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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
John Locke occupies a central place in the contemporary philosophical literature on parental authority, and his child-centered approach has inspired a number of recognizably Lockean theories of parenthood. But unlike the best historically informed scholarship on other aspects of Locke's thought, those interested in his account of parental rights have not yet tried to understand its connection to debates of the period or to Locke's broader theory of natural law. In particular, Locke's relation to the seventeenth-century conversation about the role of generation in grounding ‘paternal power’ is not well-known. Understanding this background is interesting in itself, but more importantly, it can provide us with a deeper appreciation of what Locke is actually saying, as well as a useful vantage-point for surveying current debates about parental rights.
Abbreviations: DC = Hobbes, De Cive; ECHU = Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding; ELN = Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature; Lev. = Hobbes, Leviathan; LNN = Pufendorf, Of the Laws of Nature and Nations (De Jure Naturae et Gentium); RWP = Grotius, Of the Rights of War and Peace (De Jure Belli ac Pacis); ST = Aquinas, Summa Theologica; STCE = Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education; WDM = Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man (De Officio Hominis et Civis); 2T = Locke, Two Treatises of Government. Spelling has been modernized.
2 Jeffrey, Blustein Parents and Children: The Ethics of the Family (New York: Oxford University Press 1982);Google Scholar David, Archard Children: Rights and Childhood, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge 2004);Google Scholar Arneson, Richard and Shapiro, Ian ‘Democratic Autonomy and Religious Freedom: A Critique of Wisconsin v. Yoder,’ in Nomos XXXVIII: Political Order, Shapiro, Ian and Hardin, Russell eds. (New York: NYU Press 1996);Google Scholar Brennan, Samantha and Noggle, Robert ‘The Moral Status of Children: Children's Rights, Parents' Rights, and Family Justice,’ Social Theory and Practice 23 (1997), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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4 Nozick, Robert Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books 1974), 287–9.Google Scholar Archard, Childhood, 9-10.Google Scholar
5 Grotius, Hugo The Rights of War and Peace (De Jure Belli ac Pacis), trans. Morrice, John (London, 1738).Google Scholar
6 This framework is found in Pufendorf, LNN: 6.2.7-11 and WDM: 2.3.5-6 and Tyrrell, James Patriarcha non Monarcha (London, 1681),Google Scholar ch. 1, 18-20. Locke's remark that paternal power ‘terminates at a certain season’ seems an allusion to it (2T: II.69).
7 Pufendorf, Samuel von Of the Law of Nature and Nations (Jure Naturae et Gentium), trans. Kennett, Basil (London, 1729).Google Scholar
8 Unless we count this remark, which makes no mention of creation: ‘Amongst men, parents are as so many gods in regard to their children. Therefore the latter owe them an obedience, not indeed unlimited, but as extensive as that relation requires, and as great as the dependence of both upon a common superior permits’ (RWP: Prolegomena, xv).
9 Pufendorf, Samuel von The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature (De Officio Hominis et Civis), trans. Tooke, Andrew (London, 1735).Google Scholar Pufendorf also argued that, since no reasonable adult would object to having been subjected to limited parental authority as a child, that consent can be imputed to the child (LNN: 6.2.4).
10 Cf. Schochet, Gordon Patriachalism in Political Thought (New York: Basic Books 1975), 269.Google Scholar The position may be gleaned from Patriarcha (A edition), I.3-4, and Observations Upon Aristotles Politiques, Preface, pp. 235-240. Page numbers for Filmer refer to Patriarcha and Other Writings, ed. Sommerville, Johann P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991).Google Scholar
11 Directions For Obedience To Governments in Dangerous or Doubtful Times, 280.
12 The Originall of Government, 226-7.
13 Aristotle, Politics 1.1; Filmer, Observations, Preface, 237.
14 Cf. Parfit, Derek Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1984), ch. 16.Google Scholar
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16 Page numbers to ELN refer to Locke, Political Essays, ed. Goldie, Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 ‘As much land as a man tills, plants, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property ’ (2T: II.32).
18 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 287–8.Google Scholar
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20 Cf. Sparkes, A.W. ‘Trust and Teleology: Locke's Politics and his Doctrine of Creation,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1973), 263–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Whether Locke picked up such doctrines second-hand or actually read scholastics like Aquinas does not concern us here, but see the editorial introduction to Essays on the Law of Nature. Leyden, W. von ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1954).Google Scholar
21 Aquinas, Thomas Summa Theologica (5 vols.), trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminister, MD: Christian Classics 1947).Google Scholar
22 ‘The argument, I have heard others make use of, to prove that fathers, by begetting them, come by an absolute power over their children, is this: that, fathers have a power over the lives of their children, because they give them life and being… But, they who say the father gives life to his children, are so dazzled with the thoughts of monarchy, that they do not, as they ought, remember God, who is the author and giver of life: ‘tis in him alone we live, move, and have our being ’ (2T: I.52).
23 ECHU: 2.28.5-8; ELN: I; ‘Of Ethic in General,’ in Locke, Political Essays, 297-304.
24 Throughout, I use these terms, as Locke does, in a moral sense, not to be confused with the now more common scientific, descriptive sense. Such scientific laws of nature would be part of the eternal law in the scholastic vocabulary, from which we infer the natural or moral law. Locke, ELN: I, p. 82; cf. Aquinas, ST: I-II, Q. 91, 2; Q. 93, a. 5.
25 If advances in bio-engineering or artificial intelligence enabled us to design the nature of a rational being, would we then possess the rights of a creator? Locke may have been too pessimistic in assuming that we could never achieve that level of understanding. Perhaps he could have argued that, being the workmanship of God ourselves, anything we make is really God's creation as well and, therefore, still to be used only in accordance with his purposes. Admittedly, though, this move would make the argument of I.52-53 rather otiose.
26 Genesis 1:28-30; Psalms 8:5-8. Cf. 2T: I.30, 40.
27 Genesis 9:6.
28 Pace Drury, S.B. (‘John Locke: Natural Law and Innate Ideas,’ Dialogue 19 [1980], 531–45),CrossRefGoogle Scholar who maintains that ‘Locke had to abandon the Thomist view of natural law because the latter derived the law of nature from human inclinations’ (540).
29 Pace Peter Laslett's introduction and note to II.11 in his edition of the Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988).
30 Cf. Pufendorf: ‘The Law of Nature is to be drawn from man's reason flowing from the true current of that faculty, when unperverted. On which account the holy Scriptures declare it to be written in the hearts of men…. Yet here we by no means think it necessary to maintain that the general laws of nature are innate …, yet the knowledge of the Law of nature is truly and really imprinted on human minds by God, as he is the first mover and director of them…That phrase in Romans ii.15 which is urged so hardly by some authors, is certainly figurative…’ (LNN: 1.3.13).
31 Locke, Reasonableness of Christianity in Works of John Locke, 12th ed. (London, 1824): VI.146; ECHU: 4.19.21.
32 ELN: I, p. 82; 2T: II.63; ECHU: 4.20.3. Cf. Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, 76–81. 33Google Scholar Here I agree with Snyder, David C. ‘Locke on Natural Law and Property Rights,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (1986), 723–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34 According to Sparks, ‘Locke regards the products of human creation with as much reverence as the products of divine creation’ (‘Trust and Teleology,’ 273). See also Tully, James A Discourse on Property (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1980), 116–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35 Or without having first forfeited that right through wrong-doing; see 2T: II.24, 172, 178-80.
36 Thomas Aquinas, Principles of Nature, ch. 1; ST: I, Q. 76, a.1
37 Principles of Nature, §31; ST: I, Q. 99, a. 1; Q. 101, a. 2.
38 Cf. Rawls, John A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1971), § 77.Google Scholar
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40 The point is not that our duties to children are owed to God rather than to children. For Locke, all duties owed to other human beings are ultimately owed to God. I thank an anonymous referee for encouraging me to clarify this.
41 I thank an anonymous referee for suggesting I address this.
42 Cf. Nussbaum, Martha Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, and Species Membership (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2006).Google Scholar
43 Locke assumes the duty to honor bequests, but never discusses duties to the dead. For this account, see Jean Barbeyrac's notes to Pufendorf (LNN: 2.3.23, n.9).
44 Letter Concerning Toleration in Works, IX.17
45 Arneson, and Shapiro, ‘Democratic Authority and Religious Freedom,’ 381.Google Scholar
46 Millum, Joseph ‘How Do We Acquire Parental Responsibilities,’ Social Theory and Practice 34 (2008), 71–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
47 Blustein, Jeffrey ‘Procreation and Parental Responsibility,’ Journal of Social Philosophy 28 (1997), 79–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pufendorf (LNN: 4.11.4) endorsed a version of both of the preceding arguments.
48 Millum, Joseph ‘How Do We Acquire Parental Rights?’ Social Theory and Practice 36 (2010), 112–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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50 As Barbeyrac observed (LNN: 6.2.4 n).
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52 I do not imply that the above list of arguments is exhaustive.
53 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 289.Google Scholar
54 Nozick suggests Locke could not ground parental obligation in causal responsibility, because he denies that parents cause their children to exist (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 289). That is incorrect. Although parents do not create their children, they are for Locke the ‘occasions’ or ‘secondary causes’ of their children's existence (2T: I.54; II.66). As God is the ‘universal cause’ of everything, this subordinate causation must be sufficient to ground liability.
55 While we must keep in mind the differences between parental and political government, it would seem that a number of Locke's remarks on ‘The Dissolution of Government’ have application to the conditions for holding parental office.
56 Tyrrell, Patriarcha non Monarcha, ch. I, 33.
57 Schoeman, Ferdinand ‘Rights of Children, Rights of Parents, and the Moral Basis of the Family,’ Ethics 91 (1980), 6–19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Brighouse, Harry and Swift, Adam ‘Parents’ Rights and the Value of the Family,’ Ethics 117 (2006), 80–108;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Clayton, Matthew Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar