John Locke's political philosophy centers on the idea that legitimate government is founded on consent and protects natural rights, particularly property. However, the precise scope of this consent and the limits it places on government power, especially concerning taxation and conscription, present complex philosophical puzzles.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
time we
began to discuss Lock's state of
property his theory of legitimate
government which is government based on
government black believes in certain
fundamental rights that constrain what
government can do and he believes that
those rights are natural
rights not rights that flow from law or from
from
government and so Lock's
great philosophical experiment is to see
if he can give an account of how there
could be a right to private property without
without
consent before government and
legislators arrive on the scene to Define
Define
property that's his question that's his
claim there is a way lock argues to
create property not just in the things
we gather and Hunt but in the land
itself provided there is enough and as
good left for
others today I want to turn to the
question of consent which is Lock's
second big idea private property is one
consent people here have been invoking
the idea of consent since we began since
the first week you remember when we were talking
talking
about pushing the fat man off the bridge
someone said but he didn't agree to
sacrifice himself it would be different
if he
consented or when we were talking about
the cabin boy
killing and eating The Cabin Boy some
people said well if they had consented
to a lottery it would be different then
it would be all right so consent has
come up a lot and here in John Lock we
have one of the great philosophers of
consent consent is an obvious familiar
idea in moral and political
philosophy lock says that legitimate
government is government founded on
consent and who nowadays would disagree with
with
them sometimes when the ideas of
political philosophers are as familiar
as locks ideas about
consent it's hard to make sense of them
or at least to find them very
interesting but there are some puzzles
some strange
features of locks account of consent as
the basis of legitimate
government and that's what I'd like to
today one way of
of
testing the plausibility of Lock's idea
of consent and also of probing some of its
perplexities is to ask just what a
legitimate government founded on consent
can do what are its powers according to
lock well in order to answer that
question it helps to remember what the
state of nature is like remember the
state of nature is the condition that we
decide to
leave and that's what gives rise to
consent why not stay there why bother
with government at
all Well w Lo's answer to that question
he says there are some inconveniences in
the state of nature but what are those inconveniences
inconveniences
the main inconvenience
is that
everyone can enforce the law of
nature everyone is an enforcer or what
lot calls the
executor of the state of
nature and he means executor
literally if someone violates the law of
nature he's an
aggressor he's Beyond
him and you don't have to be too careful
or fine about gradations of punishment
in the state of nature you can kill him
you can certainly kill someone who comes after
after
you tries to murder you that
self-defense but the enforcement power
the right to punish everyone can do the
punishing in the state of
nature and not only can you punish with
death people who come after
you seeking to take your
life you can also punish a thief who
tries to steal your goods because that
also counts as aggression against the
law of
nature if someone has stolen from a
third party you can go after
him why is this well violations of the
law of nature are an act of
aggression there is is no police force
there are no judges no
juries so everyone is is the judge in
his or her own
case and lock observes that when people
are the judges of their own cases they
away and this gives rise to the
inconvenience in the state of
nature people overshoot the mark there's
aggression there's
punishment and before you know it
everybody is insecure in the
enjoyment of his or her unalienable
rights to life liberty and
property now he describes in pretty
harsh and even Grim
terms what you can do to people who
violate the law of nature one may
destroy a man who makes War upon him for
the same reason that he may kill a wolf or
or
lion such men have no other rule but
that of force and violence listen to
this and so may be treated as beasts of
prey those dangerous and noxious
creatures that will be sure to destroy
you if you fall into their power so kill them
them first
first
so what starts
out as a seemingly
benign state of nature where every one's
free and yet where there is a law and
the law respects people's rights and
those rights are so powerful that
they're unalienable what starts
out looking very
benign once you look
closer is pretty Fierce and filled with
violence and that's why people want to
leave how do they leave well here's
where consent comes in the only way to
escape from from the state of nature is to
to
undertake an act of
consent where you agree to give up the enforcement
enforcement
power and to create a
government or a
community where there will be a
legislature to make
law and where everyone agrees in advance
everyone who enters agrees in advance to
abide by whatever the majority decides
but then the question and this is our
question and here's where I want to get
your views then the question is what
powers what can the majority
decide now here it gets tricky for lock
because you remember alongside the whole
story about consent and majority rule
there are these natural natural rights
the law of nature these unalienable
rights and you remember they don't
disappear when people join together to
create a civil
society so even once the majority is in
charge the majority can't violate
your inalienable rights can't violate
your fundamental right to life liberty and
and
property so here's the puzzle
puzzle
how much power does the majority have
consent it's limited by the
obligation on the part of the majority
to respect and to
enforce the fundamental natural rights
of the citizens they don't give those up
we don't give those up when we enter
government that's this powerful idea
Declaration unalienable rights so let's
go to our two cases remember Michael
Jordan Bill Gates the libertarian
objection to taxation for redistribution
well what about Lock's limited
government is there anyone who thinks that
that
lock does give
redistribution anybody go
ahead if you if if the majority rules
that there should be
taxation uh even if the minority should
still not have to be taxed because
that's taking away property which is one
of the rights of
nature all right so and what's your name
Ben Ben
minority without the consent of the
minority to that particular tax
law it does amount to a taking of their
property without their
consent and it would seem that lock
should object to
that do you want some textual support
for your view for your reading of block
Ben sure all
right I brought some along just in case
you raised
it if you've got if you have your texts
look at 138 passage
138 the supreme power by which lock
means the legislature cannot take from
any man any part of his property without
his own
consent for the preservation of property
being the end of government and that for
which men enter into society and
necessarily supposes and requires that
people should have property that was the
whole reason for entering Society in the
first place to protect the right to
property and when Lo speaks about the
right to property he often uses that as
a kind of global term for the whole
property so that part of
lock at beginning of 138 seems to
support Ben's reading but what about the
part of
138 if you keep reading men therefore in
society having
property they have such a right to the
goods which by the law of the community
are theirs look at
this and that no one can take from them
without their
consent and then at the
end of this passage he says so it's a
mistake to think that the legislative
power can do what it will and dispose of
the Estates of the subject arbitrarily
or take any part of them at
elusive on the one hand he says the
government can't take your property
without your consent he's clear about
that but then he goes on to say I mean
that's the natural right to property but
then it seems that property what counts
as property is not natural but
conventional defined by the government
government
the goods which by the law of the
community are
theirs and the plot thickens if you look
ahead to section
140 in 140 he says governments can't be
supported without great charge
government is expensive and it's fit
that everyone who enjoys his share of
the protection should pay out of his
estate and then here's the crucial line
but still it must be with his own
consent I.E the consent of the
majority giving it either by themselves
or through their
saying property is natural in one sense
but conventional in another it's natural
in the sense that we have a fundamental
unalienable right that there be property
that the institution of property exist
and be respected by the
government so an arbitrary taking of
property would be a violation of the law of
of
Nature and would be
illegitimate but it's a further question
here's the conventional aspect of
property it's a further question what
counts as property how it's defined and what
what
counts that's taking property and that's
up to the
government so the consent
here here
we're coming back to our question what
is the work of
consent what it takes for taxation to be
legitimate is that it be by consent not
the consent of Bill Gates himself if
he's the one who has to pay the
tax but by the consent that he and we
all of us within the society gave when
we emerged from the state of nature and
created the
government in the the first place it's
reading it looks like consent is doing a whole
whole
lot and the limited government consent
limited does anyone want to respond to
that or have a question
about that go ahead stand up
well I'm just wondering what Lock's view
is on once you have a government that's
already in place whether it is possible
for people who are born into that
government to then leave and return to
the state of nature I mean I don't think
that lock mentioned that at all in the
what do you
think well I
think as the convention it would be very
difficult to leave the government
because you are no
longer there's because nobody else is
just living in the state of nature
everybody else is now governed by this
legislature what would it mean today
you're asking and what's your name
Nicola Nicola to leave the state suppose
you wanted to leave civil society today
you want to withdraw your consent and
return to the state of nature well
because you didn't actually consent to
it you were just born in into it it was
your ancestors who joined right so you
didn't sign the social contract I didn't
sign it exactly all right so what does
lock say there
there
yeah I don't think lock says that you
have to sign anything I think that he
says that it's kind of implied consent
by living and taking government services
you are implying that you're consenting
to the government taking things from you
all right so implied consent that's a
partial answer to this challenge now you
may not think that implied consent is as
good as the real thing is that what
you're shaking your head about Nikolai
speak up stand up and speak up I don't
think that necessarily just by utilizing
the government s um you know various
resources that we are necessarily
implying that we agree with the way that
this government was
formed or that we have consented to
actually join into the social
contract so you you don't think the idea
of implied consent is strong enough to
generate any obligation at all to obey the
the
government not necessarily no Nikolai if
you didn't think you'd get
caught would you pay your
taxes um I don't think
so I would I would rather have a system
personally that I would that I could
give money to exactly those those
sections of the government that I
support and not just blanket support
everything you'd rather be in the state
15th but what I'm trying to get at is do
you consider that you're under no
obligation since you haven't actually
entered into any Act of consent but for
Prudential reasons you do what you're
supposed to do according to the law
exactly if you look at it that way then
you're ating another one of lock
treatises which is that you can't take
anything from anyone else um like you
can't you can't take the government's
services and then not give them anything
in return if you if you want to go live
in the state of nature that's fine but
you can't take anything for the
government Because by the government's
terms which are the only terms under
which you can enter the agreement say
that you have to pay taxes to take those
things so you're saying that that Nicola
can go back into the state of nature if
she wants to but she can't drive on mass
app exactly
I want to I want to raise the stakes
Beyond using the M Beyond using massav
yes and even Beyond taxation what about
life what about military
conscription yes what do you say stand
up um first of all we have to remember
that sending people to war is not
necessarily implying that they'll die I
mean obviously you're not raising their
chances here
but it's not a death penalty so if
you're going to discuss whether or not
military conscriptions is equivalent to
you know suppressing people right to
life you shouldn't approach it that
way um secondly the real problem here is
lo has this view about consent and natural
natural
rights but you're not allowed to give up
your natural rights either so the real
question is you know how does he himself
figure it out between I agree to give up
my life give up my property when he talk
about taxes or military conscription for
the fact but I guess lock would be
against suicide and that's still you
know my own consent I agree good all
right what's your name Eric so Eric
brings us back to the puzzle we've been
wrestling with since we started reading
lock on the one hand we have these
unalienable rights to life liberty and
property which means that even we don't
have the power to give them
up and that's what creates the limits on
leg legitimate government it's not what
we consent to that limits
government it's what we lack the power
to give
away when we consent that limits
government that's the that's the point
at the heart of locks hole account of legitimate
legitimate
government but now you say well if we
can't give up our own life if we can't commit
commit
suicide if we can't give up our right to
proper property how can we then agree to
be bound by majority that will force us
property does lo have a way out of this
or is is he basically
basically
sanctioning an all powerful government
despite everything he
says about unable rights does he have a
way out of who would speak here in
defense of lock or make sense find a way
out of this predicament all right go
ahead I feel like there's a general
distinction to be made between the the
right to life that individuals possess
and the and the fact that a government
cannot take away uh a single
individual's right to life uh I think if
you look at conscription as the
government picking out certain
individuals to go fight in war then that
would be a violation of their rights
their natural right to life on the other
hand if you have conscription or uh
let's say a lottery for example then in
that case uh I would view that as the
the population picking their
representatives to defend them in in the
case of war the idea being that since
the whole population cannot go out there
to defend its own right to property it
picks its own Representatives through a
process uh that's essentially random and
then these these sort of elected
representatives go out and fight for uh
the rights of the people it works very
similar uh it works just like an elected
government in my opinion all right so an
elected government can conscript
citizens to go out and defend the way of
life the
community that makes the enjoyment of
Rights possible I think I think it can
because uh to me it seems that it's very
similar to the process of electing uh
representatives to legislature although
here it's as if the government is
electing by
conscription certain citizens to go die
for the sake of of the whole is that
consistent with respect for a natural
right to Liberty well what I would say
there is there's a distinction between
picking out individuals uh and having uh
uh a random choice of individuals like
between picking out let me make sure
between picking out
individuals let me what's your name gok
gopel says there's a difference between
picking out individuals to lay down
their lives
and having a general
law I think this is on I think this is
the answer Lo would give actually
go lock is against arbitrary government
he's against the arbitrary taking the
singling out of Bill Gates to finance
the war in Iraq he's against singling
out a particular citizen or group of
people to go off and fight but if
there's a general law such that the the
government's Choice the majority's
action is nonarbitrary
it doesn't really amount to a violation
violation
of people's basic rights what does count
as a violation is an arbitrary taking
because that would essentially say not
only to Bill Gates but to everyone there
is no rule of law there is no
institution of property because at the
whim of the king or for that matter of
the parliament we can name you or you to
give up your property or to give up your
life but so long as there is a
nonarbitrary rule of law
then it's permissible now you may say
this doesn't amount to a very limited
government and the libertarian May
complain that L is not such a terrific
Ally after all the libertarian has two
grounds for disappointment in lock
first that the rights are unalienable
and therefore I don't really own myself
after all I can't dispose of my life or
my Liberty or my property in a way that
violates my rights that's disappointment
number one disappointment number two
once there's a legitimate government
based on consent
the only limits for
lock are limits on arbitrary takings of
life or of Liberty or of property but if
the majority decides if the majority
promulgates a generally applicable
law and if it
votes duly according to Fair procedures
then there is no violation whether it's
a system of Taxation or a system of
conscription so it's clear that Lo is
worried about the absolute arbitrary
power of
Kings but it's also true and here's the
darker side of lock that this great
theorist of consent came up with a
theory of private property that didn't require
consent that may and this goes back to
the point relle made last time may have
had something do with Lock's second
concern which was America you remember
when he talks about the state of nature
he's not talking about an imaginary
place in the beginning he says all the
world was America and what was going on in
in
America the
settlers were enclosing
land and engaged in wars with the Native
Americans lock who is an administrator
of one of the colonies may have been as
interested in providing a justification
for private property through enclosure without
without
consent through enclosure and
cultivation as he was with developing a
theory of government based on consent
that would reign in Kings and arbitrary
rulers the question we're left with the
fundamental question we still haven't
answered is what then Becomes of consent
what work can it do what is its moral
Force what are the limits of
consent consent matters not only for
governments but also for
markets and beginning next time we're
going to take up questions of the limits of
of
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
