83 ideas
| 3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Those who go forward only very slowly can progress much further if they always keep to the right path, than those who run and wander off it. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Like Descartes' 'Method'. This seems to place a low value on 'nous' or intuition. |
| 3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Looking at the various activities and enterprises of mankind with the eye of a philosopher, there is hardly one which does not seem to me vain and useless. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Well, yes. The obvious retort is that everything is vain and useless; or if not, then certainly metaphysics is. Useful for what? Is ornamental gardening useless, or sport? Art? What is the use of cosmology? He's right, of course. |
| 3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing one can imagine so strange or so unbelievable that has not been said by one or other of the philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.16) | |
| A reaction: Actually I think that extensive areas of logical possibilities for existence remain totally unexplored. On the other hand, most of the metaphysical beliefs of most of the human race, including the majority of philosophers, strike me as being false. |
| 3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Descartes' four principles for his method of thinking are: be cautious, analyse the problem, be systematic from simple to complex, and keep an overview of the problem | |
| From: report of René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.18) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 18543 | Do aesthetic reasons count as reasons, if they are rejectable without contradiction? [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The judgement of beauty makes a claim about its object, and can be supported by reasons. But the reasons do not compel the judgement and can be rejected without contradiction. So are they reasons or aren't they? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that what he is really referring to is evidence rather than reasons. |
| 3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: That the things we grasp very clearly and very distinctly are all true, is assured only because God is or exists, and because he is a perfect Being. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.38) |
| 18542 | Defining truth presupposes that there can be a true definition [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: How can you define truth, without already assuming the distinction between a true definition and a false one? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: Don't say we have to accept truth as yet another primitive! Philosophers are out of business if all the basic concepts are primitive. The axiomatic approach to truth is an alternative - by specifying how the primitive should be used. |
| 3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I take it as a general rule that the things we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, but that there is merely some difficulty in properly discerning which are those which we distinctly conceive. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.33) |
| 3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The action of thought by which one believes a thing, being different from that by which one knows that one believes it, they often exist the one without the other. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.23) |
| 1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Descartes' procedure for treating values (accepting normal conventions when faced with uncertainty) is the exact antithesis of that used to attain knowledge. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.23) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.73 |
| 3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: While I decided to think that everything was false, it followed necessarily that I who thought thus must be something; the truth 'I think therefore I am' was so certain that the most extravagant scepticism could never shake it. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.32) |
| 3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have tried to find in general the principles or first causes of everything which is or which may be in the world, ..without taking them from any other source than from certain seeds of truth which are naturally in our minds. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §6.64) |
| 3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Neither our imagination nor our senses could ever assure us of anything, if our understanding did not intervene. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.37) |
| 3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: My whole plan had for its aim simply to give me assurance, and the rejection of shifting ground and sand in order to find rock or clay. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.29) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be characteristic of an age when religion is being quietly rocked by the revival of ancient scepticism. If he'd settled for fallibilism, our civilization would have gone differently. |
| 3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Before beginning to rebuild the house in which one lives…. one must also provide oneself with some other accommodation in which to be lodge conveniently while the work is going on. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.22) |
| 3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I observe almost no individual effect without immediately knowing that it can be deduced in many different ways, ..and I know of no way to resolve this but by experiments such that the results are different according to different explanations. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §6.65) |
| 3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Animals not only have less reason than men, but they have none at all; for we see that very little of it is required in order to be able to speak. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.58) |
| 3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I concluded that I was a substance, of which the whole essence or nature consists in thinking, and which, in order to exist, needs no place and depends on no material thing. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.33) | |
| A reaction: To me that sounds like "I concluded that I wasn't a human being", which highlights the bizarre wishful thinking that seems to have gripped the human race for the first few thousand years of its serious thinking. |
| 3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I could pretend that I had no body, and that there was no world or place that I was in, but I could not, for all that, pretend that I did not exist. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.32) | |
| A reaction: He makes the (in my opinion) appalling blunder of thinking that because he can pretend that he has no body, that therefore he might not have one. I can pretend that gold is an unusual form of cheese. However, "I don't exist" certainly sounds wrong. |
| 3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Whereas reason is a universal instrument which can serve on any kind of occasion, the organs of a machine need a disposition for each action; so it is impossible to have enough different organs in a machine to respond to all the occurrences of life. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.57) | |
| A reaction: How can Descartes know that reason is 'universal' rather than just 'very extensive'? Is there any information which cannot be encoded in a computer? It doesn't feel as if there any intrinsic restrictions to reason, but note Idea 4688. |
| 3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is not sufficient that the reasonable soul should be lodged in the body like a pilot in a ship, unless perhaps to move its limbs, but it needs to be united more closely with the body in order to have sensations and appetites, and so be a true man. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.59) | |
| A reaction: The idea that the pineal gland is the link suggests that Descartes has the 'pilot' view, but this idea shows that he believes in very close and complex interaction between mind and body. But how can a mind 'have' appetites if it has no physical needs? |
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56) | |
| A reaction: A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with. |
| 18546 | The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Like the pleasure in friendship, the pleasure in beauty is curious: it aims to understand its object, and to value what it finds. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: At least he is trying to pin down the way in which aesthetic pleasure is phenomenologically different from other kinds of pleasure. |
| 18550 | Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: One aim of art is to present imaginary worlds, towards which we can adopt, as part of the integral aesthetic attitude, a posture of impartial concern. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: It connects to the pleasure of watching people when they don't know they are being watched (such as watching the street from a restaurant window). Scruton's suggestion makes art resemble examples in philosophy. Cf the Frege-Geach problem in ethics. |
| 18544 | Maybe 'beauty' is too loaded, and we should talk of fittingness or harmony [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Maybe we can understand the 'beauty' of a building better if we describe it in another and less loaded way, as a form of fittingness or harmony. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: Almost everyone accepts the word 'beauty' for some things, such as a beautiful face, or goal, or steak. I remember a female interviewer writing that, reluctantly, the only appropriate word she could find for Nureyev's face was 'beautiful'. |
| 18553 | Beauty shows us what we should want in order to achieve human fulfilment [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Beauty speaks to us of human fulfilment: not of things that we want, but of things that we ought to want, because human nature requires them. Such, at least, is my belief. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how this works with a beautiful natural landscape. And what should I see that I ought to desire after viewing a great Rembrandt self-portrait? That I don't want to end up looking as bleak as that? Hm. Lofty words. |
| 18556 | Beauty is rationally founded, inviting meaning, comparison and self-reflection [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Beauty is rationally founded; it challenges us to find meaning in its object, to make critical comparisons, and to examine our own lives and emotions in the light of what we find. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 9) | |
| A reaction: This is the Kantian tradition, and I'm not finding it very persuasive. It seems to place the value of beauty in what we do with it afterwards, and he seems to make beauty a necessary stepping stone to virtue. I see beauty as more sui generis. |
| 18548 | Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The experience of natural beauty is not a sense of 'how nice!' or 'how pleasant!' It contains a reassurance that this world is a right and fitting place to be - a home in which our human powers and prospects find confirmation. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: To call it a 'reassurance' and 'confirmation' sounds like theism, anthropomorphism, or the pathetic fallacy. That said, this is certainly a heart-warming idea, and hence must contain a grain of truth. |
| 18551 | Croce says art makes inarticulate intuitions conscious; rival views say the audience is the main concern [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The Croce model is of an inarticulate inner state (an 'intuition') becoming articulate and conscious through artistic expression. The rival model is fitting thing together so as to create links which resonate in the audience's feelings. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: The first model tells you nothing about how the artist imagines the audience reacting. The second model tells you nothing about what matters personally to the artist. A good theory must do both! |
| 18541 | Beauty (unlike truth and goodness) is questionable as an ultimate value [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The status of beauty as an ultimate value is questionable, in the way that the status of truth and goodness are not. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: We suspect that a love of beauty may be a bit parochial, where it is hard to conceive of living creatures anywhere in the cosmos who don't value the other two. |
| 1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The ancient pagans place virtues on a high plateau and make them appear the most valuable thing in the world, but they do not sufficiently instruct us about how to know them. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.8) |
| 19906 | All countries are in a mutual state of nature [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All commonwealths are in a state of Nature one with another. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 153) | |
| A reaction: A striking remark. It is easy to think that the state of nature no longer exists. International law attempts to rectify this, but diplomacy is much more like negotiations in nature than it is like obedience to laws. |
| 19882 | We are not created for solitude, but are driven into society by our needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: God, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgement, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 077) | |
| A reaction: This is almost Aristotelian, apart from the individualistic assumption that we are 'driven' into society. The only time I see other people looking generally happy is when they are sitting around at leisure and talking to other people. |
| 19864 | In nature men can dispose of possessions and their persons in any way that is possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The estate all men are naturally in is perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the laws of nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: Note that they have possessions, so property is not an invention of society, but something which society should protect. Presumably Locke thinks they could sell themselves into slavery, which Rousseau rejects. |
| 19865 | There is no subjection in nature, and all creatures of the same species are equal [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, are also equal one among another, without subordination or subjection. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: The birds in my garden don't behave as if that were true. Physical strength is surely a natural inequality. |
| 19866 | The rational law of nature says we are all equal and independent, and should show mutual respect [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches mankind that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 006) | |
| A reaction: He adds that this is because we are all the property of God. Locke is more optimistic than Hobbes or Rousseau about this, since he thinks we have a natural obligation to be nice. |
| 19872 | The animals and fruits of the earth belong to mankind [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All the fruits the earth naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 026) | |
| A reaction: Not a popular view among 21st century ecologists, I guess, but this remains the implicit belief of anyone who goes hunting in the woods, and our enclosed gardens seem to endorse the idea. |
| 19907 | There is a natural right to inheritance within a family [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man is born with a right before any other man, to inherit, with his brethren, his father's goods. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 190) | |
| A reaction: If a child is fully grown, they may well have drifted into a state of partial ownership of the goods of the parent, of which it would be hard then to deprive them. It is hard to see this as a natural right of tiny orphaned infants. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 19885 | Absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 090) | |
| A reaction: This is because citizens do not have a 'decisive' power to appeal for redress of injuries. Rousseau thought that there could be an absolute monarchy, as long as the general will agreed it, and its term of office could be brought to an end by the assembly. |
| 19886 | The idea that absolute power improves mankind is confuted by history [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need but read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 092) | |
| A reaction: I can't imagine who proposed the view that Locke is attacking, but it will have been some real 17th century thinker. Attitudes to monarchy changed drastically in England, but Louis XIV was still ruling in France. |
| 19903 | Despotism is arbitrary power to kill, based neither on natural equality, nor any social contract [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases; and this is a power which neither Nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another, nor compact can convey. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 172) | |
| A reaction: Colonies of seals, walruses and apes seem to display despotism, based on physical strength, though that is largely to do with mating. There could be such a compact, but Locke would regard it as invalid. |
| 19905 | People stripped of their property are legitimately subject to despotism [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Forfeiture gives despotical power to lords for their own benefit over those who are stripped of all property. ...Despotical power is over such as have no property at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 173) | |
| A reaction: Nasty! Shylock is stripped of his property by Venice, so these things happened. This is taking the significance of property a long way beyond its role at the beginning of Locke's book. Property is the start of society, but then becomes your passport. |
| 19904 | Legitimate prisoners of war are subject to despotism, because that continues the state of war [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 205) | |
| A reaction: How long after a war finishes is such despotism legitimate? What happened to the German prisoners in Russia in 1945? Locke defined despotism as the right to kill, but that is expressly contrary to the rules of war, look you. |
| 19895 | Even the legislature must be preceded by a law which gives it power to make laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power, as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the legislative. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 134) | |
| A reaction: I think Rousseau says that there cannot be a law which enables the general will to set up legislative powers. It just seems to be something which happens. Locke is threatened with an infinite regress. What legitimises the enabling law? |
| 19900 | The executive must not be the legislature, or they may exempt themselves from laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It may be too great temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons to have the power of making laws to also have in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 143) | |
| A reaction: The main principles of modern constitutions are devised to avoid corruption. If people were incorruptible (yeah, right) the world would presumably be run very differently, and rather more efficiently, like a good family. |
| 19902 | Any obstruction to the operation of the legislature can be removed forcibly by the people [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Having erect a legislative with the power of making laws, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 155) | |
| A reaction: I doubt if he was thinking of the French Revolution, but this will clearly have application to the English events of 1642. The Speaker of the Commons was held down in his chair in the 1620s, so that some legislation could be enacted. |
| 19908 | Rebelling against an illegitimate power is no sin [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it have the name of rebellion, yet it is no offence against God. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 196) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hezekiah at 2 Kings 18.7] At this time the English Civil War was referred to as the 'Great Rebellion' (so this is an interesting and brave remark of Locke's), though few people would think that Charles I had illegitimate power. |
| 19911 | If legislators confiscate property, or enslave people, they are no longer owed obedience [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 222) | |
| A reaction: This might fit Louis XVI in 1788. Locke was certainly not averse to consideration the situations in which revolution might be justified. He was trying to be even-handed about 1642. Locke seems to think that without property you ARE a slave. |
| 19901 | The people have supreme power, to depose a legislature which has breached their trust [Locke] |
| Full Idea: There remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 149) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the most important aspect of representative democracy. It is not the power of people to make decisions, but the power to get rid of bad rulers. |
| 19887 | Unanimous consent makes a united community, which is then ruled by the majority [Locke] |
| Full Idea: When any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community into one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 096) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presume democracy without discussion, although the formation of the community is by universal consent, which is the 'general will'. Rousseau has the constitution also made almost unanimously, not by a majority. |
| 19913 | A master forfeits ownership of slaves he abandons [Locke] |
| Full Idea: A master forfeits the dominion over his slaves whom he hath abandoned. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 237) | |
| A reaction: How often did slave owners take a day off, I wonder? Presumably slaves will take back their freedom, even if the masters haven't 'forfeited' their ownership, so Locke's point is fairly academic. |
| 19883 | Slaves captured in a just war have no right to property, so are not part of civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Slave are captives taken in a just war, and by right of Nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. ...Being not capable of any property, they cannot in that state be considered any part of civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 085) | |
| A reaction: If the test of citizenship is being capable of holding property, presumably children and mentally damaged people (including the very old) will also fail to qualify. I see no principled reason why slaves should not be allowed to vote. Note 'just' war. |
| 19870 | If you try to enslave me, you have declared war on me [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 017) | |
| A reaction: So presumably actual slaves are in a state of permanent war with their owners. What of a woman who is enslaved by her husband? |
| 19871 | Freedom is not absence of laws, but living under laws arrived at by consent [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth. Freedom is not (as Filmer suggests) doing what you please while not tied by any laws. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 022) | |
| A reaction: That sounds plausible if the consent is unanimous, but a minority is not free if the laws made by a large majority are a sort of persecution. |
| 19880 | All value depends on the labour involved [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is labour that puts the difference of value on everything. ...Whatever bread is worth more than acorns, wine than water, that is wholly owing to labour and industry. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 040) | |
| A reaction: In capitalism this is nonsense. Supply and demand fix all the values. Locke has slid from labour bestowing ownership to labour bestowing value. No one gets paid on the basis of how hard they work, except on piece rates. |
| 19884 | There is only a civil society if the members give up all of their natural executive rights [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Wherever any number of men so unite into one society as to quite every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 089) | |
| A reaction: This seems to mean that you must give up your active ('executive') natural rights, but not your passive ones (which are inviolable). |
| 19873 | We all own our bodies, and the work we do is our own [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man has a 'property' in his own 'person'. This nobody has any right to it but himself. The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say, are properly his. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't have any grounds for this claim. Why doesn't a cow own its body? He slides from my ownership of my laborious efforts to my ownership of what I have been working on. I can't acquire your car by servicing it. |
| 6580 | Locke (and Marx) held that ownership of objects is a natural relation, based on the labour put into it [Locke, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Locke thought that property ownership reflected a natural relationship; for him the primordial notion of the ownership of an object is a function of the labour that one puts into it; Marx held a similar view. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Marx would have to think that, in order to believe that capitalist ownership of the means of production used by the workers was a fundamental injustice. A deeper Marxism might see the whole idea of 'ownership' as a capitalist (or feudal) conspiracy. |
| 20520 | Locke says 'mixing of labour' entitles you to land, as well as nuts and berries [Wolff,J on Locke] |
| Full Idea: The great advantage of Locke's 'labour-mixing' argument is that it seems it can justify the appropriation of land, as well as nuts and berries. | |
| From: comment on John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 5 'Locke' | |
| A reaction: The argument is dubious at best, and plausibly downright wicked. How much labour achieves ownership? What of previous people who worked the land but never thought to claim 'ownership'? Suppose I do more labour than you on 'your' land? |
| 19875 | A man's labour gives ownership rights - as long as there are fair shares for all [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The 'labour' being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: The qualification at the end is a crucial (and problematic) addition to his theory. What is the situation when an area of wilderness is 98% owned? What of the single source of water? Who gets the best parts? Getting there first seems crucial. |
| 19874 | If a man mixes his labour with something in Nature, he thereby comes to own it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ...This excludes the common right of other men. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: This is Locke's famous Labour Theory of Value. Does picking it up count as labour? Putting a fence round it? Paying someone else to do the labour? Do bees own their honey? Settlers in the wilderness own nothing on day one? |
| 19877 | Fountain water is everyone's, but a drawn pitcher of water has an owner [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 029) | |
| A reaction: This would certainly be the normal consensus of a community, as long as there is plenty of water. The strong and fit gatherers get all the best firewood, so I suppose that is just tough on the others. |
| 19876 | Gathering natural fruits gives ownership; the consent of other people is irrelevant [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If the first gathering of acorns and apples made them not a man's, nothing else could. ...Will anyone say he had no right to them because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 028) | |
| A reaction: The ideas of Nozick are all in this sentence. Does this idea justify the enclosure of common land? The first member of the community who thought of Locke's labour theory had a huge head's start. Liberal individualism rampant. |
| 19878 | Mixing labour with a thing bestows ownership - as long as the thing is not wasted [Locke] |
| Full Idea: How far has God given us all things 'to enjoy'? As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of his life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 031) | |
| A reaction: This adds a very different value to Locke's theory, because the person seems to be answerable to fellow citizens if they harvest important resources and then waste them. Where do luxuries fit in? |
| 19879 | A man owns land if he cultivates it, to the limits of what he needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 032) | |
| A reaction: Industrial farming rather changes this picture. Does the man himself decide how much he can use the product of, or do the neighbours tell him where his boundaries must be? 'Reason not the need', as King Lear said. What if he stops cultivating it? |
| 19898 | Soldiers can be commanded to die, but not to hand over their money [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The sergeant that can command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon ...cannot command that soldier to give him one penny of his money. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 139) | |
| A reaction: A very nice and accurate illustration of a principle which runs so deep that it does indeed look like a basis of society. |
| 19881 | The aim of law is not restraint, but to make freedom possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom, for where there is no law there is no freedom. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 057) | |
| A reaction: This fits both the liberal and the communitarian view of the matter. Talk of 'freedom' is commonplace in England by this date, where it is hardly mention 60 years earler. John Lilburne almost single-handedly brought this about. |
| 19868 | It is only by a law of Nature that we can justify punishing foreigners [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If by the law of Nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against [the state], as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 009) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice point. You can't expect to be above the law in a foreign country, but you have entered into no social contract, unless visiting a place is a sort of contract. Intrusions into air space are often accidental visits. |
| 19867 | Reparation and restraint are the only justifications for punishment [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Reparation and restraint are the only two reasons why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 008) | |
| A reaction: But by 'reparation' does be mean retribution, or compensation? He doesn't rule out capital punishment, but that may qualify as maximum restraint. |
| 19912 | Self-defence is natural, but not the punishment of superiors by inferiors [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior is against nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 236) | |
| A reaction: He is obliquely referring to the execution of Charles I, even though he may have been legitimately overthrown. I wonder what exactly he means by 'superior' and 'inferior'. An idea from another age! |
| 19869 | Punishment should make crime a bad bargain, leading to repentance and deterrence [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 012) | |
| A reaction: I gather that the consensus among experts is that the biggest deterrence is a high likelihood of being caught, rather than the severity of the punishment. |
| 19899 | The consent of the people is essential for any tax [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The legislative power must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people given by themselves or their deputies. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 142) | |
| A reaction: He will be thinking of the resistance to Ship Money in the 1630s, which was a step towards civil war. The people of Boston, Ma, may have read this sentence 80 years later! |
| 18554 | Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The condemnation of prostitution was not just puritan bigotry; it was a recognition of a profound truth, that you and your body are not two things but one, and by selling the body you harden your soul. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 7) | |
| A reaction: No one, I imagine, who condones or even enthuses about prostitution would hope that their own daughter followed the profession, so there is something wrong with it. But must an enthusiastic and cheerful prostitute necessarily have a hard soul? |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have noticed certain laws that God has so established in nature, and of which he has implanted such notions in our souls, that …we cannot doubt that they are exactly observed in everything that exists or occurs in the world. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], pt 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the view of laws which still seems to be with us (and needs extirpating) - that some outside agency imposes them on nature. I suspect that even Richard Feynman thought of laws like that, because he despised philosophy, and was thus naïve. |