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The Origin of John Locke's Natural Rights
Philosophy
Nancy Salvato, Director of
Constitutional Studies
This is an
abridged version of Chapter 2: Historical Antecedents Of The Declaration:
The Natural Rights Philosophy,
The Declaration of Independence: A Study on the
History of Political Ideas [1922], Carl Becker
Natural Rights Philosophy
The Declaration of Independence embodied the ’sentiments of the day, whether
expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or the elementary
books of public right… Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney. Basically, there is
a ‘natural order’ of things in the world, cleverly and expertly designed by
God for the guidance of mankind; the ‘laws’ of this natural order may be
discovered by human reason; these laws so discovered furnish a reliable and
immutable standard for testing the ideas, the conduct, and the institutions
of men.
How did this become the prevailing idea “back in the day”?
Education
A good number of Americans were educated at British universities, where the
doctrines of Newton and Locke were commonplaces; while those who were
educated at Princeton, Yale, or Harvard could read, if they would, these
authors in the original, or become familiar with their ideas through books
of exposition.
Many were initiated, in youth, in the doctrines of civil liberty, as they
were taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero and other renowned
persons among the ancients; and such as Sidney and Milton, Locke and Hoadley,
among the moderns, It would not have been uncommon to read, as a teenager,
Algernon Sidney’s Works, John Locke’s Works, Lord Bacon’s Works, Gordon’s
Tacitus, and Cato’s Letters.
Intelligent Design
Both in England and America preachers and theologians preached intelligent
design, as an effective weapon against lack of faith, deriving a proof of
Divine Providence from the physical construction of the universe as
demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton. There crept into the mind of the average
man this conception of Natural Law to confirm his faith in the majesty of
God while destroying his faith in the majesty of Kings.
The Majesty of Kings
The divine right of kings goes back to the ancient covenant which God had
formerly made with his chosen people of Israel; God on the one side, and
people and king on the other.
Kings also entered a second compact with their subjects to rule justly, and
they with him to be obedient. Thus kings were under binding contract to rule
justly, while subjects had a covenant with God to see that they do so.
Natural Law
In the mediaeval hierarchy of laws of the 13th century, it was held by
Thomas Aquinas that the highest of all laws, comprehending all others, was
the Eternal Law, which was nothing less than the full mind of God.
Something, but not all, of the mind of God could be known to man: part of it
had been revealed in the Bible or might be communicated through the Church
(Positive Divine Law); and part of it could be discovered by human reason
(Natural Law); Natural Law was that part of the mind of God which man could
discover by using his reason, but God had provided beforehand, through the
Bible and the Church, a sure means of letting man know when his reason was
not right reason but unreason.
In mediaeval times, philosophers conceived of the authority of princes as
resting upon a compact, an agreement or covenant with their subjects, a
compact on their part to rule righteously. Should they fail, their subjects
were absolved from allegiance. Because the Pope had divine right authority
over princes as well as over other men, Subjects relied on the Pope
intervening on their behalf.
Eventually kings had got the upper hand, and became coequals with the Pope
in God’s favor; so that in the seventeenth century the right of kings to
rule was commonly thought to come directly from God, This clearly closed the
door to relief in case there should be any bad kings.
Reformation
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were a number of bad kings.
Popular resistance to kings was commonly taught both by the Jesuits and the
Protestant dissenters: by the Jesuits (by Catholic monarchists called
“dissenters”) on the ground that only the Pope has Divine authority; by
Protestant Dissenters (by Protestant monarchists called “Jesuits”) on the
ground that it was possible for subjects themselves to claim as intimate
relations with God as either king or Pope. Calvin fell into the latter
category.
The Protestant Reformation did much to diminish the authority of the Church
as the official interpreter of God’s will.
Scientific Discovery
The progress of scientific investigation had been creating, since the time
of Copernicus, a strong presumption that the mind of God could be made out
with greater precision by studying the mechanism of his created universe
than by meditating on the words of his inspired prophets. Some of the ‘laws’
had already been formulated by Kepler and Galileo.
Since the later seventeenth century, God had been withdrawing from immediate
contact with men, and had become, in proportion as he receded into the dim
distance, no more than the Final Cause, or Great Contriver, or Prime Mover
of the universe; and as such was conceived as exerting his power and
revealing his will indirectly through his creation rather than directly by
miraculous manifestation or through inspired books.
Locke echoed this notion, writing, “I myself can only be the judge in my own
conscience, as I will answer it, at the great day, to the supreme judge of
all men.” If we resist kings, God will no doubt judge us for it in the last
day; but men will judge us now. Let us, therefore, ask whether there is not
happily a compact between men and kings, God not interfering, on which we
can stand to be judged by men when we resist kings.
In the eighteenth century there was no longer any way to know God’s will
except by discovering the ‘laws’ of Nature, which would doubtless be the
laws of ‘nature’s god’ as Jefferson said.
Having deified Nature, the eighteenth century could conveniently dismiss the
Bible and drop the concept of Eternal Law altogether.
Newton reestablished harmonious relations between God and nature. Natural
science could replace theology. The contradictory Gods of the revealed
religions will be replaced by a new idea, that of a being who is known to us
through his works, and to whom we can attain only through science. The
universal order is accessible to the mind, it is not preestablished
mysteriously.
Deism
But Natural Philosophy is subservient to purposes of a higher kind, and is
chiefly to be valued as it lays a sure foundation for Natural Religion and
Moral Philosophy; by leading us, in a satisfactory manner, to the knowledge
of the Author and Governor of the universe….
We are, from His works, to seek to know God. To study Nature is to study
into His workmanship; every new discovery opens up to us a new part of His
scheme…. The eighteenth century, obviously, did not cease to bow down and
worship; it only gave another form and a new name to the object of worship:
it deified Nature and denatured God. Since Nature was now the new God,
source of all wisdom and righteousness, it was to Nature that the eighteenth
century looked for guidance, from Nature that it expected to receive the
tablets of the law.
Locke: God revealed the truth that is necessary for man’s guidance from
experience, from which it follows that man, as a thinking and an acting
creature, is part and parcel of the world in which he lives, intimately and
irrevocably allied to that Universal Order which is at once the work and the
will of God.
God had manifestly given man reason and conscience, as natural guides,
precisely in order that he might distinguish that part of his own thought
and conduct which was naturally good from that which was naturally bad.
Natural law, as a basis for good government, could never be found in the
undifferentiated nature of man, but only in human reason applying the test
of good and bad to human conduct.
The question which Locke had to answer was therefore this: What kind of
political compact would men enter into, if they acted according to the
nature which God had given them?
To answer this question, Locke says, we must consider what state all men are
naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions
and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the
bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the
leave of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all power and
jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another.
What Is This Law of Nature?
The state of nature has a law to govern it, which obliges every one: and
reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it,
that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty, or possessions….
In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by
another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure
God has set to the actions of men….
A criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God
bath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath
committed no one, declared war against all mankind.
Reason is the ‘common rule and measure God hath given to mankind’; reason
would at once bind and make free; it would, as Locke says, oblige every one:
but it would oblige them precisely in this, that it would teach them that
all are perfectly free and equal and that no one ‘ought to harm another in
his life, health, liberty, or possessions.’
Such a state as this, an ideal state, in which all men follow the law of
reason and no compulsion is necessary — such a state never in fact existed.
Suppose a few men in this rational state, refusing to act rationally,
violate the law of nature which is reason, by taking away the ‘life, health,
liberty or possessions of another.’ What is to be done about it? In that
case, Locke says, “the execution of the law of nature is….put into every
man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressor of the
law,….but only….so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is
proportionate to his transgression.” Any one who should, for example, commit
a murder, might, according to the law of reason, be put to death.
Suppose that a good many Cains appear, so that all the Abels, the great
majority who still live by reason, are in danger of their lives, and are at
great inconvenience to defend them. And suppose further that all these
rational and conscientious Abels, being a great majority, come together
saying: Why should we all be forever going up and down to watch where many
Cains come to strike? Let us appoint a few to watch for all. The question
is, how might these many Abels be supposed to proceed in this business?
Would they not say: These few, whom we appoint to watch for us, that we may
be safe in our lives, our health, our liberty and our possessions, are to
make what rules are necessary for that purpose, but for that purpose only;
and we agree in return to abide by those rules, so long as the few whom we
appoint to make the rules do effectively, by means of these rules, make us
safe in our lives, our liberties, and our possessions. Such is the modified
version of the original compact which Locke finds in the state of nature.
Men being free, equal, and independent cannot be put out of his estate, and
subjected to the political power of another, without his consent. The only
way, whereby any one divests himself of his liberty, and puts on the bonds
of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a
community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst
another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security
against any, that are not of it…. When any number of men have so consented
to make one community or government, they are thereby presently
incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right
to act and conclude the rest.
The question which Locke asked was a simple one: ‘I desire to know what kind
of government that is….where one man….may do to all his subjects whatever he
pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or control those
who execute his pleasure?’ This, generally speaking, was what the eighteenth
century desired to know. The answer which it gave to that question seemed
self-evident: Such a government is a bad government; since governments exist
for men, not men for governments, all governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed.
While Locke’s philosophy was not particularly cogent and his argument relied
on unproven premises, it was Locke’s conclusion that seemed to the colonists
sheer common sense, needing no argument at all. Locke did not need to
convince the colonists because they were already convinced; and they were
already convinced because they had long been living under governments which
did, in a rough and ready way, conform to the kind of government for which
Locke furnished a reasoned foundation. The colonists had never in fact lived
under a government where ‘one man….may do to all his subjects whatever he
pleases.’ They were accustomed to living under governments which proceeded,
year by year, on a tacitly assumed compact between rulers and ruled, and
which were in fact very largely dependent upon ‘the consent of the
governed.’ How should the colonists not accept a philosophy, however
clumsily argued, which assured them that their own governments, with which
they were well content, were just the kind that God had designed men by
nature to have! |