0:15 [Music]
0:24 lock on the face of
0:29 it LO is a powerful Ally of the libertarian
0:31 libertarian
0:33 first he
0:37 believes as Libertarians today
0:40 maintain that there are certain
0:42 fundamental individual
0:46 rights that are so important that no
0:48 government even a representative
0:50 government even a democratically elected
0:59 them not only that he believes that
1:01 those fundamental Rights
1:15 property and furthermore he argues that
1:23 property is not just the creation of
1:26 government or of law the right to
1:30 property is a natural right in the sense
1:34 that it is pre-political
1:39 it is a right that attaches to
1:44 individuals as human beings even before
1:46 government comes on the scene even
1:49 before parliaments and legislator enact
1:52 laws to Define rights and to enforce
1:56 them Lo says in order to think about
1:59 what it means to have a natural right we
2:03 have to to imagine the way things
2:06 are before
2:09 government before
2:12 law and that's what l means by the state of
2:13 of
2:16 nature he says the state of nature is a
2:25 liberty human beings are free and equal
2:28 beings there is no natural
2:31 hierarchy it's not the case that some
2:33 people are born to be Kings and others
2:36 are born to be
2:38 surfs we are free and equal in the state of
2:39 of
2:41 nature and
2:44 yet he makes the point that there's a
2:47 difference between a state of liberty
2:53 license and the reason is that even in
2:55 the state of nature there is a kind of
2:57 law it's not the kind of law that
3:01 legislators enact it's a law of
3:04 nature and this law of
3:08 nature constrains what we can do even
3:09 though we're free even though we're in
3:11 the state of
3:18 constraints the only
3:21 constraint given by the law of
3:23 nature is
3:27 that the rights we have the natural
3:31 rights we have we can't give
3:36 up nor can we take them from somebody
3:38 else under the law of nature I'm not
3:43 free to take somebody else's life or
3:45 Liberty or
3:50 property nor am I free to take my
3:54 own life or Liberty or
3:58 property even though I'm free I'm not
4:00 free to violate the LA law of nature I'm
4:03 not free to take my own life or to sell
4:05 myself into
4:07 slavery or to give to somebody else
4:12 arbitrary absolute power over me so
4:14 where does this constraint you may think
4:16 it's a fairly minimal constraint but
4:18 where does it come
4:22 from well lock tells us where it comes
4:26 from and he gives two
4:33 being all the
4:36 workmanship of one omnipotent and
4:39 infinitely wise maker namely
4:42 God they are his property whose
4:45 workmanship they are made to last during
4:48 his not one another's
4:50 pleasure so one answer to the question
4:54 is why can't I give up my natural rights
4:56 to life liberty and property is well
5:07 after all you are the creature of
5:11 God God has a bigger property right in
5:13 us a prior property
5:16 right now you might say that's an
5:19 unsatisfying unconvincing answer at
5:21 least for those who don't believe in God
5:23 what did L have to say to
5:27 them well here's where Lo appeals to the
5:30 idea of reason
5:32 and this is the
5:35 idea that if we properly reflect on what
5:37 it means to be
5:40 free we will be led to the conclusion
5:43 that freedom can't just be a matter of
5:45 doing whatever we
5:48 want I think this is what lock means
5:51 when he says the state of nature has a
5:53 law of nature to govern it which obliges
5:56 everyone and reason which is that
5:59 law teaches mankind who will but
6:02 consulted that all being equal and and
6:04 independent no one ought to harm another
6:07 in his life Health Liberty or
6:09 possessions this
6:12 leads to a puzzling
6:16 paradoxical feature of locks account of
6:20 Rights familiar in one sense but strange in
6:22 in
6:25 another it's the idea that our natural
6:28 rights are unalienable what does
6:30 unalienable mean it's not for us to
6:32 alienate them or to give them up to give
6:34 them away to trade them away to sell
6:37 them consider an airline ticket airline
6:40 tickets are non-transferable or tickets
6:43 to the Patriots or to the Red Sox
6:44 Sox
6:48 non-transferable tickets are
6:52 unalienable I own them in the limited
6:54 sense that I can use them for myself but
6:57 I can't trade them away so in one sense
6:59 an unalienable right and
7:04 non-transferable right makes something I
7:08 own less fully
7:13 mine but in another sense of unalienable
7:16 rights especially where we're thinking
7:22 property for a right to be unalienable
7:25 makes it more deeply more profoundly
7:30 mine and that's Lock's sense of UN
7:32 aable we see it in the American
7:34 Declaration of Independence Thomas
7:37 Jefferson Drew on this idea of lock
7:41 unalienable rights to life liberty and
7:44 as Jefferson amended lock to the pursuit
7:47 of happiness unalienable
7:50 rights rights that are
7:54 so essentially
7:56 mine that even I can't trade them away
7:58 or give them up
8:01 up
8:02 so these are the rights we have in the
8:06 state of nature before there is any
8:08 government in the case of life and
8:11 Liberty I can't take my own life I can't
8:13 sell myself into slavery any more than I
8:15 can take somebody else's life or take
8:21 force but how does that work in the case
8:23 of property because it's essential to Lock's
8:25 Lock's
8:27 case that private
8:30 property can arise
8:33 even before there is any
8:35 government How can there be a right to private
8:36 private
8:41 property even before there is any
8:45 government Lock's famous answer comes in section
8:46 section
8:50 27 Every Man Has a property in his own
8:54 person this nobody has any right to but
8:57 himself the labor of his body and the
9:00 work of his hands we may say are properly
9:01 properly
9:04 his so he
9:07 moves as the Libertarians later would
9:11 move from the idea that we own
9:14 ourselves that we have property in our
9:17 persons to the closely connected idea
9:18 that we own our own
9:23 labor and from that to the further claim
9:27 that whatever we mix our labor with that is
9:28 is
9:31 unowned becomes our
9:34 property whatever he removes out of the
9:35 state that nature has provided and left
9:38 it in he has mixed his labor with and
9:41 joined it to something that is his own
9:44 and thereby makes it his property
9:47 property
9:50 why because the labor is the
9:53 unquestionable property of the labor and
9:57 therefore no one but the laborer can
10:00 have a right to what is join joed to or
10:04 mixed with his labor and then he adds
10:06 this important provision at least where
10:09 there is enough and as good left in
10:11 common for
10:14 others but we not
10:17 only acquire a property in the fruits of
10:21 the Earth in the deer that we hunt in
10:23 the fish that we
10:25 catch but
10:28 also if we till and plow and enclose the
10:30 land and grow
10:33 potatoes we own not only the potatoes
10:36 but the land the
10:40 Earth as much land as a man tills plants
10:42 improves cultivates and can
10:46 use the product of so much is his
10:49 property he by his labor encloses it
10:52 from The Commons
10:54 Commons
10:57 so the idea that rights are unalienable
10:59 seems to distance lock from the
11:02 libertarian the libertarian wants to say
11:06 we have an absolute property right in
11:08 ourselves and therefore we can do with
11:11 ourselves whatever we want luck is not a
11:15 sturdy Ally for that view in fact he
11:17 says if you take natural rights
11:19 seriously you'll be led to the idea that
11:21 there are certain constraints on what we
11:23 can do with our natural rights
11:27 constraints given either by God or by
11:29 reason reflecting on what it means
11:32 really to be free and really to be
11:36 free means recognizing that our rights
11:38 are unalienable so here's the difference
11:40 between lock and the Libertarians but
11:43 when it comes to Lock's account of private
11:44 private
11:47 property he begins to look again like a
11:48 pretty good
11:51 Ally because his argument for private
11:53 property begins with the idea that we
11:56 are the Proprietors of our own person
11:58 and therefore of our labor and therefore
12:00 of the fruits of our labor including not
12:02 only the
12:05 things we
12:09 gather and hunt in the state of
12:12 nature but also we acquire property
12:14 right in the land that we enclose and
12:16 cultivate and
12:19 improve there are some examples that can
12:22 bring out the the moral
12:26 intuition that our labor can take
12:30 something that is unowned and make it
12:33 ours though sometimes there are disputes about
12:39 this there's a
12:41 debate among rich countries and
12:44 developing countries about trade related
12:48 intellectual property rights it came to
12:51 a head recently over drug patent
12:53 laws Western countries and especially
12:56 the United States say we have a big
12:58 pharmaceutical industry that develops
12:59 new drug
13:04 drugs we want all countries in the world
13:07 to agree to respect the
13:09 patents Then There came along the AIDS
13:12 crisis in South
13:14 Africa and the
13:16 American AIDS
13:19 drugs were hugely
13:21 expensive far more than could be
13:24 afforded by most Africans so the South
13:26 African government said we're going to
13:30 begin to buy a generic version of the
13:33 AIDS anti-retroviral
13:37 drug at a tiny fraction of the cost
13:39 because we can find an Indian
13:42 manufacturing company that figures out
13:43 how the thing is
13:47 made and produces it and for a tiny
13:49 fraction of the cost we can save lives
13:52 if we don't respect that patent and then
13:55 the American government said no here's a
14:00 company that invested research
14:04 and created this drug you can't just start
14:05 start
14:07 mass-producing these drugs without
14:11 paying a licensing fee so there was a
14:14 dispute and the the US the
14:16 pharmaceutical companies sued the South
14:19 African government to try to prevent
14:22 their buying the cheap generic as they
14:26 saw it pirated version of an AIDS
14:29 drug and eventually
14:32 the pharmaceutical industry gave in and
14:34 said all right you can do that but this
14:38 dispute about what the rules of property
14:41 should be of intellectual property of drug
14:43 drug
14:46 patenting in a way is the Last Frontier
14:49 of the state of nature because among
14:51 nations where there is no uniform
14:54 law of patent rights and property rights
14:58 it's up for grabs until by some Act of
15:00 consent some International
15:03 agreement people enter
15:12 rules what about Lock's account of
15:16 private property and how it can arise
15:18 before government and before law comes
15:25 successful how many think it's pretty
15:27 persuasive raise your hand
15:30 hand
15:33 how many don't find it
15:36 persuasive all right let's hear for some
15:38 critics what is wrong with Lock's
15:41 account of how private property can
15:43 arise without consent
15:45 consent
15:48 yes yeah um I think it justifies
15:51 European cultural norms as far as when
15:53 you look at how Native Americans may not
15:55 have cultivated American land but by their
15:56 their
16:00 arrival in the Americas that would con
16:01 that contributed to the development of
16:03 America which wouldn't have otherwise
16:05 necessarily happened then or by that
16:08 specific group so you think that this is
16:10 a defense this defense of private
16:12 property in land yes because it
16:15 complicates original acquisition if you
16:18 only cite the arrival of foreigners that
16:20 cultivated the land I see and what's
16:24 your name relle relle yeah relle says
16:27 this account of how property
16:31 arises would fit what was going on in North
16:32 North
16:36 America during the time of the the
16:38 settlement the European
16:41 settlement do you think uh Rochelle that it's
16:42 it's
16:45 a it's a way of defending the
16:48 appropriation of the land indeed because
16:52 I mean he's also uh you know justifying
16:54 the Glorious Revolution so I don't think
16:56 it's inconceivable that he's also
16:59 justifying colonization as well
17:01 well that's an
17:03 interesting historical suggestion and I
17:07 think there's a lot to be said for it uh
17:08 what do you think of the validity of his
17:12 argument though because if you're right
17:14 that this would justify The Taking of
17:16 land in North
17:18 America from Native Americans who didn't enclose
17:20 enclose
17:23 it if it's a good argument then Lock's
17:25 given us a justification for that if
17:29 it's a bad argument then Lock's given us
17:32 a mere rationalization that isn't morally
17:34 morally
17:36 defensible I I I'm leaning to the second
17:38 one you're leaning to the second that's
17:40 my opinion as
17:43 well all right well then let's let's
17:46 hear let's hear if there's a defender of
17:49 of locks account of private property and
17:50 it would be interesting if they could address
17:52 address
17:55 Rochelle's worry that this is just a way
17:57 of defending the appropriation of land
17:59 by the American American
18:01 colonists from the Native Americans who
18:04 didn't enclose it is there someone who
18:05 will defend
18:12 point you ready are you going to defend
18:14 lock like you're you're accusing him of
18:16 justifying the European basically
18:18 Massacre of the Native Americans but who
18:20 says he's defending it maybe the
18:23 European colonization isn't right uh you
18:25 know maybe it's the state of war that he
18:27 talked about in his Second Treatise you know
18:29 know
18:31 so the wars between the Native
18:35 Americans and the colonists the
18:38 settlers that might have been the state of
18:39 of
18:42 war that we can only emerge from by an
18:44 agreement or an act of consent and
18:46 that's what would have been
18:49 required yeah and both sides would have
18:51 had to agree to it and carry it out and
18:53 everything but what about when what's
18:56 your name Dan but Dan what about
18:59 Rochelle says this argument in section
19:02 27 and then in
19:06 32 about appropriating
19:09 land that argument if it's valid would
19:12 justify the settlers appropriating that
19:16 land and excluding others from it do you
19:18 think that argument is a good argument
19:20 well doesn't it kind of imply that the
19:27 that well the Native Americans say
19:29 hunter gather is didn't actually
19:33 enclose enclos land so I think Rochelle
19:36 is on to something there but I want to
19:39 I'd like go ahead Dan at the same time
19:40 he's saying that just by picking an
19:43 acorn or taking an apple or maybe
19:45 killing a buffalo on a certain amount of
19:46 land that makes it yours because it's
19:48 your labor and that's you know your
19:51 labor would enclose that land so by that
19:53 definition maybe they didn't have fences
19:56 around little plots of land but didn't
19:59 they were using it defin Maybe by lock
20:01 definition the Native Americans could
20:03 have claimed a property right in the
20:05 land itself but they just didn't have
20:08 lock on their side as she points out
20:11 okay that's good uh one more defender of
20:13 lock go
20:16 ahead well I mean just to defend lock he
20:19 does say that there are some um times in
20:20 which you can't take another person's
20:22 land for example you can't acquire a
20:25 land that is common property to people
20:27 and in terms of American Indians I feel
20:29 like they already have civilizations
20:30 themselves and they were using land in
20:32 common so it's kind of like what an
20:33 analogy to what he was talking about
20:36 with like the common English property
20:38 you can't take land that everybody's
20:41 Shing Comm and also you can't um you
20:43 can't take land unless you make sure
20:45 that there's um as much land as possible
20:48 left for other people to take as well so
20:50 if you're taking common so you have to
20:52 make sure that whenever you take land or
20:54 that there's enough left for other
20:55 people to use that's just as good as the
20:58 land that you took so that's it's that's
21:01 true lock says there has to be this
21:03 right to private property in the earth
21:05 is subject to the provision that there
21:08 be as much and as good left for others
21:11 what's your name right I'm Fang so Fang
21:13 in a way agrees with Dan that maybe
21:15 there is a claim within locks framework
21:18 that could be developed on behalf of the Native
21:25 Americans here's the further
21:27 question if the right to private
21:30 property is natural not
21:32 conventional if it's
21:35 something that we acquire even before we
21:37 agree to
21:40 government how does that right constrain
21:51 do in order finally to see whether is
21:55 whether Lo is an ally or
21:58 potentially a Critic of the Liber
22:02 libertarian idea of the state we have to
22:04 ask What Becomes of our natural rights
22:05 once we enter into
22:08 society we know that the way we enter
22:11 into society is by consent by
22:13 agreement to leave the state of nature
22:15 and to be governed by the
22:19 majority and by a system of laws human
22:22 laws but those human
22:26 laws are only
22:30 legitimate if they respect our natural
22:33 rights if they respect our unalienable
22:37 rights to life liberty and
22:40 property no
22:43 Parliament no legislature however
22:45 Democratic its
22:47 credentials can legitimately
22:49 legitimately
22:52 violate our natural
22:55 rights this
22:59 idea that no law can violate our right
23:01 to life liberty and property would
23:05 seem to support the idea of a government so
23:07 so
23:10 limited that it would Gladden the heart
23:12 of the libertarian after all
23:14 all
23:16 but those hearts should not be so
23:21 quickly gladdened because even though
23:24 for lock the law of nature
23:28 persists one's government arrives even
23:32 though Lo insists on limited government
23:34 government limited by the end for which
23:36 it was created namely the preservation
23:40 of property even so there's an important
23:44 sense in which what counts as my
23:46 property what
23:50 counts as respecting my life and
23:53 Liberty are for the
23:58 Define
24:02 that there be property that there be
24:09 Liberty is what limits
24:17 counts as respecting my
24:20 life and respecting my
24:24 property that is for governments to
24:26 decide and to
24:29 Define how can that be is lck contradicting
24:31 contradicting
24:34 himself or is there an important distinction
24:36 distinction
24:39 here in order to answer that question
24:41 which will decide locks fit with the
24:45 libertarian view we need to look closely
24:47 at what legitimate government looks like
