john locke
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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
Historically, it was the political solution to the struggle for religious toleration
Attempt to keep politics out of religion. The state should not worry about the state of men’s souls
Give freedom of religion to the people
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
Another 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 Locke will present two arguments – one secular,
one religious – to show where this right comes from 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
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