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John Locke: Natural Law and Innate Ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

S.B. Drury
S.B. Drury
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Extract

In the seventeenth century, the concept of natural law was linked with that of “innate ideas”. Natural laws were said to be ideas imprinted by nature or by God on men's minds and were the very foundation of religion and morality. Locke's attack on innate ideas in the first book of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding is therefore considered to be an assault on natural law. Modern critics like Peter Laslett, W. von Leyden and Philip Abrams are of the opinion that Locke's critique of innate ideas in the Essay cannot be reconciled with the concept of natural law in the Two Treatises of Government.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1980 , pp. 531 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1980

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References

NOTES

1 Yolton, J.W., John Locke and the Way of Ideas, (London: Oxford University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; according to Yolton, this view was held by Bullokar, Carpenter, Burton, Sclater, Mathew Hale and Stillingfleet. Yolton argues that Locke objected to this naive view, but held the “dispositional form” of the doctrine maintained by Parker, Burthogge, More and Culverwell, according to which the capacity for acquiring ideas or knowledge is innate, but the ideas or knowledge, acquired.

2 See Laslett's, Peter introduction in Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed., Laslett, Peter, revised ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960), pp. 94–95Google Scholar: “Locke uses language on the subject of natural law which seems inconsistent with his own statements about innate ideas in the Essay. '” Since Laslett believes that “the Essay has no room for natural law” (p. 94), he concludes that remarkable differences between his philosophical and political works explains why Locke was so anxious to conceal his authorship of Two Treatises. Von Leyden, who translated and published Locke's Essays on the Law of Nature, (London: Oxford University Press, 1954) is in basic agreement with Laslett in thinking that these essays do not provide a doctrine of natural law capable of reconciling Locke's epistemology and his political philosophy. Philip Abrams, editor of Locke's Two Tracts on Government, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964), also maintains that natural law “fails to draw any obligation on us” and hence “fails as a law” (p. 89). See also C.E. Vaughan, Studies in the History of Political Philosophy, (New York, Russell and Russell, 1960), Vol. I, p. 163.

3 Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed., Yolton, J.W., (London: Everyman's Library, 1961)Google Scholar, 2 vols., Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 1. This work will be referred to as the Essay in the remainder of the chapter.

4 Loc. cit.

5 Essay, Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 2.

6 Ibid., Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 9.

7 Ibid., Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 2.

8 Summa Theologica, I–II, Q. 94, art. 2.

9 Essay, Bk. I, ch. ii, sees. 4–18; Bk. IV, ch. vii, sec. 14.

10 Aquinas, loc. cit.

11 Essay, Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 4.

12 Loc. cit.

13 Ibid., Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 12.

14 Wild, John, Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 131Google Scholar.

15 Essay, Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 49.

16 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxv, sec. 8. Locke makes the same point in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, ed., Von Leyden, op. cit., p. 189. This point is also made by Yolton, J.W. in “Locke on the Law of Nature”, Philosophical Review, 67 (1958), pp. 477–498CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is contrary to Leo Strauss' claim that Locke's natural law is no other than God's positive law.

17 Frankena, W.K., “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy”, Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed., Melden, A.I., (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

18 See Yolton's, J.W. “Locke on the Law of Nature”, Philosophical Review, Vol. 67 (1958), p. 491CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Singh's, R. “John Locke and the theory of Natural Law”, Political Studies, vol. 9 (1961), pp. 105–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both Yolton and Singh rightly point out that Locke distinguishes obligation from motivation. The obligation to obey the law of nature has its foundation in God, pleasure and pain merely provide the motivation to abide by one's obligations. I am of the opinion that even though Locke distinguished obligation and motivation, he nevertheless wished to include the latter within the former.

19 See Sparkes, A.W., “Trust and Teleology: Locke's Politics and his Doctrine of Creation, ” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. III, No. 2 (1973), pp. 263–273CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for further elaboration on this point.

20 Essay, Bk. II, ch. xxviii, sees. 6 and 7.

21 Essays on the Law of Nature, op. cit., p. 185.

22 Ibid., p. 183.

23 Frankena, op. cit., p. 44.

24 Locke therefore did not have to choose between grounding the law of nature in God or in human reason as von Leyden, W claims in “John Locke and Natural Law”, Philosophy, xxi (1956), pp. 23–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. W. von Leyden claims that grounding the law of nature in God was found by Locke to be inadequate for giving the law an objective status, because God's will is arbitrary. Locke therefore attempted to ground the law of nature in human nature in order to give it an objective status. I have argued that Locke, even in his mature work, does not abandon God as the foundation of the law; nor is God's will arbitrary and so incapable of giving the law an objective status. Nor did Locke have to choose between grounding the law of nature in God or in human reason (though not in human inclinations), since God is known through reason.

25 Essay, Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 6.

26 Loc. cit.

27 See Brogan, A.P., “John Locke and Utilitarianism”, Ethics, LXIX, No. 2 (1959), pp. 79–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Brogan argues that Locke's laws of nature are those rules that tend to promote or maximize the utility of egoistic hedonists. On Brogan's view, Locke is the earliest founder of utilitarianism. Right action is action productive of the good understood as pleasure. See also Strauss, Leo, “Locke's Doctrine of Natural Law”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 52 (1958), pp. 490–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History, (Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar.

28 Leviathan, Macpherson, C.B. (ed.), (Penguin Books, 1968), ch. xiii, p. 188Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., Ch. vi, p. 121. The distinction between good in means that is accessible to reason and good in ends that is a matter of desire is also made by contemporary critics of natural law like Felix Oppenheim. See his Moral Principles in Political Philosophy, (New York: Random House, 2nd ed., 1975)Google Scholar. Oppenheim distinguishes “extrinsic value-judgements” (i.e. good in means) and “intrinsic value-judgements” (i.e. good in end) and maintains that while the former are accessible to reason, the latter are a matter of preference. He rightly recognizes that the single most distinguishing feature of any philosophy of natural law is its “value cognitivism'', This is why Hobbes can have no place within the tradition of natural law.

30 For a detailed discussion of this point, see Watkins, J.W.N., Hobbes's System of Ideas, (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1965)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

31 This is Aquinas' first principle of natural law. Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question XCIV, Second Article.

32 Leviathan, chs. XI and XV, pp. 160 and 216, op. cit.

33 Essay, Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 6.

34 Loc. cit.

35 Essays on the Law of Nature, pp. 163, 181.

36 Ibid., p. 167.

37 Ibid., p. 133.

38 Ibid., pp. 133–135.

39 Essay, Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 3.

40 Loc. cit.

41 Loc. cit.

42 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 34.

43 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 47.

44 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 10.

45 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 30.

46 Ibid., Bk. II, ch. xxi, sec. 48

47 It is important to compare Locke with Hobbes on this point. Even if we accept the Taylor-Warrender interpretation of Hobbes, which in my view, attempts to make Hobbes's ideas come very close to Locke's, the difference between Hobbes and Locke is still very great. On the Taylor-Warrender interpretation, Hobbes subscribes to a theistic ethics and a hedonistic psychology simultaneously. However, these two systems, although independent, coincide absolutely. This means that what is moral (i.e. sanctioned by the theistic ethics) can never come into conflict with our desires. I am inclined to agree with Locke that being moral consists in doing what we know is right even if we are not so inclined.

48 Ibid., Bk. I, ch. iii, sec. 14.

49 Summa Theologica, I–II, Q. 94, art. 2.

50 Essay, Bk. II, ch. xxi, sees. 37 and 34.

51 Locke, John, The Reasonableness of Christianity, Works of John Locke, (London: Thomas Tegg; etc…, 1823)Google Scholar, 10 vols., vol. 7, p. 150.

52 John Locke, Education in the Works of John Locke, op. cit., vol. 9, sec. 66.

53 See Seliger, M., “Locke's Natural Law and the Foundation of Politics”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 24 (1963), pp. 337–354CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Seliger points out that Locke's theory of natural law draws more fully than the traditional one (like Aquinas') the political implications of natural law. Locke clearly sanctions disobedience to positive laws that are contrary to the law of nature. Indeed, he extends the authority to invoke natural law to the common people who can overthrow any misrepresentations of the eternal rule.

It is also important to remember that Hobbes makes the sovereign the sole interpreter of the law of nature so that the latter fails to fulfill its function as the standard by which to judge positive law. Disobedience of positive law is therefore never sanctioned by Hobbes. See Leviathan, Pt. II, ch. 26, p. 322–323, Macpherson, C.B. (ed.), (Penguin Books, 1968)Google Scholar.

54 I am deeply indebted to my professor and friend, J.W. Yolton. I am however fully responsible for the ideas that appear in this paper and their shortcomings.