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Discussing John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government (1690).
What makes political power legitimate? Like Hobbes, Locke thinks that things are less than ideal without a society to keep people from killing us, so we implicitly sign a social contract giving power to the state. But for Locke, nature’s not as bad, so the state is given less power. But how much less? And what does Locke think about tea partying, kids, women, acorns, foreign travelers, and calling dibs? The part of Wes is played by guest podcaster Sabrina Weiss.
Read along with us with online or buy the book.
End song: “Lock Them Away,” by Madison Lint (2003).
Majority tules:
According to the social theoty of Rene Girard, human animals are selfishly memetic and want what someone else values. With everyone envious of scarce valuables, you get social agitation (see 10 Commandments). This ultimately leads to big problems of collective guilt which is expiated by a majority identifying a scapegoat to be banished or killed (Socrates, Jesus, animal sacrifice, animal farming, etc).
Kierkegaard’s ‘truth is in the minority’ was but one important call for correction to the problem of Locke’s empowered majority.
Remember, in a country of 100 million voters, the majority is 50,000,001. This explains our political climate of stalemate well. And this close race between majority/minority is a weapon used to control individuals, and as long as universities programs in the liberal arts and behavioral sciences, say philosophy and sociology, continue to recruit students with the lure that by studying people’s behavior you can have a lucrative career marketing anything to them…
Nicely done – I look forward to much more political philosophy. Your collective, albeit brief, foray into the US constitution was rather good, and I’d be really interested to hear an episode based on critiques of that (I’m not from the US, so I am interested, rather than emotive, on this issue).
Sabrina made a great addition, and I hope to hear more from her on future episodes, but I did miss Wes… sniff.
I also enjoyed the consideration of the US Constitution viz. Locke’s influence. For a scathing indictment of the bi-partisan reverence for said document, see historian Seth Ackerman’s commentary in the latest issue of The Jacobin: “Burn the Constitution”
http://jacobinmag.com/archive/issue2/ackerman.html
As usual an excellent podcast. One can really see, at least in comparison to your previous podcast on Kant why his metaphysics of justice moved to a more normative theory of political power. I would like to hear more modern political philosophy and critiques of utlilitarianism from you guys. I am thinkingin this case of someone like John Rawls, whose ‘veil of ignorance’ and ‘justice as fairness’, both attempt to remove the problems of utilitarianism and preserve what is good about social contract theory and Kantian normativity. In leading a Rawls reading group at our local philosophy bookstore (Red Emmas in Baltimore, http://www.redemmas.org) over the past few years, I have found that his use of game theory and modern economics to ground his theories of distributive justice, as opposed to tradtional forms of political theory that come out of a more European socialist traditon really resonates with readers as very modern and highly applicable to todays social problems.
Great work we all love these podcasts….
This was the first of your podcasts I’ve listened to. I think you’ve got me, at least for a while.
My question arises from my background as a History major (I’m an accountant; look where that got me). During the discussion of Locke, many of your criticisms seem to come from an attempt to judge the man and his writings on the basis of contemporary values. As long as I studied history and listened to people run down Jefferson and Patrick Henry and George Washington for being slaveholders, I always kept in mind that they were men of their era and thus never had the perspective of a post-slavery society. We can say all we want in 2011 that slavery is objectively wrong, but in 1690 or 1776, that idea would not get a lot of traction. We can, in hindsight, call that society inherently racist, but the men themselves did not have the guilty mind necessary for them to commit the evil act we now consider slavery to be.
Consequently, when Locke is seen to evade or seem hypocritical on the subject of slavery, I don’t think it’s an act of moral cowardice or irrationality, I think it’s because he was a man living in the late 17th century, and that’s just how people thought back then. We can say there are contradictions in his writings, but then we have to finish the thought with “that can be explained by the milieu of the times he lived in.”
And even if we note contradictions in some of his writings, I don’t think that invalidates the rest of his philosophy. The point of philosophy is not to parse a person’s writings for a fatal flaw and toss everything away when you do, is it?
Bottom line: Locke is interesting in suggesting humans own themselves and their property, suggesting limits on government power. There are more echoes of Locke in the Declaration that the most famous phrase.
Thanks for a good podcast. It was a good conversation to listen to. I plan to listen to more.
Mitch–
Thanks for joining us and for taking the time to comment. Perhaps in this episode the general approach we take didn’t come through as clearly, or perhaps since this was the first of our episodes to which you’ve listened, you aren’t as accustomed to our way of discourse.
To begin with, we always take our subject and his/her ideas seriously. Though we have fun during the discussion, we respect the thoughts and the thinker. Our goal is to examine the ideas put forth with some amount of academic rigor, but to judge them against our ‘real world’ experience and common sense. Naturally, we are going to do that with the biases of our culture, time and background.
Unless he edited it out, I distinctly remember Mark saying he didn’t care about Locke’s biography as much as his ideas. I was careful to note not that I was judging Locke about his attitude towards slavery, but only that it was a topic of academic interest what his attitude truly was and how much of the Constitution of the Carolinas could be put on him. In fact, I firmly believe that his philosophical stance comes down against the legitimacy of slavery, except in that odd circumstance where you are an unjust aggressor who loses a war.
We were not trying to trace Locke’s legacy and impact to the founding of the US as much as explore his view on the origin and legitimacy of government. No doubt he was hugely influential and his idea that humans own their own bodies and labor, as well as the separation of powers are immensely important in our intellectual history and echo strongly even to this day.
Cheers,
–seth
Just getting a clarification here, no accusations or anything. At 1:12:28 when, I think it was either, Seth or Mark said “I don’t have to imagine it I know he wrote it during the apartheid.”, were you joking or were you serious? “The apartheid”, most commonly referencing the South African apartheid, didn’t happen until the 20th century.
Otherwise another fabulous discussion. I tend to enjoy the political talk and with the rational aspirations of Locke it really helped my morning of writing code fly by. Thanks.
That was Seth, and yes, it is OK to use the term in a more general sense not referring specifically to South Africa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid.
Thanks for listening and for the comment, Justin!
On the eternal return of US (congressional!) support for apartheid: 1) http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/25/the_smallest_minds_and_cowardliest_hearts_is_congress_clapping_for_apartheid?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dde4a63afa57efb%2C0
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcG_063Ml-Q&feature=related
Excellent Podcast! I’m slowly making my way through the catalog and enjoying every one.
The discussion on mixing labor to obtain property rights gave me a flashback to the classic first-year law school property case of “Pierson v. Post” from New York. The Wikipedia summary is as follows: “Lodowick Post, a fox hunter, was chasing a fox through a vacant lot when Pierson came across the fox and, knowing it was being chased by another, killed the fox and took it away. Post sued Pierson on an action for trespass on the case for damages against his possession of the fox. Post argued that he had ownership of the fox as giving chase to an animal in the course of hunting it was sufficient to establish possession.”
Future vice-president Daniel Tompkins wrote the opinion for the court, citing Justinian’s Institutes, saying pursuit wasn’t enough to get property rights to a wild animal (Ferae naturae).
Future Supreme Court Justice Henry Brockholst Livingston wrote a dissent saying “Whatever Justinian may have thought of the matter, it must be recollected that his code was compiled many hundred years ago, and it would be very hard indeed, at the distance of so many centuries, not to have a right to establish a rule for ourselves.”
He basically wanted to encourage hunters to kill foxes, writing:
“it is admitted that a fox is a ‘wild and noxious beast.’ Both parties have regarded him, as the law of nations does a pirate, “hostem humani generis,” and although “de mortuis nil isi bonum” be a maxim of our profession, the memory of the deceased has not been spared. His depredations on farmers and on barnyards, have not been forgotten; and to put him to death wherever found, is allowed to be meritorious, and of public benefit.”
I have enjoyed many of your podcasts. The audio quality is amazing for people in different locations. I am learning much.
I find it hard to believe that 3 people of your intelligence can be so ignorant of libertarian economic philosophy. Paraphrasing; we all want clean water and air, so we need the government to deliver these goods, libertarians are stupid to think otherwise. A libertarian would remind you that all goods wanted by people would/could be delivered without a state.
Thank you,
Mike
Towards the end, one of you mentioned that you guys might do an episode about The Federalist Papers at some point. As an aspiring historian, and ridiculous Alexander Hamilton fangirl, I think that’s a great idea!
In all the talk about the “founding fathers,” people tend to forget how totally different they all were from each other. Maybe you guys could talk about Hamilton & Jefferson as political philosophers, their competing visions, theories of history, pathological hatred for each other &c. I think as the central tension in US history, the Hamilton/Jefferson conflict offers a handy lens through which to view some fundamental political questions. The founders were, I think, a lot more interesting, dangerous, and strange than almost anyone gives them credit for. It wasn’t just Republicans vs. Federalists or agriculture vs. industrialization. You have, in Hamilton and Jefferson, two people with totally opposite personalities and backgrounds, vastly different notions of the Good, who can’t even agree on the nature of reality itself, trying to run a brand new republic under the same president, without basically devolving into civil war.
You mean the *only* Alexander Hamilton fangirl, no? 🙂
This came up again while we were recording on Aristotle’s Politics. I think it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.
I’ve been working my way through the back catalog of PEL, and I was disappointed in the level of discourse in this episode. I felt you were a little dismissive of the topics expressed in this particular reading. Unlike many of the more esoteric topics covered in episodes on metaphysics, there is a great deal of practical argument in texts like Locke. Here’s hoping that you revisit political philosophy again soon. Until then, I plow on excitedly to Russell and Whitehead!
Specifics? Make a compelling argument re. something we were dismissive about.
I am only now beginning to see that this whole site and your excellent podcasts are just an elaborate facade! All so Mark can get thousands of unsuspecting philosophy geeks owning downloads of his songs, in the hope that over time we will all come to see and appreciate his musical genius. It’s really starting to work. I loved the song at the end of this episode.
His quest for fame is insatiable and knows no bounds
Regarding humans not being Rational Actors:
http://stevenpoole.net/articles/within-reason/
The present climate of distrust in our reasoning capacity finds much of its rationale in the field of behavioural economics, particularly the work by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky described in Kahneman’s bestselling Thinking, Fast and Slow. There, Kahneman divides the mind into two allegorical systems, the intuitive “System 1”, which often gives wrong answers, and the reflective reasoning of “System 2”. “The attentive System 2 is who we think we are,” he writes; but on his view it is the intuitive, biased, “irrational” System 1 that is in charge most of the time — indeed, it “is also the origin of most of what we do right.”
Other versions of the message are expressed in more strongly negative terms. You Are Not So Smart is the title of a bestselling popular book on cognitive bias. According to a widely reported study by researchers Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, reason evolved not to find “truth” but merely to win arguments. And in The Righteous Mind, the psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the idea that reason is “our most noble attribute” a mere “delusion”. The worship of reason, he adds, “is an example of faith in something that does not exist.”
Your brain, runs the prevailing wisdom, is mainly a tangled, damp and contingently cobbled-together knot of cognitive biases and fear. It’s a scientized version of original sin, whose political implications are troubling. If reasoning isn’t going to work well for you, you might as well abandon the attempt. Have you ever been told to stop “overthinking” something? Perhaps someone else will benefit if you give up.
And so there is less reason than many think to doubt humans’ ability to be reasonable. The dissenting critiques of the cognitive-bias literature argue that people are not, in fact, as individually irrational as the present cultural climate assumes. And proponents of debiasing argue that we can each become more rational with practice. But even if we each acted as irrationally as often as the most pessimistic picture implies, that would be no cause to abandon the idea that humans are a fundamentally rational species. And it would be insufficient motivation to flatten democratic deliberation into the weighted engineering of consumer choices, as nudge politics seeks to do. Public reason is nothing short of our best hope for survival. Even a reasoned argument to the effect that human rationality is fatally compromised is itself an exercise in rationality. Albeit rather a perverse one, and — we may suppose — ultimately self-defeating.
In response to the problem with our culture, I think it is do to our religious use of books and media which if you look at how a church works they make you believe their book has all the answers and so you do not have to experience anything for yourself. Media discourages experience and so we have a perspective lacking society. Ignorance spawns and spreads by people having opinions on things they know nothing about and this is highly encouraged in our society. How come if a kid started to read you history 101 you would praise him, never for a second pondering that a child could have no real understanding of history, mean while if he started spouting about penthouse letters you would understand this kid has no perspective to even speak about sex. We are moving into plato’s cave and the internet isn’t opening up the world it is becoming the world, the only one most will experience. I have yet to find a philosopher who says reading about or watching something on a screen equals having an experience.