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Social Science History for Budding Theorists |
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2: Hobbes, Filmer and Locke17th Century Models for a Science of Society
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(¶1)
A common idea about what a science is, is that it is a body of knowledge
that has shown to be true by testing it against experience. This is the
empiricist view of science. Other views of science stress the quality of
the ideas it uses. This is the theoretical side of science, and it is this
side that I am exploring with you in these essays.
Theology, philosophy and science
(¶2)
The ideas that social sciences use
developed historically and it helps us to understand what the social
sciences are if we study where they come from. August Comte, the French
theorist who invented the word Sociology in 1834, divided the history of
ideas into three stages: theological, philosophical (critical) and
scientific (positive). It is fairly straightforward to distinguish
theological from philosophical theories, but much more difficult to say
what makes a theory scientific. Hobbes, Filmer and Locke, the three 17th
century theorists I discuss here, illustrate theological theories and
philosophical theories, but they would also have claimed that aspects of
their ideas were scientific.
Theological and state of nature theories
(¶3)
Robert Filmer developed a
theory that is mainly remembered for its theological aspects, although it
has some important scientific features. We will compare and contrast his
theory with the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Their theories
are usually classified as being philosophical. They are a special kind of
theory that is called "state of nature theory". State of nature theories
were developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to provide a
view of social reality that is earth centred instead of heaven centred.
Theological theories say that there is a body of divine law from
which you deduce natural law.
State of Nature theorists work out what society and politics are
about by imagining human beings stripped of social characteristics.
They try to show how the needs of those individuals explain their
need for society and politics.
State of nature in Eden
(¶4)
We think of Adam and Eve as being in a
"state of nature" when they were naked in the garden of Eden. The
explanations of what happened there given in the sacred writings of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are theological theories. They begin with
the will of God (divine law) and explain what happens in this material,
animal, world by reference to God's will. But we could also make state of
nature theories to explain how the human race emerged. We could imagine
what human beings were like before we became social beings, and explain
from their animal properties how societies came into being. This is what
the state of nature theorists did.
(¶5)
Just as there are a variety of theological theories, depending on what the
theorist thinks about the nature of God and divine law, so there are a
variety of State of Nature theorists, depending on what the theorist
thought about the nature of human beings and the laws of nature. Hobbes'
state of nature differs from Locke's because Hobbes and Locke have
different conceptions of the basic characteristics of human beings, and of
the natural laws that govern them in a state of nature.
THOMAS HOBBES
(¶6)
Thomas Hobbes wrote a book called Leviathan or The Matter, Form
and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil. We can take the
word "commonwealth" as meaning "society", so his book is about the matter,
form and power of society. Leviathan is a monster from the book of
Job in the sacred writings of the Jews. I usually think of it as a
crocodile.
Deductions from simple axioms
(¶7)
Hobbes thought of himself as a
scientist. He wanted to make a scientific model of politics like the model
of the Universe created by the Italian astronomer
Galileo. Galileo treated
the planets as if they were like earthly bodies. He thought about their
movement as being governed by the same laws that govern the physical
objects we can handle. Galileo's theories started from simple axioms, or
basic statements, about the laws governing matter. One of these laws is
what we now call the law of inertia, that a body continues its motion in a
straight line until something intervenes to stop it. Hobbes looked for
similar axioms, or basic premises, on which to found a science of society.
The objects of Hobbes' universe are human individuals. He pictured people
as streams of impressions and selfish desires, forever in motion. We seek
the temporary satisfaction of one desire, and then rush on to satisfy the
next. At one moment we link to other individuals for the temporary
satisfaction of desire, at another we collide because the other human has
become an obstacle to our satisfaction.
Hobbes 1651
(Introduction, par.1
and
Chapter
2, par.1).
(¶8)
Here is Hobbes describing how simple the basic driving force of the human
universe is:
Sense and thought
are the multitude of impressions running through
your mind from your five senses and from your desires. The train, stream,
chain or succession of these is the motion that moves Hobbes' universe.
Right reason like geometry
(¶9)
Hobbes says theory should be based on
"right reason".
He compared political theory to geometry. In political
theory, he argued, if we give correct definitions to things we can argue
from those definitions to universal conclusions. Correct definitions are
like axioms in geometry.
(¶10)
The reason that Hobbes calls an axiom a definition is that he is an
empiricist. He believes that all knowledge comes from experience. The
axioms of knowledge are, therefore, the different items of experience that
we have. Confusion enters into the issue because we do not agree the same
names for the same experiences. If we could agree our definitions
precisely, and link them in the correct order, we would find that we had a
commonly agreed scientific knowledge instead of lots of conflicting
opinions.
Starts with egoistic psychology
(¶11)
What Hobbes tries to define
correctly is human psychology. He argues from that to universal conclusions
about political behaviour. Stripped to our essential characteristics,
Hobbes argues, human beings are completely selfish. Their actions have to
be explained in terms of the satisfaction that they get from them. To
explain altruistic feelings, like pity, we must show how pity somehow
benefits the person who pities. Hobbes says
Hobbes' psychology
(¶12)
In the first three chapters of Leviathan
Hobbes argues that in nature animals, including people, have four
faculties: sense, imagination, memory, and mental discourse. As he is an
empiricist, we should not be surprised to find that everything starts with
sense. There is nothing in our minds, Hobbes says, that has not, at some
point, been started off by the effect of an external object on our senses
(Hobbes 1651 par.1.2).
Senses conjure images into our minds.
These images are our ideas. They are not just there when we are receiving
the sensations, but persist afterwards. They have what Hobbes calls a
"motion"
in our minds.
This movement of images through our minds is what
Hobbes calls imagination.
Trains of thought
(¶13)
We can link these images together in what Hobbes
calls a train of thought or imagination. This is mental discourse, or
non-verbal thinking, which humans can do before they have the power of
speech
(Hobbes 1651
,
chapter 3). Some trains (or
chains) of thought just
wander about linking one idea to another without an object or end. They are
unguided, without design.
But others are guided by passion
or desire. They have an end.
The end is a desired object
that occurs at the end of the chain. (So it is an end in two senses). The
links in the chain are the images of things we have previously seen leading
to that end. In a state of nature, of course, we would not have taps, but
when the artist drew a pond, the meaning was not as clear.
Reason and desire
(¶14)
Hobbes joins together reasoning and desire.
Thinking is thinking about how to get something, or what to do with it if
we had it. In a state of nature people desperately try to find (think of
and get) means to obtain their own ends. The thirsty person puts together
images of the things that, according to memory or experience will link him
or her to water.
War of all against all
(¶15)
Hobbes reasons from his ego-centred
psychology that, in a state of nature, other people are either used to
obtain our own desires
(¶16)
The result of this is that there is a war of all against all, and life is
nasty, brutish and short:
Promises not reliable
(¶17)
Hobbes presents us with a picture of a state
of nature in which everyone can see that enormous benefits would flow from
a civilised existence, but people cannot establish such an existence
because it is always in everyone's interest for the other person to keep a
bargain, but not to keep the bargain oneself! Without a power to punish
someone who does not keep a promise, contracts have no strength,
From Hobbesian psychology to political sociology
(¶18)
We now look at how
Hobbes imagines humans getting out of a state of nature into a state of
society or, as he calls it, commonwealth. Because promises are not reliable
in a state of nature, this cannot be by a straightforward agreement between
people to form a society. Hobbes argues that, instead, it is by a tacit
recognition that anyone who imposes order,
by force or
otherwise, is
sovereign whilst they maintain that order. Because the state of
nature is
so appalling, it is in everyone's interest to accept the rule of anyone who
can impose order. This is so whatever the terms of the rule. The ruler's
powers will be "absolute", or complete and unlimited. Hobbes says that
whatever the
Sovereign does he cannot be accused of injustice or punished
by his subjects, nor can they change their Sovereign.
(Hobbes 1651
Chapter
18).
In this way, Hobbes argues from an egoistic psychology to an
absolutist politics. From the idea that we are all selfish, to the idea
that political order is of such enormous value to us that we will,
rationally, allow our rulers whatever powers they need to maintain that
order. And, whatever they do, we will not rebel against them. Of course,
being selfish animals, we will run away if they try to kill or maim us. We
will not, however, stop them killing or maiming other people. As long as
they preserve our safety, we will accept and support them in whatever they
do.
Getting out of a state of nature into a state of society
(¶19)
Having
seen where Hobbes is going, let us look at how he gets there. In nature,
according to Hobbes, everyone has roughly equal power. The weakest can kill
the strongest by
"secret machinations".
Everyone is equally vulnerable.
However strong you are it does not stop someone creeping up behind you and
stabbing you in the back
(Hobbes 1651
,
13.1). So people
have a common interest to escape their vulnerability. Hobbes says that
there are "laws of nature" discovered by "reason". The first of these is
that, because the state of war is so awful, people should seek peace. But
how do people get from the state of nature and war to civil society and
peace? Especially seeing that the second law of nature is that we should
defend ourselves by all the means we can
(Hobbes 1651
14.5 Margin:
The second Law of Nature).
The human faculty of speech
(¶20)
The four faculties that humans share
with other animals, according to Hobbes, include the ability to link images
together into a train of thought connected to an objective or end. Hobbes
adds that human beings (as distinct from animals) have a fifth faculty: the
power of translating mental discourse into verbal discourse. Speech (the
power of naming things to think about them and to communicate) is, Hobbes
says:
Private Reason
(¶21)
Converting our trains of thoughts into speech
happens in two stages. The first only involves the individual. Individuals
give marks or notes to the objects about which they are thinking. This
helps them to think more clearly. To recall things from memory and to work
out the possible causes of things. Individuals (in nature) have, therefore,
the power of what Hobbes calls private reason.
Public Reason
(¶22)
The next stage is when people agree a common
signification for their marks. This gives them the power to communicate
their ideas to one another. Private reason becomes public reason
(Hobbes 1651
4.3
Margin: The use of speech).
But although
when private reason becomes public, people accept a common vocabulary,
Hobbes does not mean by this that they, necessarily, agree what words mean.
Hobbes argues that it is disagreement over the meaning of words that lies
at the root of political and scientific disagreements (See
Hobbes 1651
,
4.24 Margin: Inconstant names).
Contract
(¶23)
Speech allows us to "make known to others our wills and
purposes that we may have the mutual help of one another"
(Hobbes 1651
4.3 Margin: The use of speech).
However, we do not give one
another this mutual help for self-less reasons. We aim to get something out
of it. There is an exchange and, therefore, a contract.
But contracts are
promises, and promises,
as we said earlier, are easily
broken if only
dependent on our words. They have no strength
The power of
force
(¶24)
Hobbes says that contracts extorted by force are
valid (Hobbes 1651
14.27 Margin: Covenants extorted by fear are
valid).
Which means there are two ways (equally valid) of
setting up a
Commonwealth: by force or by agreement
(Hobbes 1651
17.9).
Natural and artificial societies
(¶25)
Those animals, other than humans,
who live in societies (like bees and ants) agree naturally. Human beings
disagree naturally "our natural passions...carry us to partiality, pride,
revenge and the like". So human society has to be artificial (made by us)
rather than natural. To force themselves to live at peace with one another,
human beings have to erect a "common power". That is, one person, or one
assembly of people, who is given the power of all of them...and to whom
they
all submit
(Hobbes 1651
(17.6 Margin: Why certain creatures
without reason, or speech, do nevertheless live in society, without any
coercive power and
17.7 Margin: The generation of a commonwealth). It
is as if they all made a covenant with one another to submit to the
sovereign power as long as everyone else does as well. If they
do so by
agreement, they cannot then change their minds and attempt to change the
form of government...whatever it does. Unless the government ceases to
protect them, which was the reason they entered into the contract in the
first place.
(Hobbes 1651
Chapter 18
and
Chapter 21, paragraph 10 Margin: Liberty of
subjects: how to be measured)
(¶26)
The big picture at the front of Leviathan summarises Hobbes'
argument. At the top a giant king towers over countryside and city waving a
sword in one hand and a bishop's crook in the other. His enormous body is
made up of the multitude of people we can imagine living in the country he
rises from. At the bottom, small pictures on either side of the title
represent two types of power: force and religion.
(¶27)
The
sovereign's
great body being made of the multitude of people symbolises
the theoretical problem that Hobbes confronts us with. How can a multitude
of people, all with selfish and often conflicting interests, be welded
together into the cooperative whole that allows civilisation to develop?
This civilisation is represented by the town and cultivated country over
which the sovereign towers. The solution to the problem is represented by
the sword and the bishop's crook which the sovereign holds over the
country. The sovereign controls the army and the church in order to force
the people to live at peace with one another. On their part, the people
accept this violence against themselves gladly, because it allows them to
live at peace with one another, to develop commerce and industry, to
educate their children and to develop the arts, literature and religion.
(¶28)
To emphasise the dual control, over force and ideas (religion), that is
symbolised by the sword and the bishops crook, the artist puts a series of
smaller images down the side under each. Each picture matches its partner
on the other. Castle matches church, crown matches mitre, canon matches a
symbol of lightning coming from the clouds. This lightning symbol could be
the people's perception of God, or it could be a general symbol for ideas.
At the bottom we see that clashing armies are matched by a meeting that
could be a synod of the church, or a meeting of parliament. All these
things, Hobbes argues, the king must have absolute power over, in order to
preserve the order which makes civilisation possible.
(¶29)
By now, if you have followed what is being said, you may feel almost as
frightened of Hobbes state of civilisation as of his state of war of all
against all! Does the
sovereign
have to control the way that people think?
The answer appears to be yes and no. Yes the sovereign must be able to
control what people read and say and do (in outward rituals, for example).
But no, the sovereign cannot control what they think. That takes place in
the privacy of their minds.
HISTORY
(¶30)
Hobbes' Leviathan was published just after the English Civil War.
Before moving on to discuss Filmer and Locke, it will help if we look at
how our three theorists fitted in with this war and its aftermath. In 1642
civil war broke out between the English king, Charles 1st, and his
parliament over the power of each. In 1649 the king was executed and, for a
while, Parliament was victorious. By the end of 1653, the rule of
parliament had broken down, and the military leader, Cromwell, established
a personal rule. Hobbes' Leviathan was published in 1651. This supported
the need for absolute power. But, for Hobbes' theory, Cromwell's absolute
power would be as good as a king's. The royalist writer Robert Filmer was
also an absolutist. His arguments, however, supported the absolute power of
the king. He said that the world was established, by God, so that
legitimate rulers were already in place, and it was our duty to obey them.
Just as it is in the family, so it is in political society. A child born
into a family has no say over who its parents are. The child is duty bound
to obey them. According to Filmer, the authority of kings is like the
authority of the father, and can be traced back through history to the
original father, Adam.
(¶31)
Cromwell died in 1658. In 1660 the parliament invited the son of Charles
1st, Charles 2nd, to be king. Filmer had died in 1653, so he did not see
the restoration of monarchy. In 1680, however, his book
Patriarcha
was published by people who wanted to show that parliament had no right to
object to a king, even if he belonged to the "wrong" religion. (The son of
Charles 2nd, James 2nd, was a Roman Catholic). Patriarcha became one
of the most widely read books in England. John Locke's Two Treatises
was written as an argument against it. It supported limitations on the
power of kings and the rule of laws established by parliament. It was not
published until 1689, however, because, in the early 1680s, an argument
like that was enough to get one's head cut off. Which is what happened in
1683 to one of Locke's friends, Algernon Sidney, who wrote a similar book.
Locke was sensible. He went abroad and took his book with him. In 1688
William and Mary (protestants) were invited to become king and queen by the
English parliament, and James, the Catholic king, fled to France. William
and Mary were not to be absolute rulers, however. The agreement was that
they would be limited by the laws passed by parliament. Locke came back to
England with William and Mary, and his Two Treatises was published
in 1689 to support their rule.
(¶32)
If you would like to read more about the relations of the ideas of our
authors to the political intrigues of their time, look at Peter Laslett's
introduction to The Two Treatises (Laslett 1963) and the booklet on
Hobbes by Richard Tuck. (Tuck 1989)
SIR ROBERT FILMER
(¶33)
Sir Robert Filmer was born in
1588. He was a
country squire who was
knighted by Charles 1, but under
the Commonwealth
he lost some of his
property as a result of his loyalty to the king. In
1643
he was imprisoned
in Leeds Castle, Kent and after his release he spent the last years of his
life in retirement, studying and writing. He wrote pamphlets in defence of
the authority of the state. These were probably first circulated in
manuscript, before being published, usually anonymously, (in
1648,
1652 and
1653). His best
known work,
Patriarcha, was
published in
1680, after
his death. It was probably written about
1637-1638, before
his pamphlets,
and Laslett refers to it as his original writing, from which the later
pamphlets finally derive (Laslett 1963 p.71)
Natural (scientific) and theological sides
(¶34)
Patriarcha was
subtitled The Natural Power of Kings. The subtitle warns us that
there are two sides to Filmer's arguments, theological and natural. In the
seventeenth century the theological aspects of Filmer's argument were very
powerful, but we should not let it blind us to the scientific side of his
theories. To start with the main title. Filmer's theories are known as
"patriarchal", which means based on the rule (arche = rule) of the father
(pater = father). This, as we shall see, Filmer based on an analysis of the
Bible, which in those days was the main history book available to people.
Because people treated the Bible as history, Filmer's theological arguments
also have their natural side. History was one point where the "scientific"
element came into Filmer's argument. He argued that there was no historic
evidence that a state of nature had ever existed. The state of nature
theorists built their arguments on an historic fantasy. Filmer argued that
it was more true to nature to consider authority as just given to us. We
are born into families which have a hierarchical structure and our relation
to the state is similar. Just as it is inconceivable that a child should
choose its father, so there is no historic evidence that any people
originally chose their rulers. This is the part of Filmer's argument that
remains strong today. It is the part that has been developed by theorists
as diverse as
David Hume,
Emile Durkheim and
Roger Scruton.
Hume
(¶35)
David Hume
is an eighteenth century theorist who accepted that
the state of nature is mythical and thought there is little practical point
speculating about the forgotten past of the human race. Instead he turned
his attention to creating a psychological theory that explained why people
obey authority, rather than trying to justify it philosophically. His
criticisms of theories based on a social contract made in a state of nature
theory had an important influence on Jeremy Bentham, the founder of
utilitarianism,
who we will meet in essay
four.
Durkheim
(¶36)
Emile Durkheim
is one of the founders of modern sociology.
He developed sociology because he disagreed with social scientists, like
Bentham
and
Herbert Spencer,
who, although not using state of nature
theory, still followed the individualistic aspect of Hobbes' theories.
Durkheim believed that society is more than a multitude of individuals held
together by a
sovereign
and by
contract. He sought to show that societies
are realities in their own right.
We will discuss him in the last
essay.
Scruton
(¶37)
Roger Scruton
is a present day Conservative theorist who
divides political theories into family models and contract models. He says
the family model is most suitable to conservative theory and the contract
model to liberal theory. Contract models, for example, State of Nature
theories, focus on individuals and imagine society as a contract between
them. Family models, like Filmer, see the bond between society and the
citizen as analogous to that between parents and children, where there is
no contract, but the child accepts the authority of its parents because
they exercise love and power towards it. This deference to benevolent power
is extended from the family to society. (See Scruton 1980)
Absolute...not constitutional monarchy
(¶38)
Filmer
argues that nature
and
the Bible show us that social contract theories of political authority are
nothing but figments of the imagination. He argues that all government is
absolute, that there is no natural freedom and that no one is born free.
Contrast this with Locke,
whose second treatise
begins
by telling us that
to understand political power right, we must study the original state that
humans were naturally in, which was a state of perfect freedom.
Absolute is
the converse of constitutional. It means that a rule is not limited, by
laws for example, or by the will of those who are ruled.
Kings above law
(¶39)
A law, for Filmer, is not something that limits or
controls a king. It is something that a king adopts for convenience. "Kings
are above the laws"
(Filmer 1680 3.6).
(¶40)
According to Filmer,
"kingly power is by the law of
God".
No human law can
limit it. (Filmer 1680 3.1). Filmer argued for the divine right of kings
on the basis that God had made Adam general lord of all things, and that
this patriarchal model is intended for all time. He says that
Family model
(¶41)
Filmer builds all authority on the family. His
Biblical basis for this is the commandment: "Honour thy father and thy
mother". All authority being based on the family means that his theory
applies to the relationships of parents to children, men to women, kings to
subjects, lecturers to students, etc. But the comparison between the family
and the state is particularly strong, and to modern ears quite shocking.
For example, he says that: a father's power "is supreme power, and like
that of absolute monarchs over their slaves, absolute power of life and
death" (Filmer quoted Locke 1689, 1st Treatise, paragraph one.)
JOHN LOCKE
(¶42)
Filmer and Hobbes are both absolutists, believing the
sovereign's
power is
and should be unlimited. But Filmer develops patriarchal theory, whilst
Hobbes is a state of nature theorist. Both can be regarded as
conservatives. Our third theorist, John Locke is a state of nature theorist
who is thought of as one of the main founders of liberal theory.
For constitutional monarchy
(¶43)
Locke puts the case against
absolutism. He puts the case for constitutional monarchy.
Constitutional monarchy is a monarchy that is bound by laws. Let us take an
example from the history that gave rise to Locke's theory. If the rule of
the monarch is absolute and the succession of monarchy is from father to
eldest son, parliament can have no right to pass a law that prevents the
eldest son from becoming king unless he belongs to the national religion.
If the rule is constitutional, however, parliament has that right.
Comparing Hobbes and Locke
(¶44)
Locke presented his arguments as an
attack on Filmer's patriarchal theory. Here, however, I am going to
contrast Locke with Hobbes. That is, I am going to compare the two state of
nature theories.
(¶45)
In his theory Locke wants to show that civilisation has some independence
from the
sovereign, and that rights exist independent from the sovereign.
We need to be clear here that what he is speaking of are not rights
established by a sovereign or ruling power, but fundamental rights that
belong to us as human beings. To give an example from everyday life,
instead of politics. Imagine that someone in power (a lecturer for example)
was to touch you in a way that you felt was an invasion of your body space.
Would you have a right to feel aggrieved even if there was no college rule
or national law that said that touching in that way was wrong? Locke
thought that we have a natural "property" right in our bodies. When our
body space is infringed we often feel the same. But can we justify that
feeling? To do so is to move from feeling to theory.
Can we say no?
(¶46)
To return to politics. Locke asks whether we (the
ruled) have any fundamental right to say "no" to our ruler/s. This question
can be broken down into two:
On these same points, Hobbes said,
On the second point, Hobbes said that only one circumstance gives
us the right to change our rulers. That is if the rule has broken down, if
it has, in effect, ceased to be. [See Leviathan chapter 18
Locke, on the other hand, says that
State of nature not a war:
(¶47)
Locke wants to show, theoretically, that
under some circumstances the ruled can say no to their ruler. To do this,
he argues that human character in a state of nature allows us to be
civilized with one another. The "War of All against All" that Hobbes spoke
of is a risk, but it is not inevitable.
(¶49)
Hobbes believes that without a
sovereign power we will fall straightaway
into a state of nature in which life will be nasty, brutish and short. It
is therefore logical for us always to obey the king who keeps us out of
this appalling state (unless he tries to take away our lives).
(¶50)
Locke believes that civilized relations can be maintained between people
even when there is no sovereign power to enforce them. His state of nature
is not a state of war, although it is more likely to become one than
society organised under a sovereign power. Because his state of nature is
not the terrifying condition described by Hobbes, Locke envisages people as
able to resist a ruler who does not act in accordance with their general
wishes as expressed by laws passed in their legislative assembly. In other
words. If the state of nature is the appalling condition that Hobbes
describes, you will do anything to avoid it, short of being killed or
maimed. If it is the tolerable, but risky, condition that Locke describes,
you will do anything within reason to avoid it. There could come a point,
however, at which you are willing to risk the insecurity of living, for a
time, without settled rulers...in order to get rid of a ruler who is acting
in defiance of law.
Reason is law of nature
(¶51)
The difference between Locke and Hobbes is
indicated in one phrase of this famous quote from the beginning of Locke's
second treatise:
The difference is in
the strength that Locke ascribes to what he calls "the law of nature".
Locke believes that we are naturally governed by a law that enables us to
behave in a civilised way towards one another. That law, according to
Locke, is reason.
Hobbes does not believe this. Hobbes believes that
natural reason is just something inside the individual's head. It does not
have the strength to establish civilised relations between people. That
requires
a sovereign.
According to Hobbes we need a sovereign even to talk
to one another, because without a sovereign to lay down the law about what
words we use to indicate different things, we will not even agree about
what words mean what!
(¶52)
Different ideas about what reason is, lead to different political
perspectives.
Locke argues that reason is the law of nature that teaches us
not to harm one another:
In what sense equal?
(¶53)
Think carefully about that statement that
human equality by nature is so self-evident that it can be the foundation
of feelings of mutual love on which all morality can be built. Does it mean
that we all look the same physically? That, I would suggest, is self-
evidently false. I think it refers to the discovery that we are the same
kind of being as one another. You would not consider a waxwork model of
yourself in Madame Tussauds to be the same kind of being as you, however
realistic it was, but you would another human being, even if physically as
different from you as possible. My interpretation of this passage from
Locke is that at the same time that we learn that other people are the same
kind of being as us, we also recognise, by a natural process of reason,
that we ought not to hurt them.
Symbolic interaction
(¶54)
You may be able to
make sense of Locke if you
treat him as having a [symbolic] interactionist psychology. That is a
theory of
psychology based on interaction between individuals using
symbols.
Symbolic
Interactionists
say that
we learn by playing,
not just by seeing. In the
work that gave rise to Symbolic Interactionism,
George Herbert Mead
discussed the difference between the human consciousness of
"self"
and the
physical organism, and argued that the consciousness of self develops from
the
conversation of
gestures
in animals (threatening symbolic action rather
than fight for example) through
the play of human children in which they
take on the role
of other people, who can perceive them, and so learn to
think of themselves, symbolically, and begin to construct a concept of self
and a personal history. (See
Mead, G.H.
1934).
(¶55)
According to this view, you learn by childhood play to imagine the other
person as someone like yourself. Something in that play also teaches you
that you should not harm the other child and (generally) that the reason we
should not harm one another is that we are like one another and our mutual
civilisation depends on our treating one another as people not as things.
"Who can open the doors
of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his
pride...they cannot be sundered".
God reasons with
Job about Job's weakness and vulnerability in the world. He asks Job if he
can put a hook into Leviathan's nose to lead him about like a domestic
animal. "Will he make a covenant with thee", God asks Job,
"will thou take him
for a servant for ever? He maketh the deep to boil like a pot...Upon earth
there is not his like, who is made without fear...He is a king over all the
children of pride"
(Job chapter 41).
Civil power is political power,
ecclesiastical power is the power of the established church. So Hobbes
argues that the matter, form and power of church and state (combined) are
as the power of a devouring monster that we cannot make contracts with, but
which we nevertheless allow to rule us.
"besides sense, and thoughts, and the train of thoughts, the
mind of man has no other motion; though by the help of speech, and method,
the same faculties may be improved to such a height as to distinguish men
from all other living creatures."
.
(Hobbes 1651
par.3.11).
"truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in
our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember
what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly.... And
therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God
hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of
their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and
place them in the beginning of their reckoning."
(Hobbes 1651
par.4.12 Necessity of
Definitions)
"Grief, for the calamity of
another, is pity, and arises from the imagination that the like calamity
may befall himself"
(Hobbes 1651
Chapter 6, Margin: Pity)
"Imagination... is nothing but decaying sense; and
is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as
waking."
(Hobbes 1651
par.2.2)
Images fade because they are
obscured by stronger ones. The faded images are called memory and
"much
memory...is called experience"
.
(Hobbes 1651
par.2.4 Memory)
.
So images and memory are
the same
thing...the one fresh and
virulent, the other faded.
"to have friends is
power"
(Hobbes 1651
10.3)
or they get in the way of our desires, and we fight them.
"If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both
enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end ... endeavour to
destroy or subdue one another".
(Hobbes 1651
13.3).
"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of
war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the
time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength
and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there
is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and
consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no
instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no
letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger
of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short."
(Hobbes 1651
,
13.9 under the margin note The incommodities of
such a war)
"For he
that performeth first has no assurance the other will perform after"
(Hobbes 1651
14.18 Margin note: Covenants of mutual trust, when
invalid).
"the most noble and profitable invention of all other...without which
there had been among men, neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract,
nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears and wolves"
(Hobbes 1651
4.3, Margin: The
use of speech)
"from their own nature, for
nothing is more easily broken than a man's word" but only from "fear of
some evil consequence upon the rupture"
(Hobbes 1651
14.7 Margin:
Injustice)
If contracts are based on trust in a condition of nature
(which is war of everyone against everyone) they fall apart as soon as
either partner suspects the other one will not keep his or her side of the
bargain. To work, contracts require that
"there be a common power set over
them both, with right and force sufficient to compel performance"
(Hobbes 1651
14.8, Margin: Covenants of mutual trust, when invalid)
"The reason why laws have been also
made by kings was this: When kings were either busied with wars, or
distracted with public cares, so that every private man could not have
access to their persons, to learn their will and pleasure, then were laws
of necessity invented, that so every particular subject might find his
prince's pleasure deciphered unto him in the table of his laws."
(Filmer 1680 3.5).
"God gave to
Adam not only the dominion over the woman and the children that should
issue from them, but also over the whole earth to subdue it...so that as
long
as Adam lived, no man could claim or enjoy anything but by donation,
assignation, or permission from him...All kings either are, or are to be
reputed, the next heirs" (Filmer
1652 O.1 quoted Locke 1689 1st Treatise, paragraph
78)
on the first point, that you only have a
right to resist your ruler if the ruler is seeking to kill or maim you. You
have no right to resist because the ruler is killing or maiming other
people. [See Leviathan 21.10: paragraphs following margin
note Liberty of subjects: how to be measured)
"To understand political power right, and derive it from
its original, 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 will of any
other man."
(Locke 1689, par.
2.4)
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern
it, which obliges everyone; 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." (Locke 1689, par. 2.6)
Locke speaks of "natural reason" and says that the "equality of men by
nature" is "so evident by itself" that it can be made the foundation of an
obligation to mutual love on which all our interpersonal duties are built.
(Locke 1689, pars 2.4 and 2.6)
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Citation: see referencing suggestion
Index:
Absolute:
Hobbes: pars
18,
28,
30 + 31
Filmer: pars
38 following
Body space: par. 45
Constitutional: pars 38 and 43
Gestures: converstion: par. 54
George Herbert Mead: par. 54
Reason is a law of nature. Hobbes and Locke contrasted: par. 51
Symbolic Interaction: par.
54
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