natural duties to others and to God. This difference is inaccurately described by those who qualify modern rights as “subjectivist” or “individualist”, as they are concerned with emphasizing the freedoms and entitlements of the individual against the rival forces of authority, other individuals and, ultimately, man’s natural state. It is one possible way of describing the difference between the moderns and the ancients, but not the most accurate. Not everyone recognizes the novelty of rights. Some find the idea so self-evident that they find it difficult to admit that it is not very ancient, not to say eternal, and retrospectively discover man’s natural rights where we find above all natural duties arising from natural law. Indeed, there are at least three ways of blurring the difference between natural duties arising from natural law and the new modern natural rights. The first consists in confusing a natural right with what is permissible and not punishable in certain circumstances, such as taking what is necessary for subsistence, or resisting aggressive forces. A second way is to judge that certain moral injunctions, such as giving alms or the prohibition against murder, correspond to a natural right, like the right to assistance or to life. A third confusion is to see natural rights in what are natural obligations—for example, as if the duty to obey God before men was a right to rebellion. This shift occurred in the seventeenth century. However, rights and duties are very different and to better understand this difference we need, at the very least, a genealogy of the shift in emphasis from natural duties (which emerge from natural law) towards natural rights (which emerge from man’s natural state). When does this start? Was it already with the medievals, or even earlier, with the Roman jurists? Nothing is more difficult than dating a major change in ideas. Whatever the case, the shift in emphasis from natural duties to natural rights can be said to be consummated when the role of political authority becomes that of securing the natural rights of man. It is obvious that the change took place during this process. Currently, political discourse and even conversation among citizens proceed as if it was evident that human rights must be untouchable, or at least that they “trump” other considerations. We also assume that a political authority that systematically violates human rights is detestable and illegitimate and must be removed. Hobbes is perhaps the originator of this shift in emphasis from duties to rights, but Locke is the first to argue that the new natural rights that man has as such by his nature are not lost in civil life. If we never lose them, this imposes severe limits on the scope of governmental action. Locke is therefore the first theorist in the modern tradition of limited government and the inalienable rights of man.

In order to read the ancient political and historical literature; there are two major approaches; historical and philosophical. Hence, Philosopher John Locke contributed at a larger scale in the development of the political philosophy especially his interpretation of the social contract and legal perspective opened the new chapters for discussion and debate. Today, the writings of John Locke are relevant in the contemporary discussion of political philosophy. For instance, the grounds of political obligation, democracy, limits of power of government, and the circumstances in which revolution is morally acceptable. On the other hand, his second treatise is significant to understand the contemporary political theory and political philosophy. It is morally justifiable for the people to embrace upon all armed rebellion against those, who claimed to be their government. Locke’s second treatise on government was published after the glorious revolution of 1689 — when king James-II was overthrown by King William and Queen Marry. He was the secretary to Earl of the Shaftsbury and brought a bill to the parliament to prevent Charles-II to succeed the throne but in response Charles-II dissolved the parliament that later led to an outright rebellion against King Charles-II.