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Trust and Teleology: Locke’s Politics and his Doctrine of Creation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

A. W. Sparkes
A. W. Sparkes*
Affiliation:
University of Papua New Guinea
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Extract

I shall argue that the central doctrines of Locke's politics have a theological basis, a doctrine of Creation similar to the Thomist one. Locke does not elaborate this doctrine; he presupposes it. It is not a hidden, esoteric element in his thought; it is there on the surface, but in a scattered and fragmentary form.

I shall proceed in this fashion: First, I shall set out this doctrine of Creation and show its connexion with Locke's moral theory by way of an examination of his doctrines of property and power. I shall then show that Locke extends this doctrine of Creation to human productive activity with crippling results for his political theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1973 , pp. 263 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1973

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Footnotes

Thanks are due to Dr. Eric Dowling and to Mr. R. M. Robinson for their advice and criticism. All references to the Treatises of Government are to Two Treatises of Government: A Critical Edition with an introd. and apparatus criticus by LaslettP.Mentor Books. Rev. Ed. (1965). ltalicising, punctuation and spelling are as in the original.

References

1 Introd. Locke Essays on the Law of Nature (1954) pp. 71–82; “John Locke and the Natural Law”. Philosophy XXI (1956) pp. 23–35.

2 II ch.ii sec. 6 p. 311; sec. 12 pp. 315–316 lines 10-22.

3 ECHU Bk. IV ch.iii sec. 18. Ed. by J. W. Yolton (1961). Vol. II p. 145.

4 I ch.vi sec. 52 p. 214.

5 Sec. 54 p. 216.

6 Secs. 52-54 pp. 214–216.

7 II ch.vi sec. 56 p. 347.

8 See II ch.ii sec. 6 p. 311.

9 J. Pieper “The Negative Element on the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas”. The Silence of St. Thomas (1957). p. 57.

10 J. P. Sartre “Existentialism is a Humanism”. W. Kaufmann, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (1956). pp. 289–290.

11 II ch.ii sec. 6 p. 311.

12 Ibid.

13 II ch.v sec. 27 p. 328.

14 I ch.iv sec. 39 p. 203.

15 lntrod. op. cit. p. 114.

16 II ch.ii sec. 6 p. 311.

17 See II ch.iv pp. 324–326, and this paper, p. 267.

18 Ibid.

19 See ch.v. Especially sec. 31 p. 332 and sec. 37 pp. 335–337.

20 Plamenatz misses the significance of the passage referred to at the end of the previous paragraph when he criticises Locke on this point. (See Man and Society (1963). Vol. 1. p. 242). Locke is but utilitarian north-north-west. The typical secular liberal ethic is welfare-centred, but the ethic of The Treatises is creation-centred. A creation-centred ethic comprehends welfare as a value, but from a welfare-centred standpoint, much of a creation-centred ethic is unintelligible.

21 II ch.v sec. 32 p. 333. lines 12-15.

22 II ch.v sec. 26 p. 328; sec. 27 p. 329; sec. 28 p. 330; sec. 30 p. 331; sec. 32 p. 332; sec. 40 p. 338; sec. 51 p. 344.

23 II ch.ii sec. 7 p. 312. See also sec. 8 p. 312; II ch.xv sec. 171 pp. 428–429.

24 II ch.vi sec. 59 p. 349.

25 The one exception is slavery, which Locke, who drafted the laws of the slave-owning colony of Carolina, seeks to justify by some decidedly crooked arguments. (II ch.iv pp. 324–326; ch.vii sec. 85 pp. 365–366).

A full-scale study should be made of Locke's role in colonialist apologetics. See a passage from The Sydney Morning Herald 7 Nov. 1838, quoted by C. D. Rowley The Destruction of Aboriginal Society (1970). p. 37. The language of this chilling passage is Lockian through and through. Locke's notion is that use and labour give ownership, but his concepts of use and labour are entirely agricultural and western.

26 II ch.v sec. 33 p. 333; sec 41 pp. 338–339.

27 II ch.iv sec. 22 p. 324; II ch.viii sec. 110 p. 386 lines 20-22; II ch.xv sec. 171 pp. 428–429.

28 The word Locke uses is ‘compact’, but nothing hinges on this difference. Laslett disagrees (op. cit. p. 126). But see OED ‘Compact’ sb.1 1 and the examples there given.

29 Barker op. cit. pp. xxix-xxx; Laslett op. cit. p. 127.

30 II ch.xiv sec. 163-164. pp. 423–424; ch.xi sec. 138 pp. 406–407; ch.xix sec. 221 p. 460; ch.viii sec. 111 p. 387.

31 II ch.xiv sec. 163 p. 423.

32 I ch.ii sec. 6 p. 178 line 13, line 14.

33 I ch.ix sec. 81 p. 240.

34 II ch.viii sec. 110 p. 386.

35 II ch.xviii sec. 202 p. 448. Cf. also II ch.xix sec. 226 p. 464.

36 II ch.i sec. 3 p. 308; ch.xi sec. 135 pp. 402–403.

37 II ch.xi sec. 142 p. 409.

38 See, e.g., II ch.vii sec. 96 p. 375 which speaks of “one community or Government”, II ch.ix sec. 128 p. 397 which implies that the only differences between communities are differences in politico-legal arrangements, and II ch.xix sec. 211-212 pp. 454–455 where Locke announces and almost simultaneously violates the distinction between the dissolution of a society and the dissolution of its government. The old dogma that Locke's state of nature, unlike Hobbes's, is a social state needs considerable qualification. On this point, Locke is inextricably confused.

39 II ch.viii sec. 101 p. 378.

40 II ch.ix sec. 123-128 pp. 395–397.

41 II ch.ix sec. 128 p. 397.

42 The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, Ed. by J. W. Gough, new edn., p. 128.

43 The City of God Bk.xix ch.xv.

44 II ch.ix sec. 128 p. 397.

45 II ch.vii sec. 90 p. 369.

46 Summa Theologoae Ia llae Q.xc art. 4 resp. (New Blackfriars transl. Vol. xxviii).

46 Ibid. Q.xcii art. 1 ad 4um.

48 II ch.xii sec. 154 p. 416.