Locke, Hobbes and Violence Thursday, Feb 28 2008

Some very rough and ready thoughts about Locke and his relation to Hobbes vis-a-vis their attitudes towards violence and stability

 I went to an excellent lecture by Elizabeth Frazer today on Locke (and also Filmer), and she stressed a number of times the emphasis on violence contained especially in Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. This was interesting for me, because she seemed quite troubled by it, and I’ve also noticed that Waldron in Locke, God and Equality laments the fact that Locke is prepared to use extreme violence to deal with those who transgress the codes of civil society, thereby throwing us into a State of War (because for Locke, unlike Hobbes, the State of Nature is not automatically a State of War, indeed we can find ourselves suddenly in the latter even when a legitimate sovereign continues to rule).

In today’s lecture, Elizabeth Frazer mentioned Ashcroft’s interpretation of Locke as not so much a ‘liberal’ as a ‘radical’, prepared to endorse violence to bring about the political state of affairs he deemed most desirable. Now, I haven’t read Ashcroft, so i admit now that I don’t know his arguments. However I want to take the ideas about violence in Locke and construct a proto-thesis about how he might be read, which can be summarised as follows. Locke is applying what will later come to be designated liberal considerations to a conception of politics designed to transcend the Hobbesian. However, in order to achieve such transcendence Locke must posit what will later become known as a ‘thick’ conception of the good, and is prepared to use extreme force to deal with those who don’t accept the thick conception. This is interesting because I will endorse the postulation that Locke is concerned predominantly with stability – just as I believe Hobbes was. The difference between Locke and Hobbes may well then come down to Hobbes seeing stability as the primary and virtually exclusive concern, whereas Locke is compelled to ask what can be achieved once stability is assured. 

As I said, this is a rough and ready piece, and I don’t claim to be putting forward anything definitive. But I hope it is of interest to any Early Modern Politics Geeks out there. Also, i am too lazy to get proper references, so you’ll have to trust me, and I may well be open to strong objections that site actual bits of the text.

To begin, i’m going to focus on the example in Locke that Elizabeth Frazer employed in the lecture today, and the one that gets Waldron all upset. It is that if I am set upon by a robber who threatens my life in order to take my purse, then he places himself in a state of war with me. As a result, I am entitled to kill him, because this is the only way to defend myself – and myself is God’s property – and by extension my property. Further, those who would be robbers, and go about creating the State of War (or alternatively, treating the State of Nature not as a mere state of liberty, but a state of license) are those noxious beasts with which men can have neither Security nor Society. Correspondingly, society must destroy these men as it would destroy Lions and Tygers. Waldron doesn’t like this, because he sees it as a particularly anti-liberal attitude to criminals, which reduces them to mere beasts and degrades their status as human beings. This is especially problematic for Waldron, because his primary thesis is that Locke views all as fundamentally equal, because God made them that way. Elizabeth Frazer seemed to me to be voicing different concerns, which (due to the obviously limited nature of what she could present in her lecture) I inferred to be a general concern with the levels of violence Locke seems prepared to endorse, and that death appears to be a constant theme in the Second Treatise (as it is in Leviathan, which I agree with her about).

Yet this example of Locke’s has never troubled me in the way it definitely troubles Waldron, and certainly appears to trouble Elizabeth Frazer. To try and get my reasons clear, let’s begin by considering something else Locke says about criminals and transgressors, where we are not allowed to destroy them. Imagine I am getting off my horse and ask you, my servant, to hold my purse. Now imagine that as I dismount you run away. What I am certainly not allowed to do is chase after you and hack you to bits. In the previous example, I was allowed to destroy my enemy as a Lion or Tyger because if he killed me to take my property, the law would mean nothing – it could not restore life to my dead corpse. In this second example the case is different: there is a system of legal rules and enforcement that mean the perpetrator can be caught and dealt with, and my property returned. So as a first point, Locke isn’t saying that we can just go about slaughtering criminals as though they were brute beasts. Things are more subtle than that.

Secondly, I am now going to posit an explanation about what underlies the two cases. In the first case the only way I can protect myself and my property is through violence. Further, the only way society can protect itself from what we might think of as pathological criminals – those that really are akin to Lions and Tygers in that the rest of us simply cannot ever have security or society with them - is to just kill them. This is pretty illiberal – but perhaps even modern ‘liberals’ will agree with the sentiment, and simply modify it to “lock the pathological criminals up in gaol, or mental assylums, forever”. That Locke advocates outright killing may just be down to his being a product of his time. The second case is clearly different: somebody who runs away with my purse can be dealt with adequately by the law.

What I take to underlie both cases and be common to them is the issue of stability, and Locke’s desire that society have it. For consider; the presence of pathological criminals – Lions and Tygers – fundamentally destabilises society; if people like that are around everything descends into anarchy and fear. To make society stable – and i suggest, therefore worth having – such people must be eradicated (in Locke’s case, literally). Petty non-pathological criminals are different. They cause minor nuisances (polecats and foxes?) but ultimately society will be more unstable if we go around killing the non-pathological for minor transgressions. Thus as regards such people, stability is best served by letting the apparatus of the state deal with them.

Now some remarks about stability in general, and the connection with Hobbes. I take Locke to have some fundamentally similar sentiments about stability to Hobbes, but to articulate them differently and take them in different directions.

Firstly, Hobbes and Locke share a similar enough context. The execution of Charles I loomed over all of mid-late 17th Century thinking – this will have been as common to Hobbes as to Locke. Further, whilst Hobbes had experienced the Civil Wars of 1642-9, Locke lived through the Succession Crisis of 1688, and the wrangling and deliberation prior to this (if we are to accept Laslett’s reading of the Two Treatise as written in the early 1680s). So both knew what it was like to live under tumult, and to desire societies where instability was eradicated.

Secondly, we turn to differences. I take Hobbes as being fundamentally desirous of stability no matter what. I would have to argue at great length to establish this, so I’m basically just going to assert it, on the back of both contextual consideration about the English Civil War, as well as an explanation of why Hobbes is not only prepared, but keen to endorse absolute Sovereign Power. I see Locke as also having a strong urge to achieve stability, but drawing back sharply from the implications of Hobbes-style Stability Uber Alles. Thus Locke needs to get two things to sit with each other: a fundamental commitment to stability, and a society in which the Sovereign can be challenged, and which recognises that it would be mad to suppose men fear the mischiefs of polecats and foxes, but are content, nay think it safety, to be devoured by Lions.

How does he achieve this? The answer is complex, but goes something like this. Locke endorses something which is pretty similar to what will later come to be termed ‘a thick conception of the good’, and it happens to be pretty ‘liberal’ in nature. The ‘thick’ conception Locke has in mind involves things like recognising we are all God’s property, respecting each others’ property, possibly even seeing that we are all fundamentally equal (if one is to endorse Waldron’s reading), and so forth. Now, if a group of people all endorse this ‘thick’ conception, then the society will be stable, and furthermore, all sort of wonderful things can take place in it, such as the cultivation of land, the election of representatives, and the challenging of particular governments. However, those who do not share this thick conception are dangerous. For they are fundamentally at odds with those who do share such a conception – they are like Lions and Tygers. Indeed, these people are dangerous because they threaten not only fundamental stability, but everything good and beneficial that can be built up in a state that enjoys stability. Thus it will be necessary for those sharing the thick conception to destroy as noxious beasts those who fundamentally threaten stability, which means those not endorsing the thick (liberal?) conception.

So Locke does endorse violence against these people, and perhaps as Waldron says there is something particularly unpleasant in Locke’s reducing some men to the level of beasts to be destroyed. But what I am suggesting is that the violence is a necessary part of achieving the stability which will be necessary for any desirable political society – that is, any stable society that is not predicated on the existence of an absolute Hobbesian sovereign.

 That’s the proto-thesis. Any thoughts?

8 Responses »

 

Rousseau #2: Rousseau in Nietzsche Anticipation Wednesday, Feb 27 2008

Look at this from Book IV, Chapter 8. Again, probably the only person in the world who cares, but it’s almost as if Jean-Jacques had got an advance copy of the Genealogy of Morals:

“Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied solely with heavenly things; the country of the Christian is not of this world. He does his duty, indeed, but does it with profound indifference to the good or ill success of his cares. Provided he has nothing to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether things go well or ill here on earth. If the State is prosperous, he hardly dares to share in the public happiness, for fear he may grow proud of his country’s glory; if the State is languishing, he blesses the hand of God that is hard upon His people.

For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the citizens without exception would have to be good Christians; if by ill hap there should be a single self-seeker or hypocrite, a Catiline or a Cromwell, for instance, he would certainly get the better of his pious compatriots. Christian charity does not readily allow a man to think hardly of his neighbours. As soon as, by some trick, he has discovered the art of imposing on them and getting hold of a share in the public authority, you have a man established in dignity; it is the will of God that he be respected: very soon you have a power; it is God’s will that it be obeyed: and if the power is abused by him who wields it, it is the scourge wherewith God punishes His children. There would be scruples about driving out the usurper: public tranquillity would have to be disturbed, violence would have to be employed, and blood spilt; all this accords ill with Christian meekness; and after all, in this vale of tears, what does it matter whether we are free men or serfs? The essential thing is to get to heaven, and resignation is only an additional means of doing so.”

4 Responses »

 

Rousseau #1: Rousseau in Funny Sarcasm Shocker Wednesday, Feb 27 2008

I recently had to concede to Chris Brooke and James Arnold that Hobbes is actually quite funny, though I still reckon de Tocqueville is funnier. Anyway i noticed today that old Jean-Jacques himself has a few moments of albeit quite sarcastic wit, which I’d never picked up on before.

 For example:

I have said nothing about King Adam, or about emperor Noah, father of three great monarchs, who among themselves divided the universe, as did the children of Saturn, whom some believed they recognised in them. I hope my moderation will be appreciated; for since I am a direct descendant from one of these Princes, and perhaps from the elder branch, for all I know, I might, upon verification of titles, find I am the legitimate King of humankind. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that Adam was Sovereign of the world as Robinson was of his island, as long as he was its sole inhabitant; and what made this empire convenient was that the monarch, secure on his throne, had neither rebellions, nor wars, nor conspirators to fear.

- Book I, Chapter 2 of The Social Contract

Or:

“This would certainly have been to the taste of Barbeyrac, who dedicated his translation to King George I of England. But unfortunately the expulsion of James II, which he calls an abdication, forced him to be on his guard, to equivocate, to be evasive, in order not to make a usurper of William. If these two writers [Grotius and Barbeyrac] had adopted the true principles, all their difficulties would have been solved, and they would always have been consistent; but they would have sadly told the truth and paid court only to the people. Now, truth does not lead to fortune, and the people confers no ambassadorships, professorships or pensions.”

- Book II Chapter 2 of The Social Contract

Now the second quote is really just a bit funny (at least, if you are sad and live in libraries like I do, it is a bit funny), whereas the first is more interesting. Because the sentiment in the first quote appears to be reminiscent of Locke’s argument in the First Treatise on Government, that even if Adam held all of the Earth under his dominion, it doesn’t follow that Kings, even if they were descended directly from Adam – which obviously they’re not – have a proper right to rule on that basis alone.

At least, I think that’s interesting, because I often read Rousseau as quite fiercely opposed to especially Hobbes, but also Locke. Maybe nobody else cares. Probably.

3 Responses »

 

Kant and Moral Vertigo Wednesday, Feb 20 2008

I was reading the Grundlegung earlier today, and got thinking about one of Kant’s less well known reasons for wanting to ground morality in reason and not ‘inclination’. The main argument, or rather axiom, informing Kant’s ethical thinking is that moral action will only be truly moral if it is done solely out of respect for the moral law, and not at all because of inclination or sentiment. The reasons for this are complex, but I take Kant to be worried that if moral action is motivated by sentiment rather than disinclined respect for duty, it will be ‘infected’ by egoistic, self-referential designs and hence could not be truly moral.

That, however, is not the assumption I wish to challenge today (although I think it is an assumption which should be challenged, and forcefully). Rather, I wish to consider the considerations given in Chapter 1 Section 10 of the Grundlegung, namely that there is something dangerous, or unstable, about morality rooted in sentiment and not reason. Kant is apparently troubled by the possibility of the man who does ethically good acts out of inclination, yet one day ceases to have such sentiments and so stops acting morally (perhaps he is overwhelmed by a fit of depression, and no longer desires to help others). This worries Kant, and he prefers the following account:

“Suppose then that the mind of this humanitarian were overclouded by sorrows of his own which extinguished all compassion for the fate of others, but that he still had the power to assist others in distress; suppose though that their adversity no longer stirred him, because he is pre-occupied with his own; and now imagine that, though no longer moved by any inclination, he nevertheless tears himself out of this deadly apathy and does the action without any inclination, solely out of duty” (Ch 1 Sec 10, emphasis added).

It appears that Kant suffers from a sort of moral vertigo when asking if morality be based in sentiment: he looks and sees the possibility of sentiments simply giving out – and quite easily – and this induces a moral panic. Consequently, he wishes to ground morality in something he perceives to be eminently more stable - and he finds this in obedience to the moral law discovered by reason. That is, Kant is a little like the man at the top of the Empire State Building, who looks out over New York and suddenly feels the nausea of vertigo: he sees that there is a safety rail at his chest preventing him from falling, but he suddenly wonders, “what if the rail disappears, or becomes loose, or is corroded and snaps?”. And suddenly he wishes for more than a safety rail: he wishes perhaps for the rail, or the whole building, to be fundamentally attached to him, making his falling an absolute impossibility. Panic sets in, and the vertigo worsens.

Yet this moral vertigo seems to me unnecessary, and we can give to Kant an analogous answer to the man on the Empire State Building. We say, “for sure, the rail might snap, it might even disappear for no reason, and you might plummet. But we have good reason to be expect that it wont: the maintenance team look at it twice a week, it is made of non-corrosive steel, it has never disappeared before (and nor has anything else in experience), etc. So don’t worry; the merely possible need not worry you, for you are quite safe”. Analogously we say to Kant, “for sure, moral sentiments might simply give out and cease all of a sudden – but they probably wont. Such sentiments are deeply ingrained in us, reinforced repeatedly through our lives since early childhood, and are so important as to constitute fundamental aspects of our humanity and individual personalities. We have good reason to expect these sentiments to persist – indeed we can ensure they persist by bringing up our children in ways of which we approve, and encouraging those around us to share in our sentimental practices. Moments of weakness will of course arise, but a sudden total sentimental nihilism is hardly plausible”.

And this should be enough to avert the moral vertigo. If it isn’t, I am tempted to suggest that Kant or the Kantian feels the vertigo because he or she is looking for it, and this is because he or she has already decided to locate morality in reason and not sentiment. Yet with that we are probably at meta-ethical bedrock: we are at the point where people’s basic philosophical temperaments dictate which moral axioms they are drawn to accepting – either embracing reason, as Kant did, or sentiment, as Hume did. To what extent there is argument to be had beyond this point is something about which I am dubious.

 EDIT: It might also be worth pointing out to the Kantian that even if ethical action is based on sentiment, and contrary to my reassurances, it is in fact thereby unstable, it doesn’t follow that this account should therefore be rejected. For perhaps morality is unstable; perhaps this is a cold, hard and unpleasant truth - but as Nietzsche wrote, there are such truths.

13 Responses »

 

Hobbes on Incitement Sunday, Feb 17 2008

A while ago I put up a post pointing out that there is something fishy in the logic of laws against inciting other people to do things, which was followed by a protracted exchange. See here for that post.

I recently noticed that Hobbes expressly disagrees with my position, and thinks that the Sovereign is perfectly entitled to bang you up, or even kill you, should you be in the business of telling others to do things that threaten peace and security, and the ability for all to engage in covenant formation, thus leaving the State of Nature which is a State of Warre and enter thereby into Civil Society.

“But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do any thing contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evill intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because ignorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every many is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.“

(Leviathan, Chapter XXV – Of Counsell)

This, however, rather encourages me to think that i’m right about incitement laws. For Hobbes’ position is that you cannot ever complain that the actions of the Sovereign are unjust, because of the very logic of what a Sovereign’s actions are. For a start, appeals to justice would need invoke a higher authority than the Sovereign – which means saying that the Sovereign is not the Sovereign. That will manifestly not be the case if the Sovereign power is the greatest power. And even if we posit God above the Sovereign, Hobbes – that infamous ‘atheist’, or so his contemporary critics were keen to allege – is happy to say that the Sovereign is God’s Lieutenant upon Earth, and nobody else may or can commune directly with God, bypassing the Sovereign. Further, it is illogical to remonstrate that the Sovereign commits an injustice. By your being able to form covenants which are meaningful, stable and enforceable, you thereby endorse the Sovereign, for without him covenants would be vacuous, and you would be returned to the state of nature. You thereby license all the Sovereign’s actions, because his actions are the mechanism by which you are saved from the State of Warre, and are in a fundamental sense the author of the Sovereign’s actions. Thus if the Sovereign puts you to death, be you innocent or otherwise, such action is licensed by you yourself, whether you realise it or not. Thus it is straightforwardly illogica to allege that the Sovereign commits an injustice against you. This is simply impossible.

Of course this reasoning is, to put it rather bluntly, completely barmy – at least, outside of the context of a post-Civil War era, taking account of the author’s positing of security as paramount above all else.

My point here is that it is interesting to note that endorsement of incitement laws fits rather neatly with a Hobbesian picture of the state: one in which the Sovereign power can do anything to you, and you’re remonstrating is straightforwardly ruled out, and thereby ignored. I’m not saying incitement laws have to be accompanied by such a Hobbesian picture – but it is surely worrying for those defending such laws to see how neatly the two fit together.

6 Responses »

 

Things I have noticed in revisions: Hobbes Friday, Jan 18 2008

Hobbes is usually taken to be a most illiberal Philosopher. After all, he reckons that the Sovereign can do pretty much anything, because Sovereigns allow meaningful formation of Covenants, and so whatever nasty things they might do, they relieve us of the State of Nature which is (contra-Rousseau) a State of WARRE – and that is infinitely worse than what the Sovereign may do. Of course, this is to say that men would be overwhelmed at the mischiefs done to them by polecats and foxes, yet be content, nay, THINK IT SAFETY to be devoured by LYONS. But I digress.

The point is that in the closing Chapters of ‘Of Man’ (Book I of Leviathan) I spot two ideas expressly developed by the two most famous Liberal (Egalitarian) Political Philosophers of last century.

 First, Hobbes says: “For there is not ordinarily a greater signe of the equall distribution of any thing, than that every man is contented with his share” (Book I, Ch XIII). Which sounds rather a lot like the ’envy test’ of Dworkin’s hypothetical clam-shell auction detailed in Equality of What: II - Resources.

 Secondly, the Tenth Law of Nature, is, “That at the entrance into conditions of Peace, no man require to reserve himselfe of any Right, which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest” (Book I, Ch XV). Which is basically the First Principle of Justice as Fairness, given to us by John Rawls as: “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others” (Theory of Justice, Revised Edition pg. 53).

 I don’t know whether Dworkin and Rawls got their ideas from Hobbes. In the case of the latter it is certainly plausible, though less so with Exciting Ronald, the most exciting man alive.

Incidentally, you will all be pleased to hear that there are explicit references to dogs in both Chapters 8 and 9 of The Republic. Two in the former, one in the latter (I think). So that’s 9/10 books with references to dogs. I haven’t got round to re-reading Book 10, but I will keep you all updated on this exciting development.

8 Responses »

 

Things what I has noticed during revisions Saturday, Jan 5 2008

Possibly to become another quasi-regular feature.

 So far I have noticed two things.

1. There are (at least) ten separate references to dogs in the first seven books of Plato’s Republic – and possibly eleven if you count a reference to Cerberus, who was of course the three-headed dog guarding the way into Hades. There’s uniformly one reference per book, up until the seventh, where it all gets canine-mental. I haven’t had time to read eight through ten thus far, but will keep you all posted on this exciting development. If anyone possesses hypotheses as to why Plato talks about dogs a lot – surely some connection to Guardians and guardian attributes? – please submit in the comments section.

 2. It appears that G.A. Cohen probably got the inspiration for his attack on Rawls expressed in Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice from reading Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia. It is Nozick who points out that the family is a problem for institutionally-based (Nozick thinks pattern-based generally) theories of justice. Further, Nozick at several points expresses the idea that a social ethos is required for certain kinds of justice: for example, a worker’s factory where the labour is made less mind-numbing but correspondingly costs increase may survive in a society where there is a social ethos encouraging people to pay more for the products from this sort of factory. Of course, Nozick uses this to criticize a Socialist ‘patterned’ conception of justice, but it appears Cohen took these things to heart, probably when writing Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, which anyone hearing the seductive siren-song Anarchy, State and Utopia would do well to read.

Over and Out.

17 Responses »