John Locke: Hermeneutics

and Labor
by George H. Smith

Smith explains Lockes ideas about how we

should interpret a philosophic text, and the
relationship between labor and private
property.

I previously noted the different interpretations of John Lockes

political theory. The traditional interpretation, according to which
Locke is a seminal figure in the history of classical liberalism and the
theory of limited government, has always seemed obvious to me,
especially if we focus on Lockes fundamental ideas rather than on his
inconsistencies. It is not unusualin fact, it is the general rule rather
than the exceptionfor philosophers of every stripe to lay down basic
principles and then fail to apply those principles consistently. Locke
was no exception, so it is an easy task to cherry-pick certain anti-
liberal passages from his writings and then use them to undercut his
liberal credentials. Although it legitimate for the historian to call
attention to those instances in which a philosopher defended views
that conflict with his basic theoretical system, it is not legitimate to
elevate those inconsistencies to the status of fundamental principles
that represent his perspective as a whole.

It was with good reason that many subsequent classical liberals

viewed Locke as a key figure in their tradition. They understood the
crucial difference between Lockes fundamental principles and his
occasional failures to embrace the logical implications of those
principles. For various reasons, it may take decades or even centuries
for consistent conclusions to work their way to the surface of a
philosophical system, and those conclusions may be quite different
from what the original philosopher intended. Unintended
consequences emerge as surely in the realm of ideas as they do in the
realm of actions. The Catholic philosopher and historian Etienne
Gilson (The Unity of Philosophic Experience, 1965, p. 302) described
this inevitable development, which has been called the inner logic of
ideas, as follows:

[I]n each instance of philosophical thinking, both the philosopher and

his particular doctrine are ruled from above by an impersonal
necessity. In the first place, philosophers are free to lay down their
own sets of principles, but once this is done, they no longer think as
they wishthey think as they can. In the second place, it seems to
result from the facts under discussion, that any attempt on the part of a
philosopher to shun the consequences of his own position is doomed
to failure. What he himself declines to say will be said by his
disciples, if he has any; if he has none, it may remain eternally unsaid,
but it is there, and anybody going back to the same principles, be it
several centuries later, will have to face the same conclusions. It
seems, therefore, that though philosophical ideas can never be found
separate from philosophers and their philosophies, they are, to some
extent, independent of philosophers as well as of their philosophies.
Philosophy consists in the concepts of philosophers, taken in the
naked, impersonal necessity of both their contents and their
relationships in the history of philosophy itself.

Over the past fifty years or so a good deal has been published on the
methods that should be used in our efforts to understand philosophic
texts. Often called hermeneuticsa term that originally referred to the
interpretation of biblical textsthis cottage industry has yielded
mixed results, from the worthwhile contributions of Quentin Skinner
and other members of the Cambridge School of political
historiography to the downright silly and sometimes incoherent
pronouncements of Jacques Derrida and other practitioners of
deconstructionism.

What approach should we take when reading John Locke? Fortunately

for our purpose, Locke himself offered sound advice on the
interpretation of texts. Buried in a little-known essay, A Paraphrase
and Notes on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians (1705),
Lockes theory of hermeneutics may easily be extrapolated from his
focus on the Bible and applied to texts of all kinds, including his own
writings on political philosophy. So before continuing my discussion
of Lockes theory of property, lets take a brief look at what Locke had
to say about this matter. As we shall see, his advice is concise and
eminently sensible.

Locke pointed out that we naturally tend to interpret a passage through

our own understanding of words, even when those words might have
meant something different to an author from a bygone era and
different culture. To overcome this difficulty, Locke suggested that we
read each section (or chapter) of a text as if it were a self-contained
unitseeking thereby to understand the central theme of that unit or,
if it contains other themes, to ascertain how they are connected, if at
all. We should seek, in other words, a general view of the writers
main purpose in writing, as well as his fundamental arguments in
which that purpose is fulfilled. This will give us a sense of the
disposition of the whole. One or two hasty readings are insufficient;
according to Locke, especially when a text proves difficult to interpret.
The reading must be repeated again and again, with close attention to
the tenor of the discussion.

As a working presumption, we should assume that a section has but

one business and one aim, until, by a frequent perusal of it, you are
forced to see that there are independent matters in it. When seeking
the meaning of obscure and abstruse passages, we need to recall the
overall purpose and context of the writer. It helps to know the
particular circumstances and intended audience of the writer. If we
cannot discern these, then we must use the text itself as a tool of
interpretation. We should presume that the writer was coherent and
informed, and we should interpret him in a manner that is consistent
with this assumption. We should interpret a text with a view to the
writers character, which we come to know from diligent
examination. We should look for coherence of discourse, tending
with close, strong reasoning to a point.

Locke thus proposed what we may call a presumption of coherence.

We should presume that the author had a full and comprehensive grasp
of his subject, and, moreover, that he had a reason for expressing his
arguments in a certain manner. These assumptions will lead us to an
interpretation that is more likely to be correct than any other. Or, at the
very least, it will enable us to eliminate the more improbable
interpretations as inconsistent with the overall tenor of the text. Thus,
having observed how a writer argues and thinks, we will be able to
pronounce with confidence, in several cases, that he could not talk this
or that.

We should understand that Locke offered his hermeneutical advice

as defeasible presumptions, not as inflexible rules. It may turn out that
the thinking of a given philosopher is so muddled that no coherent
theory can be extracted from his text. Incompetence is as rife in
philosophy as in any other profession, perhaps even more so. (As
Descartes observed, there is no position so silly or implausible that it
has not been defended by a philosopher at some time or other.)
Generally speaking, however, the philosophic classics, such as
Lockes Two Treatises of Government, are classics for a reason. Unlike
period pieces that have little interest (except to historians) after the
controversies they addressed have passed, and unlike those
incompetent forays into philosophy that are more on the order of raids,
a classic typically paints with broad strokes by establishing general
principles that are applicable beyond the specific problems that a
given philosopher was addressing. In other words, even though a
classic was written within a particular historical context, its relevance
is not confined to that context.

Now, having ended my mini-lecture on hermeneutics, I shall return to

Lockes justification of private property, a discussion that will be
continued in future installments in this series.

For Locke (as I explained in earlier essays), private property does not
depend on the assignation or consent of any body. Private property
is not a social convention or an institution created by government. It is
a natural right required for human survival and happiness, so private
property would exist even in a state of nature without government. As
Locke put it, the Condition of Human Life, which requires Labor and
Materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.
Labor is the essential factor in the original acquisition of property
titles, including property in land. Mans wants, indeed his very
survival, compel him to labor, so subduing or cultivating the Earth,
and having Dominion, we see are joyned together. Labor is a type of
purposeful human action, one that links property (moral dominion) in
ones person to property in external goods. Locke spoke
of mixing ones labor with land and other natural resources; he also
spoke of annexing those resources to oneself through labor. The earth
and its resources were given by God to mankind in common, but God
also commanded us to subdue the Earth, i.e., to improve it for the
benefit of life. (Reason demands the same thing, according to Locke;
reason and revelation run along parallel lines.) But natural goods can
further human life only if they are appropriated for individual use, and
they can be appropriated only by means of the rational and purposeful
activity known as labor. And since, morally speaking, our labor is
inseparable from our self-ownership, to expend labor on a previously
unowned object is to mix something that belongs to us alone (our
labor) with a common resource that previously could be used by
anyone. Thusagain, from a moral point of viewprivate property,
justly acquired, becomes an extension of the self. To rob a person of
his property is to confiscate the effects of his labor, and this, in turn, is
to deprive the victim of his basic means of survival. Force and fraud
are the two basic methods by which a criminal attempts to profit from
anothers labor, which he had no right to.
To summarize: when we mix our labor with unowned natural
resources (fruits of the earth, nonrational creatures, and land), those
resources become our private property: The labour that was mine,
removing them out of that common state they were in,
hath fixed my Property in them.