Locke and Hume: Ethics, Morality, and Social Contract Theory

Introduction: The Enlightenment and Moral Philosophy

The Enlightenment was a time when man, stepping out of his shackles, began to use his rational faculties and pulled himself out of the medieval pits of mysticism, in the process shoving aside the state and church authorities of the day. It was a spontaneous and diffuse movement that fed upon itself and led to the great scientific discoveries from which we all benefit today. Beliefs in natural law and universal order sprang up, which not only promoted scientific findings and material advancements, but which also gave a scientific approach to political and social issues. Foremost among the Enlightenment's thinkers were John Locke (1632–1704) and David Hume (1711–76). This paper examines their views on ethics and morality, focusing on their treatments of three key concepts: the state of nature, the social compact, and the role of government.

Moral Philosophy and the Social Contract Tradition

The moral dimension of everyday experience is a pervasive fact. Moral philosophy seeks to make sense of this moral dimension in our lives. As a philosophical study of morality, it takes a reasoned approach to the concepts that figure centrally in our moral judgments and can help us be more objective. In particular, it can help by alerting us to some of the characteristic deceptions that prevent us from seeing our own moral virtues and defects.

The philosopher's approach to topics such as good and evil, or vice and virtue, differs in important ways from that of the social scientist or theologian. A sociologist or anthropologist, for example, describes and interprets a society's mores while carefully keeping the account morally neutral. A theologian will call on us to act in a particular way and to avoid certain sinful practices. The moral philosopher, by contrast, will explain what makes an act right or a person virtuous. In discussing criteria of right action and virtuous character, the philosopher tries to show that certain traits — such as honesty, generosity, and courage — are worthy, and that others — such as hypocrisy, selfishness, and cowardice — are not. More generally, the moral philosopher seeks a clear and well-reasoned answer to the question: "What does it mean to be moral?"

Both Locke and Hume attempt to answer this question in terms of what we, as responsible agents confronting right and wrong, ought to do. The emphasis is not on becoming a virtuous individual, but rather on how people should act in relation to society and government. Both Locke's and Hume's moral philosophy in the public sphere are critiques of Thomas Hobbes's justification of the absolutist monarch in his Leviathan. Hobbes held that all humans are basically selfish. Without society, they would dwell in a "state of nature," living in fear and engaged in a war of all against all — a time of continual strife and ignorance. Hobbes characterized life in the State of Nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Persons in the state of nature would have had the right of nature to preserve themselves by whatever means necessary. But no individual in this natural state would be strong enough to feel secure, so it was to everyone's benefit to obtain a measure of security by forming a society in which one gives up the freedom to do as one wishes. In society, one places oneself under a sovereign and in return receives the security afforded by sovereign protection.

The compact that a people makes with its sovereign is known as the social contract. The social contract idea was first expounded by Plato in the Republic. In Book II, Glaucon offers a candidate answer to the question "What is justice?" by discussing the myth of Gyges — a shepherd who possessed a magical ring that rendered him invisible, enabling him to act as he pleased without fear of reprisal. In the myth, he used it to murder the King of Lydia. What men most want, Glaucon argues, is to be able to commit injustices against others without fear of reprisal, and what they most want to avoid is being treated unjustly without being able to retaliate. Justice, then, is the conventional result of the laws and covenants that men make in order to avoid these extremes. Being unable to commit injustice with impunity and fearing becoming victims themselves, men decide that it is in their interest to submit to the convention of justice.

For Hobbes, the social contract is constituted by two distinguishable agreements. First, individuals must agree to establish society by collectively and reciprocally renouncing the rights they had against one another in the State of Nature. Second, they must vest some person or assembly of persons with the authority and power to enforce the initial contract. In other words, to ensure their escape from the State of Nature, they must both agree to live together under common laws and create an enforcement mechanism for the social contract and the laws that constitute it. Since the sovereign is invested with the authority to mete out punishments for breaches of the contract — punishments worse than the cost of restraint — men have good, albeit self-interested, reason to adjust themselves to the artifice of morality in general, and justice in particular. Society becomes possible because, whereas in the State of Nature there was no power able to "overawe them all," now there is an artificially and conventionally superior person who can compel men to cooperate.

State of Nature: Locke and Hume Compared

Locke's most important and influential political writings are contained in his Two Treatises on Government. The first treatise is concerned almost exclusively with refuting the argument of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha — that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known as the Divine Right of Kings, a dominant theory in seventeenth-century England. The second treatise contains Locke's own constructive view of the aims and justification for civil government.

Unlike Hobbes, Locke viewed man as naturally moral; however, he did not consider man to be a divine creature fixed with innate ideas at birth. Locke was an empiricist: all knowledge comes to us through experience. As he explained in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, there is no such thing as innate ideas or innate moral precepts. We are born with an empty mind — a tabula rasa, or blank slate — ready to be written upon by the pen of experience. According to Locke, the State of Nature, the natural condition of mankind, is a state of perfect and complete liberty to conduct one's life as one best sees fit, free from the interference of others. This does not mean, however, that it is a state of license: one is not free to do anything one pleases. The State of Nature, although lacking civil authority or government to punish transgressions against laws, is not a state without morality. It is pre-political, but not pre-moral. Persons are assumed to be equal to one another in such a state, and therefore equally capable of discovering and being bound by the Law of Nature. The Law of Nature, which Locke views as the basis of all morality and as given to us by God, commands that we not harm others with regard to their "life, health, liberty, or possessions" (par. 6). Because we all belong equally to God and cannot take away that which is rightfully His, we are prohibited from harming one another. The State of Nature is thus a state of liberty where persons are free to pursue their own interests and plans, and, because of the Law of Nature and the restrictions it imposes, it is relatively peaceful.

David Hume, on the other hand, did not believe that man had an innate nature. For Hume, the state of nature is mythical, and he saw little practical point in speculating about the forgotten past of the human race. Instead, he turned his attention to creating a psychological theory that explained why people obey authority. For Hume, man was essentially an animal — one that must make up for its lack of claws, fur, agility, and physical prowess by developing intelligence and cooperation with others. It is by cooperation that man is able to supply his defects and raise himself to an equality with his fellow creatures, and even acquire a superiority above them (Hume, 1985).

Conclusion

Locke's arguments for the social contract and for the right of citizens to revolt against their king were enormously influential on the democratic revolutions that followed, especially on Thomas Jefferson and the founders of the United States. The Declaration of Independence reflects many of Locke's ideas — for example, the notion of certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is derived from Locke's concept that individuals cannot, even if they desired to, willingly surrender all of their rights.

Hume's influence is seen in the ideas of checks and balances among the various branches of government. His empirical argument against British mercantilism formed a building block for classical economics, and his essays on money and international trade, published in Political Discourses, strongly influenced his friend and fellow Scotsman Adam Smith, who in 1776 — the year of Hume's death — published the first systematic explanation of the workings of capitalism in The Wealth of Nations.

References

"Declaration of Independence." Retrieved December 19, 2004, from http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by C. B. Macpherson. London: Penguin Books, 1985 [1651].

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 [1737].

Hume, David. Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. Edited by E. F. Miller. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics, 1985.

Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Retrieved December 19, 2004, from

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government (1680–1690). Retrieved December 19, 2004, from http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/

Plato. The Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1974.