John Locke
(1632-1704) was an English doctor and philosopher who was very
influential on the American Founding Fathers (Hamilton, Madison,
Jefferson), the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. One
passage of the Declaration of Independence is almost wholesale lifted
from Locke’s political work. He is famous for two works, the classic
text of Empiricism, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and the
political work, Two Treatises of Government. He was friends with
scientists such as Boyle and Newton. Like Hobbes, he witnessed the
struggle between the English Monarchy and Parliament, and his political
writings are deeply influenced by his times. Jefferson considered him
one of the greatest thinker who ever lived.
Like
Hobbes, Locke believed that human beings have natural rights that they
derive from the state of nature and that government gets its power and
rights from this and not divine decree of God, but unlike Hobbes, Locke
believed that the power of the sovereign must not infringe on the right
to life, the right to liberty, and the right to property. Like Hobbes,
Locke argued that the state of nature is not sufficient for individuals
to live as they want and so they establish the state by natural
contract, but unlike Hobbes Locke argued that this must be achieved by
establishing a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances.
While Hobbes argued that the sovereign is transferred the rights of
the individual such that the sovereign can take life, restrict liberty
and seize property for the good of the people as the people, Locke
argues that the people have the right to rebel against the sovereign if
the sovereign infringes on these rights. Thus, for Locke, the social
contract with the sovereign is not unbreakable and does not fully
transfer individual rights to the sovereign. Like Machiavelli and
unlike Hobbes, Locke believed in checks and balances to the power of the
sovereign to protect the rights of individuals.
As
many critics have pointed out, neither Locke nor the American founding
fathers believed that these rights extended to all of humanity and there
resulted great contradictions between love of individual rights and the
brutal practices of slavery and colonialism. Locke was a major
investor in the Royal African Company, a secretary to the Council of
Trade and Plantations and a member of the Board of Trade, all of which
were central to the African slave trade that took Africans from Africa
to America to benefit the English plantations. While he argued that
labor gives the individual a natural right to property, he also argued
that the work of servants and slaves rightfully belongs to their master.
Marx would later, as could be expected, agree that labor gives a right
to ownership but disagree that the master or ruling class have the
right to the fruits of the labor of the slaves, servants and lower
classes. Like the founding fathers wrote “All men are born equal” but
owned slaves themselves, Locke was clearly in agreement with the racism
of his times and was writing for the equality of Europeans who owned
property, servants and slaves and not of all-inclusive humanity.
Locke
argued that money allowed property to be accumulated without injury to
anyone. Many, including Marx and Native Americans and Africans, would
take exception to this. Locke also writes that government should act
such that individuals can accumulate as much wealth as they can but that
wealth is distributed to the rest of society. He does not provide many
insights as to how to go about this. Locke does argue that one of the
major reasons that individuals should seek a social contract in the
state of nature is to preserve their property and the fruits of their
labor. In this, he is much more like Aristotle than Plato as Aristotle
argues the state must draw everyone into a common unity yet preserve the
diversity of personal property and ownership. While Hobbes sees
preservation of one’s life as the primary reason for the social
contract, Locke argues that the preservation of both life and property
are the primary reasons and that the sovereign cannot arbitrarily take
life or property from the individuals bound together in the social
contract.
One
last idea of Locke’s that has been very influential on many is the idea
of the individual as a blank slate or tabula rasa (“blank slate” in
Latin). An Empiricist, Locke believed that there are no innate ideas in
the human mind and that all ideas are acquired by experience (unlike
Descartes and much like Hume). Locke read a 12th century Arabic novel
(translated into Latin) by Ibn Tufail titled Living Son of Wakening
which tells the story of a child isolated from human society on a desert
island who grows naturally by experience and reason to human adulthood.
Another popular novel at the time was Robinson Crusoe which presents a
gentleman and native “savage” on an island in the state of nature.
Locke believed that education (like Confucius and the Confucians
Mencius and Xun Zi) is central to all development and that the mind is
an empty cabinet waiting to be filled.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778) was much influenced by many of the thinkers we have covered
including the Confucians. He was particularly concerned with being on
the side of individual liberty checking the powers of sovereignty with
Locke vs. Hobbes. Unlike Hobbes but somewhat like Locke’s idea of
tabula rasa, Rousseau imagined that the state of nature was innocent and
pure and that it was society that corrupted the purity of the
individual. Like Locke, Rousseau was a major influence on the American
as well as French revolution (our topic for next week, after Mill and
Thoreau). I gave you selections from his two most famous political
works, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social
Contract. Rousseau was not only influenced by many of the thinkers we
have read so far, but was also an influence on many of the thinkers we
have yet to read, including the founding fathers, Hegel, Nietzsche,
Paine, Marx, Engels and Bakunin.
Rousseau
was born in Geneva which was governed as a democracy involving a
minority of the male property owning class having voting power. He
wandered Italy and France for a time as a secretary and tutor to
aristocrats. In 1749 he saw an advertisement by the Academy of Dijon in
a newspaper which asked for essay submissions in response to the
question, “Has the rebirth of the sciences and arts contributed to the
improvement or the corruption of manners?”.
Rousseau
had an awakening experience, and decided that the original human nature
is innocent and pure and that it must be society that had brought about
corruption and ignorance.
This
was in complete disagreement with many of his contemporaries including
his close friend Diderot, who were champions of the Enlightenment and
science and believed that human nature was being freed by the progress
of society. Diderot wrote to Rousseau about his Discourse on the Origin
of Inequality, “never was so much intelligence used to make us
stupid…while reading it, one longs to go on all fours”. Voltaire and
Diderot were passionate about science freeing the mind of humanity from
primitive superstitions. Rousseau argued that humanity was good in the
beginning and that society would ultimately destroy all that was good
about humanity. Society makes people take up artificial practices and
wear masks (much like those worn to aristocratic parties at the time).
Remember that Hobbes argued society was an artificial construction, but
Hobbes believed that human beings were naturally selfish, not pure,
like Xun Zi. Rousseau argues that the artificial nature of society is
corruptive and breeds hypocrisy. Nietzsche would later take up this
cynical turn against social progress and argue like Rousseau it chains
the individual.
Unlike
Locke, Rousseau saw property and the excesses of luxury as evil and
destructive to our natural being. Rousseau, unlike Locke and Hobbes,
praises the “savage” peoples, using his famous phrase, “the noble
savage” and saw them as living a more authentic and peaceful existence
than modern “civilized” people. Like Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau
believed that human individuals were equal in the state of nature, but
he does not see the social contract as helping but rather harming this
natural equality. Like Locke, Rousseau believed that humans are a blank
slate, but more than Locke he believed that human nature continues to
be a free and changeable, determined by the situation in which it lives.
Rousseau
avoided arguing about natural laws (key for Hobbes and Locke),
preferring human nature as an undefined freedom. While Hobbes believed
that the state of nature was brutal, and Locke believed that the state
of nature had semi-responsible property retainers who had yet to
establish laws for their benefit, Rousseau saw the state of nature as a
peaceful and simple time. Society came about through domination and
inequality, not natural equality cohering in a social contract of equals
(much as Marx and Nietzsche will argue later). Some came to have more
than others, and the social contract legitimated these differences (note
that Locke would argue the same, but see it as a positive thing).
Thus, property is the root cause of social problems because it is an
inequality that disrupts the natural equality of humanity such that we
have masters and slaves. Later in the class, we will see that Foucault,
also influenced by Rousseau (as well as Nietzsche) argues that
institutions use binary divisions like knowledge/ignorance and
sane/insane to maintain divisions of power and inequality.
While
we live in society and enjoy its conveniences, Rousseau argues that we
must resist the urge to give up our freedom, our most basic human
nature. Because human nature is free and changeable, society can turn
us into machines and slaves. To resist this slavery, we must (like
Locke argued) be able to overthrow unjust governments and break social
contracts (unlike Hobbes who saw the contract as unbreakable). We must
also (like Machiavelli and Locke argued) have checks on the power of the
sovereign and society such that society preserves the natural freedom
of humanity and does not replace it with restrictions and repression.
Rousseau turns Hobbes’ sovereign on his head: because the sovereign or
government is, in fact, the will and hand of the people, it must be
subject to the participation of the people to be authentic. The social
contract is founded on mutual agreement, and so it must be maintained by
mutual agreement.
Unfortunately,
as critics have pointed out, this does not solve all of the problems
that many see easily in the theories of Hobbes. Rousseau replaces the
sovereign with the general will, which is indeed democratic, but what
about the individual or minority group that disagrees with the general
will? Both Hobbes and Rousseau argue that those who disagree must be
made to agree or they are outside society. Both argue that the
individual must be subordinate to the collective for the good of
everyone. Rousseau does argue for checks on the power of the state to
preserve the liberty of the individual, but the expression of the
general will is, for Rousseau, such a check that then overrides the
individual who disagrees with the majority. Rousseau does not precisely
specify how the general will or government will refrain from dominating
the dissenting individual. Rousseau, unlike Marx, was afraid of
revolutions because he saw them as domination of the powerless by the
powerful and pointed out that they often have terrible consequences.
Nevertheless, his ideas were important for both the American and French
revolutions. Many have pointed out that Robespierre of the French
Revolution referred repeatedly to Rousseau while using the idea of
general will to brutally eliminate his opposition. This is very similar
to the use of Nietzsche by the Nazis. Others have noted the
similarities to the problematic Communist revolutions and their abuses.
In
The Social Contract, Rousseau begins famously by writing, “Man was born
free, and everywhere he is in chains”. He goes on to consider the
birth of the social contract and how it can be, if balanced properly, an
aid to freedom as much as a restriction on it. The birth of society is
in the family. The major difference is that the father dominates the
children (and wife, unmentioned) but loves the children while the state
dominates the individual but does not love the individual. Thus, the
father encourages the freedom and life of the children out of love while
the later relation of the social-contract state does not necessarily
encourage the freedom of the individual.
If
Hobbes is right, we are mere herds of cattle to be controlled by the
state. If Aristotle is right, some are born superior to others and they
should control the subordinates. Rousseau argues that society, like
slavery, is not natural and came about by the force of the stronger. If
we obey society because of force, then there is no reason for duty. He
uses the example of a robber with a gun and argues that one is not
bound by duty to tell the robber about hidden valuables. If the
sovereign/state is given power by protecting the people, why should the
people stand with the state when it persecutes them or needlessly seeks
war? This is the major question one likely asks after reading Hobbes.
To
renounce one’s liberty is to renounce one’s humanity. Any social
contract which makes one side the absolute authority and the other the
absolutely obedient contradicts itself such that it is meaningless. If a
slave has rights but no power, then it is as if the master has the
slave’s rights and these rights contradict the rights that the master
has already. In so far as the master gives the slave no power, the
slave has no duty to follow the master and follows the master merely by
force. If it is not unjust for the master to chain or kill the slave,
then it is not unjust for the slave to escape or kill the master when
the gun or whip can be grabbed. Rousseau mentions Balboa taking
possession of the Pacific Ocean and South America from the natives for
Spain. The words “slavery” and “right” are mutually exclusive. In the
case of the dissenting minority, if the state gets its power from the
agreement of the majority, in what way is it just for the minority to be
included in the social contract if they do not agree? The only just
state is thus the state which enables individual liberty and is
controlled by the people as equals.
Rousseau,
as already discussed, does believe that the minority is subject to the
general/majority will, but for Rousseau this is only because the state
justly protects individual freedoms. Otherwise, without such
protections, there is no injustice when the minority refuses to
participate in the state. This is particularly interesting issue when
one considers America and Jim Crow laws.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873
CE) was born in London, influenced by Ancient Greek, French, and
liberal thought. He is considered the major founder of Utilitarianism
and one of the first champions of individual freedom, women’s rights,
and the abolition of slavery. His father wrote a history of India, and
Mill was for a time involved with his father in the British East India
company, the corporation that helped Britain maintain their hold over
India. Mill’s family was friends with the Bentham family, from whom
Mill took up his consequentialist, ‘happy principle’ thought.
In
fact, Mill’s father had Bentham tutor Mill as a child with the idea
that Mill would become a champion of consequentialist thought. However,
it was Mill who found the name ‘utilitarian’ in a Christian text that
used the term to describe an evil way to strive for good without
principles. Mill picked up the name and developed the thinking in line
with Bentham, his mentor, becoming its famous spokesman. Mill is a
central thinker in Logic, Economics and Ethics. In all of these
subjects, he advocated rethinking basic principles and assumptions based
on the ongoing experiences of their usefulness. For Mill and
Utilitarianism, the true is not true in itself but true because it is
useful for creating happiness and avoiding pain. Like Rousseau, Mill
does not argue based on natural rights but rather on the natural liberty
and freedom of the individual.
We
can see two sides to the Utilitarian Principle, maximizing positive and
minimizing negative. Bentham argued that one should always act in
order to maximize happiness. Mill agrees, but says the MOST important
thing is to minimize pain. It is important to add that Mill argues we
must look at consequences in terms of the social view (for the most
people) and the long view (for the greatest length of time). While
Bentham and Mill are two sides of the same coin, they are different in
important ways. There are times when striving for maximum happiness can
cause much pain (majority happiness at the expense of the minority),
and there are times when striving for minimum pain impairs much
potential happiness (overprotective parenting, insurance issues, have to
break some eggs etc).
Consider
that Communism often sacrifices freedom for equality, providing
structure for all but imposing this on those who dissent (much like
Bentham) while Capitalism often sacrifices equality for freedom,
providing little structural support but imposing very little on the
lives of the people (much like Mill). Mill is considered one of the big
influences on American law, and American Capitalism leans very much
towards Mill. Consider also the example of the Dutch house where the
socialist state provides allowances and living space for alcoholics to
drink themselves to death vs. homeless people (including Vietnam
veterans) drinking themselves to death in the streets in America.
Mill
admits that there will be continuous problems whichever way we use the
principle, but he argues that we must try to evolve in a positive
direction and so we should stick to the Utilitarian social & long
view even when there are problems if we want the best society. Some
problems with Utilitarianism include the paradox of the bad example and
the problem of authority.
The
paradox of the bad example is used by critics to argue that
Utilitarianism/Consequentialism causes contradictions such as the bad
being always useful, and thus good. Any bad act is useful as a good
example not only to the one who acted but to everyone else. Consider
PBS documentaries on the US overcoming slavery as freedom and the
average American of South Africa. Consider a prosecuting attorney
arguing that an offender is bound to offend again vs. a defense attorney
pointing at the same offender and arguing that they had a bad
upbringing but are reformed and pulling their life together. Dennett
uses three mile island as an example, arguing it caused nuclear
standards to follow. Consider that we love villains who go from good to
bad and heroes who go from bad to good. We can very easily see bad as
good and good as bad. Is this a problem for Utilitarianism, as critics
claim, or a problem for Ethics and humanity in general?
Nietzsche
and Marx attack Utilitarianism with the problem of authority: guess who
are the ones to tell you what is useful or makes us most happy? For
Marx, it is the rulers, the privileged, and the upper class, who use the
lower class as labor. For Nietzsche, it is the group, the majority,
who cow the individual into agreement with the thinking and tastes of
the masses. Mill in fact approves of war to advance civilization, and
he approves of colonialism as improving the uncivilized.
Mill
was a champion against the enslavement of black people and the second
class status of women. His wife was brilliant and a significant
influence on this thinking as well as On Liberty. He was one of the
first passionate voices in philosophy, in fact one of the few, who
argued that we must evolve to overcome slavery and second class status
for any type of people. He writes, in 1850 on ‘The Negro Question’
words I love: “It is curious, withal, that the earliest known
civilization was, we have the strongest reason to believe, a negro
civilization. The original Egyptians are inferred, from the evidence of
their sculptures, to have been a negro race: it was from negroes,
therefore, that the Greeks learnt their first lessons in civilization;
and to the records and traditions of these negroes did the Greek
Philosophers to the very end of their career resort (I do not say with
much fruit) as a treasury of mysterious wisdom.” I must say that we
still are not wise to this in many of our texts and museums today.
In
his work On Liberty, which I gave you to read, Mill argues that society
only has the right to check or limit individual freedom when the
individual is harming others or significantly harming themselves.
Otherwise, individuals should have the freedom to do anything. If the
state destroys life or property, this affects not only the targeted
individual but the entire community. Mill argues that failing to act
can also be unjust when it causes harm, such as allowing a child to fall
into a well (like the child discussed by Mencius). He argues that the
Utility principle will not only protect the individual from the state,
but also the minority from the majority (useful, considering the problem
Rousseau shares with Hobbes as discussed last time). The state must
have checks and balances to prevent abuse of the individual and
minorities. Interestingly, in his work on economics Mill argued that
managers and executives should be voted into positions of power by the
laborers or else there will be economic dictatorship.
Unfortunately,
Mill does argue that children and the “uncivilized” (read: native
populations of Africa, India, and the Americas) can be limited by the
family or state because they are not fully developed and so should not
be given full freedom to act on their own. In such cases, strict yet
loving parenting and benevolent despotism is justified. Sad to say,
this is much in line with British and American foreign policy in Mill’s
time and still is today.
Mill
also argues for radical freedom of speech. Because offense does not
constitute harm, the state has no right to regulate offensive speech or
arguments. We learn more by hearing arguments we hate rather than
prohibiting them, and any argument may contain an element of truth no
matter how much we hate it. As a Utilitarian Mill believes in the
evolution and progression of truth over dogmatism and tradition, and new
truths are often offensive.
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) was a writer, naturalist, transcendentalist, and
abolitionist who is most famous for his proto-environmental and
autobiographical book Walden and his political work On Civil
Disobedience. He advocated simple and natural living and the right of
the individual to nonparticipation with unjust laws and states. Like
Rousseau, Thoreau believed that modern society was corrupting and
abusive and hoped that people would cease to participate in war, slavery
and other brutal practices by returning to nature and simplicity. Like
Rousseau, he argued that many comforts and luxuries are not aids but
hindrances to the progress of humanity. Like Rousseau, at least one
critic wrote that if Thoreau was right we may as well go back to walking
on all fours.
Thoreau
did not believe in leaving society or rugged naturalism, but balancing
modernity and city life with an appreciation of nature and the
transcendent unity of existence. He is sometimes called an anarchist,
as he wrote, “That government is best which governs least,” in On Civil
Disobedience. While Thoreau did love nature and despise much of modern
society, he argued for balance and did not believe in leaving
civilization or abolishing government. Many know that Thoreau wrote
Walden while secluded in a cabin at Walden pond (on land owned by his
mentor and fellow transcendentalist Emerson) but few know that Walden
pond was not far removed from society and in fact Thoreau had
accidentally burned down 300 acres of Walden Wood with the help of a
friend several years before staying in the cabin.
In
1846, Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay past taxes on the grounds
of opposition to the American slave trade and the Mexican-American War.
Moved by the experience, he gave lectures on his experience and how it
strengthened his convictions and later reworked these lectures into his
famous On Civil Disobedience (published in 1849). Many great leaders
have been profoundly influenced by the work, including Martin Luther
King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Tolstoy, JFK, Hemingway, and John Muir. MLK
wrote in his autobiography that he first found the idea of
noncooperation with the unjust system as effective means of protest in
On Civil Disobedience while studying at Morehouse College in 1944, and
that he became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as important
as cooperation with good.
On
Civil Disobedience would make Xun Zi scream. Thoreau argues that
government is supposed to be an aid but is most often a hindrance. He
points to the Mexican-American war and says that a few, not the people,
are benefited by using the state as a tool. Even democracies can
dominate the minority and individual. The state does not make us more
just and often uses us for great injustice such as war and slavery. We
often serve the state as machines, not people, and being like a dog or
horse is being a “good citizen”. How should we act toward the state
today? Thoreau writes he can’t acknowledge his government as the
government of the slave too. If the US is invaded, he says, he will
take up arms for the US, but it is we who are the invaders!
We
should refuse to follow unjust laws and governments, and be friction
against the machine. If you live simply, and have less, then you can
more easily not participate in the injustices of war and slavery. The
rich are always indebted to the system that maintains the riches.
Thoreau quotes Jesus: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, and Confucius,
“In an unjust state, riches and honors are shameful”.
Thoreau
acknowledges that there has been great progress for individual freedom
in the transition from monarchy to democracy, but asks: is democracy the
final step of this evolution?
