Readers Guide for “Locke and the Legislative Point of View” by Alex Tuckness

This reader’s guide is designed for non-academics interested in trying to read my book. Although I have tried to reduce the amount of academic jargon on the book, the book was written primarily for an academic audience and so there is still going to be some. This readers guide is very informal. I will update it now and then as I have the time, and there will probably be some typos and such along the way. Hopefully it will explain some of the background concepts so that the argument of the book makes sense. The names and topics are covered roughly in the order they appear in the book. I will only mention those that are necessary for understanding the main point; I will not try to explain every footnote. The main goal is to explain things that might still be confusing even after you looked them up in a dictionary. If you have suggestions for terms I might include in this list, please e-mail me.

John Locke was born in England in 1632 and died in 1704. He attended Oxford University and later became the advisor for a very influential nobleman, the Earl of Shaftsbury. The Earl served as Lord Chancellor for a while, and then found himself in opposition to the King and was thrown in prison. Shaftsbury (and Locke) were afraid that when King Charles II died (not having any legitimate children) and his brother James II became King, James would try to turn England back to Catholicism. Locke’s most well known political work (Two Treatises of Government) was written about this time, in the early 1680’s, as a justification for a possible revolution against James II at a future date. Had he published at the time and been found out, he would have been executed. Instead, he did not publish it and fled to Holland. When James II later abdicated the throne, Locke was able to return to England with William and Mary, the new monarchs. Locke was very influential. Most of the ideas in the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence can be found in Locke’s Two Treatises (although scholars still debate the exact extent of his influence. While Locke was livening in Holland, a persecution broke out in France against Protestants who lived there. Locke wrote “A Letter Concerning Toleration” in about 1685, defending the position that it was wrong for the government to use force to force people to convert to the true religion. People should be persuaded rather than forced. Locke’s letter was attacked by a man name Jonas Proast. Locke wrote a “Second Letter” and a “Third Letter” in response to Proast’s attacks. He was working on a fourth letter when he died. The third letter is very long (almost 10 times as long as the first letter!) and a little frustrating for most people to read. Buried within it, though, is Locke’s clearest statement of what I have termed “the legislative point of view.”

Liberalism means something different in political theory than it does in everyday speech. “Liberal” in this context does not mean supports the Democratic Party. In the political theory sense, most Republicans AND Democrats are liberals because they endorse a political structure that gives an important place to individual rights such as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the right to own private property. Modern liberalism has its roots in the17th century (with John Locke as one of its most famous and important proponents) and it significantly influenced the American “founding fathers.”

Communitarianism refers to a whole family of theories that criticize liberalism for being to focused on the individual and not focused enough that our identities are in large part shaped by the families, communities, and nations to which we belong.

Political Liberalism is a theory developed by John Rawls, a now retired philosopher at Harvard who has influenced American/British political philosophy more than anyone else over the last 50 years. It is one example of a liberal theory, but there are many others. The main idea is that there will always be reasonable disagreement between citizens in a free society about what is truly “the good” and about which religion or philosophy is really “true.” Despite this, we want political principles that all reasonable citizens can affirm. His solution is to put forward political principles without specifying which philosophy or religion proves them true so that people from many different traditions can still affirm them.

Libertarianism is a different branch of liberalism. Libertarians are best known for giving individuals rights, and particularly property rights, a near absolute importance. Libertarians would oppose welfare programs, public schools, and other government programs that tax some people to provide benefits for others, seeing this as a violation of the individual’s right to property.

Consequentialism: The belief that actions are right or wrong based on their consequences. A rough version of consequentialism would be the saying “The ends justify the means.” Consequentialists only care about the means insofar as it affects the ends.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy (normally part of the “liberal” camp as well) that claims we should try to maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness. It is the most famous example of consequentialism. It comes from the word “utility” meaning “useful.” The consequence that we try to bring about is as much happiness, pleasure, or satisfaction of people’s preferences as possible.

Rule-utilitarianism is distinguished from act-utilitarianism in the following way. An act-utilitarian simply asks “which of the actions I could perform would produce the most happiness and the least unhappiness.” He looks at actions one at a time. A rule-utilitarian asks “Which rule should I follow?” and selects the rule which would maximize utility if everyone followed it.

Jeremy Bentham was the founder of modern utilitarianism. He was an act-utilitarian.

Immanuel Kant was a critic of consequentialism. He believed that actions were right or wrong based on whether they were done from a sense of duty to the moral law. His moral law was formulated in different ways, but it is somewhat similar to the idea of the Golden Rule: Act on principles that you would will that everyone act on. He also insisted that we always treat people as ends, not as mere means to an end. He believed we should follow these rules regardless of the consequences.

John Rawls (See Political Liberalism) is a modern philosopher influenced by Kant. In his landmark book A Theory of Justice he argued that if we had to choose principles of justice for ourselves and others, and we had to do it without knowing what position we would have in society (rich or poor, talented or not talented, healthy or unhealthy) that we would not choose utilitarianism. We would be risk averse and try to avoid the worst possibilities. We would not chance a 1 in 10 possibility of being a slave, even if slavery happened to maximize utility. Instead we would insist on individual rights and on making the worst off members of society as well off as they can be. This last point is called the “difference principle.” Rawls is famous for insisting that the government must be neutral between competing conceptions of “the good.” The “good” in this context refers to what we think it is that makes life valuable and so it would include disagreements about religion.

Perfectionism has a specific meaning in political theory that is different than its normal meaning. It has nothing to do with being excessively picky. Instead, it opposes the idea that the government should be neutral about the good. Whereas liberal neutrality says that the government should protect peoples’ rights without encouraging them to live their lives in any particular way, perfectionism claims that it is perfectly acceptable for the government to help “perfect” its citizens by encouraging them to be more virtuous. A perfectionist might claim the government should censor pornography simply because it is harmful to the character of the people, regardless of whether it violates rights. Some perfectionists are liberals in that they believe the government should encourage people to have character traits that liberalism prizes: autonomy (freely direting one’s own life), tolerance, and so on.