Towards a Secular Lockean Liberalism

Towards a Secular Lockean LiberalismAuthor(s): Jeffrey ReimanSource: The Review of Politics, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Summer, 2005), pp. 473-493Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review ofPoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25046443 .

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Towards a Secular Lockean Liberalism

Jeffrey Reiman

In God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's

Political Thought, Jeremy Waldron argues that Locke's defense of

human moral equality is inextricably tied to a theological doctrine:

"Locke's equality claims are not separable from the theological content that shapes and organizes them."1 Moreover, Waldron

suspects that this points to a more general truth, namely, that an

adequate secular defense of human equality is not possible. He

writes, "I actually don't think it is clear that we?now?can shape and defend an adequate conception of basic human equality apart from some religious foundation" (GLE, p. 13). If Waldron's claim

of the inseparability of equality and theology in Locke's theory is taken as a claim about what Locke himself thought he was doing, I shall not dispute it, though, as I shall argue below, I do not think

that Waldron's argument for this claim is satisfactory. If Waldron's

claim is rather about the theory that Locke created, which I take to

be a system of propositions whose implications and significance are not necessarily fully known to its author, then I disagree. I think

that there is, in Locke's theory, a separable secular defense of moral

equality intertwined with the theological defense, but I shall not try to prove that Locke intended this to be a separate defense or even

thought (as I do) that it could stand on its own.2 Rather, my hunch

1. Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's

Political Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 82 (future references to this book will be as GLE, with page numbers). Though I criticize the

core argument of this book, there is much in the book with which I agree, and much

from which I have benefited. I think Waldron writes with admirable clarity about the nature of the problem of human moral equality, that he is right that there is

inadequate contemporary philosophical discussion about the grounds for believing in that equality, and that he successfully refutes numerous

prejudices about Locke

that are all-too-common today. What's more, God, Locke, and Equality is that rarity in the philosophical literature: a delightful read.

2. Here, and on many other points, I agree with A. John Simmons, who writes:

"Many of Locke's arguments concerning rights are purely conceptual. Many are

simple appeals to common sense. ... These arguments are logically independent of and detachable from the theological foundations from which Locke begins" (A.



474 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

is that Locke interwove secular and theological elements in his

reasoning in a way that testifies to his pivotal position at the cusp, so to speak, between the theological morality that preceded him and

the secular morality aborning in his time.3 Though Locke may well

have thought (or come to think) that a defense of equality required

appeal to God, there are elements in his writing that go beyond this and that can be put together into a plausible secular defense of

equality. Indeed, I think they can be put together into a plausible secular liberal moral theory that includes a secular grounding for

human moral equality. I shall try to make this case in three steps. In section one, "Wal

dron vs. Locke on Equality," I shall point out that, contrary to the

way Waldron presents it, Locke's argument for equality is not a

single argument, nor an argument for a single conception of equality. It is a series of three arguments (possibly four) for two conceptions of equality, which I shall call "negative equality" and "positive

equality." We shall see that Locke presents most of these arguments in wholly secular terms. In section two, "Separating Locke from

Waldron," I shall argue that, even if Waldron's claim about the

inseparability of morality and theology for Locke turns out to be

true, his argument for it is deeply and multiply flawed. In section

three, "Separating Locke from God," I shall argue that, whatever

Locke's self-understanding of his project was, he did in fact leave us with the elements from which a plausible secular liberal moral

theory?including a secular defense of human equality?can be

constructed. I shall try to sketch this construction and show that the

resultant secular defense of human equality is at least as plausible as the theological defense with which Waldron credits Locke (I take this to be a fair test even though I actually believe that the secular

defense is more plausible than Waldron's theological version). If I

succeed in this, it will, first and foremost, dispel Waldron's suspi cion that an adequate secular defense of human moral equality is

impossible. But, moreover, it will lend support to a more nuanced

interpretation of Locke's liberal moral theory, one that provides an

alternative between viewing him as a committed theological moralist or as a closet secularist. On my view, Locke was a bit of both and

he succeeded in the secular dimension better than he thought.

John Simmons, The Lockean Theory of Rights [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992], p. 10). The secular version of Locke's moral theory that I shall sketch

out below is not, however, the same as the one sketched out by Simmons in this

excellent book.

3. "Locke ... wrote during a transitional period, when the religious and secular

components of his central concepts of rights and property were no longer simple to delineate" (Simmons, The Lockean Theory, p. 11).



TOWARDS A SECULAR LOCKEAN LIBERALISM 475

I. Waldron vs. Locke on Equality

Waldron introduces his argument for the inseparability of equal

ity and theology in Locke's theory with a discussion of Locke's

nominalistic (anti-essentialist) view of species. This poses an in

teresting problem because, in the Second Treatise, Locke affirms the

equality of all members of the human species: "there being noth

ing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank ... should also be equal one amongst another."4 However, in the

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke denies that we can

know species and comes close to denying that there are real spe cies at all. And Waldron thinks that this is a problem for the moral

theory because "it leaves the field wide open for anyone to draw the

boundaries of humanity wherever he likes_It leaves [Locke] with

no naturalistic basis whatsoever for distinguishing those creatures

one is allowed to hunt, exploit, enslave, or eat from those that must

not be treated in any of these ways" (GLE, p. 63). In fact, however, the problem is not so dire. Since what Locke

allows in place of essences or species is "resemblances between

particulars" (GLE, p. 66), and since the full statement of Locke's

affirmation of equality just quoted above states 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" (ST, IL4; my emphasis), the issue

becomes what shared traits will account for the moral equality of

human beings. As Waldron puts it, the question is that of "which

resemblances [which similar faculties] are actually doing the crucial

work in Locke's account of equality, whether they afford a basis for

a natural kind or not. That will give us a definition of humanity, at

least for moral purposes" (GLE, p. 66).

Merely identifying some resemblances will not be enough. We

will have to see why these resemblances matter in the right way, that is, how they support (not entail, of course, since that would

commit the naturalistic fallacy) the moral equality of all who share

the resemblances, and their difference from those who do not. Si

multaneously, the resemblances will have to support equality even

4. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (first edition, pub. 1690), chapter II,

section 4; my emphasis (future references to this text will be as ST, with chapter and

section numbers). Though Waldron's argument ranges over the First Treatise as well,

his focus in chapter 3, the crucial chapter in which he argues for the inseparability of Locke's theory of moral equality and his theological claims, is primarily

on the

Second Treatise. So, too, will be mine.



476_THE REVIEW OF POLITICS_

though there will inevitably be differences in the degrees in which different individuals possess the resembling traits.

It will not come as a surprise that the resemblance that does this

job is the possession of reason by normal adult human beings. How

ever, this needs further specification. Chary of the fact that people's

reasoning ability varies in ways that might support an unegalitar ian outcome, Waldron argues convincingly that Locke's defense of

equality requires that he identify a threshold level of reasoning power that all humans (at least all who are capable of moral responsibility at all) can be thought to reach. Drawing on other remarks of Locke's in the Essay, Waldron concludes (GLE, p. 79) that this level is "Light enough to lead them to the Knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own Duties."5 This level is reached, according to Waldron,

by any human being who possesses "some power of abstraction

applied to what we see in the world around us" (GLE, p. 79). This is

enough to know that God exists, "For the visible marks of extraor

dinary Wisdom and Power appear so plainly in all the Works of the

Creation, that a rational Creature, who will but seriously reflect on

them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity" (Essay, 1.4.9; quoted at

GLE, p. 79). Waldron links this up with Locke's statement that all

mankind is "sent into the world by His order and about His business"

(ST, II.6) and concludes that, for Locke, the basis for human equality is that all human beings can understand that they are creatures of

God on God's business, and that this fact about them determines that

they are entitled to special treatment. Accordingly, Waldron sums

up Locke's position as follows:

Anyone with the capacity for abstraction can reason to the existence of

God, and he can relate the idea of God to there being a law that applies to him both in his conduct in this world and as to his prospects for the

next....

The fact that a being can get this far, intellectually..., shows that he is a creature with a

special moral relation to God. As a creature who knows

about the existence of God and who is therefore in a position to answer

responsibly to His commandments, this is someone whose existence has

special significance. Now, that specialness is a matter of intense interest

first and foremost, of course, to the person who has the ability. Knowing that he has been sent into the world by God, "by his order, and about his business," the individual person has an interest in finding out pretty damned quick what he is supposed to do. But Locke believes this also affects fundamentally the way we

ought to deal with one another....

Because creatures capable of abstraction can be conceived as "all servants

5. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1975), book 1, chapter 1, section 5 (future references to this book

will be as Essay with book, chapter and section numbers).




of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order, and about his business," we must treat them as "his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's Pleasure" and refrain from

destroying or harming or exploiting them. (GLE, pp. 79-81)

Waldron takes this to refute the idea that the theological dimen

sion of Locke's defense of equality could be bracketed off to leave a

plausible secular defense for those who want it. The general point is that, given the denial of real species or essences (or, at least, the

denial of our knowledge of them), a would-be atheistic defender of

human equality

may pretend to ground our equality in our rationality, but he will be at a loss to explain why we should ignore the evident differences in people's rationality. He will be at a loss to defend any particular line or threshold, in a non-question-begging way.... The atheist has no basis in his philosophy for thinking that beings endowed with the capacity that Locke emphasizes are for that reason to be treated as special and sacred in the way Locke

thought. (GLE, pp. 81-82)

According to Waldron, the needed threshold can only be justified by

appeal to religious belief. He identifies the threshold as possession of a power of abstraction sufficient to know that one is subject to

God's commands and on God's business. Finding out what is then

required for one's life is "a matter of intense interest" to whoever

has this power. This makes each such person's life important in a

special and sacred way, irrespective of the degrees in which differ

ent people possess this power. Then all who possess this power are

morally equal. Consequently, writes Waldron, "Lockean equality ... makes no sense except in the light of a particular account of the

relation between man and God" (GLE, p. 82). Note that the first of the two lengthy passages just quoted from

Waldron supports his interpretation of Locke as offering an irre

ducibly theological defense of equality, and the second of the two

supports this, and goes beyond this in the direction of Waldron's

suspicion that no secular defense of equality is possible. I will try to

dispel this suspicion in section three. In section two, I will outline

five reasons for doubting that Waldron succeeds in his interpretation of Locke's position. Before this, however, it is important to note that

the argument and outcome that Waldron treats as unitary are, in

Locke's text, multiplex. At play in the Second Treatise are two concep tions of equality and at least three arguments for equality. This has

implications that will make trouble for Waldron's interpretation. First of all, there is a negative conception of equality, namely,

the idea that no one has naturally more authority over others than



478_THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

others have over him or her. Before he gets to discussing God's

workmanship and property in section 6, Locke defends this human

negative equality in section 4. There, Locke starts by saying that "To

understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we

must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is a state

of perfect freedom to order their actions...." And, he continues, it is

"A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is

reciprocal, no one having more than another" (ST, TLA). Since Locke

will go on to accept natural parental authority over children as well

as a similar authority over the mentally incompetent, we should

take him here as affirming the absence of any natural hierarchy of

unequal authority among sane adults.

What makes this conception of equality negative is that it does

not affirm that humans actually have jurisdiction or authority?only that no one has any more authority than anyone else. Thus, this con

ception does not in itself morally prohibit one person from actually

dominating another. It only rules out one person having the right to

dominate another. In effect, it is an equality of the sort that Hobbes

finds in the state of nature, namely, an equal right to do what one sees

fit to do, but not a right not to be harmed or subjugated by others. It

is, however, clearly a kind of equality and, in the context of Locke's

argument against Filmer and other defenders of the natural authority of monarchs over other humans, a very important kind of equality.6

The positive conception of equality, namely, the equal right not to

be subjugated by others, is introduced?albeit implicitly?in section

5. There, with evident approval, Locke contends that "This equality of men by Nature [the negative equality established in section 4], the judicious Hooker ... makes ... the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of

justice and charity" (ST, II.5). Though Locke does not spell it out, these maxims include the obligation not to harm others, and thus

amount to an equal right not to be dominated by others.

Locke introduces the positive conception of equality explicitly in section 6: "The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it,

which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all

mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and indepen dent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or

possessions" (ST, II.6).

6. Waldron cites Locke quoting Filmer as holding "that there cannot be any

Multitude of Men whatsoever, either great or small, ...but that in the same Multitude ...

there is one Man among them, that in Nature hath a Right to be King of all the rest" (GLE,

p. 5nl5 and accompanying text).




In support of the two conceptions of equality just discussed, Locke presents (at least) three distinct arguments, one for the nega tive conception, the other two for the positive conception. Two of

these arguments are secular, one is theological. Later, I shall go further and suggest that we read the third (putatively theological) argument as really two arguments, one theological, one secular. But

I set this complication aside for the moment.

Locke's argument for the negative conception is secular. After

the words "A state also of equality, wherein all the power and ju risdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another," Locke

continues:

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 upon him, by

an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted

right to dominion and sovereignty. (ST, II.4)

Locke's argument here does not appeal to God to affirm human

equality. It is the absence of an evident and clear appointment by God that leaves us entitled to judge that we are equal given the

facts of our natural condition. Thinking of our fellow humans in a

state of nature, that is, as bearing no social or political ranks or titles, and without any evident and clear appointment by God, "nothing is more evident," says Locke, than this judgment that humans are

negatively equal.7 This is a secular argument since one reason for the absence of

an evident and clear appointment by God may be that God does

not exist. An atheist could use this argument then, since there is no

contradiction in an atheist affirming the conditional proposition

7.1 call this a judgment rather than an inference to be clear that Locke is not

committing the naturalistic fallacy of inferring a normative conclusion from factual

premises. Here I fully agree with Waldron who says that, though Locke bases our

moral equality on our factual similarity, he is not "inferring our normative equality from some factual similarity. [Locke] says in the Second Treatise that the connection is

'evident/ but that this is not the same as saying that it is logically implied is indicated

by his going on to add that creatures who share the relevant descriptive property

might still be unequal if God had so ordained it" (GLE, p. 69; citation omitted). Note, by the way, pace Jefferson, that Locke does not here or

anywhere else affirm

that human equality is self-evident. It is simply no less evident as anything else. In

the Essay, Locke denies that any moral principle is self-evident (Essay, 1.3.4), and,

of course, he is right. Perhaps, Jefferson did know this after all, since if it were truly self-evident that all men were created equal, it would not be necessary for us to hold

it to be self-evident?we'd only have to point at it.




that "if there were a God who by evident and clear appointment showed that some individual was meant to rule others, then that

individual would have rightful authority over those others," and

the categorical proposition that "there is no God."8

As for positive equality, Locke offers two arguments. The first

is Hooker's, which Locke quotes approvingly. It, too, like the argu ment just cited for negative equality, is secular. Hooker's point,

briefly put, is that, given the evident natural equality of humans, and given that "those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure," I must recognize that my desire "to be loved of my

equals in Nature ... imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to

themward fully the like affection" (ST, II.5). From this follow the

duties that people owe one another, including naturally the duty not to harm or subjugate others.

One might wonder why, if Locke approves of this argument, he

gives it in Hooker's name. I am willing to accept that the answer may be that, at this point, Locke doubted that such a secular argument was adequate to the task of proving positive equality. Nonetheless, that Locke quotes the argument at length, that he places it in such a

prominent position, before in fact his "own" argument for positive

equality (the one he offers in his own name), strongly suggests that

he thought it had some probative force. Thus we can think of it as

one of Locke's arguments, even if not his favorite one.

The second argument for positive equality is the one that appeals to our being God's workmanship. This is the argument upon which

Waldron focuses, and which I will consider in the following section.

Before proceeding, however, it is important to note that what I have

said so far about the secular arguments that Locke offers in defense

of negative and positive equality is not sufficient to refute Waldron's

claim definitively. The reason is that those secular arguments all

involve judgments from factual resemblances among human beings, and Waldron has claimed that the resemblances themselves that are

to ground human equality cannot be accounted for in secular terms.

In short, though Locke plainly states these arguments in secular

terms, he may be (consciously? unconsciously?) presupposing an

irreducibly religious account of the factual resemblances upon which

moral equality is founded. This, I think, is what Waldron's interpre

8. A similar argument from the absence of God's appointment is to be found

in the First Treatise, where Locke writes that "all that share in the same common

nature, faculties, and powers are in nature equal, and ought to partake in the same

common rights and privileges, till the manifest appointment of God ... can be

produced to show any particular person's supremacy" (John Locke, First Treatise

of Government, VI.67).




tation of Lockean equality finally comes down to. Consequently, I

will have to show that Locke does offer a satisfactory secular account

of the resemblances among humans that ground their equal moral

status. I shall do this in the next section as I take up more specifically Waldron's arguments for why that account must be religious.

II. Separating Locke from Waldron

I shall in this section put forth five reasons for doubting that

Waldron succeeds in his interpretation of Locke's position. I think

each of these five is sufficient to sink Waldron's project, and that

their combined force is surely fatal. Since, as just observed, my claims about Locke's secular arguments depend for their force on

showing that they can be based on a secular account of the relevant

resemblances among humans, I shall start?in the first of my rea

sons?with such a secular account. For ease of identification, I shall

number accordingly the first paragraph in which each of the five

reasons is discussed.

1. Waldron does not take seriously enough the fact that Locke

does indicate, in secular terms, a threshold level of rationality that

serves as the ground for human moral equality and the right to lib

erty that comes with it. In the context of a discussion of the grounds and limits of paternal authority over children, Locke argues that

whatever gave the father the right to freedom will eventually give the same to the son. He writes:

Is a man under the law of Nature? What made him free of that law? what

gave him a free disposing of his property, according to his own will, within the compass of that law? I answer, an estate wherein he might be supposed capable to know that law, that so he might keep his actions within the bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, and how far he may make use of his freedom and so comes to have it; till then somebody must guide him, who is presumed to know how far the law allows a liberty. If such a state of

reason, such an age of discretion made him free, the same shall make his

son free too. (ST, VI.59)9

9. I say that Waldron doesn't take this seriously enough because he does

quote Locke, from the Essay, writing that "were there a Monkey, or any other

Creature to be found, that had the use of Reason, to such a degree,

as to be able

to understand general Signs, and to deduce Consequences about general Ideas, he

would no doubt be subject to Law, and, in that Sense, be a Man, how much soever

he differ'd in Shape from Others of that name" (Essay, 3.11.16; cited at GLE, p. 67). But Waldron doesn't make anything of this secular account of the threshold level

needed to be subject to the law of nature and, indeed, to count as a human.




In short, it is the capacity to understand the law, or more precisely, a state of reason in which it may be supposed that one is capable of understanding the law, that qualifies as the threshold level of

rationality. It may seem that, if understanding the law is only possible via

believing in God and the rest, then even the rational capacity to

understand the law can only be identified on theological grounds. But this would be to confuse the capacity with the results of its

exercise. The capacity is "a state of reason in which it may be

supposed that one is capable of understanding the law." Such a state

of reason enables us to understand the law whatever its provenance.

Consequently, the capacity is itself describable in secular terms.

Alternatively, it might be thought that the capacity can only be justified as the decisive one in theological terms. But, in fact, it is justifiable in secular terms. An understanding of the law is a justifiable ground for granting equal rights to freedom because

such understanding is the necessary condition of peaceful and just social interaction. Moreover, the capacity for such understanding amounts to the capacity to act on our own choices, to act morally, and to know that others expect it.10 Thus, as Locke suggests, it war

rants the presumption that a person can be trusted to exercise his

freedom properly. 2. We saw in section one that, while Waldron takes the passage

about God's workmanship and property in section 6 of the Second

Treatise as the crux of Locke's argument for human equality, that pas

sage is not where Locke first argues for human equality in the Second

Treatise. Moreover, as we have also seen, by the time he reaches the

theological argument in section 6, so crucial to Waldron, Locke has

already offered a secular argument for human negative equality, and

cited with sympathy a secular argument for human positive equal

ity?and the secular account of resemblances defended in reason #1

gives us the right to view these as secular arguments, so to speak, all the way down.

3. Waldron argues that it is because we are sent into the world on God's business that we must be viewed as God's property and

afforded special treatment. But this is not how Locke makes the

argument. What Locke says is

10. "To be an (equal) rightholder (i.e., a

person), an individual must have

an 'understanding of his own to direct his will' and 'regulate his actions.' The

individual can then rationally pursue personal good and the good of others,

with knowledge of the law of nature and the boundaries to action it establishes"

(Simmons, The Lockean Theory, p. 82, quoting from ST, VI.58).




for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise

Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another's pleasure. (ST, II.6)

That is, our being God's workmanship is the basis both for our

being "about God's business" and for our being God's property.

Contrary to Waldron's claim that it is because we are on God's

business that we must be treated as God's property and thus with

special respect by our fellows, the most natural reading of the

passage is that, because we are God's workmanship we are God's

property, and because we are God's property we may not be used

by others for their pleasure.11 This natural reading of the passage does, of course, support the claim that Locke's argument for positive

equality is theologically based?it just does not support Waldron's

version of that claim.

4. This natural reading makes additional trouble for Waldron's

argument because it implies that people must be able to judge from the fact that they are God's workmanship that they are God's

property. This is a moral judgment based on a factual claim; and the

judgment cannot, without vicious circularity, depend on a theologi cal foundation, since this judgment is the basis for deriving moral

judgments from a theological foundation in the first place. And this

in turn implies that Locke assumes humans have the competence to

arrive at valid moral principles from appropriate facts, independent of their knowledge that they are God's creatures.12

Moreover, if we read section 6 in light of this assumed human

competence, the argument of that section takes on a new nuance.

Before the reference to our being God's workmanship, Locke writes

that "reason, which is that law [of Nature], 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" (ST, II.6). It is after these words, that Locke writes, "for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker."

One might naturally read this phrase as introducing the reason for

the statement before it. However, then one would equally naturally wonder what work is being done by the earlier phrase "that being all equal and independent." If we note that Locke assumes a human

11. Simmons also takes this as the natural reading, though he raises doubts

about its suitability as an explanation of our duties to God. See The Lockean Theory,

p. 30.

12. Waldron's statements at GLE, p. 69, suggest that he would agree that Locke

assumes such a competence. See note 7, above.




capacity to arrive at valid moral judgments from certain facts, then

this phrase can be read as a separate argument for our duty not to

harm others. That we have such a moral duty is the natural and

appropriate judgment to make in light of our being equal and inde

pendent?a secular argument. We can suppose that the theological argument introduced by the "for..." backs up the secular one and

is, in Locke's mind, the real clincher. Nonetheless, the conclusion will be that section 6 offers two arguments for positive equality, a

secular one and a theological one. And, then, the score for all the

arguments for equality, positive and negative, will be: secular argu ments 3, theological arguments 1.

5. Waldron is concerned to establish a threshold level of rational

ity that will justify equality for all normal human beings, and avoid

the problem of the evident differences in people's reasoning ability. Waldron identifies this level as "some power of abstraction applied

to what we see in the world around us." However, this does not

square with Waldron's reading of the Second Treatise passage about our being on God's business and its implications. Abstraction may enable someone to see the world as evidence of a wise and powerful creator, but more will be necessary to judge that we are in the world on God's business, or at least that we are here on any special busi ness distinct from that assigned to the rest of creation. And, more

still will be necessary to judge that my special business gives me no

right (or even duty!) to interfere with your pursuit of yours when I

judge it to be going awry. The result will be that the argument won't

work on Waldron's own terms because it will not be some threshold

level of reasoning power that entitles us to special treatment, but

that, combined either with some rather complex judgments or with

possession of some elements of the true faith.13

Indeed, the further he gets from "some power of abstraction," the wider is the door opened to just what Waldron fears for the

13. Summing up his argument at the end of his chapter 3, Waldron writes: "So

Locke's position seems to be this. Anyone with the capacity for abstraction can reason

to the existence of God, and he can relate the idea of God to there being a law that

applies to him both in his conduct in this world and as to his prospects in the next.

The content of that law may not be available to everyone's reason, but anyone above

the threshold has the power to relate the idea of such law to what is known by faith and revelation about God's commandments" (GLE, pp. 79-80). How does abstraction

get us an idea of the next world, or give us reliable convictions about the content

of faith and revelation, or harder still, how does it get us to something "known by faith"? Here it might also be added that, as Simmons observes (The Lockean Theory, p.

24n28), Locke's anti-essentialism rules out our having knowledge of God's essence.

This would seem to raise additional doubts about how far the power of abstraction

will get us in understanding what our relation to God implies.




atheist. That is, like the atheist, Waldron "may pretend to ground our equality in our rationality, but [he] will be at a loss to explain

why we should ignore the evident differences in people's ratio

nality." Some will be better than others at determining the duties

implied by being on God's business, and thus, arguably, entitled to

determine the duties of others for them. And then authority among humans will not be equal.

I take it that these five reasons show that, even if Waldron's view

of Locke is right, he has not proven that view. I turn now to Waldron's

suspicion that no adequate conception of human moral equality can

be established without appeal to some theological foundation.

III. Separating Locke from God

My aim in this section is to sketch a secular liberal moral theory,

including a doctrine of moral equality, concocted from Lockean

ingredients.141 do not claim that it is Locke's own theory, but I

think it will be seen to be distinctively Lockean. Moreover, since it

doesn't require that we believe in God or, once believing in God, that we believe we know what God's existence implies for us, it will

be at least as plausible as the doctrine that Waldron finds in Locke.

Moreover, I believe that since Waldron's theological understanding of Locke's moral doctrine is not based on revelation, then?even on

Waldron's account?that doctrine will ultimately amount to what

it would be reasonable to expect God to want of us. And that will

be just what it is reasonable tout court for us to do.15 Then, God

14.1 am not the first philosopher to try this. For example, I think that Simmons does a

quite convincing job of interpreting Locke as a rule-consequentialist in The

Lockean Theory, see esp. pp. 36-59.1 don't claim that my concoction is the only valid

one. It is simply the one that I find most plausible and most satisfying in light of

contemporary philosophical concerns.

15. In his Essays on the Law of Nature (written by Locke shortly after 1660, but not

published in his lifetime), Locke wrote that the "law of nature can be described as

being the decree of the divine will discernible by the light of nature and indicating what is and what is not in conformity with rational nature, and for this very reason

commanding or

prohibiting" (John Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature [Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2002], p.Ill [future references to this book will be

as ELN, with page numbers]). And in the Essay, Locke suggests that "God himself cannot choose what is not good" (Essay, 2.21.49). So, then, if we can figure out for

ourselves what is and what is not in conformity with our nature?or what's good

regarding our behavior, we will have at least the content of the law of Nature on

secular grounds. And, if, as I shall suggest below, the very fact that these things are

plainly knowable to all humans grounds an effective obligation to comply, then we

have the "commanding" as well.




will be unnecessary?at least for us, if not for Locke?and it will

be (right) "reason, which is that law" that binds us.161 will start by

returning to the secular arguments mentioned earlier, and build

from there.

As we saw, Locke addresses equality in two forms, negative and positive, and offers at least two secular arguments for it. I

shall now reconstruct these arguments, expanding them where

appropriate by drawing on?and drawing out?other elements of

Locke's thought. We start by engaging in the "state of nature" mental experiment,

that is, we imagine away differences in social and political rank and

authority in order to think of (sane, adult) humans in a "natural"

condition. I put "natural" in quotation marks because what remains

when we make this imaginary subtraction is still noticeably a prod uct of human activity, it includes human social relations, such as

families, and, of course, language. Having performed this mental

subtraction, what we see with our mind's eye, according to Locke, is

people whose condition is broadly alike. Though they possess their

faculties in differing degrees of competence, they crucially possess the ability to reason in sufficient degree to understand laws, and

to be able to conform their behavior to laws. They can govern their

actions by their choices, and they can conform those choices to what

morality requires. Locke claims that, when we picture humans in

this way, nothing is more evident than that they are morally equal in the negative sense that no one has more authority over others

than others have over them.

This much seems to me wholly Locke's view. To get to the sec

ond form of equality, recall my claim above that Locke can be read as giving two arguments for positive equality, a secular one and a

religious one. The secular argument?which I contend is an argu ment of Locke's but which I will give more credence than Locke

does?is "that being all equal and independent, no one ought to

harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions" (ST, II.6). I

will interpret "being all equal and independent" as a combination

of three claims that are broadly Lockean:

The first claim is that humans are negatively equal. The second claim is a secular version of Waldron's contention

that humans are equal because they are alike in being here on God's

business. I replace this with the general idea that humans are alike

in that what they believe and how they live their lives are of intense

16.1 say that it is right reason which is that law, because Locke distinguishes

"right reason" (which "is nothing but the law of nature itself") from "reason" (which is "the manner

whereby ... natural law is known"). See ELN, p. 149.




interest to them, to use Waldron's apt phrase. This is not only true of

those who think they are here on God's business, it is true of atheists as well. Indeed, without the hope of salvation, how one lives this

earthly life becomes the ultimate question. (Locke writes: "if there

be no Prospect beyond the Grave, the inference is certainly right, Let us eat and drink, let us enjoy what we delight in, for to morrow we

shall die" [Essay, 2.21.55].) So, one either hopes for salvation or one

does not and, either way, what one believes and how one lives is

intensely interesting.17 This is given added support by the fact that we are embodied. Locke writes that "when we say that Man is subject

to Law: We mean nothing by Man, but a corporeal rational Creature"

(Essay, 3.11.16; cf. GLE, p. 71). This I take to mean, among other

things, that human beings are alike in that, though the content of

their needs and desires differ, they all have needs and desires and, in general, care deeply about having (at least the most important of) them satisfied. This, too, is of intense interest.

The third claim draws upon Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration.

When Locke contends, in the Letter, that power to compel anyone to a certain religious faith cannot be thought to "be vested in the

Magistrate by the consent of the People, because no man can so far

abandon the care of his own Salvation, as blindly to leave it to the

choice of any other," the immediate reason he gives for this is that

no Man can, if he would, conform his Faith to the Dictates of another. All the Life and Power of true Religion consists in inward and full perwasion of the mind; and Faith is not Faith without believing.18

17. Consider, for example, that, in both Political Liberalism and A Theory of Justice,

John Rawls appeals to the importance that religious beliefs have for religious people as part of a secular argument for freedom of conscience. He writes: "if but one of

the alternative principles of justice available to the parties [in the original position]

guarantees equal liberty of conscience, this principle is to be adopted.... For the veil

of ignorance implies that the parties do not know whether the beliefs espoused

by the persons they represent is a majority or a minority view. They cannot take

chances by permitting a lesser liberty of conscience to minority religions, say, on

the possibility that those they represent espouse a majority or dominant religion and will therefore have an even greater liberty. For it may also happen that these

persons belong to a minority faith and may suffer accordingly. If the parties [in the

original position] were to gamble in this way, they would show that they did not take the religious, philosophical,

or moral convictions of persons seriously, and,

in effect, did not know what a religious, philosophical, or moral conviction was"

(John Rawls, Political Liberalism [New York: Columbia University Press, 1993], p. 311; see similar remarks in John Rawls, A Theory of Justice [Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1971] pp. 206-07). 18. Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing

Company, 1983; originally published 1689), p. 26 (future references to this text will be as Letter, with page numbers).




Rational beings can only believe something if they are "fully satisfied

in [their] own mind that [it] is true," and, thus, "such is the nature

of Understanding, that it cannot be compell'd to the belief of any

thing by outward force" (Letter, pp. 26,27).19 Rational belief must be

free. And for embodied rational creatures, this naturally spreads to

create an inclination to live according to one's own freely formed

beliefs about how to live. I call this third Lockean claim, the kinship

of reason and freedom.

Understanding our "being all equal and independent" as en

compassing these three secular claims, I take it that nothing is more

evident than "that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, [or] liberty." I omit "posses sions" from Locke's words here because it is ambiguous between

"what we physically hold" and "what we rightfully hold." If it is

taken as the former, then I do not think it is part of the reasonable

judgment we make in response to our shared human condition. If

it is taken as the latter, then it requires a showing of rightfulness, which is to say, it requires that some system of private property be justified, which?as Locke recognized?requires a separate

argument. The reasonable judgment that all have an equal right to liberty is made about us simply as corporeal rational beings;

property is a separate matter.

In sum, when we subtract differences of social and political rank, then, in light of the factual similarity of sane, adult humans

who possess sufficient rational capacity to exercise choice and to

understand law, we judge it to be evident that they all are negatively

equal, that is, that no one has a natural right to harm or dominate

another sane adult. Then, in light of this negative equality coupled with adult humans' intense interest in what they believe and how

they live and in having their needs and desires satisfied, and with

the kinship of reason and freedom (the natural need of reasoning

beings to form their beliefs freely, and their natural inclination to

live according to the beliefs they freely form), we judge it to be evident that each one has a right to believe and act freely and not

to be harmed or dominated by another (as far as everyone can

19. This is an argument that was very common among Enlightenment writers,

and which I suspect played a greater role in grounding Enlightenment liberalism than is normally recognized. For example, Voltaire wrote: "Our soul acts internally. Internal acts are thought, volition, inclinations, acquiescence in certain truths. All

these acts are above coercion" (Fran?ois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, "The Ecclesiastical

Ministry," quoted in I. Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader [New York

Penguin Books, 1995], p. 116). And Jefferson said, "Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his Supreme will that free it shall remain by making it

altogether insusceptible of restraint" (Thomas Jefferson, "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," in Papers of Thomas lefferson, ed. Julian Boyd [Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1950], vol. 2, p. 545). See my Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and Practice (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1997), pp. 5-11.




have this same right together). What judgment adds here is the assessment that each of the facts just adduced is a good reason for

believing that sane adults have the right to be free and not to be

harmed or dominated by another, and that, taken together, these reasons are compelling. These are substantive judgments that any reasonable person will make in response to the plain facts of the

natural human condition. Together, they amount to what I shall

call the liberal moral principle. Notice that the judgments that comprise the liberal moral prin

ciple are not stipulations or axioms, nor are they self-evident truths or logical entailments. They are what reasonable people will rightly

judge to be the proper treatment of their fellows?the reasonable

response to their fellows' similar conditions. They are "intelligible and plain to a rational creature" (ST, 11.12). The competence to make

valid moral judgments from certain facts is, we have already seen,

assumed by Locke when he takes it that, from being God's work

manship, it is reasonable to judge that we are God's property. Since my goal is to show that a secular Lockean liberal moral

theory is as plausible as Waldron's theological version, and since

Waldron's version assumes this same competence, I need not here

try to provide a full epistemological defense of the capacity to make

valid moral judgments from certain facts.20 Nonetheless, I think

that the existence of such a competence is defensible and, in fact,

undeniable, and I suggest here some reasons why: Consider, first, the theoretical use of reason. Anyone who

thinks that logical entailments are valid will, I think, have to accept that entailments are only possible if there are valid normative

judgments that are not entailments (that such and such is a well

formed proposition, that the relationship between such and such

propositions amounts to an entailment, and so on). And, there

will be no knowledge at all unless we have the capacity to judge

validly that such and such phenomenon is or reveals a fact?another

normative judgment, since to judge that something is a fact is to

judge that it should be believed. Reason, it seems, must include the

competence to reach valid normative theoretical judgments from

certain facts?though of course the competence is not infallible, and

thus its mere exercise does not guarantee the validity of its results.

But, didn't Hume believe that certain facts about descriptive and

evaluative statements entitled him to judge that he and we should

believe that factual premises cannot entail a moral conclusion?

If we have a general capacity to arrive at valid normative

theoretical conclusions, then there is reason to believe the Lockean

20. See notes 7 and 12, and accompanying text, above.



490_THE REVIEW OF POLITICS_

assumption that we have the competence to arrive at valid normative

practical conclusions, that is, valid moral judgments. Indeed, it may be that the solution to the fact-value problem has eluded us because

it is right under our eyes as it was right under Hume's. Reasonable

judgment is the power to cross the gap between is and ought. To

be sure, precisely because this is a matter of judgment rather than

entailment, the judgment will always go beyond the premises. Hence the puzzle. What's more, for the same reason, the only evi

dence for the validity of a given normative practical judgment is

that other reasonable people make it also. Interestingly, this would

make good on contemporary philosophers' strategy of appealing to

widely-held intuitions?though without the nonrationality that the

term "intuition" suggests.21 Once intuition is replaced by reasonable

judgment, then our moral claims can be objects of knowledge with

truth values?even if, of course, they cannot be shown to be truer

than equally widely-held contrary judgments, if such there be. Suf

fice it to say that I think Locke is pointing toward an epistemological

possibility that could be extremely useful to moral philosophers. Furthermore, I think that the suspicion of cultural relativism

that haunts the liberal moral principle comes of viewing that

principle as a "doctrine"?rather than as a response of corporeal rational beings to their shared condition. As a doctrine, it is only as valid as its first premises, which, since they are first, cannot

be proven and, in the current philosophical situation, can't be

thought self-evident. Thus, as a "doctrine," it hangs from nothing and can be thought to be a matter of choice or culture, and thus of

questionable objective validity. If, however, we remember that we are embodied (something

philosophers have been forgetting since Socrates pronounced phi

losophy a preparation for dying), we will see that living our desires

and our vulnerabilities makes some principles reasonable to us in

fact. ("Man is a being of needs," wrote Kant, "and thus his reason

has an inescapable responsibility.")22 Such reasonable principles will have a claim on us that is not available if we think of moral

principles as no more than doctrines. Because we are embodied, there is in fact a reasonable way of dealing with one another that

21. That I would replace the current language of "intuitions" with that of

"reasonable judgments" should suffice to indicate that I in no way endorse the

view, associated with G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross, that we have intuitions?in the

sense of direct knowledge?of values or principles of right. These are claims of

self-evidence that Locke would rightly reject, and I reject them too.

22. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill,

1956; originally published 1788), p. 61.




all can see and understand, and the liberal moral principle spells out that way. Even those who believe in higher spiritual values and

commands, normally do see that physical harm and pain are bad

and, at least, presumptively, evil.23

These last considerations point to a distinctively Lockean theory of the moral obligation to treat one another according to the liberal

principle. The very fact that all people can be expected to see the

reasonableness of this principle means that all people know that

all other people see it, and thus that all can expect all others to act

according to it. And then, anyone who does not act according to it

is consciously flouting the reasonable expectations of his fellows.

Such a person is reasonably judged a threat by the others, and

reasonably dealt with accordingly. Thus, writes Locke:

In transgressing the law of Nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common

equity..., and so he becomes

dangerous to mankind;... which being a

trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided by the law of Nature, every man

upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so

may bring such evil on any one who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example, others from doing the like mischief. (ST, II.8)

In short, the law of Nature obligates us both because it is the appro

priate reasonable response to our shared human condition?acting

contrary to it is unreasonable?and because doing evil to those

who are not willing to abide by the law of Nature is the appropri ate reasonable response to them. As might be expected, a Lockean

theory of obligation is grounded both in reason and in the threat

of sanction.24

I take it then that the liberal moral principle can be grounded in secular terms with elements found in Locke's thought. It may of

course be thought that this is a rather sparse moral principle and, in a way, it is indeed. However, it has the important implication that any other requirement cannot rightly be forced on sane adults

against their wills. That in turn implies (a) that the justification of

requirements backed up by force must be found in people's consent

to them, and (b) that all other moral demands must be promoted

by persuasion alone.

23. Shorn of fiery rhetoric, the justifications that Osama bin Laden gives for

his war against the West boil down to garden-variety harms and injuries that he

believes have been perpetrated by the West on Muslims.

24. On Locke's views about the ground of moral obligation, see the discussion

in Simmons, The Lockean Theory, pp. 26-28.




Moreover, there appear to be requirements that must be backed

up with force that it would be irrational to do without, and that, in

their nature, cannot wait on actual consent. Suppose, for example, that we had to wait for everyone actually to consent to majority rule

before it could be held to be morally right to act on the majority's will when anyone dissented. The result would be that we would never reach the point of it being morally right. Then it would never

be morally acceptable for us to act as a group when anyone dis

sented. But it seems that the benefits of being able to act as a group even when there is dissent are enormous, so great that it would be

irrational to forego the possibility. If so, then we will have to justify such requirements by showing that it would be reasonable for people to consent to them.25 And with this we get a moral justification for the

social contract strategy?one that is quite a bit more powerful than

the justification of the strategy by its conformity with our intuitions, or by its conformity to our liberal democratic culture, that we get from early and late Rawls, respectively.26

In this respect, it is important to note that both property and

political institutions are systems of requirements that promise benefits too great to be foregone, that they must be backed by force, and that they cannot wait on actual consent. Thus they can

only be justified by showing that it would be reasonable for people to agree to them. (This is why I omitted "possessions" from the

statement of the liberal moral principle earlier in this section. The

moral compatibility of property and liberty must be shown; it is

not automatic.) I do not here maintain either that the institutions

of property-ownership or of political decision-making that Locke

finds justified in this way are, in fact, the ones that are truly justified. Indeed, the liberal principle will imply that much moral discourse

will be about the terms of such institutions that are justifiable. Re

garding property, such terms will occupy positions on the gamut that runs from the Lockean position that private property expresses

25. Here, too, I shall not attempt a fullscale defense. Suffice it to say that anyone who thinks that the state is morally justifiable (anyone not an anarchist, that is) must believe that the benefits of the state justify imposing state institutions on people without their having first consented in fact. And, among these non-anarchists, anyone who believes that it is wrong to impose things

on people without their consent, will

have little choice but to appeal to a theoretical version of consent, that is, taking

people to consent to what it would be reasonable for them to consent to.

26. This has the interesting implication that, to the extent that one thinks that

Rawls's two principles of "justice as fairness" spell out the content of what it would

be reasonable for people to agree to (and I think that they do to a very great extent), to that extent one will be able to believe that those principles

are the true principles of justice?not just what "we (northeastern liberals) believe/'




the freedom of owners to the Marxian position that private property thwarts the freedom of nonowners. As for political institutions, the viable options are likely to be various combinations of repre sentative lawmaking institutions and devices for protecting basic

rights.27 What I do think is right in Locke's treatment of institutions of property-ownership and of political decision-making is that he

takes justifying them to require showing that it would be reason

able for all to agree to their terms.28

With this, I think the lineaments of a plausible, secularly

grounded, and distinctively Lockean liberal moral theory are in

place. It is, of course, a social contract theory; but not one that rests on intuitions or on culture, or that hangs from thin air. Those

who have thought that the social contract doctrine is not morally neutral?from Hume to modern-day communitarians?are right. The social contract is grounded in each person's natural right to

be free. But since that right is an article of knowledge, knowable to

all reasonable people, that ground is firm?and secular.

27.1 discuss the implications of Locke's social contract theory for the right to

vote in "Liberal and Republican Arguments Against the Disenfranchisement of

Felons," Criminal Justice Ethics 24, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2005): 3-18. 28. This is evident regarding political institutions. It is less obvious with respect

to private property, but true nonetheless. Both of Locke's arguments for private

property (the argument for subsistence appropriation as long as "enough, and as

good" is left over for others, and the argument for large and unequal appropriation based on the dubious inference from the conventional nature of money to it and its

consequences having been agreed to?as well as the more plausible claim that such

property is productive of more goods for all) show that he thought that property had to be such that it would be reasonable for all to agree to its terms, both owners

and nonowners alike. See ST, V.25-51.1 think that Waldron would agree, see GLE,

pp. 170-77. See, also, my Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 1990), pp. 170-78.



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Towards a Secular Lockean Liberalism