Divine sanctions are a constant feature of Locke`s moral philosophy, as we have seen, and the compatibilist interpretation goes much further than the incompatibilist interpretation in grasping the nuances of Locke`s moral philosophy. However, there are passages in Locke`s work that suggest that moral rules have binding force that can motivate rational actors regardless of rewards and punishments. When this other aspect of Locke`s perspective is taken into account, we can see that the rewards and punishments for Locke do not exhaust our reasons for obedience to divine moral rules. At a young age, Jefferson came to the conclusion that slavery was evil. To his credit, he attempted to denounce slavery, or at least the slave trade, in the Declaration of Independence. Some scholars believe that Jefferson agreed with the Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson that all men are born morally equal and that “nature makes no masters, no slaves.” But how does this explain why Jefferson held most of his slaves all his life? Locke realized that the crucial objection to allowing people to act as judges with the power to punish in the state of nature was that these people would end up being judges in their own affairs. Locke readily admits that this was a serious inconvenience and a major reason for leaving the state of nature (Two Treatises 2:13). Locke emphasized this point because he helped explain the transition to civil society. Locke believed that in the state of nature, people had the freedom to participate in “innocent pleasures” (acts that do not constitute a violation of applicable laws), to seek their own preservation within the limits of natural law, and to punish violations of natural law. The power to seek its preservation in civil society is limited by law, and the power to punish is transferred to the government (Two Treaties 2.128-130). The power of punishment to the state of nature is therefore the basis of the right of governments to use coercive force.
This is the basic recipe for the political philosophy of liberalism – Locke`s philosophy. Locke speaks of a state of nature in which people are free, equal, and independent. He defends the social contract and government by consensus. He goes even further than Hobbes when he argues that government must respect the rights of individuals. It was Locke`s formula for limited government, more than Hobbes`, that inspired America`s founding fathers. But what is the basis of Locke`s theory? Is it natural law or Hobbesian natural law? In the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers spoke of both natural rights and natural laws. Locke did the same. Natural law and natural law can be combined, but if they are, one must take precedence over the other.
Either the right of the individual or his duty to the moral law must take precedence. Locke`s theory of the state of nature will thus be closely related to his theory of natural law, as it defines the rights of persons and their status as free and equal persons. The stronger the reasons for accepting Locke`s characterization of humans as free, equal, and independent, the more useful the state of nature becomes as a means of representing people. Yet it is important to remember that none of these interpretations claim that Locke`s state of nature is merely a thought experiment, just as Kant and Rawls usually use the concept. Locke didn`t respond to the “where have there ever been people in such a state” argument by saying it didn`t matter since it was just a thought experiment. Instead, he argued that there are and have been humans in the state of nature (Two Treatises 2:14). He considered it important that at least some Governments should have actually been formed, as he suggested. Its importance, whether they were or not, is discussed below under the topic of consent, since the central question is whether good government can be legitimate, even if it does not have the real approval of the people who live there; Hypothetical contract theories and actual contract theories will tend to answer this question differently.
Locke`s hedonism has a dual function in Locke`s moral theory. It explains both the ways in which we acquire the ideas of moral right and wrong that are at the root of the moral law and the motivation to abide by moral rules. An important feature of Locke`s moral legalism is his view that a law must include the threat of sanctions in order to have normative power. Locke supports this view on the basis of his hedonistic theory of human motivation. Laslett, Peter, “Introduction” in the Cambridge University Press edition of Locke`s Two Treatises of Government. This represents a more traditional interpretation of Locke as a thinker of natural law. Sanctions are not necessary for natural law if we regard it strictly as a system of divine rules. However, sanctions are necessary if morality functions as a law. Sanctions are enforcement mechanisms where inherent motivators are absent or underestimated.
Consider, for example, the moral duty to care for one`s children. For most people, this holds an inherent binding force that results from the fact that it is obviously good and necessary. However, if a person does not realize the power inherent in this duty, there are laws that oblige parents to provide their children with the means of subsistence and education, and these laws prescribe compliance with them or face penalties. Calling the first instance a law does not seem necessary, but we can clearly see how the notion of the rule of law distinguishes the second case. Sanctions provide grounds when individuals do not act in accordance with the responsibility that reason should reveal of itself and thus compel it. In the Essays on the Law of Nature, Locke writes: Many scholars reject this position. Yolton (1958), Colman (1883), Ashcraft (1987), Grant (1987), Simmons (1992), Tuckness (1999), Israelson (2013), Rossiter (2016), Connolly (2019) and others argue that there is nothing strictly inconsistent about Locke`s admission to The Reasonness of Christianity. The fact that no one has derived the whole law of nature from first principles does not mean that nothing has flowed from them. The allegedly contradictory passages of the two treaties are anything but decisive. While it is true that Locke does not provide a deduction in the essay, it is not clear that he tried. Section 4.10.1-19 of this book seems to focus more on showing how reasoning with moral terms is possible, rather than actually providing a full account of natural law.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Locke did not deal with the subject of natural law as systematically as one would like. Attempts to elaborate his theory in more detail in terms of reason and content must try to reconstruct it from scattered passages in many different texts. Locke develops his hedonistic narrative most widely in the essay. According to this report, pleasure and pain are the main motivating factors of all human action and thought. For Locke, feelings of joy and pain accompany all our ideas and lead us to act in response to our perceptual experiences and move from one idea to another in our minds. If we didn`t have a sense of joy or pain in the face of certain stimuli, we would be impassive to make music, eat when we`re hungry, or even shift our attention from one idea to another – the perception of rain wouldn`t evoke any reaction in us other than a sunny day, the idea of one`s own children wouldn`t elicit thoughts related to home or family. There is also no discernible reaction other than the idea of children you don`t know. Locke writes: Jeremy Waldron (1993) repeated the content of Proast`s objection for a contemporary audience.
He argued that, aside from Locke`s Christian arguments, his main position was that, from the point of view of the persecutor, it was instrumentally irrational to use force in religious matters, because violence only works on will, and faith is not something we change at will. Waldron pointed out that this argument blocks only one specific reason for persecution, not all reasons. Therefore, it would not prevent anyone from using religious persecution for purposes other than religious conversion, such as preserving peace. Even in cases where persecution has a religious purpose, Waldron agrees with Proast that violence can be indirectly effective in changing people`s beliefs. Part of the current discussion of Locke`s contribution to contemporary political philosophy in the field of tolerance revolves around the question of whether Locke has a correct answer to these objections of Proast and Waldron. Tuckness (2008b) and Tate (2016) argue that Locke placed less emphasis on the rationality argument in his later writings. Locke`s most important educational pamphlet is Some Thoughts Concerning Education and is based on advice Locke wrote to his friend Edward Clarke. This context means that the book begins with a person of relative wealth who will oversee his son`s education. The book was extremely popular and went through many editions in the century since its publication. One of the book`s most striking features is how parents are encouraged to develop and increase the child`s love for praise and appreciation (Some Thoughts, 56-62).
Cultivating this desire helps the child learn to keep other harmful desires, such as the desire for dominance, at bay and learn to control his impulses by acting on them only after thinking about them. Since 1776, no word in the Declaration of Independence has received more attention than Jefferson`s phrase, “All men are created equal.” But how could Jefferson and the other signatories of the Declaration believe this if there was slavery in the colonies? Some slave owners argued that slaves would become equal and worthy of natural rights only if they were civilized.