WEBVTT

NOTE John Locke

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.600
I'm going to talk this morning about John Locke, but before I do that, I want to say just one further thing about Hobbes.

2
00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:22.800
I was thinking about how I presented a point about the way, according to Hobbes, people make the covenant to...

3
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:28.600
where they surrender their rights to act for themselves and give everything to the sovereign.

4
00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:32.600
I think the way I presented it wasn't correct.

5
00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:41.600
Now, you remember, as I had pictured it, there was a series of hypotheticals in which each person said,

6
00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:50.600
I surrender my right to act according to the law of nature if everyone else does as well.

7
00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:57.600
And then, as I mentioned, this raises a problem because if you have everybody saying that,

8
00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:05.600
You don't actually have any real act of consent. You just have a series of hypotheticals.

9
00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:11.600
Just like in the example I gave, you imagine the boy who says to his mother,

10
00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:16.600
May I go to the movies? And the mother says, Yes, if your father says you can.

11
00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:23.600
Then he goes to his father and the father says, Yes, you can, if your mother says you can.

12
00:01:23.600 --> 00:01:28.800
So, he doesn't have permission to go, he just has two hypotheticals.

13
00:01:28.800 --> 00:01:35.600
So, where I went wrong in what I was saying yesterday is that I said,

14
00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:41.440
well, this requires, say, you need one person to start the whole thing off.

15
00:01:42.800 --> 00:01:48.000
Now, in the example I gave with the little boy, this would work.

16
00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.440
Say, if the mother then says, all right, you can go,

17
00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:58.160
Then that commits the father to giving permission, also since he said you can go if your mother says you can.

18
00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:04.320
Your mother did say that he can, so therefore the father's committed to say he can go as well.

19
00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:10.960
But if you have more than one person, in the Hobbesian case we're having a whole lot of people,

20
00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:15.120
then if one person goes ahead and makes a commitment,

21
00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:34.120
I not only made all the hypothetical commitment that I'll surrender my right to act to the sovereign, if everyone else does as well, but I also say I do surrender my right to act to the sovereign.

22
00:02:34.120 --> 00:02:40.120
Commission. That doesn't commit everybody else. All that would commit everybody else

23
00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:46.200
would be everybody else making such a commitment except one person, and the last person would

24
00:02:46.200 --> 00:02:53.360
also be committed. So I think to get around that, it's really better to see what Hobbes

25
00:02:53.360 --> 00:03:00.240
is doing is not that the people would not be explicitly putting in the conditional part

26
00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:08.040
in their commitment, they wouldn't be saying, I covenant to give my right to act to the

27
00:03:08.040 --> 00:03:10.600
sovereign if everyone else does as well.

28
00:03:10.600 --> 00:03:20.120
It would just be each one is making a commitment, a non-hypothetical commitment to the sovereign,

29
00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:27.320
but he has in mind that the commitment won't come into effect unless a sufficient number

30
00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:42.320
I think that seems to be a much better way of understanding and making sense of what Hobbes is saying than the wrong thing I was suggesting yesterday.

31
00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:52.320
Now that said, we can now turn to John Locke, who lived from 1632 to 1704.

32
00:03:52.320 --> 00:04:02.320
Locke came from a fairly wealthy family and he attended Winchester College and then went to Oxford.

33
00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:07.320
He didn't think very highly of his Oxford education.

34
00:04:07.320 --> 00:04:13.320
However, he became a fellow of one of the colleges, Christ Church College.

35
00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:15.320
They call their fellows student.

36
00:04:15.320 --> 00:04:29.320
So he was a student of Christ Church and he retained that position until 1684 when he was removed by the direct orders of King Charles II.

37
00:04:29.320 --> 00:04:43.320
After he followed a fairly standard course in the humanities, but he was also very interested in medicine.

38
00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:49.280
And he, although he didn't take his final degree as a doctor, I think he complained

39
00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:59.480
that there were, that you had to attend too many dinners in the special places to qualify.

40
00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:08.240
He was really qualified as a doctor and he's one of the few great philosophers who was

41
00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:09.780
also a doctor.

42
00:05:09.780 --> 00:05:21.460
Another one, incidentally, was William James, who was an M.D. After he taught at Oxford

43
00:05:21.460 --> 00:05:32.540
for a while, he then met the Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, and after he met the

44
00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:41.140
Earl Shaftesbury. The Earl had to have a very serious operation and Locke supervised the

45
00:05:41.140 --> 00:05:48.820
operation. He mentioned he had training as a doctor and the operation was very successful

46
00:05:48.820 --> 00:05:57.540
and after that the Earl became very attached to Locke and Locke stayed in his household

47
00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:07.620
for the remainder of his life. He was an advisor to the Duke and to the Earl on various matters.

48
00:06:07.620 --> 00:06:20.980
In his early years, around 1660, Locke wrote two tracts on government essay and also essays

49
00:06:20.980 --> 00:06:29.060
on the Law of Nature. In these essays, he took a very different position from the one

50
00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:37.500
that's generally associated with him. In his early work, he said that government does not

51
00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:43.820
rest on popular consent. He was an absolutist, and he opposed religious toleration. He said

52
00:06:43.820 --> 00:06:51.820
The Supreme Magistrate has the right to decide on what the religion of the country should be.

53
00:06:51.820 --> 00:06:57.820
So his position was quite similar to that of Thomas Hobbes.

54
00:06:57.820 --> 00:07:03.820
The reason I mention this, I won't talk about his early work in the body of the lecture,

55
00:07:03.820 --> 00:07:10.820
but the reason I mention this is that as usual there is the Straussian interpretation of Locke,

56
00:07:10.820 --> 00:07:23.820
and the Stroussian interpretation, I should say this isn't the interpretation of all Stroussians, but some Stroussians such as Robert Kranak, who is written on this topic,

57
00:07:23.820 --> 00:07:38.820
those Stroussians claim that Locke always remained a Hobbesian and that he really wasn't the defender of very limited government that most people take him to be.

58
00:07:38.820 --> 00:07:45.360
Strauss himself takes this position in his most famous book, which is called

59
00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:51.580
Natural Right and History. In the chapter on Locke, he argues that Locke was really

60
00:07:51.580 --> 00:07:56.560
pretty much of a Hobbesian. I don't find this a plausible view, but that is the

61
00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:06.000
Straussian view. Now, as I just said, Locke was an advisor to the Earl of

62
00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:14.320
and Shaftesbury. Now, at that time in England, remember from Electron Hobbes, King Charles

63
00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:24.080
II had come back to England after his father, King Charles I, had been executed in 1649,

64
00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:32.040
but the monarchy was restored, King Charles had come back. But when he came back, there

65
00:08:32.040 --> 00:08:39.760
There was still, there was a lot of conflict going on because there were some people who

66
00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:50.260
were very attached to Protestant Christianity, they were very anti-Catholic, but on the other

67
00:08:50.260 --> 00:08:57.120
hand the king himself, Charles II, was very sympathetic to Catholicism and in fact he

68
00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.120
Secretly Converted to Catholicism

69
00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:11.120
And so there was a big fight going on throughout Charles II's reign between these various religious factions.

70
00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:18.120
The Earl of Shaftesbury was very much in the anti-Charles II camp.

71
00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:23.120
He wasn't sympathetic to Charles's policy at all.

72
00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:43.120
Locke had to go into exile. He went to France in 1675 because he was suspected of writing a pamphlet that was very critical of King Charles, that upset the royalists very much.

73
00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:52.120
Locke always denied writing the pamphlet, something like a letter from a gentleman in the country.

74
00:09:52.120 --> 00:10:01.120
He always denied writing the pamphlet, but you can't always take Locke's denials at face value,

75
00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:06.120
because he tended to be very secretive about his activities.

76
00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:15.120
It would have been, let's not say that he wrote it, but just that you can't always believe what Block said about what he wrote.

77
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:30.120
So, as I say, he was in France from 1675. He came back to England in 1679 when the things had died down. It was safe for him to come back.

78
00:10:30.120 --> 00:10:43.200
However, things got even more troublesome for him a few years later.

79
00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:51.840
The heir to the throne after Charles II was his brother James II.

80
00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:59.720
James II had converted to Catholicism, so the people who didn't like the Catholics

81
00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:07.640
didn't want James the Second to ascend to the throne and they tried to get a bill passed

82
00:11:07.640 --> 00:11:15.080
in parliament that excluded him from the throne, it's called the exclusion crisis, but Charles

83
00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:24.280
the Second was able to stop this bill from going through by just not dissolving parliament.

84
00:11:24.280 --> 00:11:28.440
In any case, even if it had passed, he could have simply vetoed the bill.

85
00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:35.240
At that time, the king had the right, if it had an absolute veto over any legislation

86
00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:43.160
passed by parliament, the last person, last monarch to use the royal veto was Queen Anne,

87
00:11:43.160 --> 00:11:49.480
who was somewhat later.

88
00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:55.760
So the anti-Catholics though weren't giving up, at least some of them weren't.

89
00:11:55.760 --> 00:12:05.040
There was a plot by some people to kidnap the king and his brother who were tending

90
00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:07.520
the horse races.

91
00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:14.400
The plot was, this was in 1683, some people were going to seize them and possibly do away

92
00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:21.080
Play with them, or at least do something to the brothers so that you wouldn't have a Catholic

93
00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:23.840
king.

94
00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:27.680
The royalists got word of this plot.

95
00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:34.840
There was some indication, Richard Ashcraft has a book on Locke's Revolutionary Politics,

96
00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:41.720
there was some indication, Locke was involved in this plot, so he had to go into exile again.

97
00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:54.600
This time he went to the Dutch Republic where he remained for several years.

98
00:12:54.600 --> 00:13:05.360
After the struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants in England intensified after

99
00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:13.080
After the death of Charles II, when James II, his brother, became king, as the Protestant

100
00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:19.960
superiority started putting into effect very pro-Catholic policies.

101
00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:30.520
One reason besides the difference in religion that a lot of the English people didn't like

102
00:13:30.520 --> 00:13:40.600
The Catholic policy was that the one who was the main sponsor of James II was the French

103
00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:45.920
King Louis XIV.

104
00:13:45.920 --> 00:13:52.720
A lot of the English people feared that James II was going to surrender his kingdom, the

105
00:13:52.720 --> 00:14:02.920
The King of England to France, or at least completely subordinate English policy to the

106
00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:03.920
French policy.

107
00:14:03.920 --> 00:14:16.240
So, after things didn't get better, so there was a move, a popular move, to replace James

108
00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:27.340
James II on the throne. William III was the Prince of Orange and his wife, Mary, were

109
00:14:27.340 --> 00:14:34.380
invited to come to England and they defeated it. There was, after a couple battles, James

110
00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:46.160
II fled to France where he remained at the court of Louis XIV. The reason, incidentally,

111
00:14:46.160 --> 00:14:54.040
They invited William III and Queen Mary, even the fact that William was the leading Protestant

112
00:14:54.040 --> 00:14:57.360
prince.

113
00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:02.880
Mary was actually the next in line to the throne after James II.

114
00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:04.880
She was his daughter.

115
00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:14.400
James had had a son, but that son, the baby, was Catholic, and so the Protestants naturally

116
00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:20.080
I didn't want him to succeed to the throne, so Mary was the next in line.

117
00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:27.160
Also, her husband, William of Orange, was the son-in-law, I mean, not only the son-in-law

118
00:15:27.160 --> 00:15:31.520
of King James, but he was the grandson of Charles I.

119
00:15:31.520 --> 00:15:39.760
His mother, Princess Mary, was the daughter of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, so

120
00:15:39.760 --> 00:15:42.440
they had quite good claim to the throne.

121
00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:48.080
It wasn't just that the English were bringing in, the Protestants were bringing in some usurpers.

122
00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:56.000
They had a pretty good claim once the Catholic ruler was excluded.

123
00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:06.920
So Locke was an enthusiastic supporter of this change, it was called the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

124
00:16:06.920 --> 00:16:16.520
And for a long time, historians thought that Locke's most famous book on government,

125
00:16:16.520 --> 00:16:25.080
The Two Treatises on Government, was written around that time as a defense of the Glorious Revolution,

126
00:16:25.080 --> 00:16:32.040
because Locke in the book refers to something like our great King William.

127
00:16:32.040 --> 00:16:35.720
I think he dedicates the book to him, at least refers to him very favorably.

128
00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:42.800
But it turns out that that isn't the case. The book was written quite a bit earlier.

129
00:16:42.800 --> 00:17:00.800
Peter Laslett, who published a famous edition of Locke's Two Treatises, arguing that the

130
00:17:00.800 --> 00:17:05.560
book was really written in 1679, and then other people, such as Ashcraft, say, no, it's

131
00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:13.640
was somewhat later, 1682-83, but it was actually not written in defense of the Glorious Revolution.

132
00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:22.360
So after Locke then came back to England and then he wrote other works such as The Reasonableness

133
00:17:22.360 --> 00:17:31.560
of Christianity and of course his famous work on essay concerning human understanding, Letter

134
00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:38.080
on Toleration, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Letter of Toleration, and the

135
00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:44.640
two treatises all were published in 1689. Then he just lived out the remainder of his

136
00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:55.240
life in England. He continued his philosophical work.

137
00:17:55.240 --> 00:18:05.040
Now, in trying to understand Locke's political philosophy, I think we have to take account

138
00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:14.480
of his point in his metaphysics. As usual, I tried to show, say, in discussion of Aristotle,

139
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:20.640
Aquinas and other people, there's very often a direct connection between the political

140
00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.640
General Philosophy and Political Philosophy.

141
00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:37.640
Now, Locke thought, didn't agree, remember Hobbes said, rejected entirely the appeal to natures or essences in the way Aristotle did.

142
00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:40.640
Aristotle said every substance has a nature.

143
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:49.840
I'd say there's something about any substance, its essential properties, the properties without

144
00:18:49.840 --> 00:18:53.760
which the substance wouldn't be what it is.

145
00:18:53.760 --> 00:19:00.280
Every substance has such a nature, but Hobbes thought there weren't any natures.

146
00:19:00.280 --> 00:19:07.600
Now Locke had the view there are natures to substances, but we, at least at the present

147
00:19:07.600 --> 00:19:15.060
time with our state of scientific knowledge, we can't know what they are.

148
00:19:15.060 --> 00:19:25.840
For example, is it part of the nature of the human mind that it has to be immaterial as

149
00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:35.360
Descartes thought, Descartes said, thought that the mind can't be composed of matter.

150
00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:41.360
Locke said we can't, we don't really know this, we can't know what the natures of things are.

151
00:19:41.360 --> 00:19:46.360
This is not something we could find out.

152
00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:51.360
Now this raises a problem for his political philosophy in this way.

153
00:19:51.360 --> 00:19:58.360
Locke wants to say that all human beings have certain rights,

154
00:19:58.360 --> 00:20:10.360
But how is he, if he doesn't know what the natures are, we can't find out what the natures are, how is he going to find out who the human beings are?

155
00:20:10.360 --> 00:20:29.360
Now, one way, his way around this was he said we can take the property of rationality, just using reason, we say whatever has this property will count as a human being for the purposes of his political philosophy.

156
00:20:29.360 --> 00:20:37.360
But then, if you say that, then you have a further problem. Why should we care about rationality so much?

157
00:20:37.360 --> 00:20:51.360
Aristotle had an answer for this as he was saying that part of the human nature, the purpose of human nature is to exercise your reason fully.

158
00:20:51.360 --> 00:20:59.360
But remember, Locke doesn't think we can know anything about human nature, so he has a problem with what is so good about rationality.

159
00:20:59.360 --> 00:21:09.360
And here is where Locke's belief in God, his theistic view comes in.

160
00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:16.360
There's big disputes, as I'll mention later, how central belief in God is to Locke's philosophy.

161
00:21:16.360 --> 00:21:21.360
But I'm inclined to think it is very central.

162
00:21:21.360 --> 00:21:38.360
There's a very good book I recommend on this topic by Jeremy Waldron called God, Locke, and Equality, and that's very much influenced the interpretation I'm giving here.

163
00:21:38.360 --> 00:21:51.360
So, on this view, what Locke thought is that human beings, in their rationality, are in God's image.

164
00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:56.360
What God's image, when we say human beings are, according to the Bible, created in God's image,

165
00:21:56.360 --> 00:22:03.360
what this means is that human beings, by being rational, are really sharing in the divine mind.

166
00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:11.840
and so this is why human beings are especially important. Now once given the

167
00:22:11.840 --> 00:22:18.480
starting point we can identify the human beings then Lot argued there's a law of

168
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:28.480
nature that people ought to follow. What did he mean by a law of nature? Well he

169
00:22:28.480 --> 00:22:35.680
He didn't mean sort of a scientific law, sort of saying how things happen, how various events

170
00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:38.720
take place, such as it's the law of nature.

171
00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:46.680
If you mix oxygen and hydrogen in certain proportions, you'll come up with water.

172
00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:52.640
Law of nature is an ethical law, something saying what ought to be the case, what human

173
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:55.000
beings should do.

174
00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:09.000
Further, the law of nature is universal. It applies to everybody. It isn't just that there's a law of nature, one law of nature in England, another law of nature in California, so on.

175
00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:22.000
Everyone has a common law of nature, and also the law of nature is what God wants us to do. God has commanded us to follow the law of nature.

176
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:28.320
Now, that's what the law of nature means, but what is the law of nature?

177
00:23:28.320 --> 00:23:38.880
Well, Locke said there's a fundamental law of nature, and then there's derivative laws of nature that you deduce from the fundamental law.

178
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:43.040
And he says, this is a direct quotation,

179
00:23:43.040 --> 00:23:50.480
The fundamental law of nature being that all, as may be, should be preserved.

180
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:53.520
When he talks about all, he means all human beings.

181
00:23:53.520 --> 00:24:06.560
So the fundamental law of nature is that all human beings should be kept alive as much as possible,

182
00:24:06.560 --> 00:24:14.240
Since they're the image of God, therefore they should be kept alive as much as possible.

183
00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:23.760
What the purpose of ethics then is to promote human preservation as much as possible.

184
00:24:23.760 --> 00:24:30.000
It's interesting, as you'll see in a later lecture, Herbert Spencer took a similar view,

185
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.880
Although not on the same theistic grounds as Locke, at least not in his later work,

186
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:45.040
Spencer also had the view that human preservation, the preservation of the human species, is

187
00:24:45.040 --> 00:24:48.160
the fundamental rule of ethics.

188
00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:57.600
So given that he had this view, he said that suicide is not morally all right, because

189
00:24:57.600 --> 00:25:08.600
You can't quit your station on your own. God is our creator and wants us to be preserved, so we therefore have to stay alive as long as possible.

190
00:25:08.600 --> 00:25:20.600
Now, as I say, Locke then said there were derivative laws that we can deduce from this maximum preservation.

191
00:25:20.600 --> 00:25:30.720
and one of these is that each person is a self-owner as everyone has a property in

192
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:37.280
himself there since each person will be able to preserve himself that since

193
00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:41.480
people tend to care about themselves more than about other than other people

194
00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:46.400
do about them they'll have a better chance of preserving themselves if they

195
00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:53.760
if they're regarded as their own, each one regards himself as his own property.

196
00:25:53.760 --> 00:26:00.440
So now you might, it appears to be a problem here in that if Locke says each

197
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:10.640
person is a self-owner, how can he also say that really we're dependent on God,

198
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:14.960
that we have to do whatever God says we should do because that isn't, doesn't that

199
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:24.960
So how can you say both that really God is our creator and really has rights over us and that we also own ourselves?

200
00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:37.960
So I think what Locke means here is that with respect to any other human being, we can't regard ourselves as subject to that person.

201
00:26:37.960 --> 00:26:45.880
And everybody is the owner of himself or herself as regards other human beings.

202
00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:53.640
It's true that ultimately God is over us, but no one has the right to claim that he's

203
00:26:53.640 --> 00:27:00.200
God's representative and can tell us what to do on that basis.

204
00:27:00.200 --> 00:27:26.200
So this incidentally is, well not so incidentally, is why when Locke holds, as I'll mention later, that churches are purely private associations, this isn't just an incidental part of his philosophy or just something he held for separate reasons in regards to religion.

205
00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:56.200
integral to his key position because if say there's a church that has divine authority then it would be much harder to make the case that each person has the property himself and that other people can't tell them what to do because then you could say someone who's in the church says no, no, you have to do what God says and we're God's representative so you have to do what we say so

206
00:27:56.200 --> 00:28:06.200
by saying that church is a purely private organization. Block stops that objection from arising.

207
00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:15.200
Let me just make one digression here. It really isn't connected to the lecture, but that isn't going to stop me.

208
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:38.200
Sometimes, when we say people, we use the term, as mentioned, representative. We can't say somebody God's representative on Earth. We have a term for representative, vicegerent, God's vicegerent on Earth.

209
00:28:38.200 --> 00:28:45.320
And the digression is, and I've seen this in book after book, I've seen this mistake,

210
00:28:45.320 --> 00:28:54.160
people will have this word as vice regent. It is not vice regent, the word is vice gerent.

211
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:59.640
That's going to be on the final exam, so bear that in mind.

212
00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:07.440
All right, so we have that each person is, in Locke's view, a self-owner. Each person

213
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:19.440
Now, Block also holds that the earth has been given to all human beings in common.

214
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:23.440
That's something that has been found in the Bible.

215
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:26.440
It was a very common view at that time.

216
00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:30.440
So the earth has been given to everyone in common.

217
00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:38.440
What does this mean as far as individual property rights are concerned?

218
00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:46.440
Well, Locke says it can't be that this means that before you use any item in the earth,

219
00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:51.440
you have to get consent from all the rest of mankind.

220
00:29:51.440 --> 00:30:01.640
I might think that would be required because suppose I say something like this water pitcher

221
00:30:01.640 --> 00:30:07.240
belongs to everyone in the room in common, then if there's some question on what to do

222
00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:13.960
with the water pitcher, it might seem that everybody would have to agree on what to do

223
00:30:13.960 --> 00:30:19.560
about it because each of you on this hypothesis has rights to it.

224
00:30:19.560 --> 00:30:28.200
But if, when applied that policy to property, then it would turn out that you really couldn't

225
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:32.240
get everybody to agree on what to do, would be very cumbersome.

226
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:38.920
So people wouldn't be able to survive on that basis, and this would violate the fundamental

227
00:30:38.920 --> 00:30:43.720
law of nature calling for human preservation.

228
00:30:43.720 --> 00:30:51.520
So Locke says that can't be the way we have all things in common.

229
00:30:51.520 --> 00:30:59.760
What he said on the contrary was, individuals can appropriate separate items of property.

230
00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:07.720
You can take things from the common store by mixing your labor with them.

231
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:19.320
to do something to the, say, land or bring it into cultivation, and then this gives you

232
00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:21.480
ownership rights to it.

233
00:31:21.480 --> 00:31:28.800
This is, in the later philosophical discussion, is an extremely, as you probably know, extremely

234
00:31:28.800 --> 00:31:33.480
controversial move on Locke's part.

235
00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:41.280
A lot of people have objected to his argument, one objection which Robert Nozick mentions

236
00:31:41.280 --> 00:31:47.360
in the Anarchy State Utopia book I'll be talking about later, is, I should say, Nozick mentions

237
00:31:47.360 --> 00:31:55.680
this objection contrary to what many people thought. He isn't endorsing the objection,

238
00:31:55.680 --> 00:32:01.120
he's just mentioning it as a point that Lockeans have to confront, but he isn't saying at all

239
00:32:01.120 --> 00:32:10.560
Law that this refutes Locke's view. He says, why is it if you say, well, mixing my labor

240
00:32:10.560 --> 00:32:17.680
with something means that I own it, why should you say that the argument is, I owe myself,

241
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:25.360
I owe my labor, I've mixed my labor with this other, with this commonly owned property,

242
00:32:25.360 --> 00:32:42.360
Therefore it becomes mine. Why shouldn't you say instead you lose your labor? It's now still common property, but you don't own it anymore. You just put out some labor on the common property.

243
00:32:42.360 --> 00:32:53.360
Nozick is characteristic of him, gives a very vivid example. He said, suppose I take a glass of tomato juice and just pour it into the ocean.

244
00:32:53.360 --> 00:33:02.360
Would we say that I own the ocean since I mixed some labor with the ocean?

245
00:33:02.360 --> 00:33:05.360
Would we say I've just lost my tomato juice?

246
00:33:05.360 --> 00:33:14.360
So, this is one objection. They say, well, why does mixing your labor mean that you acquire the property?

247
00:33:14.360 --> 00:33:23.360
Well, one thing Locke could say, I think, in reply to this, is just that this is one way,

248
00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:33.360
if you want to have a system of individual ownership, because this is one way you will be able to preserve human beings by doing so.

249
00:33:33.360 --> 00:33:55.360
by doing that. So this is one reason why you should take the mixing of labor as giving you ownership rights rather than saying you lose your labor by once you've done that. Otherwise, this first fundamental law of nature wouldn't be met.

250
00:33:55.360 --> 00:34:23.360
Now, so far the way I've given Locke's theory is a bit oversimplified or quite a bit oversimplified in that Locke puts in, besides saying that you can acquire property by mixing your labor with the common, with the earth, he puts in some qualifications of this.

251
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:49.360
Now first he said, you have to leave as much and as good for others, supposing I appropriate some land on this, I can't appropriate land if as a result of doing so, other people won't be able to appropriate land.

252
00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:58.240
Exposing, say, all the, we imagine there's land people available for people to take and

253
00:34:58.240 --> 00:35:06.240
various people start appropriating land and then say there's just one area left and I

254
00:35:06.240 --> 00:35:11.120
take that and there won't be anything left for anybody else.

255
00:35:11.120 --> 00:35:19.520
So if Locke means by as much and as good for others that I couldn't appropriate land, then

256
00:35:19.520 --> 00:35:21.880
I couldn't take it.

257
00:35:21.880 --> 00:35:35.080
But it's very implausible to take him as meaning the proviso in this quite strong sense.

258
00:35:35.080 --> 00:35:41.840
Because if you take him this way, then you're going to get a big problem.

259
00:35:41.840 --> 00:35:44.840
Can anyone see what the problem is?

260
00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:45.840
Yeah.

261
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:46.840
Well, I would say that since the Atlanta, for example, is not all the same, any piece

262
00:35:46.840 --> 00:35:47.840
I take, they can't have that piece.

263
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:48.840
So that piece, I have a monopoly on, so to speak.

264
00:35:48.840 --> 00:35:49.840
And so of that particular portion, I haven't left anything behind.

265
00:35:49.840 --> 00:36:07.840
I would say that since the land, for example, is not all the same, any piece I take, they can't have that piece, so that piece I have a monopoly on, so to speak, and so of that particular portion, I haven't left anything behind, so there couldn't be anything else there.

266
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:27.840
Land wouldn't be available anymore, so in that sense, it wouldn't be as much left for others.

267
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:36.840
Now, that's an interesting point, but I don't think that's quite what would be such a good objection,

268
00:36:36.840 --> 00:36:42.840
because you certainly wouldn't have that plot, it wouldn't follow, you wouldn't have as much that is good for others,

269
00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:58.840
I always just say is if we have lunch, if one person takes one of the box lunches, someone else can't take that one, but he has others as good that he could take.

270
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:08.840
The problem I had in mind, rather, is this. Supposing you have the last person says, I

271
00:37:08.840 --> 00:37:16.700
can't take the land because then there won't be anything left for anybody else, so I'm

272
00:37:16.700 --> 00:37:22.040
violating this proviso. Then we have, well, what happens to the second to the last person

273
00:37:22.040 --> 00:37:29.040
If he were to take appropriate land, then there wouldn't be anything available for the

274
00:37:29.720 --> 00:37:35.000
last person to take. You might think he could, because the second to last person, there's

275
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:40.320
one more lot available, namely the last one. But remember, we said the last person can't

276
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:46.040
take that, because doing so wouldn't leave anything for anybody else. So you have kind

277
00:37:46.040 --> 00:37:51.680
of a backwards induction problem you can get from this that nobody could appropriate at

278
00:37:51.680 --> 00:37:55.600
at all if you took the proviso this way.

279
00:37:55.600 --> 00:38:03.520
So it seems much more plausible to take Locke as meaning by as much as good for others,

280
00:38:03.520 --> 00:38:12.160
not that he means you have to have land parcels left over in this way, but rather that conditions

281
00:38:12.160 --> 00:38:16.960
for other people won't be worse off in some more general way.

282
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:23.960
And in fact, he allows for cases where nobody has any, there's no further land to appropriate.

283
00:38:23.960 --> 00:38:29.960
He said people then could work for others or earn money that way.

284
00:38:29.960 --> 00:38:38.960
So I think it's implausible to take him, meaning this as much as good for others proviso in this very strong sense.

285
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:45.960
But that doesn't get him out, that doesn't end the complications.

286
00:38:45.960 --> 00:38:59.960
He has another proviso, is you can't appropriate property, but you can't take so much that what you have would spoil.

287
00:38:59.960 --> 00:39:14.960
Say, I'm going along and I see some grapes so I can take some and eat them, but I just can't keep piling up so many grapes that I can't eat them and just let them rot away.

288
00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:20.420
That wouldn't be a right thing to do, and you can see why not, because

289
00:39:20.420 --> 00:39:21.820
remember

290
00:39:21.820 --> 00:39:25.080
the property is there so that

291
00:39:25.080 --> 00:39:28.740
people are able to preserve themselves. We need to

292
00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:32.480
use items in the earth in order to live.

293
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:34.660
The fundamental law of nature is that

294
00:39:34.660 --> 00:39:37.620
we should preserve ourselves so

295
00:39:37.620 --> 00:39:40.420
if people can take property and just

296
00:39:40.420 --> 00:39:42.360
let it rot and then

297
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:46.000
let it spoil and prevent other people from using it.

298
00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:50.280
This isn't at all conducive to human survival.

299
00:39:50.280 --> 00:39:57.920
But this proviso doesn't limit people

300
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:00.440
once money comes into existence.

301
00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:03.200
Because once you have money, Locke says,

302
00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:10.320
then you can exchange items you can't use for something else.

303
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:16.320
So, once money comes in, then you can appropriate as much as you want.

304
00:40:18.320 --> 00:40:26.320
So, the real, so Locke then, what we're left with is Locke has a very strong view,

305
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:33.320
sort of very classical liberal or libertarian view of property ownership,

306
00:40:33.320 --> 00:40:38.320
that people can really appropriate property, you can take property for yourself

307
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:47.320
really without much limitation so long as other people are made better off by having such a system of property.

308
00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:55.320
Of course, they will be since the system where people can just, they're just common use of goods,

309
00:40:55.320 --> 00:41:04.320
but no property rights, no right to exclude anybody else from using property that you appropriate is an extremely inefficient one.

310
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:17.920
It won't promote human survival, so Locke wouldn't allow it.

311
00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:24.920
Now I want to mention one objection to Locke's theory.

312
00:41:24.920 --> 00:41:33.280
It was raised in a book called Locke on Governments, a quite good book by D.A. Lloyd Thomas, a

313
00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:51.520
He says, well, supposing Locke thinks that mixing your labor with unowned land or commonly

314
00:41:51.520 --> 00:41:59.480
owned land gives you ownership rights in it, then he can't hold that there are any provisos

315
00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:00.480
to that.

316
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:06.520
Either the labor mixture gives you property rights or it doesn't.

317
00:42:06.520 --> 00:42:13.800
How can it be that you have, you get labor rights, you get ownership rights of property

318
00:42:13.800 --> 00:42:21.280
if you mix your labor with it, plus these various other, meeting these various provisos?

319
00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:24.840
He thought that's somewhat, that's a contradiction.

320
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:30.120
Either Locke is saying, either labor mixing gives you the right or it doesn't.

321
00:42:30.120 --> 00:42:36.440
But although, as I say, Lloyd Thomas' book is a very good one, this isn't a very good

322
00:42:36.440 --> 00:42:44.000
argument at all, because what if the claim just is that you acquire things by mixing

323
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:46.680
your labor plus meeting these provisos?

324
00:42:46.680 --> 00:42:55.600
I mean, I think, in fact, he's right that mixing your labor is enough to acquire property,

325
00:42:55.600 --> 00:43:01.680
That isn't that if you hold otherwise there's some kind of logical flaw in the argument.

326
00:43:01.680 --> 00:43:09.240
There's nothing at all wrong with saying that you need to meet several conditions to own

327
00:43:09.240 --> 00:43:16.680
something. So there's no logical flaw he claims to find in the argument really isn't there.

328
00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:26.040
Now, before I turn from Locke's view on property, there's another point is that Locke holds

329
00:43:26.040 --> 00:43:35.800
that, supposing there are some people who are too aged or ill to work, to do any work,

330
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:42.560
they can't acquire any property for themselves or they can't work for other people and that

331
00:43:42.560 --> 00:43:53.560
Lock thinks that those who are able to acquire property have a duty to aid them.

332
00:43:53.560 --> 00:44:00.560
You can see why he holds that because of this fundamental law of nature.

333
00:44:00.560 --> 00:44:05.560
Those people should be their human beings also and they have to be preserved.

334
00:44:05.560 --> 00:44:13.320
However, it isn't clear that those people then can just take what they want or what

335
00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:20.960
they need from the people who have property, because Locke refers to this as an obligation

336
00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:23.480
of charity rather than justice.

337
00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:32.480
So it isn't clear that one could support a welfare state on this basis.

338
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:41.680
Now, Locke's discussion of property, which is Chapter 5 of the Second Treatise, is somewhat

339
00:44:41.680 --> 00:44:44.680
apart from the rest of the book.

340
00:44:44.680 --> 00:44:52.500
In fact, one view is that it was written independently of the rest of the book.

341
00:44:52.500 --> 00:45:01.880
What Locke is concerned to do in the rest of the Second Treatise is to give an account

342
00:45:01.880 --> 00:45:07.480
very different from Hobbes of how legitimate government arises.

343
00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:17.720
Remember, Hobbes had the view that everyone really surrenders everything, all their rights to the sovereign.

344
00:45:17.720 --> 00:45:28.600
Locke favored a very different view. What he said is that we start off each person owns himself.

345
00:45:28.600 --> 00:45:36.600
Now, in the state, we imagine a state of nature that's a sort of society without any government.

346
00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:46.600
And Locke has thought that we can have property, as I've just explained, we can have property rights without government.

347
00:45:46.600 --> 00:45:54.600
Property rights are things that people acquire just by appropriating land in the way I've explained.

348
00:45:54.600 --> 00:46:22.600
Well, it's not that you get your property because the government assigns it to you, property is a natural right, and also, property is a natural right, and also money, this is where Locke anticipated Carl Menger and von Mises, money can develop without the government.

349
00:46:22.600 --> 00:46:34.600
It doesn't have to be that the government says something like people must accept these pieces of paper as money because we say so.

350
00:46:34.600 --> 00:46:42.600
Locke envisions money developing in the state, or money is present in the state of nature.

351
00:46:42.600 --> 00:46:51.600
We know this because he says that once money comes into being, then the spoilage proviso doesn't apply anymore.

352
00:46:51.600 --> 00:47:03.600
So he's saying, money, you don't need the government to have money. Now what do you need the government for? One would like him to answer nothing, but that isn't the way he does it.

353
00:47:03.600 --> 00:47:14.600
What he says is that in the state of nature, each person has the right, such as the right to life and property rights,

354
00:47:14.600 --> 00:47:31.600
but each person has the right to enforce other people's respecting his rights, not just respecting his rights, but respecting rights in general.

355
00:47:31.600 --> 00:47:40.600
Supposing, say, someone tries to assault me, I have the right to stop them from doing it.

356
00:47:40.600 --> 00:47:48.600
Not only that, if I see, say, one person assaulting someone else, I have the right to stop that.

357
00:47:48.600 --> 00:47:53.600
I have the right to enforce the law of nature.

358
00:47:53.600 --> 00:47:58.600
So everyone in the state of nature has the right to enforce the law of nature.

359
00:47:58.600 --> 00:48:09.600
And this in locks you, this involves not only that each person can stop the other person

360
00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:17.480
from aggressing and sort of restore the previous, the correctly existing state of affairs, but

361
00:48:17.480 --> 00:48:22.520
he has the right to punish violations of the law of nature.

362
00:48:22.520 --> 00:48:30.360
It means to impose some additional penalty on the person besides restoring what he wrongly

363
00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:31.360
taken.

364
00:48:31.360 --> 00:48:39.520
It's up to each individual to decide what the appropriate punishment is.

365
00:48:39.520 --> 00:48:47.800
So Locke suggests, well, supposing we have a system of state affairs like that where

366
00:48:47.800 --> 00:48:53.480
Each person is on his own trying to enforce the law of nature.

367
00:48:53.480 --> 00:48:59.720
Then we'll get a very chaotic, undesirable result,

368
00:48:59.720 --> 00:49:05.840
because people will differ on what, on disputes,

369
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:10.200
on has someone violated the law of nature, not both.

370
00:49:10.200 --> 00:49:12.680
You can imagine people having a dispute.

371
00:49:12.680 --> 00:49:15.440
Are you taking something from my property,

372
00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:21.760
is it really your property? We would have differences of opinion on which people appropriated

373
00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:27.320
which property, what the appropriate penalties would be, what's the appropriate punishments

374
00:49:27.320 --> 00:49:40.320
if somebody has done something wrong, or we could have disputes not only on the, on the

375
00:49:40.320 --> 00:49:45.320
punishment, but people, according to Locke, would tend to make mistakes in their own fare

376
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:51.720
and supposing I'm in a dispute with someone, well, obviously I'm in the right, I'm in

377
00:49:51.720 --> 00:49:56.840
the right, the other person's wrong because that's the way people tend to act.

378
00:49:56.840 --> 00:50:02.200
So how can we remedy this state of affairs?

379
00:50:02.200 --> 00:50:11.300
Well, like, I should mention, when Locke pictures what would happen in the state of nature this

380
00:50:11.300 --> 00:50:16.460
way, it sounds, as I mentioned, it's a quite bad situation.

381
00:50:16.460 --> 00:50:24.780
So this gives the Straussians, one of their openings, they say, well, look, even though

382
00:50:24.780 --> 00:50:30.980
Locke starts off by saying his state of nature is very different from Hobbes, because he's

383
00:50:30.980 --> 00:50:37.580
postulating people have all these rights. In fact, what he comes up with is pretty close

384
00:50:37.580 --> 00:50:44.820
to Hobbes because people are at war with each other. I think this seems to me very much

385
00:50:44.820 --> 00:50:51.080
exaggerated, but that is one of the contentions that Strauss has in natural writing history

386
00:50:51.080 --> 00:50:59.340
and his followers have echoed him on this point. So, Locke not having had the benefit

387
00:50:59.340 --> 00:51:05.060
of Studying Strauss had a different view of how we get out of the state of what we do

388
00:51:05.060 --> 00:51:07.220
about being in the state of nature.

389
00:51:07.220 --> 00:51:17.020
What he said was we can imagine people getting together and they don't, as with Hobbes, they

390
00:51:17.020 --> 00:51:21.780
don't give up all their rights to a particular person.

391
00:51:21.780 --> 00:51:29.660
On the contrary, what they do is each person surrenders his right to enforce the law of

392
00:51:29.660 --> 00:51:34.780
nature, not any of his other rights, just his right to enforce the law of nature, not

393
00:51:34.780 --> 00:51:39.620
to any particular person or group of persons, but to the whole community.

394
00:51:39.620 --> 00:51:48.500
So everyone surrenders his right to the whole community to enforce the law of nature.

395
00:51:48.500 --> 00:51:56.200
Then once the whole community has the right, has this right to enforce the law of nature,

396
00:51:56.200 --> 00:52:05.620
then the whole community decides by majority rule what the government is, what the government

397
00:52:05.620 --> 00:52:06.620
is going to be.

398
00:52:06.620 --> 00:52:11.740
They, they don't have to, even though it's the whole community that decides, they don't

399
00:52:11.740 --> 00:52:13.820
have to establish a democracy.

400
00:52:13.820 --> 00:52:20.700
They can establish a monarchy or an aristocracy or a democracy, a mixed type of government.

401
00:52:20.700 --> 00:52:22.940
They can really do anything they want.

402
00:52:22.940 --> 00:52:26.580
They can't, though, establish an absolute monarchy.

403
00:52:26.580 --> 00:52:35.980
Although Locke certainly does allow monarchy, he says, if it turns out that the majority

404
00:52:35.980 --> 00:52:42.060
of the community decide to have, say, you have a legislative body, an executive, and

405
00:52:42.060 --> 00:52:50.300
The executive has some of the legislative power also, as was the case in England, the

406
00:52:50.300 --> 00:52:56.140
king of England is not only the chief executive he has, at least at that time he had quite

407
00:52:56.140 --> 00:52:59.260
a good deal of legislative power.

408
00:52:59.260 --> 00:53:09.760
He then is in a sense supreme, Locke says, but still he's not an absolute monarch.

409
00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:15.580
Now we have the question, well, why is it that it's the majority of the community that

410
00:53:15.580 --> 00:53:21.120
gets to decide what the government should be?

411
00:53:21.120 --> 00:53:25.020
Why don't you have, let's say, the whole, we can see why wouldn't it be the whole community

412
00:53:25.020 --> 00:53:26.020
has to decide?

413
00:53:26.020 --> 00:53:31.760
Because then it's very unlikely people would arrive at any decision, people, there's always

414
00:53:31.760 --> 00:53:36.960
people who have different views on matters, and then we wouldn't be really getting out

415
00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:43.480
Part of the situation in the state of nature, we would be probably even in the worst position

416
00:53:43.480 --> 00:53:47.440
because we've all surrendered our rights to enforce the law of nature, then there's no

417
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:52.960
one left to enforce to the whole community, but the whole community hasn't agreed on

418
00:53:52.960 --> 00:54:00.660
anyone who can enforce the law of nature, so we're all in a very sad state of affairs.

419
00:54:00.660 --> 00:54:11.620
So what Locke says is that if you have a body, the community, it really has to go in one

420
00:54:11.620 --> 00:54:19.380
direction or other, and so the greater force prevails, but it's kind of a physical metaphor.

421
00:54:19.380 --> 00:54:24.300
You imagine every body, say, some people are pushing one way, some people are pushing the

422
00:54:24.300 --> 00:54:31.300
And the majority have a bigger push, so things go their way.

423
00:54:31.300 --> 00:54:34.300
But this, as I say, is just a metaphor.

424
00:54:34.300 --> 00:54:38.300
And I think what Locke has in mind is something like this.

425
00:54:38.300 --> 00:54:42.300
Each person is taken to be free and equal to everybody else.

426
00:54:42.300 --> 00:54:46.300
So if you have to decide one way or the other on a thing,

427
00:54:46.300 --> 00:55:00.300
If you go with the majority, you're respecting human beings' rights more than if you impose a minority view on the rest of people.

428
00:55:00.300 --> 00:55:09.300
If you had a minority verdict was put in, then you would be saying those people were in a sense superior to the majority.

429
00:55:09.300 --> 00:55:18.780
Majority, but a one-person, one-vote rule really is more in line with the basic equality

430
00:55:18.780 --> 00:55:19.780
of people.

431
00:55:19.780 --> 00:55:26.700
That's been a very influential argument in subsequent justifications for a democratic

432
00:55:26.700 --> 00:55:27.700
rule.

433
00:55:27.700 --> 00:55:34.700
Now, you may have noticed I was rather careful, I didn't say one man one vote, I said one

434
00:55:34.700 --> 00:55:44.420
One person, one vote. I wanted to leave open the question, did Locke mean to include women

435
00:55:44.420 --> 00:55:51.420
in this initial contract? It isn't clear what, he doesn't really say anything about this.

436
00:55:51.420 --> 00:56:01.300
He does have somewhat traditional views of marriage, although not, he says normally,

437
00:56:01.300 --> 00:56:07.820
In a marriage, the husband can tell the wife, makes the decisions and tells the wife what

438
00:56:07.820 --> 00:56:08.820
to do.

439
00:56:08.820 --> 00:56:15.180
However, he says that this is really a default arrangement, an arrangement that people in

440
00:56:15.180 --> 00:56:23.380
a marriage have the right to contract otherwise, so you could marry someone and say, you could

441
00:56:23.380 --> 00:56:27.380
decide that the wife would be in charge rather than the husband.

442
00:56:27.380 --> 00:56:33.220
That, for the time, was a quite radical view.

443
00:56:33.220 --> 00:56:41.700
One Tory critic of Locke, George Hicks, said that on Locke's view, he'd have to say that

444
00:56:41.700 --> 00:56:50.380
women were included in this initial contract, and he thought that was an obviously absurd

445
00:56:50.380 --> 00:56:56.900
view, so he thought this was really refuted Locke, but it isn't clear what Locke would

446
00:56:56.900 --> 00:57:05.220
What he would have said about that, as I say, he certainly, he was very careful not to get

447
00:57:05.220 --> 00:57:13.580
in trouble, not to say anything that would be considered too radical for his time, but

448
00:57:13.580 --> 00:57:17.180
not really clear from the evidence what he would have said about that.

449
00:57:17.180 --> 00:57:26.500
All right, so we now have, the majority of people have decided on what kind of government

450
00:57:26.500 --> 00:57:34.260
they want. Now, when they decide on the government, this is a very important point to bear in mind

451
00:57:34.260 --> 00:57:43.340
understanding law, they don't, the majority or the whole community, don't make a contract

452
00:57:43.340 --> 00:57:48.500
with the government. There isn't a second contract. We have the first contract where

453
00:57:48.500 --> 00:57:53.920
everybody surrenders his right to enforce the law of nature to the community. There isn't

454
00:57:53.920 --> 00:57:59.280
In a separate contract where the community, having voted for someone, now has a contract

455
00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:05.880
with them, it's rather that the community has entrusted the government with certain

456
00:58:05.880 --> 00:58:06.880
functions.

457
00:58:06.880 --> 00:58:15.400
So the reason this is important is if the government doesn't follow the policies that

458
00:58:15.400 --> 00:58:23.880
they're supposed to, say if the government starts violating people's rights, then the

459
00:58:23.880 --> 00:58:29.760
The Committee can withdraw its obedience to the government and put in something else.

460
00:58:29.760 --> 00:58:34.880
You see, if we had a contract, then, well, if there's a claim a contract has been violated,

461
00:58:34.880 --> 00:58:40.680
then normally there would have to be some kind of discussion between both sides to see

462
00:58:40.680 --> 00:58:43.840
who, to see what would happen.

463
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:48.800
Say, if you have a contract with someone, you can't usually unilaterally say, all right,

464
00:58:48.800 --> 00:58:55.400
You violated your contract, therefore I don't have to keep the contract either.

465
00:58:55.400 --> 00:59:00.820
You would usually have to be settled by some agency or some person.

466
00:59:00.820 --> 00:59:02.440
What would happen in such a case?

467
00:59:02.440 --> 00:59:05.440
But in this case, it isn't a contract.

468
00:59:05.440 --> 00:59:18.320
The government is the servant of the community, has to do what the community wants.

469
00:59:18.320 --> 00:59:34.320
Locke is very clear also that, as he said, people have the right to, if the government doesn't do what they want, they have the right to get rid of it and replace it with a new government.

470
00:59:34.320 --> 00:59:39.320
He's very clear that they shouldn't do it just very readily.

471
00:59:39.320 --> 00:59:43.320
This is where you remember in the Declaration of Independence, which was very influenced by Locke.

472
00:59:43.320 --> 00:59:50.320
This is a reference that people shouldn't change the government for light and transient causes.

473
00:59:50.320 --> 00:59:55.320
That's a direct Lockean view. It has to be something very serious.

474
00:59:55.320 --> 01:00:00.320
However, the community does have the right to decide on what to do.

475
01:00:00.320 --> 01:00:12.760
And among the things that the government can do that entitle the people to reject it is

476
01:00:12.760 --> 01:00:22.400
that supposing the government decides that it's going to surrender the country to a different

477
01:00:22.400 --> 01:00:24.400
The Theory of Money and Credit

478
01:00:24.400 --> 01:00:28.400
The Theory of Money and Credit

479
01:00:52.400 --> 01:01:02.560
The U.S.S.R. would be able to stop them from doing that.

480
01:01:02.560 --> 01:01:08.600
The government can't transfer its powers to something else.

481
01:01:08.600 --> 01:01:17.760
And this was a quite topical concern because, as I've said, people were afraid that James

482
01:01:17.760 --> 01:01:26.120
The second was going to transfer the government to Louis XIV in France, or at least subordinate

483
01:01:26.120 --> 01:01:32.360
the English government to the French king if he were to remain in power.

484
01:01:32.360 --> 01:01:35.640
So that was one reason for getting rid of him.

485
01:01:35.640 --> 01:01:44.680
Now as I mentioned, Locke doesn't say, he makes quite a distinction between saying the

486
01:01:44.680 --> 01:01:51.360
The community as a whole has the power to enforce the law of nature, and requiring a

487
01:01:51.360 --> 01:01:59.240
particular system of government doesn't require people, say, democracy, doesn't say we have

488
01:01:59.240 --> 01:02:02.680
to have a system where everyone votes.

489
01:02:02.680 --> 01:02:09.880
So one reason perhaps he said that, one motive he had in saying that is that he, as usual,

490
01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:22.880
The Whig Party that he favored, there were various factions of it, there were radical Whigs who thought everybody really should have the right to vote.

491
01:02:22.880 --> 01:02:31.880
The vote shouldn't be restricted, as it was in England at that time, to an extremely small percentage of the people.

492
01:02:31.880 --> 01:02:44.880
On the other hand, there were more conservative wigs, including Locke's patron, the Earl of Shaspry, who didn't have that view at all, who favored a very restricted franchise.

493
01:02:44.880 --> 01:02:59.880
So, Locke really has it both ways, because he said people do have the right, everyone has an equal right to be part of the community to which they decide what the government is going to be.

494
01:02:59.880 --> 01:03:25.880
but it doesn't fall that everyone has the same franchise. Now, once we have a government in being, I think one of the, it's very important to see, one of the key parts is that this is, I think, one of the most libertarian sides of Locke, is that the government is very limited in what it can do.

495
01:03:25.880 --> 01:03:32.880
It's, remember, all that people have surrendered to it is the right to enforce the law of nature.

496
01:03:32.880 --> 01:03:42.880
It doesn't have any other power, so it can then enforce people's previously existing property rights,

497
01:03:42.880 --> 01:03:50.880
but it's not clear it can do much else. It can have the right of defense and respect and justice,

498
01:03:50.880 --> 01:03:55.880
of Justice, but what else could it do, because all the power it's gotten is to enforce the

499
01:03:55.880 --> 01:04:03.040
law of nature. That's the explicit grant, so it's very much more, it's a very limited

500
01:04:03.040 --> 01:04:08.480
government indeed. Now there are some people, for example, as one I mentioned, D.A. Lloyd

501
01:04:08.480 --> 01:04:19.080
Thomas, he thinks that according to Locke, the government can rearrange property rights,

502
01:04:19.080 --> 01:04:23.720
I don't see any real, it seemed to me that if you said that, that would be going against

503
01:04:23.720 --> 01:04:30.640
the whole structure of Locke's argument, because again, what people have surrendered to the

504
01:04:30.640 --> 01:04:36.920
government, to the community that establishes the government, is only the right to enforce

505
01:04:36.920 --> 01:04:43.760
the law of nature. They've retained all their other rights. There's another argument that's

506
01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:53.600
sometimes given for, that says that the government can do more than this. And this is that Locke

507
01:04:53.600 --> 01:05:12.680
talks sometimes about what he calls the prerogative power. What he means by that is that sometimes

508
01:05:12.680 --> 01:05:21.440
condition will happen which calls for emergency action. Locke gives this example, supposing

509
01:05:21.440 --> 01:05:28.960
someone's house is burning down and there's other houses burning down also and to stop

510
01:05:28.960 --> 01:05:39.220
the fire you have to demolish some house that isn't burning. Locke thinks in an emergency

511
01:05:39.220 --> 01:05:56.220
The executive and the government can sometimes act with prerogative power, but I think this is a quite limited idea.

512
01:05:56.220 --> 01:06:04.220
It doesn't mean that because of prerogative power, the executive can do anything it wants.

513
01:06:04.220 --> 01:06:16.220
It seems like Locke has in mind here some very limited situations where there's some immediate danger to people that requires action that would otherwise not be allowed.

514
01:06:16.220 --> 01:06:24.220
The reason I mention this is that, as often happens, there's this Straussian view.

515
01:06:24.220 --> 01:06:31.220
And this one is that the prerogative power really gives the executive the right to do

516
01:06:31.220 --> 01:06:32.220
anything it wants.

517
01:06:32.220 --> 01:06:37.200
It sort of makes him into an effect of Hobbesian sovereign, and this has some contemporary

518
01:06:37.200 --> 01:06:43.980
relevance because Harvey Mansfield, who's one of the, he's a professor of government

519
01:06:43.980 --> 01:06:50.020
at Harvard, he's one of the top Straussian political thinkers.

520
01:06:50.020 --> 01:06:58.780
He contends that the U.S. Constitution was really founded on Lockean principles.

521
01:06:58.780 --> 01:07:07.640
I think he's right about that, Lockean principles, influence, both declaration and constitution.

522
01:07:07.640 --> 01:07:17.360
But he takes Locke in this Hobbesian way, so he says that on the Lockean view that he

523
01:07:17.360 --> 01:07:27.360
The President, because of his prerogative power, can do whatever he likes, really, in foreign policy.

524
01:07:27.360 --> 01:07:33.360
He says, well, people shouldn't say there's anything unconstitutional about the Iraq War,

525
01:07:33.360 --> 01:07:38.360
because the President is exercising his prerogative power to cope with emergencies.

526
01:07:38.360 --> 01:07:48.200
You see, this is a very live issue in where it shows how Lockean theory has some very

527
01:07:48.200 --> 01:07:49.400
direct relevance there.

528
01:07:49.400 --> 01:07:59.760
But as I say, I think if you keep in mind that in Locke's view, all that people have

529
01:07:59.760 --> 01:08:07.640
surrendered is the right to enforce the law of nature, this really shows that you can't

530
01:08:07.640 --> 01:08:14.080
take the prerogative power in this very expansive sense because the emergencies that you're

531
01:08:14.080 --> 01:08:20.160
coping with would have to be ones just that are enabling the executive to enforce people's

532
01:08:20.160 --> 01:08:27.760
previously existing rights. It can't be that he just goes off on flights of fancy of his

533
01:08:27.760 --> 01:08:41.800
is owned, as Mansfield implies. Now, there's a big problem with the theory I've presented

534
01:08:41.800 --> 01:08:50.760
so far, is that according to the theory, everybody's gotten together and surrendered his power,

535
01:08:50.760 --> 01:08:56.120
his right to force, the law of nature, the community, the community then establishes

536
01:08:56.120 --> 01:09:03.080
of Government. But the big problem is, of course, none of this has ever happened. People

537
01:09:03.080 --> 01:09:10.120
didn't all get together and establish, surrender their rights in this sense. So the question

538
01:09:10.120 --> 01:09:16.480
then is, well, how can Locke claim that we're bound to any actually existing government

539
01:09:16.480 --> 01:09:24.780
if people haven't expressly consented to it? Locke sometimes seems to say that express

540
01:09:24.780 --> 01:09:31.180
Less consent is necessary. Other times he talks about tacit consent. It is not clear

541
01:09:31.180 --> 01:09:37.780
what the conditions for that are. Sometimes it seems like people, just by accepting the

542
01:09:37.780 --> 01:09:43.700
jurisdiction of the government living in the territory of tacitly consented to it, otherwise

543
01:09:43.700 --> 01:09:50.700
sometimes he said, if someone accepts property from someone else, he's accepting all the

544
01:09:50.700 --> 01:09:58.420
He's accepting all the conditions that go with the property, including that the property is under a certain legal system.

545
01:09:58.420 --> 01:10:03.100
I don't find any of this plausible. I think probably the best

546
01:10:03.820 --> 01:10:08.740
rational reconstruction we can give of Locke's argument is that it's a

547
01:10:09.700 --> 01:10:12.540
hypothetical consent argument. He's saying

548
01:10:13.540 --> 01:10:20.020
if we were to imagine ourselves doing this, it would be rational to do so.

549
01:10:20.700 --> 01:10:44.700
That's why we should consider ourselves under an obligation to the government, because it would be rational to think that if we were to get together and do this, then we would surrender our rights and enforce the law of nature of the community, and then have the community establish a government, so it's a hypothetical argument.

550
01:10:44.700 --> 01:10:54.700
I want to mention one objection to such arguments that's been raised by a very good philosopher,

551
01:10:54.700 --> 01:10:58.700
libertarian philosopher at University of Arizona, David Schmitz.

552
01:10:58.700 --> 01:11:05.700
He objects in principle to hypothetical arguments, consent arguments of this kind because he said,

553
01:11:05.700 --> 01:11:20.700
In these arguments, it isn't that when people disagree in the hypothetical situation, their agreement isn't arbitrary.

554
01:11:20.700 --> 01:11:23.700
They've made the agreement for various reasons.

555
01:11:23.700 --> 01:11:33.700
In the Lockean case, people have made the agreement because they don't want the situation where each person is trying to enforce the law of nature for himself.

556
01:11:33.700 --> 01:11:38.380
They think it would be better to have some common erasions to do it.

557
01:11:38.380 --> 01:11:42.460
So you don't want a situation where there's all these disputes.

558
01:11:42.460 --> 01:11:48.900
So he says, well, if there's a reason, if there are reasons for what they agree on,

559
01:11:48.900 --> 01:11:51.460
then doesn't the consent drop out?

560
01:11:51.460 --> 01:11:56.300
The real justification for the policy, for whatever the policy is,

561
01:11:56.300 --> 01:12:00.060
is just the reasons that people are agreeing on.

562
01:12:00.060 --> 01:12:04.300
What do we need to bring in the hypothetical contract for?

563
01:12:04.300 --> 01:12:06.100
I think this is an interesting argument.

564
01:12:06.100 --> 01:12:13.380
I don't think it works because the reasons, what you would get in the contract, there

565
01:12:13.380 --> 01:12:18.540
are reasons that people have in the situation for agreeing on something.

566
01:12:18.540 --> 01:12:27.780
But according to the moral theory being propounded, these aren't, those aren't, those reasons

567
01:12:27.780 --> 01:12:33.580
don't tell us what the obligatory force of the result is.

568
01:12:33.580 --> 01:12:37.620
We'll make this a bit more concrete.

569
01:12:37.620 --> 01:12:40.540
Supposing people in the hypothetical situation

570
01:12:40.540 --> 01:12:45.100
agree to surrender their power to the community.

571
01:12:45.100 --> 01:12:53.180
So the reason we should regard ourselves as having done that

572
01:12:53.180 --> 01:13:08.180
is not that those people find it rational to do so, but that what we think we ought to do is whatever people in such a situation decide to do.

573
01:13:08.180 --> 01:13:14.180
I'm sure I haven't explained that in a way that's at all comprehensible, but that's the best I can do now.

574
01:13:14.180 --> 01:13:25.680
You see, the basic point is that Schmitz hasn't come up with, he's just denied the type of argument that's being offered. He hasn't really given an objection to it.

575
01:13:25.680 --> 01:13:37.680
The argument isn't that, it is that what we ought to do is what people in such a situation should do.

576
01:13:37.680 --> 01:13:45.680
There isn't anything, I mean, maybe that we won't want to accept that argument, there isn't anything in principle wrong with that kind of argument.

577
01:13:45.680 --> 01:14:01.680
So the fact that people in the situation have reasons to do what they do doesn't entitle us to drop out the hypothetical agreement from the argument because that's the basis of the moral obligation.

578
01:14:01.680 --> 01:14:14.960
At the time remaining, I want to then respond to a Straussian challenge that if it were correct

579
01:14:14.960 --> 01:14:22.240
would knock out a large part of the basis of what I was claiming in this lecture.

580
01:14:22.240 --> 01:14:30.680
I argue that there was a strong theistic basis to Locke's philosophy, namely that since he

581
01:14:30.680 --> 01:14:37.280
He doesn't believe we can know what the natures of things are, including the nature of human

582
01:14:37.280 --> 01:14:38.280
being.

583
01:14:38.280 --> 01:14:45.880
Then he lies just on rationality, wherever the property of rationality is present, and

584
01:14:45.880 --> 01:14:47.680
we know that a human being is present.

585
01:14:47.680 --> 01:14:51.120
Then he has the further problem, why is this important?

586
01:14:51.120 --> 01:14:55.680
That's where he brings in, because we're created in God's image.

587
01:14:55.680 --> 01:15:01.520
So, if you take God out, then that destroys the whole structure.

588
01:15:01.520 --> 01:15:11.440
If you want a philosophy that doesn't, not on a theistic basis, probably the best bet

589
01:15:11.440 --> 01:15:18.880
is to reject Locke's view that we can't know nature's, if they can go back to an Aristotelian

590
01:15:18.880 --> 01:15:24.720
view that we can, but suppose you do take Locke's basis, then if you, theistic views

591
01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:35.920
Now, the Straussians say, well, no, this is all wrong because Locke, like everyone else,

592
01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:37.360
was a secret atheist.

593
01:15:37.360 --> 01:15:44.600
It's funny, in the Straussian view, whatever the philosopher they're talking about is,

594
01:15:44.600 --> 01:15:46.720
he always turns out to be a secret atheist.

595
01:15:46.720 --> 01:15:54.120
It's a bit like, say, deconstructionist readings of poems where, say, the poem always turns

596
01:15:54.120 --> 01:16:01.880
Turns out to be about the process of writing poetry and the difficulties of communicating

597
01:16:01.880 --> 01:16:02.880
meaning.

598
01:16:02.880 --> 01:16:05.040
Whatever the poem is, it's always the same message.

599
01:16:05.040 --> 01:16:11.200
So it's like that with the Straussians, everybody's a secret atheist.

600
01:16:11.200 --> 01:16:19.800
So what I want to address in the last topic, there was a very strong defense of the Straussian

601
01:16:19.800 --> 01:16:33.760
composition, in a book by Michael Zuckert called Launching Liberalism.

602
01:16:33.760 --> 01:16:42.760
Michael Zuckert's wife, Christine Zuckert, is also a Straussian philosopher, so it's

603
01:16:42.760 --> 01:16:48.300
not the only husband and wife team who are Straussian philosophers, William and Miriam

604
01:16:48.300 --> 01:16:56.700
Goldstein and also, well, Straussian philosophers, which runs in the family. So he has arguments,

605
01:16:56.700 --> 01:17:02.620
various arguments, trying to show that Locke is really an atheist. I just want to, in conclusion,

606
01:17:02.620 --> 01:17:09.460
go through some of these and so we can see whether they're strong or not. Well, he has

607
01:17:09.460 --> 01:17:18.540
As a first, one of his arguments is to justify the whole, so responding to an objection people

608
01:17:18.540 --> 01:17:23.860
might raise in this child's case, is that how can you say Locke is an atheist if he keeps

609
01:17:23.860 --> 01:17:30.620
talking about belief in God, he wrote a book called Reasonableness of Christianity, he

610
01:17:30.620 --> 01:17:34.180
wrote commentaries on St. Paul, how can you say this?

611
01:17:34.180 --> 01:17:41.740
So he has an argument that we should think that Locke is engaged in deceptive writing.

612
01:17:41.740 --> 01:17:50.220
The argument is this, in the essay on human nature, Locke criticizes certain philosophers

613
01:17:50.220 --> 01:17:57.420
and he says, these philosophers write in a very obscure way, they could contend that

614
01:17:57.420 --> 01:18:04.620
that black is white and white is black and Locke says that they destroy the possibility

615
01:18:04.620 --> 01:18:10.620
of human communication. So this seems like very much going the opposite of what Zucker

616
01:18:10.620 --> 01:18:15.620
wants because Locke is saying people should write clearly, they shouldn't engage in deceptive

617
01:18:15.620 --> 01:18:20.980
writing like people trying to argue that black is white and white black. Of course when Locke

618
01:18:20.980 --> 01:18:27.900
Locke is saying that that was a standard way of criticizing the Jesuits who were alleged

619
01:18:27.900 --> 01:18:34.620
to train people so that they would be so obedient, they would say, black is white and white black.

620
01:18:34.620 --> 01:18:41.060
So you see, Zuckert's argument, how does Zuckert say that this really supports the view that

621
01:18:41.060 --> 01:18:42.060
Locke is deceptive?

622
01:18:42.060 --> 01:18:45.820
Well, he said, let's look at Locke's view of color.

623
01:18:45.820 --> 01:18:52.700
Not only does Locke say, goes further than saying black is white, white is black, Locke

624
01:18:52.700 --> 01:18:56.460
thinks there aren't any phenomenal colors at all.

625
01:18:56.460 --> 01:19:04.460
He says something like, when I see that there's, I'm looking at a red object, there isn't

626
01:19:04.460 --> 01:19:10.740
any real sensation of red, there isn't any real red color that's in the object.

627
01:19:10.740 --> 01:19:16.720
All that's present, all that is the case is that the object has the power to produce in

628
01:19:16.720 --> 01:19:23.660
me certain red sensations. So he's saying, look, Locke is condemning these people for

629
01:19:23.660 --> 01:19:29.780
obscure writing, but he has an even crazier theory, therefore a theory even more at variance

630
01:19:29.780 --> 01:19:40.380
with common sense, so therefore he really, in attacking convoluted or esoteric writings,

631
01:19:40.380 --> 01:19:42.380
The Theory of Money and Credit

632
01:20:10.380 --> 01:20:19.380
is exactly the same in the Lockean view as it is in views that phenomenal colors are really present in the object.

633
01:20:19.380 --> 01:20:22.380
So, Zuckert's argument, I think, doesn't work.

634
01:20:22.380 --> 01:20:35.380
Then, addressing the theological point more directly, Zuckert points out that Locke says, as one of his arguments that God exists,

635
01:20:35.380 --> 01:20:53.380
We can't think that human beings created themselves because if a human being created himself he wouldn't have brought it about that human beings die because every being wants to keep itself in being.

636
01:20:53.380 --> 01:21:00.380
So how could a human being, if he created himself, brought it about that human beings die?

637
01:21:00.380 --> 01:21:16.380
So, if, if God, so Sakhi says, well, if God then created us according to Locke, since God does have, we do die, then this indicates that God is hostile to us.

638
01:21:16.380 --> 01:21:23.380
So, and if God is hostile to us, then we can't be obligated to do what he says.

639
01:21:23.380 --> 01:21:45.380
But, again, this argument really doesn't work because the principle Sucker's appealing to is that each being tries to conserve itself in existence, but it doesn't follow from that that any being will try to conserve whatever it produces in existence.

640
01:21:45.380 --> 01:21:57.380
So wouldn't it all indicate that God is hostile to us if God has brought it about that we die or hasn't made us immortal?

641
01:21:57.380 --> 01:22:11.380
Now this leads, though it's perhaps a central Straussian argument, both that Block is an atheist and we can't take his moral theory seriously.

642
01:22:11.380 --> 01:22:23.380
And that is, that block holds that in order for the law of nature to be true,

643
01:22:23.380 --> 01:22:32.380
in order to hold that we have objective moral judgments,

644
01:22:32.380 --> 01:22:38.380
it must be the case that a human being survived death.

645
01:22:38.380 --> 01:22:52.380
We have immortal souls who are subject to punishment and reward in the afterlife because otherwise we wouldn't have a motive based on self-interest for being moral.

646
01:22:52.380 --> 01:23:00.380
Locke is assuming that morality and self-interest have to dictate, at least ultimately, the same thing.

647
01:23:00.380 --> 01:23:15.380
So the argument is, well, if Locke says we can't, so Locke thinks first that we have to have, we have to be, have immortal souls, if reality is to make any sense.

648
01:23:15.380 --> 01:23:24.380
But then Strauss and Zuckert following point out, Locke doesn't produce any proof that we have immortal souls.

649
01:23:24.380 --> 01:23:41.380
So, isn't then Locke really undermining the basis of his own contention, because he's saying morality depends on our having a mortal soul subject to punishment and reward, but he doesn't give any proof that we have them.

650
01:23:41.380 --> 01:23:47.380
So, isn't he really then leading the careful reader to see that he doesn't believe any of this stuff?

651
01:23:47.380 --> 01:24:07.380
So what I think he's overlooked there is just that is the whole thing. That is the argument, namely that morality wouldn't make any sense without postulating immortal souls. Morality does make sense, therefore we have good reason to think we do have immortal souls.

652
01:24:07.380 --> 01:24:22.080
This is, Kant gave a somewhat similar argument to that later on, so I think that Zucker and Strauss have just overlooked the nature of Block's argument.

653
01:24:22.080 --> 01:24:30.480
I could go through some other arguments, but I think I want to allot some time for questions, so I think I'll end at that point.

654
01:24:30.480 --> 01:24:33.580
Any questions?

655
01:24:33.580 --> 01:24:35.380
Roderick?

656
01:24:35.380 --> 01:24:42.380
Block says that when you institute nature to contract, there are two things you give up.

657
01:24:42.380 --> 01:24:46.380
One is you give up entirely our right to be a judge in our own case.

658
01:24:46.380 --> 01:24:56.380
And then the other thing you give up non-partly is you give up however much of our liberty is necessary to protect the rest.

659
01:24:56.380 --> 01:25:12.380
So I imagine the people who think that Locke is authorizing the government to do a lot more in terms of redistributing entropy and so forth, are probably going to have a federal certification of that necessary proper flow.

660
01:25:12.380 --> 01:25:22.380
They're trying to admit that all sorts of extra things are necessary in order for us to protect the rest.

661
01:25:22.380 --> 01:25:32.380
The question was, Locke says that we give up, when we leave the state of nature, the right to be the judge in our own cause,

662
01:25:32.380 --> 01:25:37.380
and also we give up whatever is necessary of our liberty to protect the rest,

663
01:25:37.380 --> 01:25:47.380
and so perhaps that would be a way that those who support a more expansive view of what Locke and the state can do could get a foothold.

664
01:25:47.380 --> 01:26:05.380
I think that's right, but as you suggest, I don't think it would be clear just how, why it would be necessary, say, to interfere with people's property rights to protect their liberties.

665
01:26:05.380 --> 01:26:15.380
I mean, we would have to see how they would make the argument in a particular case, but I think you're right. That would be one way they would try to get around the argument.

666
01:26:15.380 --> 01:26:17.380
Dan.

667
01:26:45.380 --> 01:26:57.380
and Tax. I'm wondering, therefore, whether this would be a broader kind of intellectual commission that misinterprets law and takes his labor mixing idea and turns that into a kind of labor theory analogy.

668
01:27:15.380 --> 01:27:24.780
The second question is, what couldn't we see Henry George as a dissident Lockean in that

669
01:27:24.780 --> 01:27:40.220
he says we own our own labor, but we don't own the land that we don't own land, so we

670
01:27:40.220 --> 01:27:46.500
You can't claim that we own land by mixing our labor with it. Therefore, the government

671
01:27:46.500 --> 01:27:55.500
has the right to tax land. Couldn't we see a dissident Lockean tradition coming into

672
01:27:55.500 --> 01:28:05.700
a labor theory of value on that basis? Well, I think that you certainly could. For example,

673
01:28:05.700 --> 01:28:11.600
Herbert Spencer in the first edition of Social Statics does give a view where, just like

674
01:28:11.600 --> 01:28:17.580
the one you're suggesting, that was one that I think Henry George was influenced by, so

675
01:28:17.580 --> 01:28:21.980
I think you can certainly see some connection there.

676
01:28:21.980 --> 01:28:27.820
Now, I do think though it's important, although as usual there's a complication, it's important

677
01:28:27.820 --> 01:28:33.860
to distinguish between the claim that you own something because you mixed your labor

678
01:28:33.860 --> 01:28:41.860
and the claim that the value of something is dependent on how much labor has been put into it.

679
01:28:41.860 --> 01:28:46.860
That would be two different claims. However, the complication is that one of the arguments

680
01:28:46.860 --> 01:28:55.860
Locke gives for the labor mixture view is that most of the value of something is not

681
01:28:55.860 --> 01:29:05.380
not just from the property, the land that you start with, but your labor adds most of the

682
01:29:05.380 --> 01:29:06.380
value with it.

683
01:29:06.380 --> 01:29:09.820
So that's one of the reasons you should get the whole thing.

684
01:29:09.820 --> 01:29:16.700
So I think you're quite right, there is some connection there.

685
01:29:16.700 --> 01:29:17.700
Anyone else?

686
01:29:17.700 --> 01:29:18.700
Rodney?

687
01:29:18.700 --> 01:29:28.700
I think one thing you can say about that last argument is that although Locke does say that most of the value of things comes from labor rather than from the raw materials,

688
01:29:28.700 --> 01:29:35.700
he never says as far as I know that the value is proportional to the amount of labor he did.

689
01:29:35.700 --> 01:29:42.700
He just says that raw materials by themselves without labor aren't good for money, aren't good for money in both cases.

690
01:29:42.700 --> 01:30:12.460
Yeah, the point was that Locke, although he sometimes says that the value of the land we acquire

691
01:30:12.460 --> 01:30:21.460
are mostly come from labor. He doesn't have a view that the value is proportional to the labor that you put into it.

692
01:30:21.460 --> 01:30:29.460
I think this is, of course, entirely right. I mean, he doesn't try to establish a labor theory of value on that basis.

693
01:30:29.460 --> 01:30:40.460
He doesn't have the claim that your ownership rights vary in proportion to the value of the labor that you put into it.

694
01:30:40.460 --> 01:30:50.160
Your point, I think, holds both on the economic theory, on the value of the good, on determining the value of the good, and also for ownership.

695
01:30:50.160 --> 01:30:53.160
Well, I think we're out of time now, so thanks very much.