Locke One of the Single

Locke

One of the single most influential characters in the history of nation building is John Locke. His theories and writings demonstrate a basis for support of actions that had already been taken to eliminate monarchical rule as well as in the development of doctrine for new nations that came from such changes. This work will be a summation of the three foundational principles associated with Locke and his works; social contract theory, natural rights theory and Locke's express concerns regarding the need for the separation of religion and state. Most of the concepts regarding these three theoretical motivations can be found in Locke's seminal work, the Second Treatise of Government though the First Treatise on Government, (in which he discusses the falsehood of divine monarchical rule) and the Letter on Toleration (in which he discusses the concept of religious tolerance and the bilateral separation of religion and state) also contain crucial information regarding Locke's beliefs and theories.

Locke's ideas were not necessarily independent to other ideas of the time his name as become synonymous with both the term social contract theory and natural rights theory. His Second Treatise on Government has become the seminal work of the period regarding the impetus for the institutional adoption and changes that are indicative of the development of the U.S. government. According to Locke the development of government was in many ways a positive outgrowth of social situations that furthered the success of nation and individual as a result of the protections and rights that the nation afforded the individual, in addition to those he or she was born with. For the most part there is a rather simple way to explain Locke's arguments; his natural rights theory claimed that there are rights which the individual is born with and therefore has the right to defend and uphold, his social contract theory on the other hand claims that the individual came together in a group and decided that the natural order was not everything he needed and therefore he ceded some of his rights to a government. "The state of nature is where people are "without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them."

Brown points out rather eloquently that Locke's theory of consent of the governed or even natural rights was nothing terribly new, but that he stepped away from the crown as the central authority (i.e. perpetual power) and contended that each generation had the right to consent or de-consent from the government that was formed prior to his or her time at any time in the existence of the government.

Social Contract Theory

Social contract theory, according to Locke offered each individual and group the right to form government based on the consensus of the needs of the group. The group according to Locke, comes together and decides that the state of nature is not the ideal state of society, as there is no common overriding justice, or ability of one individual to decide disputes and therefore disputes frequently end in violence. From this consensus the group forms a government that at its core has the responsibility to decide disputes in a civil and fair manner. "Force and violence are the terms which appear throughout the book as the vehicles of disruption to the peace of the state of Nature." Each individual had the right to legitimize the historical government (i.e. The one formed by his ancestors) or begin anew by building government basically form the ground up to meet the needs of the present situation. The individual then had both the right and obligation to meet the demands of said government based on the legitimate manner in which the group hade decided it would be so. In other words live with the judgment of that civil government.

The natural rights conceded to this process will be discussed later in the work, but can be briefly pointed out here as they are crucial to the development of the social contract theory, because those which Locke specifically points out are the ones he thinks require the most protection, and the ones he chooses to point out as ones the individual can relinquish form the basis for the idea of what the individual will give up to live in legitimate civil government.

The idea of each generation having the right to affirm or reverse the decisions of the former generation is significant in Locke's theory of social contract and it also forms the basis for constitutional law, where in each subsequent generation has the right to affirm, or amend the constitutional developments of the past. It is also grounded in common law, as the law of precedents converges to make a basis of legal rulings in the future but each subsequent judge has the right to offer a different opinion than that of the previous court, given the nature of the current state of society. Uzgalis in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy asks what makes Locke a social contract theorist and answers himself by saying that all of Locke's scholarship logically leads to the social contract as he wishes not to give the individual the idea that all government is formed by force and that a legitimate civil government must in fact be formed by consensus.

Those who make this agreement transfer to the civil government their right of executing the law of nature and judging their own case. These are the powers which they give to the central government, and this is what makes the justice system of civil governments a legitimate function of such governments."

Locke demonstrates through his theory that the right to change government is independently held, making the individual the most important player in the development and overthrow of government. The people had supremacy over the government and only chose to relinquish certain rights to allow dispute resolution by a central authority and the like otherwise the individual was in charge.

The two facts illuminated above, that Locke deemed the people as supreme, and the right of the next generation to accept or rescind the rights of the government given to it by the generation before (potentially even to the point of revolution) are the facts that make Locke's social contract theory different from others of his time, which for the most part all fell back on the idea of the supremacy of the government which in most cases was the crown.

This is not to say the Locke did not have a grounded tradition in the monarchical tradition as some of his work was done in a specific sentiment to support the return of one "legitimate" monarchy from another. His contention was not that monarchy was an inherently bad form of government but that it was a viable form of government if the people chose it as the form of government that best suited them. In other words it is not contrary to form a monarchy it is simply not a preordained position of assertion dominated by ones link to Adam, the first man. "That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world there remains not to one above another the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance."

It must also be pointed out that according to Locke's treatise the development of government then also resides with the people and yet it is not a complete consensus that determines who rules but a majority, who have the right then to execute the will of the people completely when it is necessary to do so. This in theory establishes a representative, rather than consensus government and even in such circumstances as are necessary allows the representation of the whole by a monarchy or another form of central government much smaller in number than a true majority.

MEN being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power, of another, without his own consent. The only way by which any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing 1 with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority.

This body then has the right and duty, especially if elected to represent to build the laws and enforce the judgment of those laws, as a reflection of the will of the consensus. Locke, having developed a keen sense of a rather radical sense of the rights of the individual and the responsibility of the civil government began his work with the development of what it is that constructs the "natural rights" of man. Locke, therefore begins his Second Treatise on the natural rights of man, as he puts it to illuminate the understanding of the right to rule.

Natural Rights Theory

Locke demonstrates in the beginning of his Second Treatise the idea that the government created by the people can only be so if the people accept that certain rights of nature are true to all men. The development of these rights is not necessary as they are natural rights and therefore born to man. The acknowledgement of these rights and the "right" interpretation and relinquishment of them is on the other hand essential to the development of society and individual. The state of nature, being such that violence would likely ensue if the individual rights of the people were not collected and subverted in some case gives reason for the development of state. First and foremost Locke stressed that equality is the first basic right of the individual man.

To understand political power aright, 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. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the Lord and Master of them all should by any manifest declaration of his will set one above another, and confer on him by an evident and clear appointment an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.5.

It has been said before that Locke's ideas of the state of nature and the natural rights theories are less than original and he in fact makes the use of others words and thoughts to appropriately express this foundational aspect of his argument for the social contract, rather than as further needed proof of natural rights or even equality, which in and of itself was not a new concept just one that challenged the status quo.

The concept of natural equality, being the basis for the development of the natural rights theory must be illuminated on before the explanation of other natural rights takes place.

As Locke explains at greater length, by natural equality he 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. (II 54)These various human inequalities may imply inequalities of one sort or another in relations among persons, but thesor authority of any other man" (II 54).Natural equality and natural liberty are almost identical. Human beings are naturally equal in their original freedom; their natural freedom implies their original equality.

According to Locke the ultimate responsibility any individual man has is to God, as God is the genesis of his or her natural rights and being itself. God is in fact the "owner" of man and therefore man is beholden to him for his rights and moral obligation. Second the individual is beholden to himself, in a natural state as the self is the primary being in need of sustainability and survival. The individual in a natural state therefore has the right to develop property and a means of survival. Therefore the individual does not have the right to take his or her own life or the life of another, and yet this singular restriction of rights does not seem to be enough for men in society.

If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the means necessary to that end. On Locke's account, these turn out to be life, liberty, health and property. Since the end is set by God, on Locke's view we have a right to the means to that end. So we have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are natural rights, that is they are rights that we have in a state of nature before the introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights equally.

Locke stresses that equality also give ever man the right to punish another for trespass against him.

For the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be in vain if there were nobody that, in the state of nature, had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so. For in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do."

Locke's natural rights theory also gives human the right to rule over animals and physical property, as a means to develop survival through industry as well as to apply his laws over aliens to his land.

In a state of nature the right over aliens would include the right to enforce the natural law and in a state of civil government all the laws associated with the government, though some have argued against this as a right as the line of reasoning from one right to another does not follow for some. As Simmons puts it the reality of the situation is that the laws of man are often far more particular than the laws of God or nature and man therefore has little right to engage in enforcement of laws such as traffic and/or decency laws against aliens.

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions..."

These ideals can then be clearly thought of as the "natural rights" the right to life, health, liberty and possessions, with a strong emphasis on industry as the only viable and sustainable purpose in a life set out to survive.

But besides their souls, which are immortal, men have also their temporal lives here upon earth; the state whereof being frail and fleeting, and the duration uncertain, they have need of several outward conveniences to the support thereof, which are to be procured or preserved by pains and industry. For those things that are necessary to the comfortable support of our lives are not the spontaneous products of nature, nor do offer themselves fit and prepared for our use."

Finally one must make clear that Locke does not mean to give the impression that the state of nature is a thing to be desired or a place to hearken back to as a golden age,. His intention is to support the idea that individual men, in equality all seeking to possess and protect what they deem as theirs will be unlikely to be able to contain violence against one another and therefore will need to eventually establish a legitimate civil government to arbitrate for him. His natural law theory is therefore the development of an older concept that supports the idea of social contract, or government by consent.

One of the most interesting aspects of Locke's theories on natural rights is the development of the idea of slavery as a completely unnatural act, unless the individual is an unjust aggressor in war, in which case he has transgressed to such a degree that his innocent enemy has the right to control him.

This freedom from absolute arbitrary power is so necessary to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. For a man not having the power of his own life cannot by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it."

Locke stresses that to some degree the value of one's life is relinquished when he or she gives away the right to life, health, liberty or possession. Legitimate slavery, for the purpose of economics would seem an unnatural act, even in the face of a legitimate civil government, yet the U.S. constitution seems to somehow find a way to tolerate it, given proof to the idea that Locke was by no means the only contributor to the early development of the U.S. government, as others and propriety or practicality often had to take the reigns in nation building.

Separation of Religion and State

To some degree the least understood or clear aspect of Locke's theories is his emphasis on the separation of religion and state. He stresses religious tolerance in many of his political and philosophical works but the context of such stress is apparent as most of Western society was dealing with (internal Christian) religious intolerance in one form or another during Locke's time.

The Dutch Republic, where Locke spent time, had been founded as a secular state which would allow religious differences. This was a reaction to Catholic persecution of Protestants. Once the Calvinist Church gained power, however, they began persecuting other sects, such as the Remonstrants who disagreed with them. In France, religious conflict had been temporarily quieted by the edict of Nantes. But in 1685, the year in which Locke wrote the First Letter concerning religious toleration, Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes, and the Huguenots were being persecuted and forced to emigrate on mass. People in England were keenly aware of the events taking place in France. In England itself, religious conflict dominated the 17th century, contributing in important respects to the coming of the English civil war, and the abolishing of the Anglican Church during the Protectorate.