John Locke

Second Treatise on Government

Locke’s Second Treatise

I. Liberalism

II. Social Contract Theory

III. Biographical/Historical Background

II. Liberalism

Ascendance of liberalism around the world today

Much of the remaining reading in the course centers around this idea

II. Liberalism

Definition In United States,

liberalism means: Jesse Jackson, Al

Sharpton, Ted Kennedy

II. Liberalism

Historically, liberalism is built on 2 key ideas: Limited Government

It was the political solution to the struggle for religious toleration

An Attempt to keep politics out of religion. The state should not worry about the state of men’s souls

Why is this a good idea?

II. Liberalism

A key component of limited government is: Rights

Theoretical underpinning to the notion of religious toleration is that individuals have rights against the state

We each have a right not to be interfered with by the government or by other people

These rights are natural – they accrue to us simply by the fact that we are human beings

A prisoner example

Suppose you are a District Attorney in a community that is composed of easily recognizable majority/minority communities.

A member of the majority community has been killed and witnesses have reliably identified a member of the minority community as the perpetrator, but the police have been unable to find the exact person

The majority community is screaming for vengeance and on the verge of rioting.

We know that in the course of the riot, at least 10 people from the minority population will be killed in mob violence.

As the DA you suggest the following course of action to the mayor:

In order to avert the riot and save lives, you take a member of the minority community at random, accuse that person of the crime, and stage a very public arrest/execution

As the mayor, what do you do?

II. Liberalism Rights mean that no matter

how good the consequences of a particular action may be, these consequences cannot override individual rights

Why rights? Each individual possesses

dignity Each of us is priceless Roots are in the rise of

Christianity Secularized form – in lieu of

soul premise – treat people as ends, not as means to an end

Every human being has infinite weight, so can’t use any calculation to justify hurting some for the greater good

II. Liberalism Side bar:

Suppose superior beings from Planet Twylo descend to earth and tell us they have a food shortage

To alleviate this shortfall, they plan on harvesting human beings

Would we accept the same arguments from them that we offer to justify eating animals or otherwise using animals as means to an end??

Just food for thought… we won’t pursue it now

II. Liberalism

So one component of liberalism is limited government

The second component is capitalism By capitalism, we mean the idea that as long as a

transaction has no negative diseconomies and is mutually advantageous, the transaction is permissible

A deal made between two consenting parties and no one is getting hurt, the state should not get involved in the transaction

II. Liberalism The market is a private

place where people voluntarily dispose of their own property

We each have a natural right to property

The overall idea justifying these economic rights is roughly parallel to our political rights in that the state should not interfere with people doing what they want to do with their property

II. Liberalism Note, the argument itself

need not be limited exclusively to property and thus exclusively the purview of the (political) right wing E.g., sexual freedom, drug

freedom arguments could work equally well

Since the world is embracing variants of this view today, an examination of its historical evolution and philosophical premises is both warranted and educational

II. Liberalism

The key idea linking to the two strains is the primacy of the individual

That is, the individual is the basis of power – political, economic, social.

Political power does not come from divine right or the rule of the stronger, but the will of the people

II. Liberalism

2 Implications If individuals are basis, then we can’t treat others

as means to an end… each is an end unto itself We are all individuals with separate and equally

valuable lives (valuable at least to us)

II. Liberalism

Good political society is one which could have emerged from unanimous agreement by these individuals Locke is not trying to describe an actual historical

situation; he’s not doing anthropology Nonetheless, the description of human nature in this

prepolitical situation needs to be accurate otherwise we can reject the conclusions by rejecting the premises

II. Liberalism

Question we need to face at root of political philosophy concerns the necessity of the state

That is, if the state did not exist, would it be necessary to invent it?

In other words, is anarchy a viable option for organizing human society?

Note: lots of other animal species are social, but they’re all anarchic

II. Liberalism

This question carries with it important implications for understanding the society in which we live in that if political philosophy could not address and satisfactorily rebut anarchist arguments, the state loses much – or indeed all – of its intellectual support

III. Contractarianism

What do we mean by contractarianism? Key idea:

Contractarian theory posits a theory of justice which holds that our political and social institutions are just to the extent to which they could have been the object of a hypothetical agreement among affected persons

This is what we mean when we say that they sign or agree to a social contract

III. Contractarianism

Basic Structure of Contractarian Argument Motivation Thesis

An account of the emotional/psychological factors of the persons

Environment Thesis Description of the pertinent features of the

environment in which the people are obliged to interact

III. Contractarianism

State of Nature (Non-Cooperative Outcome) An account of the non-cooperative interaction of the

persons so motivated and so situated Laws of Nature

Practical principles, the application of which marks each contractor as rational in coming to an agreement on terms of cooperation

Social Contract The terms of the social and political cooperation on

which the people would agree

III. Contractarianism

So… on to Locke’s Second Treatise Reminders:

Remember, the state of nature – the conditions of prepolitical man – need not be read so much as a factual account as a logical construct

It’s part of the argument in that we are postulating prepolitical relations and people and then trying to discover what type of government would they agree to

III. Contractarianism

We’ll address a number of questions:1. What would cause these people to give up their

anarchic relations and form a state?

2. What would that state look like? Remember, for the contractarian tradition, the just

state is one that could have arisen by mutual agreement

We can choose an institution and ask ourselves “would it have been the object of mutual consent of dissociated individuals?”

III. Contractarianism

For example, slavery would not be chosen by mutual consent, so it was an unjust institution

III. Locke’s Second Treatise

With the preliminary work behind us, we can dive into the Second Treatise