John Locke
Locke believed in the law of liberty and held that an ethical system for society should strive to maintain the law of liberty. He wrote in his Second Treatise that a society had a right to overthrow a government if that government did not serve the cause of liberty: For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be, where there is no law(p. 57). Indeed, the government of the US made liberty the cornerstone of its foundation in the Declaration of Independence (1776): We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The US government was essentially built on the ideas of Enlightenment philosophy, which is where Lockes views came from: like Rousseau in The Social Contract, Locke emphasized that governments main concern should be the protection of individual freedom. The problem seen today is that the US took the idea of Locke to justify the American Revolution and then immediately turned on that same idea and convened a centralized government that would usurp authority from individuals, effectively putting restrictions on individual liberty. Today, the situation is such that most people look around and see Orwells Big Brother asserting totalitarian control over individual lives via lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and so on. Locke argued for liberty in terms of self-government, as Sharon (2022) points out. Yet for fear of conflict and desire for control, most societies of today have done away with Lockes view of life and liberty in favor of a centralized authority. Why did this happen? This paper will argue that it happened because there is a fundamental flaw in Lockes theory, which is this: ultimately, Locke promotes self-interest, and in an ethical system wherein self-interest is the ideal, the only outcome is Ethical Egoism and the law that might makes right.
Locke argued that self-preservation is a natural right and as such every person has the natural right to pursue his own self-interest. Locke wrote: Everyone is obliged to preserve himself and not opt out of life willfully, so for the same reason everyone ought, when his own survival isnt at stake, to do as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind; and except when its a matter of punishing an offender, no-one may take away or damage anything that contributes to the preservation of someone elses life, liberty, health, limb, or goods (p. 4). In other words, every person has the right to self-interest. It is...
…and regretted the system that had been put in place.Today, the system of government cares little about individual rights and more about making sure everyone obeys the lawi.e., whatever legislators in the pockets of specials interests (or pharmaceutical companies) say the law should be. But what would Locke have said about the great debates today: does one have the right to not wear a mask or refuse a vaccination if one does not want to wear it or get it? Or is the law of the government the ultimate decider? Locke himself had no real answer for this because inherently he presented a system of ethics that was little more than Ethical Egoism, and in a system of Ethical Egoism the final outcome is always that whoever has the most power is going to be the one to say what the rules should be. Whoever has the most power is going to be the one to determine whose interests are going to be served by which laws and systems of government. Just like the Founding Fathers paid lip service to the idea of Lockean liberty while upholding slavery, todays leaders pay lip service to the idea of liberty but then want anyone who violates politically correct norms to be canceled or anyone who refuses to go along with the Covid narrative to be fired…
References
Declaration of Independence. (1776).
Locke, J. (1997). 1663–64, Essays on the Law of Nature, in Goldie (ed.).
Locke, J. (2008). Second Treatise on government. Retrieved from https://earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1689a.pdf
Madison, J. (1788). Federalist No. 51. Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp
Declaration of Independence It is obvious, if we look at things today, that Jefferson's revolutionary vision has been achieved in America. Even more so, it has been achieved to a degree that we assume has never been reached elsewhere. On the other hand, we must admit that any such questions can also be answered "yes, to a certain degree" and we must acknowledge that this is the case for America as
Declaration of Independence The Theory of Government presented in the Declaration The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was greatly influenced by the political thoughts of the 17th century English philosopher John Locke and other thinkers of the European Age of Enlightenment. The theory of government presented in the Declaration is largely based on the political philosophy of Natural Rights that maintains that each individual enters a society with certain
Declaration of independence it was determined that thirteen of the countries were Free states and independent of England. Initially even under the government of England there were hardly any serious problems for the thirteen colonies. Even though it was England that hired the government holders and other main officials, colonies had very limited representation (U.S. History.Org, 1995) However England went heavily into debt. This was mainly due to the war with the
If he also bartered away plums that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands (Locke, 1689). This quotation indicates that the author believes that a technique such as bartering
With this example, it is not surprising that John Locke is considered an instrument for the right political cause. Aside from the essays that he had written, Locke also has philosophies in the different subjects of life. This includes the role of families in the liberal society, theories on properties and money, ethics and beliefs, and many others. Locke's contribution to his generation and the modern society focused on the role
S. Constitution as offering much protection but instead view it as being the responsibility of the states to provide protection for private property owners. In the event that the courts "...continue to abdicate their role as the protector of individuals rights, then big government and powerful corporations will continue to run roughshod over the property interest of small landowners." (Liles, 2006, p.372) Liles holds that the legislature being allowed a leeway
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