display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
19863 | Politics is the right to make enforceable laws to protect property and the state, for the common good [Locke] |
Full Idea: Political power is the right of making laws, with penalties up to death, for the preserving of property, employing the force of community in the execution of such laws, in defence of the commonwealth, and only for the common good. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 003) | |
A reaction: Since political power can be used for selfish corruption and genocide, this isn't very accurate, so I take it this is how power ought to be exercised! Notice that defence gets equal billing with his famous defence of property. |
20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
Full Idea: While Hobbes had held that the people were the final source of political authority, he had argued that in entering the social contract they gave up their sovereignty by transferring all power to an absolute ruler. | |
From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Later the idea of 'inalienable' rights crept in. If you volunteer for exploitation or slavery, that still doesn't justify them. Sadism is presumably not justified by masochism. |
5654 | The Second Treatise explores the consequences of the contractual view of the state [Locke, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: In his second Treatise, Locke gave us perhaps the first extended account of the true logical consequences of Hobbes's contractual view of the state. | |
From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.14 | |
A reaction: The issue seems to boil down to an opposition between the Cartesian and the Aristotelian view of the individual, with Locke following Descartes. The alternative, endorsed by Hegel, which I prefer, is that the state is part of human nature. |
19888 | A society only begins if there is consent of all the individuals to join it [Locke] |
Full Idea: The beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals to join into and make one society. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 106) | |
A reaction: This is the dramatic new political idea (originating with Hobbes), that all of the members must (at some point) consent to the state. In practice we are all born into a state, so it is not clear what this means in real life. |
6702 | If anyone enjoys the benefits of government (even using a road) they give tacit assent to its laws [Locke] |
Full Idea: Every man, that hath an possession, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is obliged to obedience to the laws, ..whether it be barely travelling on the highway. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.8 | |
A reaction: Locke's famous assertion of an unspoken and inescapable contract, to which we are all subject. Hume gave an effective reply (Idea 6703). Locke has a point though. The more you accept, the more obliged you are. I accept the law more as I get older. |
19909 | A politic society is created from a state of nature by a unanimous agreement [Locke] |
Full Idea: That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of Nature into one politic society, is the agreement that everyone has with the rest to incorporate and act as one body. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 211) | |
A reaction: Geography usually keeps commonwealths in place once they have been established, but some of them become disfunctional hell holes because they are trapped in perpetual disagreement. |
19910 | A single will creates the legislature, which is duty-bound to preserve that will [Locke] |
Full Idea: The essence and union of the society consisting in having one will; the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of that will. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 212) | |
A reaction: Not far from Rousseau's big idea, apart from the emphasis on the 'majority'. Rousseau reduced the role of the general will to preliminaries and basics, but wanted close to unanimity, so that everyone accepts being a subject, to government and law. |
19892 | Children are not born into citizenship of a state [Locke] |
Full Idea: It is plain, by the practices of governments themselves, as well as by the laws of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 118) | |
A reaction: At what age do they become citizens, given that there is no induction ceremony? If a small British child were attacked overseas, we would expect the British government to defend its rights. |
19893 | Anyone who enjoys the benefits of a state has given tacit consent to be part of it [Locke] |
Full Idea: Every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any government doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119) | |
A reaction: I wondered at the age of about 18 whether I had given tacit consent to be a British citizen. Locke says you only have to travel freely down the highways to give consent! We are all free, of course, to apply for citizenship elsewhere. But Idea 19894. |
19894 | You can only become an actual member of a commonwealth by an express promise [Locke] |
Full Idea: Nothing can make any man a subject or member of a commonwealth but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. | |
From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 122) | |
A reaction: In practice the indigenous population never do this. But it a clear distinction for foreign residents in any country. States cannot induct resident foreigners into their army, or allow them to vote. |