Philosophy

Philosophy Study Guide

majority vote) that will effectively carry out these responsibilities, and ensuring that all citizens will receive equal, fair, impartial treatment and have their fundamental rights (granted under the law) protected. Locke believed that it was important to create different branches of the government that would have distinct powers and responsibilities. ● A legislative branch: Creates and interprets laws ● An executive branch: To implement the laws ● A federal branch: Responsible for making war and peace The first two branches are identical to those of the U.S. government, and although Locke believed that judges should play a role in the government, he did not propose the judiciary branch. This was proposed by Baron de Montesquieu . At the center of Locke’s thinking of human rights is the concept of property, a term for him extends far beyond the idea of material possessions to include one’s body and the products of one’s labor. Locke’s concept of property represents a core value: We have the right to our own body, meaning the freedom to live our own lives and pursue our happiness freely without arbitrary interference from other individuals or from the state. Locke believed that everyone was entitled to own some property and that have the right to reap the benefits that our labor produces. It is a violation of our benefits to be expected to work without receiving a proportionate share of what our labor produces. The political leaders in America were very familiar with Locke’s writings and Thomas Jefferson was a particularly avid student of his ideas. This is clear when we compare Locke’s inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the right to own property with the following passage from the Declaration of Independence composed by Thomas Jefferson: “We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Locke’s view of human nature was optimistic in which he believed that humans are governed by certain natural laws inherent to us as God’s creation. These natural laws include the rights to life, liberty, health, and property. A just society respects and protects each citizen’s natural rights; humans willingly enter into social contracts in order to create a just society with a certain authority and he believed that the authority of the state could be questioned, challenged, and even changed. 10.8 The State of Nature: Assumptions and Questions Hobbes had a pessimistic view of human nature in which a government must be formed to protect us from each other. Locke’s view of humans is more hopeful, with government supporting our innate desires for equality, freedom, and tolerance. Locke also believed that humans are sufficiently competitive and dangerous to one another that a central government is required to ensure social order and protect intrinsic rights of each individual. The influential French political philosopher Jean- Jacques Rousseau believed that humans are naturally compassionate, although it’s true that this natural compassion is repressed or distorted by social conditioning, it nevertheless forms an important part of human nature. David Hume questioned the whole concept of the state of nature and argued that there is no evidence of people coming together by common consent from some imagined state of nature. The history of political state is one of conquest and succession, in which the consent of the governed plays absolutely no role. The state of nature and the social contract are no more that the fictional creations of philosophers imaginations. Using examples of repressive violence and unjust

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