In a single morning on the way to the library, I am subject to the many laws enacted by my fellow citizens to keep Hanover, NH, quiet and orderly. I must not attack my neighbors, nor stray off the sidewalk. I must not throw my empty coffee cup in the street, nor drive the wrong way down the road. Following the law — which English philosopher John Locke defines in his 1689 Second Treatise of Government as “the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest” — is in my best interest, since choosing to abide by it keeps me safe from others and from fear of punishment at the community’s hands (726). In Locke’s world view, too, should these laws become unfair, a government “may be dissolved” at the will of men, reducing the common state to anarchy and leaving men at liberty to provide for themselves, erecting a new legislature until they “shall find it most for their safety and good” (769). Also, in Locke’s view, I maintain at least some say in the laws which I must obey, given that I am part of the community as a rational being and can contribute my thoughts on how best to pair naturally apparent ideals of justice with tangible rules and punishments. In Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 work Leviathan, a different, more pessimistic order is proposed. To save their miserable existence from an endless state of war, men must, he argues, enter into an arrangement with an all-powerful sovereign to whom they surrender their rights in return for order and stability. In this essay, I will focus on two key differences which prove Locke’s theory of liberty and law as far superior to that of Hobbes’. First, Locke’s view of the individual and community executing the law is more fair than Hobbes’ almighty sovereign. Second, Locke’s focus on the protection of property as a key aim of government is more grounded in reality than Hobbes’ view of an untouchable ruler.
First, it is key to explicate Locke’s statement on page 726 about the “end of law.” In Locke’s view, the goal (“end” ) of law is to maintain a body politic in which someone can deal with their physical person, actions, and property without fear of violence from others (726). The opening of the Treatise establishes that laws, and government, are a product of Divine providence, and are a system which exempts men from submitting to the “unjust will” of other equal men (715). Locke believes that even in a natural state (i.e, without an established government or sovereign), there exist certain laws of nature (715). These laws of nature can be deduced through reason, and are strengthened by human laws which assign tangible “penalties” to “enforce their observation” (747). Freedom on earth can be neither preserved nor enlarged for the dead, which helps explain Locke’s focus on the sanctity of life at the outset of his discussion of the “State of Nature” (713). Locke notes that humans are bound to preserve themselves, and not “quit” their stations willfully (713). This suggests that he bases his perspective on some inherent value in human existence, mainly that all mankind is the “workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker” (713). In addition, in keeping with Locke’s assumption of some inherent human goodness, men “ought” to preserve the rest o f mankind as well, and cannot take away or impair other lives, nor impede on others’ health, “limbs” or “goods” (714). Clearly, the end of law in Locke’s eyes is a state in which the obligations of the law of nature as listed in Genesis’ Ten Commandments and through rational deduction are “drawn closer” to human reality and assigned more digestible and widely promulgated definitions (human law) to ensure widespread obedience (747). Directly preceding the quote mentioned in this essay’s prompt, Locke notes that law is the “direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest” (726). This brings to mind Locke’s idea that humans, born in a state of “perfect freedom” and “equality,” need law to continue this state of being.
To start, Locke’s view of the impartial judge is more fair than Hobbes’ view of a hypothetical Leviathan, an all-powerful sovereign who settles disputes. Both agree, certainly, that men enter a social contract in order to avoid violence and suffering. Hobbes argues that this is due to men’s “equality of ability, ... [and] equality of hope in the attaining of our ends” (618). This warlike state, which men are subject to when they exist without a “common power to keep them all in awe,” leads to a state of being in which the “fruit” of industry is suffocated under infighting, and men live a “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” life in continual fear (619). Hobbes suggests the only path out of this condition in Chapter 17, explaining that the only way to defend themselves from the “invasion of foreigners” and the “injuries of one another” is to reduce their common and divergent wills “unto one will,” a ruling sovereign (634). Meanwhile, in the seventh chapter of Locke’s Treatise, the philosopher argues that men give their natural power to a community, with a known set of judges who both decide controversies and hand down penalties. According to Locke, the “private judgement of every particular member being excluded,” the community comes to be “umpire” by agreed-upon rules, and the men who execute such rules and ensure their obedience are “from the community” (734). This idea is much more fair — and better reflects the societies which are known today as the most free (western democracies) — since it involves the community settling upon its own judges. The law practiced in Locke’s theory is backed up by the “force of all the members” (734), a more fair treatment than in a Hobbesian world, wherein the “right of judicature” is annexed to the singular sovereign (637). While Locke and Hobbes agree that men need systems in place in order to ensure adherence to law, Hobbes’ idea that the sovereign power is the judge of all “opinions and doctrines” and “hearing and deciding all controversies” is hard to pair with his negative view of human nature (637). After all, who is to say that the sovereign elected in Hobbes’ view would truly act justly? Locke’s idea that a community, serving as an “umpire” in the game of politics, establishes rules by which to live, is both more modern and more just.
Since, for Locke, the end goal of the law “is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom,” this merits a discussion of what he proposes to do should the government enforcing the laws no longer serve such aims (726). Unlike Hobbes, who brushes off concerns of a problematic sovereign by arguing that factions and division lead to the breakdown of society (639), Locke builds such a possibility into his writings. Hobbes says that all authoritarian rule will lead to some “incommodity or other,” but maintains that a sovereign power is more orderly than the “confusion” and “civil war” associated with factions (639). Instead of brushing off “incommodity” (i.e., inconveniences, disadvantages), Locke addresses them. In his section on the “Dissolution of Government,” Locke provides a systematic description of what people are to do should the “arbitrary power of the prince, the electors, or ways of election, are altered, without the consent, and contrary to the common interest of the people” (768). In this quote, Locke is stating that the importance of the common interest of the people can overpower the sovereign even a fter the social contract has begun. For Hobbes, his view of the people and sovereign’s relationship as a covenant which can never be broken allows no room to breathe should the “supreme executive power,” as Locke puts it, abandon “his charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution” (769). What is key here is that Locke recognizes that an ineffective sovereign has no power to enforce the law, which, again, is supposed to “preserve and enlarge freedom” (726). Such a state with an ineffective sovereign might as well be in “anarchy,” and requires the building of a new government and more effective laws. Hobbes, on this topic, writes that besides protecting one’s physical person, the citizen in the person/sovereign covenant has absolutely no power, having submitted his entire being to the sovereign in exchange for order (635). He notes that including the sovereign under the jurisdiction of civil law, alongside the citizenry, is incorrect because it leads to a cycle of “confusion” and “dissolution” of the commonwealth (688). It might surprise Hobbes to know that many countries exist today which submit their ruling entities to the common rule of law without devolving into such chaos. Both in accordance with the historical record, which shows many societies continually replacing systems of governance in the name of efficiency and equity, and through basic reasoning, Locke’s suggestion of a sovereign without infinite immunity from the law is a better suggestion than Hobbes’ Leviathan.
Next, Locke’s view of property is clearer than Hobbes’ and provides a good launching point for why Locke’s view of law and liberty is superior. In the Hobbesian fashion of ensuring proper definitions of words and avoiding the pitfall of metaphor, I will first define Locke’s view of property (587-589). Locke defines property as the “lives, liberties, and estates” of men (745). Law, to this end, is necessary and both “received and allowed” by common consent to decide controversies (745). Locke uses property to ground his discussion of law, arguing that a man seeks the preservation of his property, and will surrender his “power of punishing” to the community body authorized to take on that role. This view is made even more fair by Locke, who makes clear by the end of the ninth chapter (“Of the Ends of Political Society and Government) that the legislative and executive power of the commonwealth so enumerated is “bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people ... by indifferent and upright judges” (emphasis added, 746). Hobbes’ view of a coercive state in which “nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called injustice,” is inherently less fair (649). Locke makes room for what ought to happen (i.e. revolution) should the government’s end of protecting property go astray, while Hobbes simply notes that once the sovereign is elected, they can do no wrong, since they decide what is wrong (763-764).
Locke proposes that the world is given to men “in common,” and property is generated through the personal infusion of labor into common resources (719). He provides food gathering as a good example, noting that acorns or apples “gathered” become the property of a man so long as he does not take more than he can use, because his “labour” removes these fruits of the earth from the common state (719). Such gathering of property, according to Locke, clearly pre-exists governments, though in a state of nature the status of property is uncertain. Thus, agreed-upon laws are necessary to preserve property. Using this kind of example, Locke grounds the reader in his discussion of law by appealing to our common economic interests. After all, the free and intelligent agent described by Locke would naturally understand that entering into a voluntary contract with others and giving up some rights to the community (I think of giving up my technical ability to steal food from the supermarket) can preserve both personal and general safety (no one will steal food from me). It is for this reason that Locke’s discussion of property truly helps strengthen his argument that absolute sovereignty is incorrect. This is because he argues that “so much he may by his labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others” (720). A moment of rational meditation on this suggestion proves its accuracy: though in modern times humans have invented money in order to extend our property past the shelf life of foodstuffs, the only property any person can technically enjoy is what one can use during their life to benefit their general wellbeing. Laws should protect that aim. In Hobbes’ writings, he actually describes private property as a factor in the dissolution of the commonwealth (688). Hobbes believes that the all-powerful sovereign must be privy to goods in the commonwealth in order to provide for the general defense and prevent internal strife. We know this is not true, as well-functioning democracies across the globe today are able to enforce law though sovereign governments alongside a widespread acceptance of private property (with taxation). For Locke, the “great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property” (745). Locke understands that rational men will not choose to worsen their general condition, and instead will establish laws which ensure the “peace, safety and public good” of the general population. They will not, as Hobbes seems to argue they will, submit to a life imbued with incommodity at the hands of an almighty sovereign.
In this paper, I sought to demonstrate through a cursory examination of the role of the arbiter and the use of property in Locke and Hobbes’ writing that Locke’s view of liberty and law is superior. I argued that Locke’s suggestion of laws chosen by the community and enforced by impartial judges, under which even the sovereign must rule, is a more fair system than Hobbes’ almighty leader. Then, I looked at revolution and property, showing that since the aim of commonwealth construction is preservation of property, Locke’s is correct in his view that governments which do not preserve citizens’ property can be rightfully replaced. Hobbes argues that once established, the covenant between subject and sovereign is not able to change. Given his negative view of human nature, and the idea that without such a ruler humans descend into war and chaos (While Locke’s view of the state of nature is softer) it is difficult to understand how he expects the singular sovereign to protect common wellbeing and property if not subject to any form of restraint. However, the idea of the binding covenant lies outside of the purview of this paper and must be explored later.
Works Cited
Morgan, Michael L. Classics of Moral and Political Theory, Hackett Publishing Company, 2011.