Greece, Rome, and the Bill of Rights by Susan Ford Wiltshire Page B
Authors: Susan Ford Wiltshire
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system has all the answers.
Locke's attack on the doctrine of innate ideas could seem to compromise his belief in natural law. He deals with this dilemma by holding that while moral ideas are not innate, they may be arrived at by rational individuals. In the passage in which he attacks innate ideas, he explic-
page_78
Page 78
itly upholds his belief in natural law: "There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a law of nature; between something imprinted on our minds in the very original and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural facilities."
40
For Locke, the problem of innate ideas is closely related to the problem of political authoritarianism. If ideas are innate, they lie outside the empirical realm and thus beyond the scrutiny of reason. In religious and intellectual matters as well as political, this encourages unquestioning assent to any ideas that are claimed to be fixed and unchangingand to those who profess them.
Two Treatises of Government
Locke published his Two Treatises of Government anonymously in 1690, acknowledging his authorship through a codicil to his will only after his death. Called by one observer "the most influential work on natural law ever written," 41 Two Treatises was no disembodied speculation from the study but was born of the pressing politics of the day. In his preface he acknowledged that his purpose was to help establish the title of King William, "Our Great Restorer," to the throne.
The pressing issue which Two Treatises is meant to address is arbitrary and absolutist government. Here Locke launches a powerful attack against the most popular justification for royalist absolutism of his time, the political tracts of Sir Robert Filmer (15881652). Locke offers instead a radical constitutionalist theory of popular sovereignty and an individualist theory of resistance. Against the prevailing Whig convention of appealing to history, Locke formulates his arguments in the language of natural law and rights. "This move is completely understandable," observes James Tully, "in light of Locke's reconstruction of the epistemological superiority of natural law theory and his complementary dismissal of any theoretical appeal to history.... If Locke's project was to appear at all plausible to his immediate audience, he had
page_79
Page 79
to show that property, and equality, could be explained in a way consistent with natural law."
42
Quentin Skinner notes the significance of the fact that Locke nowhere in his Two Treatises appeals to the prescriptive force of the ancient English constitution. By his silence, Skinner surmises, Locke is tacitly rejecting one of the most persuasive forms of political reasoning available to him, the appeal to history. 43
Instead, Locke emphasizes the link between natural law and natural rights that lay in the belief in human reason, now freed from Aquinas's attribution of reason to God and attached instead to the rule of law. This version of natural rights holds that human beings are born endowed with such rights, not granted them by any superior authority.
For Locke, the function of natural law and of the state is to establish as inalienable the rights of the individual. In this state of nature, individuals are bound to be peaceful and take care of each other. Given the human predisposition to look out first for oneself and to violate the rights of others, however, it is necessary to set up civil government. Within the framework of mutual agreement or "social contract," human beings set up a single political body. This is not a contract between ruler and ruled but among free individuals. All participants must assent to this body politic, either tacitly or explicitly; by remaining in it as an adult, assent is implied. Even though individuals thus transfer to government the right to make and enforce laws and to decide on war and peace, they still retain their own powers
Locke's attack on the doctrine of innate ideas could seem to compromise his belief in natural law. He deals with this dilemma by holding that while moral ideas are not innate, they may be arrived at by rational individuals. In the passage in which he attacks innate ideas, he explic-
page_78
Page 78
itly upholds his belief in natural law: "There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a law of nature; between something imprinted on our minds in the very original and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural facilities."
40
For Locke, the problem of innate ideas is closely related to the problem of political authoritarianism. If ideas are innate, they lie outside the empirical realm and thus beyond the scrutiny of reason. In religious and intellectual matters as well as political, this encourages unquestioning assent to any ideas that are claimed to be fixed and unchangingand to those who profess them.
Two Treatises of Government
Locke published his Two Treatises of Government anonymously in 1690, acknowledging his authorship through a codicil to his will only after his death. Called by one observer "the most influential work on natural law ever written," 41 Two Treatises was no disembodied speculation from the study but was born of the pressing politics of the day. In his preface he acknowledged that his purpose was to help establish the title of King William, "Our Great Restorer," to the throne.
The pressing issue which Two Treatises is meant to address is arbitrary and absolutist government. Here Locke launches a powerful attack against the most popular justification for royalist absolutism of his time, the political tracts of Sir Robert Filmer (15881652). Locke offers instead a radical constitutionalist theory of popular sovereignty and an individualist theory of resistance. Against the prevailing Whig convention of appealing to history, Locke formulates his arguments in the language of natural law and rights. "This move is completely understandable," observes James Tully, "in light of Locke's reconstruction of the epistemological superiority of natural law theory and his complementary dismissal of any theoretical appeal to history.... If Locke's project was to appear at all plausible to his immediate audience, he had
page_79
Page 79
to show that property, and equality, could be explained in a way consistent with natural law."
42
Quentin Skinner notes the significance of the fact that Locke nowhere in his Two Treatises appeals to the prescriptive force of the ancient English constitution. By his silence, Skinner surmises, Locke is tacitly rejecting one of the most persuasive forms of political reasoning available to him, the appeal to history. 43
Instead, Locke emphasizes the link between natural law and natural rights that lay in the belief in human reason, now freed from Aquinas's attribution of reason to God and attached instead to the rule of law. This version of natural rights holds that human beings are born endowed with such rights, not granted them by any superior authority.
For Locke, the function of natural law and of the state is to establish as inalienable the rights of the individual. In this state of nature, individuals are bound to be peaceful and take care of each other. Given the human predisposition to look out first for oneself and to violate the rights of others, however, it is necessary to set up civil government. Within the framework of mutual agreement or "social contract," human beings set up a single political body. This is not a contract between ruler and ruled but among free individuals. All participants must assent to this body politic, either tacitly or explicitly; by remaining in it as an adult, assent is implied. Even though individuals thus transfer to government the right to make and enforce laws and to decide on war and peace, they still retain their own powers
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