AN EXAMINATION OF JOHN LOCKE AND THE ROLE OF NATURAL RIGHTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN LIBERTIES (original) (raw)
Related papers
John Locke and the History of Political Ideas: Rights rather than Duties
2023
Nowadays, the idea that man as such has rights is almost evident. It is also clear that these rights must not be infringed by others and above all by those who hold political authority. The contemporary debate concerns rather what these rights consist of or what their content is. Even autocratic regimes pay the kind of homage that vice pays to virtue by making hypocritical statements that they violate in practice. There is even a paradoxical correlation: the more declarations of human rights a regime subscribes to, the more likely it is that serious violations of these rights will occur. It is hard for us to imagine that man as such has not always been considered a subject of rights. The ancients, however, did not recognize the rights of man as a man, but only as a citizen. Medieval and even modern people throughout the Ancien Régime thought that rights depended on the body politic, the stance in office or “the corporation” to which one belonged; we can best describe them as “privileges.” Obviously, there are great difficulties in explaining the basis and even the nature of the actual rights that man has as a man, as it may seem that, in the absence of some basic social institutions or civic framework, their content cannot be specified. This is why some think that without a minimum of social context these human rights are as mythical as witches and unicorns. Even these thinkers, however, do not deny that men are holders of rights; they just uphold that rights presuppose a historical and political framework. How is it possible that, suddenly, man became an obvious subject of rights? To understand this, it is important to note that there was a radical shift in emphasis in seventeenth-century political philosophy. Before, citizens had, both in moral life and in civic life, certain natural duties, but from then onwards man was mostly the undeniable holder of certain rights. Natural duties were those precepts of natural law that had been identified by the medievals. For example, when Thomas Aquinas considers what the precepts of natural law are, he begins by saying that they are found when, through practical reasoning about what is good for us, we realize that it is good to live rather than to die, or develop our capabilities instead of not doing so. There is thus a natural precept about the preservation of life and there are also various precepts concerning what is necessary for our well-being as human beings, such as living in harmony with others in our community. This is different from saying that we have a natural right to live rather than die, or a natural right to seek our own well-being. It is, above all, very different from saying that the justification of political society is that political society safeguards our natural rights instead of merely allowing us – as social creatures by nature – to fulfill our natural duties to others and to God. This difference is inaccurately described by those who qualify modern rights as “subjectivist” or “individualist”, as they are concerned with emphasizing the freedoms and entitlements of the individual against the rival forces of authority, other individuals and, ultimately, man’s natural state. It is one possible way of describing the difference between the moderns and the ancients, but not the most accurate. Not everyone recognizes the novelty of rights. Some find the idea so self-evident that they find it difficult to admit that it is not very ancient, not to say eternal, and retrospectively discover man’s natural rights where we find above all natural duties arising from natural law. Indeed, there are at least three ways of blurring the difference between natural duties arising from natural law and the new modern natural rights. The first consists in confusing a natural right with what is permissible and not punishable in certain circumstances, such as taking what is necessary for subsistence, or resisting aggressive forces. A second way is to judge that certain moral injunctions, such as giving alms or the prohibition against murder, correspond to a natural right, like the right to assistance or to life. A third confusion is to see natural rights in what are natural obligations—for example, as if the duty to obey God before men was a right to rebellion. This shift occurred in the seventeenth century. However, rights and duties are very different and to better understand this difference we need, at the very least, a genealogy of the shift in emphasis from natural duties (which emerge from natural law) towards natural rights (which emerge from man’s natural state). When does this start? Was it already with the medievals, or even earlier, with the Roman jurists? Nothing is more difficult than dating a major change in ideas. Whatever the case, the shift in emphasis from natural duties to natural rights can be said to be consummated when the role of political authority becomes that of securing the natural rights of man. It is obvious that the change took place during this process. Currently, political discourse and even conversation among citizens proceed as if it was evident that human rights must be untouchable, or at least that they “trump” other considerations. We also assume that a political authority that systematically violates human rights is detestable and illegitimate and must be removed. Hobbes is perhaps the originator of this shift in emphasis from duties to rights, but Locke is the first to argue that the new natural rights that man has as such by his nature are not lost in civil life. If we never lose them, this imposes severe limits on the scope of governmental action. Locke is therefore the first theorist in the modern tradition of limited government and the inalienable rights of man.
John Locke's State of Nature and the Origins of Rights of Man
Janusz Grygienc at all, Human Rights and Politics (Warsaw: Erida), 2013
Locke’s Second Treatise of Government lays the foundation for a fully liberal order that includes representative and limited government, and that guarantees basic civil liberties. Though future thinkers filled in some gaps left in his doctrine, such as division of powers between executive and judicial branch of government, as well as fuller exposition of economic freedom and human rights, it is Locke, who paves the way for others. The article reviews the Treatise, paying particular attention to his ingenious way to render absolute power illegitimate and to create an order that breeds citizens, not subject. In this, the article claims, Locke is a Whig rather than a continental liberal. He worries about state omnipotence and the threat it poses for citizens. Though resorting to an abstract construct—state of nature—he still is a common sense, English thinker, far from a continental reformer who would thoroughly redesign the existing order.
The Common Law and the Constitution: John Locke and the Missing Link in Law
2011
Locke's concept of rights influenced the Framers of the Constitution, which has increased the stakes in later interpretation of what Locke’s model of rights entailed. “Lockean rights” now suggests a perfect right unlimitable by the state in the public interest. Such a right is theoretically interesting, but it is not what Locke had in mind, and it was not the model of rights Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other inherited from Locke's Second Treatise. This paper was an initial reconstruction of Locke's model of a right, locating it within the legal culture of his time and place. His model of what a right is, in itself, was not controversial then (as the perfect and unlimitable right would have been). It was an interest that could be asserted against a party who harmed it unreasonably, but it remained subject to reasonable limitations in its own use. Thus Locke did not propound a model of rights beyond reasonable limits by law.
Constructing Popular Sovereignty: John Locke and the Conceptual Emergence of a Right to Revolution
Responding to Quentin Skinner's narrative of the development of the concept of the right to revolution in his landmark work Foundations of Modern Political Thought, I argue that John Locke should be reinstated as the seminal figure in articulating the right to revolution. Skinner reduces the right to revolution to an argument for popular resistance (as developed by the Monarchomachs), but this overlooks the central role of the evolution of the concept of sovereignty in formulating revolutionary discourse. I argue that John Locke is the first to synthesize the popular resistance arguments of the Monarchomachs with the notion of modern sovereignty developed by Jean Bodin and George Lawson in order to form the basic position of the modern right to revolution.
Democracy and the Doctrine of Prerogative in John Locke: A Critique
The political philosophy of John Locke is one of the most outstanding social contract theorists in the history of political thought. His political doctrines bear his general theoretical orientation of being extensively empirical. Consequently, this paper aims at making a critical study of Locke's democratic principles and doctrine of prerogative. It is of the view that though he is justified in freeing individuals from the shackles of monarchism and the crippling hands and chains of absolutism. His patriotic demonstration of equality, freedom and human rights remains a welcome development. But the limitations and deficiencies of his political liberalism like: promotion of individualism, logical difficulties, impossibility of his contract origin, the questionable transition from the state of nature to the civil society etc cannot be left unturned. It further argues that prerogative as it appears in the Two Treatises should be seen as a natural power and, as such beyond constitutional control. It is out of the constitution because its logic denies that a good constitution is enough for democratic government.
En Route to the US Constitution: Founding Fathers and Lockean Philosophy
With numerous shared aspects, philosophy and law are two distinct but closely interrelated disciplines. With that said, the present paper aims to address the impact of Lockean philosophical inclinations on the process of the US Constitution development by means of textual and historical analysis. In so doing, attention is directed towards the influence of Lockean philosophy upon the Founding Fathers, particularly through scrutinizing the writings of the figuresplaying leading roles in the procedure of drafting the Constitution. Locke’s natural approach to law, and to citizen rights and liberties in particular, is among the most outstanding spheres of influence put upon the examined figures. From adoption of the contract theories for justifying their break from England, to taking a natural approach in their dealing with the rights to life, liberty, and property, the Founding Fathers have been under influence of Locke’s epistemological principles and conceptions. This study concludes based upon the investigated materials and historical context that the American Founding Fathers have extensively employed Lockean notions at legal philosophy level in drafting the Constitution.