John Locke: The Apostle of Liberalism
John Locke: The Apostle of Liberalism
Ghazali Farooqi
John Locke is one of the most influential individuals to exist in western history and is considered to be the founder of liberalism; well, at least philosophical liberalism, as Bertrand Russell in his book ‘History of Western Philosophy’ writes “The first comprehensive statement of the liberal philosophy is to be found in Locke”. Born in 1632, this English philosopher and physician played a vital role in setting the foundation of western societies as they are now. In this paper we would talk about John Locke’s main ideas such as his theory of knowledge, concept of morality, tolerance and slavery as it would take great amount of time to review his each and every idea.
Epistemology or The Theory of Knowledge is an interesting topic and Locke’s contribution in this subject is massive. Locke is basically seen as an empiricist (which is the view that all our knowledge is derived from experience through sense-perception) and he is of the view that there are no innate ideas or principles, as in one of his famous works ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ he writes “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:— How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself”. In contrast to his own idea of empiricism, Locke also believes in things that are metaphysical and in a state of continuous contradiction with empiricism. Russell tells us about Locke that “Some few certainties he takes over from his predecessors: our own existence, the existence of God, and the truth of mathematics.” Now how does this fit with empiricism one may ask, since Mathematics itself is a metaphysical language and non-empirical, or the existence of God cannot be proved with certainty through empirical evidence etc. We can clearly see the inconsistency in Locke’s ideas here. Moreover, on an occasion in his essay “A Letter Concerning Human Understanding” Locke says “The bare testimony of divine revelation is the highest certainty” while on another occasion in the same book, in chapter number 19, he has been seen saying “Revelation must be judged of by reason”. As you can see the first and latter statements are contradictory, as in the first statement he hierarchizes ‘Bare testimony’ as the highest truth, but in the second statement he prioritizes ‘Reason’ over Divine Revelation. Thus reason remains supreme. Secondly, revelation itself is a supernatural act, therefore it cannot be proved empirically.
When it comes to morality Locke’s position becomes weak and throughout history Locke’s Morality has been criticized due to its inconsistencies and fallacies. In regards to it Jerome B. Schneewind said in the book “The Cambridge Companion of Locke, Chapter 8, Locke’s Moral Philosophy’ that “Locke's failures are sometimes as significant as his successes. His views on morality are a case in point. He published little on the subject, and what little he did publish raised more problems for his readers than it solved.” Locke’s empiricism becomes frail when he uses theology as the foundation of his morality, yet he goes on using several references from the religious text to make a moral case. He writes in his essay ‘A letter Concerning Human Understanding’, “I am bold to think that morality is capable of demonstration, as well as mathematics: since the precise real essence of the things moral words stand for may be perfectly known, and so the congruity and incongruity of the things themselves be certainly discovered; in which consists perfect knowledge” As you can see he compares morality with mathematics which brings us to the first point that I had made earlier also, that mathematics is not an empirical science, rather it is a metaphysical language. Therefore, it cannot be said to exist in the real world, so it’s absurd to say that it’s as real as the truth of Mathematics. Once again Locke’s empiricism is at odds. But what’s confusing and ridiculous is that how does his idea of theological morality go hand in hand with his hedonistic morality?
Locke’s hedonistic morality challenges traditional concepts of morality, claiming that there is no essential good and bad, rather what is ‘good’ is that which gives pleasure, and what is ‘bad’ is that which gives pain to an individual or group. John Locke says in the same book that the only things we need to seek are “nothing but Pleasure or Pain, or that which occasions or procures Pleasure and Pain to us”. But the issue with Locke’s argument in this case is that it is baseless and cannot be proved logically or rationally, but it’s a presumption and it is not one that ensures the well-being of a society and its members. And such hedonistic morality can never be acceptable for Muslims as Muslim by definition means ‘A person who submits his will to Allah, and as Quran says, “then know that they only follow their [own] desires. And who is more astray than one who follows his desire without guidance from Allah ? Indeed, Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.”
Al-Qasas 28:50
As we know that desire entails pleasure, it is absurd to say that all desires are good, for example, if a man sexually assaults a woman for his pleasure then that would rob the woman of her right to have her consent involved. Similarly, if a group of people wage war against another group merely to conquer their land, to rule over them and to force them into perpetual slavery, then that would rob the other group of a pleasurable life. It would in fact force them to live a miserably painful life. Furthermore as Bertrand Russell says, “It is possible, as happens with masochists, to desire pain; in that case, there is still pleasure in the gratification of the desire, but it is still mixed with its opposite”. Moreover, traditional concepts of good and bad or right and wrong have a moral ontological foundation unlike the liberal morality. Locke was requested many times by his followers and friends to write down a dedicated work to his concept of morality, such as William Molyneux “amongst which, I hope you will not forget your Thoughts on Morality” but it seems so that he himself didn’t have a very good explanation for his claims therefore he wrote about morality here and there rather than dedicating a complete book or an essay focusing on this topic.
The fact that in the contemporary era tolerance is considered to be one of the most fundamental tenets or principles of liberalism, many lay people without knowledge of liberal philosophy create their own concepts of tolerance in their heads, but when we study the works on the concept of tolerance by the contributors of liberalism we find it to be very different from common belief. To break it down in the simplest form let’s see the criteria of tolerance that was laid out by John Locke for different groups and beliefs. For instance, in his essay ‘A Letter Concerning Toleration’ he writes the following regarding Muslims: “That Church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince… It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure.”
It is evident from the above mentioned quotation that Locke fully understands that a Muslim’s religious identity originally goes hand in hand with his or her national identity. If Muslims find that their religious identity contradicts their national identity then they would naturally prefer to follow their religion Islam, and choose to ignore or condemn the norms of their national identity. The text clearly shows John Locke’s intolerance towards Muslims. Furthermore regarding atheists John Locke writes “Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretense of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration”. From the text we can perceive that John Locke understands that if we take away God from the picture, we lose the moral ontological foundation, therefore promises, oaths, covenants and words like good and bad, right and wrong become meaningless in an objective sense. Hence an atheist cannot be trusted and since they spend their lives in trying to dismantle all religions, they cannot be tolerated unless they come together on some common grounds. Similarly, another pioneer of liberalism Jean-Jaques Rosseau has quite the same to say about atheists, as Christopher Bertram summarizes Rosseau’s ideas concerning atheists and writes “Rousseau argues that those who cannot accept the dogmas can be banished from the state. This is because he believes that atheists, having no fear of divine punishment, cannot be trusted by their fellow citizens to obey the law. He goes even further, to suggest the death penalty for those who affirm the dogmas but later act as if they do not believe them”
The history of western powers is the history of wars, colonialism, genocide, oppression and slavery but John Locke being the founder of liberalism, which talks about democracy, freedom and equality, it is expected from Locke that he would be against oppression and slavery and theoretically he somewhat does condemn slavery (although not explicitly). In ‘Two Treatises of Government’, he writes “Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man” or in Essay 2, Chapter 3’ “he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me” and in Chapter 4, ‘Of Slavery’ he writes “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule”. It’s hypocritical of Locke to make such theoretical claims because he himself had invested in the slave trade and drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669) and its Article #110 of the Fundamental Constitutions clearly states “Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his Negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever”. In regards to the Fundamental Constitutions, Voltaire, who was a French Enlightenment writer said “Cast your eyes over the other hemisphere, behold Carolina, of which the wise Locke was the legislator”. It is utterly disgusting how these ‘Prophets’ of the west make claims and don’t abide by them themselves, also it gives us an insight of how these westerners contradict themselves in Theory and Practicality. Locke in ‘The Two Treatises of Government’ approves of the freedom of individuals; all individuals are brought into the world free, and the endeavor to oppress any individual makes a condition of war. However Locke himself had invested into the slave trading and drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669), which conceded total control over slaves. This conflict is not Locke's alone; it represents the national conflict of theory and practice, of espousing freedom while profiting from the slave traffic
As we have proven how inconsistent and self-contradictory John Locke is throughout in his ideas yet his ideas are so deeply rooted in the western societies that it is nearly impossible to challenge his ideas and provide alternatives.
References:
Locke, John. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, 1689.
Locke, John. Translated by William Popple. “An Essay Concerning Toleration”, 1689.
Russell, Bertrand. “History of Western Philosophy”, George Allen and Unwin Ltd. London. 1961.
Schneewind, J.B. The Cambridge Companion of Locke: “Locke’s Moral Philosophy”, Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Bertram, Christopher, "Jean Jacques Rousseau", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/rousseau/
Sheridan, Patricia, "Locke's Moral Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/locke-moral/>.
Locke, John. “Two Treatises of Government”, 1689.
Locke, John, “John Locke: Political Writings”, ed. David Wootton (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1993)
Hijab, Mohammed, “The Problems With Liberalism” (S.A.L.AM)
Ghazali Farooqi
John Locke is one of the most influential individuals to exist in western history and is considered to be the founder of liberalism; well, at least philosophical liberalism, as Bertrand Russell in his book ‘History of Western Philosophy’ writes “The first comprehensive statement of the liberal philosophy is to be found in Locke”. Born in 1632, this English philosopher and physician played a vital role in setting the foundation of western societies as they are now. In this paper we would talk about John Locke’s main ideas such as his theory of knowledge, concept of morality, tolerance and slavery as it would take great amount of time to review his each and every idea.
Epistemology or The Theory of Knowledge is an interesting topic and Locke’s contribution in this subject is massive. Locke is basically seen as an empiricist (which is the view that all our knowledge is derived from experience through sense-perception) and he is of the view that there are no innate ideas or principles, as in one of his famous works ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ he writes “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:— How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself”. In contrast to his own idea of empiricism, Locke also believes in things that are metaphysical and in a state of continuous contradiction with empiricism. Russell tells us about Locke that “Some few certainties he takes over from his predecessors: our own existence, the existence of God, and the truth of mathematics.” Now how does this fit with empiricism one may ask, since Mathematics itself is a metaphysical language and non-empirical, or the existence of God cannot be proved with certainty through empirical evidence etc. We can clearly see the inconsistency in Locke’s ideas here. Moreover, on an occasion in his essay “A Letter Concerning Human Understanding” Locke says “The bare testimony of divine revelation is the highest certainty” while on another occasion in the same book, in chapter number 19, he has been seen saying “Revelation must be judged of by reason”. As you can see the first and latter statements are contradictory, as in the first statement he hierarchizes ‘Bare testimony’ as the highest truth, but in the second statement he prioritizes ‘Reason’ over Divine Revelation. Thus reason remains supreme. Secondly, revelation itself is a supernatural act, therefore it cannot be proved empirically.
When it comes to morality Locke’s position becomes weak and throughout history Locke’s Morality has been criticized due to its inconsistencies and fallacies. In regards to it Jerome B. Schneewind said in the book “The Cambridge Companion of Locke, Chapter 8, Locke’s Moral Philosophy’ that “Locke's failures are sometimes as significant as his successes. His views on morality are a case in point. He published little on the subject, and what little he did publish raised more problems for his readers than it solved.” Locke’s empiricism becomes frail when he uses theology as the foundation of his morality, yet he goes on using several references from the religious text to make a moral case. He writes in his essay ‘A letter Concerning Human Understanding’, “I am bold to think that morality is capable of demonstration, as well as mathematics: since the precise real essence of the things moral words stand for may be perfectly known, and so the congruity and incongruity of the things themselves be certainly discovered; in which consists perfect knowledge” As you can see he compares morality with mathematics which brings us to the first point that I had made earlier also, that mathematics is not an empirical science, rather it is a metaphysical language. Therefore, it cannot be said to exist in the real world, so it’s absurd to say that it’s as real as the truth of Mathematics. Once again Locke’s empiricism is at odds. But what’s confusing and ridiculous is that how does his idea of theological morality go hand in hand with his hedonistic morality?
Locke’s hedonistic morality challenges traditional concepts of morality, claiming that there is no essential good and bad, rather what is ‘good’ is that which gives pleasure, and what is ‘bad’ is that which gives pain to an individual or group. John Locke says in the same book that the only things we need to seek are “nothing but Pleasure or Pain, or that which occasions or procures Pleasure and Pain to us”. But the issue with Locke’s argument in this case is that it is baseless and cannot be proved logically or rationally, but it’s a presumption and it is not one that ensures the well-being of a society and its members. And such hedonistic morality can never be acceptable for Muslims as Muslim by definition means ‘A person who submits his will to Allah, and as Quran says, “then know that they only follow their [own] desires. And who is more astray than one who follows his desire without guidance from Allah ? Indeed, Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.”
Al-Qasas 28:50
As we know that desire entails pleasure, it is absurd to say that all desires are good, for example, if a man sexually assaults a woman for his pleasure then that would rob the woman of her right to have her consent involved. Similarly, if a group of people wage war against another group merely to conquer their land, to rule over them and to force them into perpetual slavery, then that would rob the other group of a pleasurable life. It would in fact force them to live a miserably painful life. Furthermore as Bertrand Russell says, “It is possible, as happens with masochists, to desire pain; in that case, there is still pleasure in the gratification of the desire, but it is still mixed with its opposite”. Moreover, traditional concepts of good and bad or right and wrong have a moral ontological foundation unlike the liberal morality. Locke was requested many times by his followers and friends to write down a dedicated work to his concept of morality, such as William Molyneux “amongst which, I hope you will not forget your Thoughts on Morality” but it seems so that he himself didn’t have a very good explanation for his claims therefore he wrote about morality here and there rather than dedicating a complete book or an essay focusing on this topic.
The fact that in the contemporary era tolerance is considered to be one of the most fundamental tenets or principles of liberalism, many lay people without knowledge of liberal philosophy create their own concepts of tolerance in their heads, but when we study the works on the concept of tolerance by the contributors of liberalism we find it to be very different from common belief. To break it down in the simplest form let’s see the criteria of tolerance that was laid out by John Locke for different groups and beliefs. For instance, in his essay ‘A Letter Concerning Toleration’ he writes the following regarding Muslims: “That Church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince… It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure.”
It is evident from the above mentioned quotation that Locke fully understands that a Muslim’s religious identity originally goes hand in hand with his or her national identity. If Muslims find that their religious identity contradicts their national identity then they would naturally prefer to follow their religion Islam, and choose to ignore or condemn the norms of their national identity. The text clearly shows John Locke’s intolerance towards Muslims. Furthermore regarding atheists John Locke writes “Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretense of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration”. From the text we can perceive that John Locke understands that if we take away God from the picture, we lose the moral ontological foundation, therefore promises, oaths, covenants and words like good and bad, right and wrong become meaningless in an objective sense. Hence an atheist cannot be trusted and since they spend their lives in trying to dismantle all religions, they cannot be tolerated unless they come together on some common grounds. Similarly, another pioneer of liberalism Jean-Jaques Rosseau has quite the same to say about atheists, as Christopher Bertram summarizes Rosseau’s ideas concerning atheists and writes “Rousseau argues that those who cannot accept the dogmas can be banished from the state. This is because he believes that atheists, having no fear of divine punishment, cannot be trusted by their fellow citizens to obey the law. He goes even further, to suggest the death penalty for those who affirm the dogmas but later act as if they do not believe them”
The history of western powers is the history of wars, colonialism, genocide, oppression and slavery but John Locke being the founder of liberalism, which talks about democracy, freedom and equality, it is expected from Locke that he would be against oppression and slavery and theoretically he somewhat does condemn slavery (although not explicitly). In ‘Two Treatises of Government’, he writes “Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man” or in Essay 2, Chapter 3’ “he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me” and in Chapter 4, ‘Of Slavery’ he writes “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule”. It’s hypocritical of Locke to make such theoretical claims because he himself had invested in the slave trade and drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669) and its Article #110 of the Fundamental Constitutions clearly states “Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his Negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever”. In regards to the Fundamental Constitutions, Voltaire, who was a French Enlightenment writer said “Cast your eyes over the other hemisphere, behold Carolina, of which the wise Locke was the legislator”. It is utterly disgusting how these ‘Prophets’ of the west make claims and don’t abide by them themselves, also it gives us an insight of how these westerners contradict themselves in Theory and Practicality. Locke in ‘The Two Treatises of Government’ approves of the freedom of individuals; all individuals are brought into the world free, and the endeavor to oppress any individual makes a condition of war. However Locke himself had invested into the slave trading and drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669), which conceded total control over slaves. This conflict is not Locke's alone; it represents the national conflict of theory and practice, of espousing freedom while profiting from the slave traffic
As we have proven how inconsistent and self-contradictory John Locke is throughout in his ideas yet his ideas are so deeply rooted in the western societies that it is nearly impossible to challenge his ideas and provide alternatives.
References:
Locke, John. “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, 1689.
Locke, John. Translated by William Popple. “An Essay Concerning Toleration”, 1689.
Russell, Bertrand. “History of Western Philosophy”, George Allen and Unwin Ltd. London. 1961.
Schneewind, J.B. The Cambridge Companion of Locke: “Locke’s Moral Philosophy”, Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Bertram, Christopher, "Jean Jacques Rousseau", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/rousseau/
Sheridan, Patricia, "Locke's Moral Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/locke-moral/>.
Locke, John. “Two Treatises of Government”, 1689.
Locke, John, “John Locke: Political Writings”, ed. David Wootton (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1993)
Hijab, Mohammed, “The Problems With Liberalism” (S.A.L.AM)
John Locke: The Apostle of Liberalism
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