JOHN LOCKE: ETHICS

SYNOPSIS
John Locke, born on August 29, 1632, in Wrington, Somerset, England, went to
Westminster school and then Christ Church, University of Oxford. At Oxford he studied
medicine, which would play a central role in his life. He became a highly influential philosopher,
writing about such topics as political philosophy, epistemology, and education. Locke's writings
helped found modern Western philosophy.
MAJOR WRITINGS
Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
- Is the undeniable starting point for the study of empiricism in the early modern period
- He states that one of the most important aspects of improving our knowledge is to
recognize the kinds of things that we can truly know.
Two Treatises of Government (1693)
- Lockes best-known political text
- It criticizes the political system according to which kings rule by divine right (First
Treatise) and lays the foundation for modern liberalism (Second Treatise)
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
- Argues that much civil unrest is borne of the state trying to prevent the practice of
different religions
In short, it is an argument for the separation of church and state.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
- Very influential text in early modern Europe that outlines the best way to rear
children.
- It suggests that the virtue of a person is directly related to the habits of body and the
habits of mind instilled in them by their educators.
ETHICS
- The seeking out those Rules, and Measures of humane Actions, which lead to
Happiness, and the Means to practice them (Essay, IV.xxi.3)
ELEMENTS IN THE LANDSCAPE OF LOCKES ETHICS
Happiness or the highest good as the end of human action
The rules that govern human action
The powers that command human action
The ways and means by which the rules are practiced
THE GOOD
a) Pleasure and Pain
- True happiness, is associated with the good, which in turn is associated with pleasure.
- Pleasure is taken by Locke to be the sole motive for human action.
- Essay endorsed hedonism. Hedonism, the doctrine that moral value can be defined in
terms of pleasure
- Pleasure and pain are joined to almost all of our ideas both of sensation and reflection
(Essay, II.vii.2)
Ideas come to us by two means: Sensation and Reflection, this view is the
cornerstone of his empiricism. According to this theory, there is no such thing as
innate ideas or ideas that are inborn in the human mind. All ideas come to us by
experience.
Locke describes sensation as the great source of all our ideas, and the other
source of ideas, reflection or internal sense, is the dependent on the minds
reflecting on its own operations, in particular the satisfaction or uneasiness arising
from any thought (Essay, II.i.4)

b) Happiness
- The pursuit of true happiness, according to Locke, is equated with the highest
perfection of intellectual nature (Essay, II.xxi.51)
To do this, he says that we need to try to match our desire to the true intrinsic
good that is really within things.
THE LAW OF NATURE
a) Existence
- The first essay in the series treats the questions of whether there is a rule of morals,
or law of nature given to us
Yes (Law, Essay 1, page 109; hereafter: Law I:109).
The reason for this positive answer, in short, is because God exist.
- This law is to be understood as moral good or virtue
b) Content
- Two ways to determine the content of the law of nature: by the light of nature and by
sense experience.
Light of Nature, is a kind of metaphor that indicates that truth can be attained
by each of us individually by nothing more than the exercise of reason and the
intellectual faculties (Law II: 123)
Locke notes, this is to take the light of nature as something that is stamped on the
hearts on human beings, which is a mistake (Law III, 137-145)
- What exactly, is the light of nature?
Locke describing it, is that it is something acquired or experienced by sense
experience or by reason.
c) Authority
- Locke begins this discussion by reiterating that the law of nature is the care and
preservation of oneself
Given this law, he states that virtue should not be understood as a duty but rather
the convenience of human beings.
He also adds, the observance of this law is not so much an obligation but rather a
privilege and an advantage, to which we are led by expediency (Law, VI: 181)
d) Reconciling the Law with Happiness
- The main lines of Lockes natural law theory are as follows:
(1) Discoverable by the combined work of reason and sense experience
(2) Binding on human beings in virtue of being decreed by God
POWER, FREEDOM AND SUSPENDING DESIRE
a) Passive and Active Powers
- Locke states that we come to have the idea of power by observing the fact that
things change over time.
- The idea of power always includes some kind of relation to action or change.
- The passive side of power entails the ability to be changed, and the active side of
power entails the ability to make change.
- whatever Change is observed, the Mind must collect a Power somewhere, able to
make that Change (Essay, II.xxi.4)
- Locke elaborates by stating that there are two kinds of activities with which we are
familiar: thinking and motion.
b) The Will
- The power to stop, start, or continue an action of the mind or of the body is what
Locke calls the will.
c) Freedom
- Lockes view, both the will and freedom are powers of agents, and it is a mistake to
think that one power (the will) can have as a property a second power (freedom)
(Essay II.xxi.20)

He defines freedom in the following way:

The Idea of Liberty, is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any
particular Action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby
either of them is preferred to the other; where either of them is not in the Power of the
Agent to be produced by him according to his Volition here he is not a Liberty, that
Agent is under Necessity. (Essay, II.xxi.8)
d) Judgment
- How Men come often to prefer the worse to the better; and to chase that, which, by
their own Confession, has made them miserable (Essay, II.xxi.56)
Locke gives two answers:
(1) Bad luck can account for people not pursuing their true happiness.
(2) Other uneasinesss arise from our desire of absent good; which desires always
bear proportion to, and depend on the judgment we make, and the relish we have
of any absent good; in both which we are apt to be variously misled, and that by
our own fault (Essay, II.xxi.57)
Here Locke states that our own faulty judgment is to blame for our
preferring the worse to the better.
He continues, stating that the major reason why we often misjudge the
value of things for our true happiness is that our current state fools us into
thinking that we are, in fact, truly happy.
LIVING THE MORAL LIFE
-

Locke states that we must recognize the difference between natural wants and
wants of fancy.
Locke states that parents and teachers must ensure that children develop the habit of
resisting any kind of created fancy, thus keeping the mind free from desires for things
that do not lead to true happiness (Education, 107)
If parents and teachers are successful in blocking the development of wants of
fancy, Locke thinks that the children who benefit from this success will become
adults who will be allowed greater liberty because they will be more closely
connected to the dictates of reason and not the dictates of passion (Education, 108).

PREPARED BY:
SANCHEZ, RHEA D.
BS COE - V