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Topic for #37: John Locke on Legitimate Powers

March 30, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

What gives a government the right to rule over its citizens? John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government (1689) says that government requires the real (though often implicit) consent of the people, which means it has to be in the people's interest. Unlike Hobbes, Locke thinks that the state of nature (i.e. the alternative to having a government) isn't completely chaotic and without normativity.

In the state of nature, basic laws of fairness apply (i.e. because God created us all equally, though maybe you don't strictly need that rationale to argue Locke's point), and for Locke, this includes ideas about familial rights and responsibilities (parents don't have absolute dominion over their kids but have the responsibility to guide and care for them until they're independent), land ownership (if you work the land, it's yours by right), property (you can legitimately trade things, and so, for example, collect vast hoards of gold if people around you find that stuff valuable and are willing to give it to you in exchange for things), inheritance (your property goes to those in your family you designate), and justice (each and every one of us has the right to kill those who "make war" on us, even preemptively).

All this social stuff is there for us, says Locke, before government enters the picture, so when we buy into the social contract, we're really only giving up this right to execute justice in exchange for getting an authority which can decide our disputes and act as our emissary to other governments. This doesn't give government the right over our lives (unless we break the law and "make war" on the society) or our property (though the government can tax us if it legitimately represents us), and if government officials overstep the authority given to them and act in any way against the common good, so that we as citizens would be better off not having accepted the social contract that put them in power, then they're no longer government officials, meaning we can deal with them the same way we would any private individual in the state of nature who transgresses.

We'll be trying to distinguish here between those parts of this obviously attractive to us as Americans, i.e. nobody likes tyranny, and those parts of both his argument and his resultant system that are just plain goofy.

Read along with us with the free online text or buy the book.

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Filed Under: General Announcements Tagged With: John Locke, philosophy podcast, political philosophy, social contract

Comments

  1. Tom McDonald says

    March 30, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    Mark wrote: “Unlike Hobbes, Locke thinks that the state of nature (i.e. the alternative to having a government) isn’t completely chaotic and without normativity.”

    It’s interesting to note how this question (about the ‘state of nature’) would seem to turn on whether human nature is given or made in the socializing process. In other words, does nature limit the variation of human norms or not?

    In the United States it pretty much follows that if you are a right-leaning libertarian or conservative you answer the former, whereas if you are a left-leaning libertarian or a progressive you answer the latter.

    Isn’t it also interesting, and ironic, that this means Locke, the Enlightenment liberal, now appeals more to the Right, whereas Hobbes’s position has become the view of the postmodern Left.

    I think we have to take a long-term view on this question. In the very, very, very long run human norms obviously are obviously very plastic or variable as progressives claim, since they had to appear or develop out of a pre-historical situation, and we could imagine that in a distant future people could evolve to be very, very different than we are today. However, if we are pragmatic realists I believe we have to grant that some of our human norms are shaped by natural givens which are not going to change all that much in ours or near future lifetimes.

    Looking forward to the podcast!

    Cheers,
    Tom

    Reply
  2. Jesse says

    April 3, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    Hope you guys get a chance to discuss modern libertarian (both left and right leaning) and “market anarchist” extensions of Lockean theory: Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Hans Hermann Hoppe, Roderick T. Long, Anthony de Jasay, Robert Nozick, David Friedman, Kevin Carson, David Gordon, et al.

    Can’t wait for this episode!!

    Reply
  3. Larry Wagner says

    April 13, 2011 at 11:57 pm

    It is interesting to look at the way in which the Lockean view of land ownership influenced the way in which early, and even current, American view the rights of land in their dealings with Native Americans. As Mark states, Locke basically says that a land ownership was basically based off of whether it was being worked or not. Native notions of usefulness of land, and even the ownership of the land were significantly different. It was only a matter of time that conflicts would arise.

    As for what comes first, the norms and then contractualism, or contractualism and then norms, is a difficult question to answer, Locke clearly holds the prior. Abstracting away from Lockes’ reliance on God to hold his theory together, Darwall, in The Second-Person Standpoint, attempts to give an account for the normative interpersonal relations that exist pre-contractually. While it is by no means, at least in my opinion, a fully convincing argument, Darwall does have a lot to say that could be supportive of the Second Treatise.

    Reply

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