John Locke (1632--1704)

By Qingjiang Yao

Introduction of John Locke
Born in august 29, 1632, John Locke was the oldest child of a Puritan family. In1652, Locke entered Christ Church College, Oxford with a scholarship. After getting his bachelor and master’s there, he became a lecturer in Greek and later, in 1664, censor of moral philosophy at the college. He also studied chemistry, meteorology and medicine there, and thought about political questions as well (Hutchins, R.M.1952).
Lived in the period of Glorious Revolution, Locke was both a political theorist and practitioner. From 1669 to 1675, Locke worked for the Lord Proprietors of Carolina as secretary, during which, according to his thoughts, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina was draft, which Armitage (2004) thinks as “central to understanding the relationship between Locke’s political theory and his colonial interests” (p. 607). Having writing something against the king, in 1687 he fled to Holland. He was somewhat involved in the revolution of 1688, and returned to England in 1689 in the same ship carrying William’s wife.
John Locke wrote many important works; among them are An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, stating his thoughts about knowledge and ideas; A Letter Concerning Toleration, stating his thoughts of religion equality; and Two Treaties Concerning Civil Government, presenting his political theory.
John Locke is a British philosopher very important to the America. As James Carey (1997) pointed out: “The agenda of intellectual life in nineteenth-century America was largely set by a species of Utilitarianism that came into the culture by a particularly narrow reading of John Locke.” (p. 20)
John Merrill (Merrill, J.C. 2000) gave John Locke a very good summary. He wrote:
A respect for Language, a love for empirical knowledge and its acquisition, a deep concern for ethical action, a desire for the rational and responsible use of freedom, and a basic concern for education----these traits and many others make John Locke one of history’s greatest contributors to a legacy for modern journalists (p. 50)

What is the nature of humankind?
In his famous Second Treaty Concerning Civil Government, John Locke described a state of nature for the human kind. In Lock’s state of nature, humans are independent individuals who have little relationship with others. Several characteristics of the natural state can be drawn out as followings:
1. The natural state of humankind is “a state of perfect freedom to order their[humans’] actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as thy think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.”(Lock, J. 1690, chapter II) For Locke, a person was born to have absolute right to make his decision on his property. The decision making should not be intervened by other people, but only under the regulation of the law of nature. So the king, or the leader of the government, was not born to have the right governing the governed.
“Liberty was very important to Locke.” John Merrill (1997) pointed out, “He saw it as a natural right, one that should not be abridged except when it might interfere with the liberty of another. “(p. 91)
2. The second important characteristic of the state of nature is that it is of equality. With this concept, Locke means the reciprocal power. “No one has more than another”. According to Locke, the most evident thing is that, all the creatures of the same species and rank are born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties. That is the reason that they should be treated equally, “without subordination or subjection”. (Lock, J. 1690, chapter II) Locke also said: “The sum of all we drive at is that every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others.” (Locke, J. 1689)
3. Even though the theory of Lock granted man the “uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions”, he put one law of nature against it, saying that the man “has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession”. He can only make “nobler use” of them. (ibid).
4. In the state of nature, “all man may be restrained from invading others’ rights, and from doing hurt to one another.” Man only have the absolute right to use violence when he needs to “punish the transgressors of that law” (ibid). At the same time, there is a limitation for such a punishment, which should be no more than hindering the violation. when man get a violator of the law of nature in hand, Locke said, he has “no absolute or arbitrary power” to use a criminal to the violator as he will, “but only to retribute to him so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint.” (ibid)
5. From his other essays, we can see that Locke gave other characteristics to the natural state. As a classic representative of the empiricism philosophers, John Locke thought that all humans are not born with ideas in head. He had a famous metaphor of the “tabula rasa”. He maintained that all human are born with blank minds which are like empty ancient cups. The knowledge comes “not from god, but from our own experiences.” (Altschull, J. H. 1990, p. 50) When our brain received the knowledge, however, it has the ability to combine, divide or compare. Merrill (2000) also pointed out that Locke maintained that the human mind is a tabula rasa—a blank slate—written upon only by experience in the shape of reflections and sensations.
6. Herbert J. Altschull also pointed out that, in Locke’s view, every man is a reasonable person in the natural state, “capable of judge disputes with his neighbor.”(Altschull J.H.1990, p. 53) John Merrill (2000) described Lockean person as “a pattern of responsible individualism, predicated on a love of reason and the importance of ‘natural law’” (p. 45). Actually, only with love of reason men can make their decision to deal with their properties, to hinder or punished transgressors to an appropriate degree according to the natural law.
Locke’s state of nature, Altschull (1990) said, was very similar to the Judeo-Christian portrait of the happy world of the biblical patriarchs.

What is the relationship between the individual and society?
According to the presumption of Locke, a person in the state might has relationship as little as possible with others. Based on this presumption, Locke had an explanation for the public institutions. “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.” Locke (1689) wrote. He also made clear that “civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, house, furniture, and the like.” When analyzing the relationship between individual and public, James Carey (1997) said: “For John Locke, to be a member of the public was to accept a calling.” (p. 218)
When man takes part in a society to enhance his interests, he needs to consent to give out some of his rights. The society has the man’s rights only when he consented. In that way, he has a contract with the society. As father of the contract theory, Locke held that government thrives under the consent of the governed. Without such a contract, the father or the monarch whoever in power has no right to expel a son or a citizen from his property, because men are “by nature, all free, equal, and independent,” and no one may ever be “put out of his estate, and subjected to the power of another, without his own consent.” The consent does not have to be carved in granite; it is enough, Locke wrote, for the citizen to give his “tacit consent,” and in fact that is what he does when he joins a community. (Altschull J.H. 1990, p. 52) “Thus every man,”Locke (1690) wrote, “by consenting with other to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation o everyone of that society to submit the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it.”
Simultaneously, Lockean theory granted the governed absolute right of rebellion, by force and violence if necessary, when the governor abuses the rights that the governed transferred to him. (Altschull J.H. 1990, p. 51)
In Locke’s view, John Merrill (2000) summarized, citizens are being in a “balanced and self-adjusting state, able to settle down and live harmoniously with little direction by government” (p. 48). They need the government mainly for safety and stability. Citizens under this government, Fukuyama (1999) analyzed, need not “to be public-spirited, patriotic, or concerned for the welfare of those around him, rather as Kant suggested, a liberal society could be made up of devils, provided they were rational.” (p. 57)
According to Robert Bellah (1986) and his coauthors, Lockean position that the individual “is prior to society, which comes into existence only through the voluntary contract of individuals...trying to maximize their own self-interest” is still influential in the American society. (p.143)

What is a just society?
Locke’s concept of justice, Altschull (1990) wrote, is closely related to another important Lockean concept, the private property, “which he took to be the most important ingredient of a just society.” (p. 49)
Shimokawa (2003) gave us a more detail analysis, adopting Finnis’ suggestion of concept of justice that includes three elements: 1) other-directedness or inter-subjectivity, 2). duty or what is owned or due to another, and correspondingly, what other person has a right to, and 3) equality or proportionality.
Shimokawa maintained that, for the first element, Locke referred to the virtue of justice as a “great social virtue”, because Locke emphasized that “justice and truth are the common ties of Society”. But Locke preferred to express the other-directedness or inter-subjectivity of justice as a reciprocal or mutual relation, since he thought of other-directed relation as equally applicable to all the parties under consideration.
According to Shimokawa’s viewpoint, for the second element, Locke’s concept of justice is a matter of preserving another property. When Locke said, “Where there is no property, there is no justice.” he was certainly adopting the prior definition of injustice as “the Invasion or Violation of that right [sc. property].”
For the third element, Shimokawa said, Locke clamed that Christians and Pagans should to be treated equally under a law, “so his point is that the impartial treatment needs to be added to the mere duties of benevolence and charity.” (p. 67)
Justice, Shimokawa (2003) summarized, then, “is the equal preservation of property” (p. 68). The result is similar with Altschull.

What is truth?
When studying Human Understanding, Locke focused on the study on Truth in several sections. In his world, knowledge is a reflection and sense to the reality. “Truth, then, seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify nothing but the joining or separating of signs, as the things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another. (Locke, J. 1690)
Locke tried to build a more specified model for the relationship between the things signified and the thoughts and words related to them. He said: “To form a clear notion of truth, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought, and truth of words, distinctly one form another.” But he acknowledged that “it is very difficulty to tear of them asunder”, because when truth of thought was spoken out, it became kind of truth of word. (ibid)
Since Locke insisted that all ideas of humankind came from experience, no truth in Lockean theory would be gained from ways other than experience. Alfred Weber (1908) argued that it is true that some knowledge is very early in the mind. But according to Locke’s theory, he found that these kinds of truths are made up of acquired and not of innate truths. “The universal consent of mankind to certain truths does not prove that these are innate; for nobody knows those truths till he hears them from others.” He wrote.
To dig the truth and get knowledge, Locke recommended as having three steps. First, one must collect evidence that can support or defeat the proposition in question. And he thinks that the evidence must contain something the one knows; otherwise the one will be lost in darkness. Second, one needs to analysis the evidence to determine the probability of the proposition in question. And third, one makes a decision, based on the evidence, on the degree of truth of the proposition in question. Locke emphasized evidence to so high a degree that he would say, it is never right for human being to believe something about God without having evidence for its truth, with the evidence consisting ultimately of things that one “sees” immediately to be true. (Audi, R. 2001, pp. 507-508)
Locke told everyone who is seeking truth to love it at first, “for he that loves it not will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.” (Locke, J. 1690)

What is the proper role of the journalist?
John C. Merrill (2000) did a detail analysis what John Locke would say to journalists. Even though Merrill didn’t it put it in a formation of list, we can get the list by summarizing his article:
1. Merrill said, “Locke would likely tell modern journalists to throw themselves into reality, experiencing (and sensing) as many things and ideas as possible”. (p. 46) Different from philosophers like Kant, Locke said that, if a journalist doesn’t come to experience things, he would get nothing about the stories, because that is the only way for him to get every piece of information about the stories into his mind. Locke would also say that all the reports should be supported by the strongest evidence the journalist get from interviewing.
2. Merrill also thought, Locke would say: “A person cannot be ethical by chance.” Locke, different from Kant and Confucius, would also say that a journalist cannot act ethically simply out of habit. He needs to consider, case by case, to find an ethical resolution to his reports with his reason. Locke believed that each person is made of actions and the awareness. ( p.46) in every reporting, a journalist should think about the situation and find an ethical resolution independently, not following the guidance of the boss, colleagues and even his or her own habits.
3. The original roots of journalism ethics, like roots of all the other professional ethics, John Locke would say, according to Merrill, “are ultimately founded in God’s law.” (p.46) But, journalists can only find the God’s law with their own reason. “The moral journalist is one who acts intentionally, after serious deliberation over what is right and good with respect to moral laws, which. Locke thought that every one gets his or her value system from the bible or his or her reason.” Merrill said, according to Lockean theory (p.46) Even though a journalist can get a value system from the Bible, the only way for him or her to get access to the Bile, according to Locke, still is his or her reason. So, possibly Locke would say that all the ethical rules can only be gotten from a journalist’s reasonable thinking.
4. Locke deeply believed that freedom is essential to the development of a full human being, Merrill said. Each person has a natural right to be free and not to be subjected to the will of another, but a person would have no freedom if he or she has no reason. So Locke was advising journalists to uphold their freedom both in the society and inside the media institutions. If a reasonable journalist lost some of his or her freedom of speech, Locke would say, he or she will not be fully developed in mind as a human being.
6. Merrill also gave a summarization of part of Locke’s natural law:
----Love and worship God
----Obey superiors
----Be friendly and mild and have a pure character
----Tell the truth and keep promises
----Do not injure, without cause, anyone’s life or possessions
----Do not steal or kill
----Love your neighbor and your parents
----Help the distressed, and feed the hungry
----Preserve, nourish, and educate your children. (p49, Merrill J.C. 2000)
With those laws, Locke would suggest modern journalists personally be a good follower of the religion, a good citizen, a good subordinate, a good parent and a good neighbor. He would also suggest modern journalists to be ethical to uphold the law of nature in the society. In the heart of Lockean natural laws, Merrill maintained, is responsibility of each person to follow the law of nature binding them to the preservation of peace and to a commitment not to harm one another.

Questions for Review:
1. The theory of John Locke built a foundation for the American Democracy, but it is de Tocqueville, According to Altschull, who found its fatal deficiency. The decisive factor in Locke’s philosophy is majority rule, in which Locke, and indeed American’s Founding Fathers, placed great trust. De Tocqueville, nevertheless, pointed out that majorities are quite as capable of tyranny and oppression as monarchs. (Altschull, J. H. 1990. p. 54) Does the term “Tyranny of Majority” relate to the philosophy of John Locke, and does the problem of “Tyranny of Majority” have a better resolution now?

2. When the ideas of harmonious community gain more and more eyesight in the western society, when responsibility to the society and public of the media are discussed more and more in academic and professional conferences, Lockean Utilitarism seems outdated. “What we need, as Habermas said, is a sphere of public discourse that resembles a basic speech situation, and with the technology at hand, this kind of personal of communication can take place.” (Merrill J. C., Gade, P. J. & Blevens, F. R. 2001. p. 196) Merrill and his coauthors believed, as Habermas and others pointed out, the “public sphere” is essential to good communication and to the sustenance of community values and progress. (p196) So, is it the time for the America society to say farewell to John Locke, or we can find something useful in Lockean philosophy to build a good community? Are there components about public in Locke’s thoughts that we can use for building a civil society?

3. Locke’s description of the “state of nature” is kind of similar with the colonial state in earlier America and Australia. And that might be a reason why it is easy to be adopted as the foundation to build countries in those places. Could Lockean theory have the same power in other communities in which people have much more various strong relationships between them for a much more long time? Will Lock’s philosophy take an important place to build a foundation for all the nations and races in the world, which have different cultural, economic and political backgrounds, to build global public community? Is it useful to build a global journalism ethics?

References:
Hutchins, R. M. (Ed.). (1952). Great books of the Western World ed. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.
Armitage, D. (2004). John Locke, Carolina, and the Two Treatises of Government. Political Theory, vol.32 No. 5. pp. 602-627.
Carey, J. (1997). A Critical Reader. Minneapolis: university of Minnesota Press.
Merrill, John C. (2000). Legacy of Wisdom: Great thinkers and journalism. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.
Locke, J. (1690). An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.
Merrill, J. C. (1997) Journalism Ethics: Philosophical Foundations for News Media. New York: St. Martin’s.
Locke, J. (1689): A Letter Concerning Toleration.
Altschull, J. H. (1990) From Milton to McLuhan: The Ideas behind American Journalism. Now York: Longman.
Fukuyama, F. (1999, May). The Great Disruption: Human Nature And The Reconstitution Of Social Order. The Atlantic Monthly, 55-80.
Bellah, R. N., et al. (1986). Habits of the Hart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Now York: Harper & Row.
Shimokawa, K. (2003). Locke’s concept of Justice. In The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives (pp. 61-85). New York: Routledge.
Locke, J. (1690): An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Weber, A. (1908). History of Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. From the World Wide Web: http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Weber%20-%20History/locke.htm.
Audi, R. (2001) Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2 Ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Merrill J. C., Gade, P. J. & Blevens, F R. (2001) Twilight of Press Freedom: the rise of People’s Journalism. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates