John Locke

Prepared by:Rhea D. Sanchez

JOHN LOCKE: ETHICS

John Locke (1632-1704)• Born on August 29, 1632• Wrington, Somerset,

England• Went to Westminster

School and then Christ Church, University of Oxford

• Became a highly influential philosopher, writing about such topics as political philosophy, epistemology and education.

• Locke’s writing helped found modern Western philosopy

MAJOR WRITINGS• Essay Concerning Human

Understanding (1689)– Is the undeniable starting point for the study

of empiricism in the early modern period– He states that one of the most important

aspects of improving our knowledge is to recognize the kinds of things that we can truly know.

• Two Treatises of Government (1693)– Locke’s best-known political text– It criticizes the political system according to

which kings rule by divine right (First Treatise) and lays the foundation for modern liberalism (Second Treatise)

MAJOR WRITINGS• Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)– Argues that much civil unrest is borne of the state

trying to prevent the practice of different religions– In short, it is an argument for the separation of

church and state.• Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)– Very influential text in early modern Europe that

outlines the best way to rear children. – It suggests that the virtue of a person is directly

related to the habits of body and the habits of mind instilled in them by their educators.

ETHICSThe seeking out those

Rules, and Measures of humane Actions, which

lead to Happiness, and the Means to practice them”

(Essay, IV.xxi.3)

ELEMENTS IN THE LANDSCAPE OF LOCKE’S ETHICS

• Happiness or the highest good as the end of human action

• The rules that govern human action

• The powers that command human action

• The ways and means by which the rules are practiced

THE GOODA) Pleasure and painB) Happiness

PLEASURE AND PAIN–True happiness, is associated with the

good, which in turn is associated with pleasure.–Pleasure is taken by Locke to be the

sole motive for human action.–Essay endorsed hedonism. –Pleasure and pain are joined to almost

all of our ideas both of sensation and reflection (Essay, II.vii.2)

- According to this theory, there is no such thing as innate ideas or ideas that are inborn in the human mind. All ideas come to us by experience

- Sensation as the “great source” of all our ideas, and the other source of ideas, reflection or “internal sense”, is the dependent on the mind’s reflecting on its own operations, in particular the “satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought” (Essay, II.i.4)

Sensation and Reflection

HAPPINESS• The pursuit of true happiness,

according to Locke, is equated with “the highest perfection of intellectual nature” (Essay, II.xxi.51)

• To do this, he says that we need to try to match our desire to “the true intrinsic good” that is really within things.

THE LAW OF NATUREA) ExistenceB)ContentC)AuthorityD)Reconciling the law of with

happiness

EXISTENCEThe first essay in the series

treats the questions of whether there is a “rule of morals, or law of nature given to us”

“Yes” (Law, Essay 1, page 109; hereafter: Law I:109).

This law is to be understood as moral good or virtue

CONTENTTwo ways to determine

the content of the law of nature: by the light of nature and by sense

experience.

What exactly, is the light of nature?

Locke describing it, “that it is something acquired or experienced by sense experience or by reason”.

AUTHORITYLocke begins this discussion by

reiterating that the law of nature “is the care and preservation of oneself”

Given this law, he states that virtue should not be understood as a duty but rather the “convenience” of human beings.

He also adds, the observance of this law is not so much an obligation but rather “a privilege and an advantage, to which we are led by expediency” (Law, VI: 181)

RECONCILING THE LAWWITH HAPPINESS

The main lines of Locke’s natural law theory are as follows:• Discoverable by the combined work of reason and sense experience•Binding on human beings in virtue of being decreed by God

POWER, FREEDOM AND SUSPENDING DESIRE

A) Passive and Active PowersB)The WillC)FreedomD)Judgment

PASSIVE AND ACTIVE POWERS

• Locke states that we come to have the idea of “power” by observing the fact that things change over time.

• The idea of power always includes some kind of relation to action or change.

• The passive side of power entails the ability to be changed, and the active side of power entails the ability to make change.

“whatever Change is observed, the Mind must

collect a Power somewhere, able to make

that Change” (Essay, II.xxi.4)

THE WILL• The power to stop, start, or continue an action of the mind or of the body is what Locke calls the will.

FREEDOM• Locke’s view, both the will and freedom are

powers of agents, and it is a mistake to think that one power (the will) can have as a property a second power (freedom) (Essay II.xxi.20)

• He defines freedom in the following way:The Idea of Liberty, is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any particular Action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other; where either of them is not in the Power of the Agent to be produced by him according to his Volition here he is not a Liberty, that Agent is under Necessity. (Essay, II.xxi.8)

JUDGMENT“How Men come often to

prefer the worse to the better; and to chase that, which, by

their own Confession, has made them miserable”

(Essay, II.xxi.56)

Locke gives two answers:(1) Bad luck can account for people not pursuing their true happiness.(2) “Other uneasiness’s arise from our desire of absent good; which desires always bear proportion to, and depend on the judgment we make, and the relish we have of any absent good; in both which we are apt to be variously misled, and that by our own fault” (Essay, II.xxi.57)

LIVING THE MORAL LIFE

• Locke states that we must recognize the difference between “natural wants” and “wants of fancy”.

• Locke states that parents and teachers must ensure that children develop the habit of resisting any kind of created fancy, thus keeping the mind free from desires for things that do not lead to true happiness (Education, 107)

If parents and teachers are successful in blocking the development of “wants of fancy”, Locke thinks that the children who benefit from this success will become adults who will be “allowed greater liberty” because they will be more closely connected to the dictates of reason and not the dictates of passion (Education, 108).

REFERENCE

• http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke-et/

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Prepared by:Rhea D. Sanchez

JOHN LOCKE: ETHICS