Introduction
John Locke was born in 1632; he was an English philosopher and a physician. He was a child to John Locke and Agnes Keen who both were puritans, lived in Somerset close to Bristol, before moving to Pensford south of Bristol. As a child, John Locke schooled in Westminster in 1947 where he was funded by Alexander Popham, Member of Parliament then. On completion of his studies, he was admitted to Christ Church as an undergraduate student where his displeasure in classical philosophy being taught at the school was evidenced at an early stage.
He preferred Rene Descartes’ modern philosophical works before being introduced to medicine and experimental philosophy that was a subject taught at the school at that time. He earned his undergraduate degree in 1656 and his postgraduate degree in 1958. He also studied medicine and earned a degree in 1674. He worked as Lord Ashley’s personal physician and later tested in his career while treating Lord Ashley’s liver problem. He later resumed studies in 1667 where his interests in natural philosophy were re-ignited by Sydenham who was his tutor in medicine at that time, and were demonstrated in his essay: “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”.
Shaftesbury influenced his political ideas and prompted him in 1679 after he returned from France, and he wrote The Two Treatises of Government seen as defense to the glorious revolution in Britain in 1688, but now it’s taken as views against absolute monarchy of the day. In 1683 he fled to Netherlands for political reasons, where he resumed writing and published his works on his return to England in 1688 and later died in 1704.
His philosophical works
John Locke wrote a lot of philosophical writings that included; “Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A letter concerning toleration”. He had different opinions as a philosopher on human nature. He viewed everything in light of the law of nature, which to him constituted freedom to all human beings and the right to life and own property. His views and writings are criticized, and have been subjected to criticism.
On property
He argues that it is the governments’ duty to protect individual property and do all things for public good (Gowan, n.d.). He says that from the onset, all human beings are equal and have an absolute will to act without intrusion from anyone. Because laws of nature bind us together, it is our responsibility to punish any one going contrary to it due to reasoning irrationally. It can be argued that if the act of punishing wrong doing as advocated by Locke is left to every individual in modern day it can generate lots of wars, because we keep on breaking the laws. This explains why there were many wars in Europe at that time. According to him, everything in the world is equally owned by all except one’s body and what the body does. He says that whatever we make out of the movements of our body is personal property.
Whoever tills the land and raises its output acquires it as his. Common land exists, according to him, but private one is more important so long as everyone is satisfied. Everyone has the right to acquire property, be free and healthy within a certain limit so long as he has worked for it. However, one could see the logic behind there having a need for social order to regulate what one owns.
However, it seems that during his time, land was a major issue that one had to own it, till and earn a living from. This explains that the time of his writing was during agrarian revolution. Industrial revolution later changed the view of owning property in the sense that one could buy a house and buy food not necessarily own land. To him, so long as you have worked for your wealth then you have the right to own it. This views furthered capitalistic ventures, the desire to own property, individual rights, especially on equality began being championed at this time.
On Revolution
According to Locke, all legitimate authority derives its power from the people and once one of them falters, then the whole group should be dissolved and a fresh mandate be given to them by the people. He also says that if they misuse authority, then they can only plea to the divinely designed rules of nature. When the government that is supposed to protect the citizens private property fails to do that, then they are supposed to resign on their own consent. The people have the sole responsibility to decide when the government commits grave mistakes since they are the custodians’ of social order. And if the government refuses to surrender, then only a revolution can get them out of power.
A well-formed civil society is the only basis for a successful revolution since it’s able to mobilize masses against the government. One may argue that his views influenced the formation of strong revolutions both in England, USA and France in the 18th century and has been the bedrock for other revolutions in the world ever since.
On Civil Society
Locke sees the family as the basic unit of society responsible for propagating its continuity through procreation. Though it’s personal responsibility to own and defend property and apply the natural law, it’s required this right be surrendered to the community to set rules that govern its subjects and the state to be judge in cases of disputes but when a monarchy exist it should respect the autonomy of the subjects. That’s how a civil society is formed according to him. For any regime to be formed, it must be by the peoples consent and willingness to be governed by it since they are surrendering their rights and properties to be protected by it. And therefore, the rules set should be agreed upon by the majority and the minority explained to the rules.
The structure of government does not matter, but the authority of the set rules do for they should regulate the ownership, preservation and handover of belongings, since the rules are to be applied equally. Since the laws are to remain for long, then the law enforcer who to Locke is the executive comprising the ministers and magistrates need to be meeting regularly whereas the arm that set laws need not to meet regularly. He supposes that the legislative power of the government be vested in a representative body that represents people’s interests during their meetings. The stability of any society and civil order depends on the ability of the executive to exercise its prerogative in a way that does not contravene the laws in the absence of the legislature, when there’s no express provision and they are in a deadlock.
Locke’s views of accountability of the leaders, and the active role of the citizenry and civil society, has led to revolutions in the world and kept the executive arm of government accountable to its electorate. One could agree that the people have the responsibility to ensure that the elected have performed their functions in accordance to the set rule failure to which the civil society should demand for accountability. Monarchies have existed since the time of Locke and still exist. Locke espoused democratic monarchies where they exist by the consent of the people. But in most cases, since leadership is hereditary, it is difficult to determine whether the next leader will be democratic or will cause many revolts and have influence over legislature and executive in executing the laws.
This was the case in many monarchies and it caused many wars in the world to the extent that there are few monarchies in existence today. In the developed world where the rights of individuals are upheld and respected by everyone, democratic monarchies exist and are accountable to its people but in developing nations where monarchies prevail, it is still a hustle for people to own some rights. The monarchies institute laws to own whole kingdoms, including people; they own property on behalf of the king, hence contravening the natural laws as espoused by Locke. Like most Monarchies in Africa do at the moment.
The revolution’s that have existed to oust the leaders from power have lacked the backing of everyone and have been devoid of the support of civil society because it is either not existent or too weak to champion the rights of the citizenry.
On self
Locke in his Essay: “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” defines self as;
that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends (Locke, 1997).
The self is one that is conscious and dwells in a body. He said that the brain is a tabular rasa- empty slate, and is formed by experiences derived from our feelings and thoughts. He argues that what a child impresses on his mind as a child has lasting impressions to adulthood. That education shapes the mind and creates the self to maturity. He warned of teaching children to negatively associate things at childhood since this has lasting impacts that the child will not be able delete from the mind. His works became very important in the advance of education then and now for children. The educationists were keen not to have negative associations to anything.
This is important in the creation of a person to be independent in thought and allow his encounters and reflections to shape his character and behavior. This idea led to the development of psychology and other disciplines that sought to find out scientific explanations of development of human beings. One could argue that Sigmund Freud developed on when he did his psychoanalytic theories of development where he examined patients, and came up with the theory of interpreting dreams as a source of awareness of what happens in the unconscious mind, and cautioned that previous involvements have long lasting effects on one’s behavior.
Empiricism
Locke is considered the father of British empiricism. It stresses the importance of familiarity and proof in the development of concepts and thoughts. Locke basing on his notion of the mind being an empty slate where experiences we come across in our senses are written, argues that as we grow we develop ideas from the things we feel and encounter that may be simple like the relationships we create, substances we meet, and different modes of doing things which in the long run may turn out to be very complex and need analysis. As for Locke, our understanding of issues is an insight gained from thoughts that are in agreement or disagreement one to another.
Of course his views had severe criticism from other scholars like Berkeley who argued that our knowledge is gained from God who writes and imposes on our minds His will. This view had earlier own been held by Kant whom Locke differed with. Of course, it is true that as we grow up we encounter different things that impress on our minds different ideas that shape our understanding and formulation of knowledge. From a religious point of view, it is thought all knowledge comes from a divine being and that our experiences are predetermined. But scientifically this may lack proof since all evidence tendered must have empirical evidence, observable and can be experimented upon to ascertain there validity. The question is how common sense can be argued out philosophically. Is common sense common to all human beings? It may not.
One could argue that what is naturally right to do to other people is innate. Somehow, every human being is born with a conscience that is shaped by society either positively or negatively making the persons experiences determine his actions and the soundness of his judgment of morality. Why does someone say “you did what was wrong” in a quarrel? Or ask why another one took what belonged to him? It could be argued that both parties are appealing to some understanding of human nature that the other person should have known and be doing. This means therefore that either it was an agreement or it is some kind of expectation that overrides all other expectations to bring sobriety. Therefore, in as much as we experience things which shape our behavior to others, there is an innate rule of nature that we all adhere to universally, though rules may differ from place to place.
John Locke’s philosophies became the bedrock for the formation of an open-minded democracy that brought forth the fight for equality in Europe and significantly impacted together the American and French revolutions. His influences in philosophy met with the theory of empiricism, which talked about the confines of what we can appreciate of the scope of what is truth.
The political consequences of his ideas involved the thinking that everyone is born the same and that learning can bring freedom to individuals that will eventually bring the defeat and suppression of dictatorship of any kind. Locke held the notion that the regime in power had an ethical duty to warranty that persons continually reserved independence over their human rights, as well as possession of property out of their hard work.
It is important to mention that the thinking of Locke was independent and that he endeavored only to pursue philosophy and not doubling up as a scholar, he never held anyone’s opinion or fear to write what others had written but rather he did it with uncompromising zeal in search for truth. Even though logic in philosophy and commonsense don’t agree and are tantamount to an error, this he brought forth, influenced elicited thinking into various disciplines as earlier own mentioned. His philosophy remained in the minds of many for centuries and The Essay was translated in 1700 and approved for formal thinking of ‘the Encyclopedists’ (as Michael Oakeshott writes about John Locke) waiting for the creation of a philosophy that would fit them (Oakeshott, n.d.). Their thinking was still influenced by Locke’s philosophy. Locke is seen as the father of materialism because his philosophy led people to that thinking. Other scholars like Hobbes were persuaded by materialism as Berkeley and Hume became paradoxical though they owed allegiance in their philosophical thoughts to Locke. I think much of his thoughts were influenced by his Christian belief and puritan background, to the extent that his moral code was influenced by the Bible.
Locke’s principles of open-mindedness, of freedom, a realistic freedom for that matter, of independence, not one that is obsessive, of the autonomy of everyone that could be used sometimes and of material belongings, are the bedrock upon which modern liberalism was anchored. And perchance ‘the rights of nationality’ and ‘the perfectability of the human race’ as is in “John Locke” by Michael Oakeshott, are other ideas that have contributed to the growth of modern day liberalism.
References
Gowan, D. (n.d.). Second treatise of government by John Locke. Web.
Locke, J. (1997). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. R. Woolhouse (Ed.). New York: Penguin Books.
Oakeshott, M. (1932). John Locke. The Cambridge Review, pp. 72-3.