5AANA003 Modern Philosophy II: Locke & Berkeley Lecture Five

Jasper Reid

Power (Essay, Book II, ch. 21)

Our experience reveals to us that things change over time, from whence we derive the
idea of the power wherein the possibility of such change consists. A passive power is
the capacity to receive a change, and the principal source of our idea of such a power
is our sensual experience of bodies. Bodies may well only ever be passive. In any
case, that is the way they more normally present themselves to us:

A Body at rest affords us no Idea of any active Power to move; and when it is
set in motion it self, that Motion is rather a Passion, than an Action in it. For
when the Ball obeys the stroke of a Billiard-stick, it is not any action of the
Ball, but bare passion: Also when by impulse it sets another Ball in motion,
that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received from
another, and loses in it self so much, as the other received; which gives us but
a very obscure Idea of an active Power of moving in Body, whilst we observe
it only to transfer, but not produce any motion. For it is but a very obscure
Idea of Power, which reaches not the Production of the Action, but the
Continuation of the Passion. (Essay, bk. 2, ch. 21, §4)

An active power, meanwhile, is the capacity to introduce a brand new change. As to

where we get the idea of such a power, Locke raises but does not answer the question
of whether reflection on our own operations might reveal it more clearly than our
sensation of bodies does (§4). But he says that this much, at least, is evident:

That we find in our selves a Power to begin or forbear, continue or end several
actions of our minds, and motions of our Bodies, barely by a thought or
preference of the mind ordering, or as it were commanding the doing or not
doing such or such a particular action. This Power which the mind has, thus to
order the consideration of any Idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to
prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa in any
particular instance is that which we call the Will. The actual exercise of that
power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance is that which we
call Volition or Willing. (§5)

The definition of ‘liberty’

Locke begins by explaining that…

(i) Liberty can only pertain to a being that is capable of thought, volition and will.
No one would describe a tennis ball as a free agent, because it is not the sort of thing
that can form volitions at all (§9).
(ii) But merely having volitions, although necessary, is still not sufficient for
liberty. A man who falls into the water when a bridge breaks certainly does have a
volition and a strong preference not to fall in the water. But, in falling, he is not
behaving as a free agent, because his action is directly opposed to his preference (§9).
(iii) Even when one’s actions do conform to one’s will, and hence can be called
‘voluntary’, they might still fall short of freedom:
 Again, suppose a Man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a Room, where is a
Person he longs to see and speak with; and be there locked in, beyond his
Power to get out: he awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable
Company, which he stays willingly in, i.e. prefers his stay to going away. I
ask, Is not this stay voluntary? I think, no Body will doubt it: and yet being
locked fast in, ’tis evident he is not at liberty not to stay, he has not freedom to
be gone. (§10)

It is not enough, then, that the action should simply agree with the volition that is
actually formed in the person’s mind. It must additionally be the case that, if a
different volition had been formed, then the action would have agreed with that one
instead. ‘Freedom’ effectively means doing what one wants to do, because one wants
to do it; but then additionally in not doing what one doesn’t want to do, for the reason
that one doesn’t want to do that—rather than because one is unable. ‘In this then
consists Freedom, (viz.) in our being able to act, or not to act, according as we shall
chuse, or will’ (§27); ‘and as far as this Power reaches, of acting, or not acting, by
the determination of his own Thought preferring either, so far is a Man free’ (§21).

‘Freedom of the Will’

Locke frames his discussion in terms of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’, rather than in terms of
‘free-will’, and this terminological preference is no accident. The freedom that
characterises human behaviour must be understood as the freedom of the agent rather
than the freedom of his/her will. What this freedom consists in is a conformity,
counterfactual as well as actual, between the behaviour and the will—in short, a
person acts freely when her actions are caused by her volitions. But what would it
then mean, for the will itself to be free? It would presumably mean that its volitions
were caused by other volitions. But surely this wouldn’t really amount to freedom for
the former volitions, unless the latter volitions had themselves been free, which would
presumably need to be explicated in terms of their being caused by volitions of a still
higher order. The problem of an infinite regress seems to loom:

Besides, to make a Man free after this manner, by making the Action of
willing to depend on his Will, there must be another antecedent Will, to
determine the Acts of this Will, and another to determine that, and so in
infinitum: For where-ever one stops, the Actions of the last Will cannot be free:
Nor is any Being, as far as I can comprehend Beings above me, capable of
such a freedom of Will, that it can forbear to Will, i.e. to prefer the Being, or
not Being of any thing in its power, which it has once considered as such. (§23
—note that this passage was removed after the fourth edition; but also see
§25)

Locke felt that the notion of ‘free-will’, as such, was based on a misunderstanding:

If this be so, (as I imagine it is,) I leave it to be considered, whether it may not
help to put an end to that long agitated, and I think, unreasonable, because
unintelligible, Question, viz. Whether Man’s Will be free, or no. For if I
mistake not, it follows, from what I have said, that the Question it self is
altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask, whether Man’s Will be
free, as to ask, whether his Sleep be Swift, or his Vertue square: Liberty being
 as little applicable to the Will, as swiftness of Motion is to Sleep, or squareness
to Vertue. (§14)

Freedom and Determinism

Many philosophers, over the centuries, have been inclined (whether for physical,
metaphysical, or theological reasons) to believe in determinism, such that everything
that happens in the created world is made to happen by a sufficient cause, a cause that
had itself arisen as a necessary effect of some prior cause. There have also been those
on the other side, who have believed that at least some events can occur
spontaneously, without being made to occur by other events. Meanwhile, but
independently of that debate, there is also a strong intuition that human agents (at
least) do possess some sort of autonomous freedom over at least some of their actions.
Now, putting these two notions—freedom and determinism—together, there are four
possible positions that one might take:

(i) Everything, even human behaviour, is predetermined, and consequently we

don’t really have any freedom in what we do after all. (Nowadays called ‘hard
determinism’, and endorsed by, for instance, Spinoza).
(ii) Everything, even human behaviour, is predetermined, but this does not mean
that we are not free: for freedom, when rightly understood, is compatible with such
determinism. (‘Compatibilism’: probably the most popular philosophical position
historically, endorsed in some form by Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Hobbes, Leibniz, Hume, etc.).
(iii) Some human behaviour falls outside the domain of determinism, and can be
understood as free on that basis. (‘Libertarianism’, as endorsed by, for instance,
Epicurus).
(iv) Some human behaviour falls outside the domain of determinism, but this
doesn’t make it free. (Possibly not a position that anyone has actually held, although
Hume did argue hypothetically that, if such behaviour was not causally determined,
then it could not be free).

As to where Locke should be placed in this scheme, it is not altogether clear. What he
does make clear is that ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’ consists in the relation between a
volition and an action. His attitude is that an action certainly does need a cause, if it is
going to stand a chance of being free: he merely points out that it needs a special kind
of cause, namely a volition in the agent’s will. He contrasts freedom not with causal
predetermination but with compulsion and restraint (§13), and generally he seems
very close to Hume’s position:

By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according
to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we
may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is
universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains.
(Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, sect. 8, pt. 1)

Hume, for his part, definitely did believe that human behaviour was subject to causal
predetermination, but also that this fact was irrelevant to freedom. As long as the
relation between the volition and the action was in order, the action would qualify as
free for Hume, regardless of what might have determined that volition to arise in the
first place, and regardless of whether any other volition could have arisen instead.
Locke would certainly agree with that latter point. What is not so clear is whether he
would agree about the causal predetermination of our volitions. In the later parts of
this chapter ‘Of Power’, he got into a long examination of what motivates our
volitions (uneasiness? the appearance of the good?), but he subjected this portion to
major revisions through the various editions of the Essay, and he does not seem to
have ever found an account that could fully satisfy him. Maybe it might be possible to
identify a causal basis for the formation of a volition in terms of our other ideas and
psychological impulses: but that would just shift the question back, onto what caused
those to arise in the first place. Locke never directly tackled the question of whether
our volitions might ultimately be caused to arise in us by forces fully external to
ourselves. His broadly mechanistic approach might seem to suggest that they are, but
he never actually came out and said so explicitly.

So how is Locke to be characterised? Observing his distaste for the notion of free-will
as such, one might be inclined to regard him as a hard determinist: but this would
probably be a distortion, given his emphatic acceptance of free agency. His rejection
of free-will does not derive from any tension with determinism: he just thinks that it is
an incoherent notion in itself. But, as for free agency, is that to be understood in the
compatibilist manner, or should we read Locke as a libertarian? He is certainly a
compatibilist in one sense, in that, if it was to turn out that our volitions were fully
predetermined by external forces, he would nevertheless still continue to allow us
freedom. But does he believe that they are thus predetermined? Officially, he comes
across as agnostic on this question. He writes, at the start of this chapter:

Whether Matter be not wholly destitute of active Power, as its Author GOD is
truly above all passive Power; and whether the intermediate state of created
Spirits be not that alone, which is capable of both active and passive Power,
may be worth consideration. I shall not now enter into that Enquiry. (§2)

Locke contrasts what he calls ‘active power’ with the case of the mere channelling of
an external influence, this being ‘not the Production of the Action, but the
Continuation of the Passion’ (§4). So, if the volitions and resulting actions of human
beings are predetermined, it would seem that we do not truly possess active power in
this sense. But, as this passage makes clear, he is not prepared to offer any firm
answer to the question of whether the human mind can in fact possess any such
properly active power. Ultimately, though, he would also dismiss this question as an
irrelevance: either way, freedom can be achieved, and that is all that really matters.

Locke on Linguistic Meaning (Essay, Book Three)

Locke holds that, in general, a word acquires its meaning by being made to stand for
an idea in the mind of the person who utters it. Successful communication takes place
when a similar idea gets stirred up, via the utterance, in the mind of the audience. Two
minor exceptions to this general principle: (i) Certain negative terms (“such as are
Nihil in Latin, and in English, Ignorance and Barrenness”) do not indicate the
presence of a certain idea in the mind of a speaker so much as the absence of one.
Nevertheless, these terms are still related to specific ideas, even if they do not stand
for them in the more straightforward manner. Essay, bk. 3, ch. 1, §4. (ii) ‘Particles’
(such as is, not, and, but, if, to, and the like) do not themselves stand for any ideas, but
are marks of the action of the mind in combining different individual ideas together to
form more complex thoughts. Essay, bk. 3, ch. 7.
General terms: Real and Nominal Essence (bk. 3, ch. 6)
Real essence: Whatever it is that determines which properties and powers an
individual object has. For a body, this is going to consist in the primary qualities of its
microscopic particles.
Nominal essence: Whatever it is that determines whether a certain individual belongs
to a certain class of objects, or, linguistically, whether it falls under the extension of a
certain general term.

Locke feels that it is we who sort particular things into various classes, and we who
give meaning to our general terms. We surely could not do this on the basis of
qualities of which we had no knowledge. But real essences are, by and large,
unknown. Hence, Locke does not think that nominal essences can be reduced to real
essences. For a lump of gold, for instance, the real essence will be some property at a
microscopic level (for instance—as we would say nowadays—the presence of 79
protons in each atom). But the nominal essence associated with the word ‘gold’ will
be something more immediately apparent to us (for instance, a bright, shining yellow
colour). Locke’s point of view, in one form or another, was basically dominant until
the work of people like Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke in the 1960s and ’70s. (See,
for instance, the third lecture of Kripke’s Naming & Necessity, and Putnam’s ‘The
Meaning of “Meaning”’). Nowadays, most philosophers think he was wrong. Putnam
and Kripke argued not only that we can but that we actually do connect our natural
kind terms with the microstructural properties of things, even when these are
unknown to us. Now that we have discovered that iron pyrites has a different
molecular structure from gold, we distinguish the two by calling it ‘fool’s gold’. But,
even before those structural differences were discovered, although people might have
believed that iron pyrites was gold, and might have called it ‘gold’, they would have
been incorrect because, even then, the word ‘gold’ already referred only to stuff with
the atomic number 79. What was different back then was not the meaning of the word,
but merely people’s ability to identify things correctly.

Abstract Ideas
Another important feature of the ideas that, for Locke, constitute the meanings of
general terms is that they must be abstract ideas. The idea that constitutes the nominal
essence of ‘gold’, for instance, will include the characteristic colour, but it will
separate this colour from other features that are also found in individual lumps of
gold. One piece of gold might be spherical, for instance, while another might be
cubic: but these shapes have no bearing on the question of whether or not they are
gold. Gold comes in many different shapes. Hence, the idea of gold as such should not
involve any particular shape. More generally, given a class of objects, the abstract
idea that constitutes the nominal essence of that class will represent only what they all
have in common, and will omit any features that set one apart from another. This
would prove a major bone of contention when we come to Berkeley…