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Obligation, Consent, and Locke's Right to Revolution: “Who Is to Judge?”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Robert C. Grady II
Robert C. Grady II
Affiliation:
Eastern Michigan University
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Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 277 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1976

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References

1 See Plamenatz, J.P., Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (2d ed. New York 1968)Google Scholar; Gough, J.W., John Locke's Political Philosophy (Oxford 1950)Google Scholar, ch. 2; cf. Tussman, Joseph, Obligation and the Body Politic (New York 1960), 71–3 ff.Google Scholar; Winch, Peter, “Man and Society in Hobbes and Rousseau,” Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S. (Garden City, N.Y. 1972), 233–53, at 244–8.Google Scholar

2 Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government (hereafter, Treatises), ed. Laslett, Peter (2d ed. Cambridge 1967).Google Scholar See Sabine, George H., A History of Political Theory (3rd ed. New York 1961)Google Scholar, ch. 26; Gough, Political Philosophy; Lamprecht, Sterling Power, The Moral and Political Philosophy of John Locke (New York 1962)Google Scholar; and, most importantly, the summary and revision of the traditional interpretation in Peter Laslett, introduction, Treatises. Also, cf. Pitkin, Hanna, “Obligation and Consent – I and II,” American Political Science Review, 59 (December 1965), 990–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 60 (March 1966), 39–52; and Tussman, Body Politic, from which we draw below.

3 See Treatises, II, 13, 90–91, 101, 123, and citations in fn. 2, above.

4 Treatises, preface; I, 81; II, 19, 96, 122 (quotations are from the preface and II, 19).

5 Sandoz, Ellis, “Political Obligation and the Brutish in Man,” Review of Politics, 33 (January 1971), 95–121, at 106–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Ake, Claude, “Political Obligation and Political Dissent,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2 (June 1969), 245–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation, pp. 6–25; Tussman, Body Politic, passim.

7 Tussman, Body Politic, 28–30, 37–9, 25–7; also 46, 83, 85

8 Arguments that government can be viewed as the responsible party regarding disobedience or illegitimate opposition go back at least to Plato's portrait of causes of regime breakdown and can be derived from Aristotle, Politics, 1301a–1315b. For a comprehensive statement, see Carl Friedrich, Joachim, Man and His Government (New York 1963)Google Scholar, chs. 11, 19, 34, also 27–8.

9 See Benn, S.I. and Peters, R.S., The Principles of Political Thought (New York 1964), 376–91Google Scholar; Flathman, Richard E., Political Obligation (New York 1972)Google Scholar; Friedrich, Man and His Government, 276–9; Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation, postscript to second ed., 167–82; Raphael, D.D., Problems of Political Philosophy (New York 1970)Google Scholar, ch. 4; Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass. 1971).Google Scholar

10 Pitkin, “Obligation and Consent – I,” 996–7, 999; “Obligation and Consent – II,” 40–5, also 50–2; Walzer, Michael, Obligations (Cambridge, Mass. 1970), xii, 50, 91, 95–8, 102f, 112–14, 118, 130–2, 177 ff.Google Scholar

11 Flathman, Political Obligation, chs. 4, 7

12 The classic case for raising these questions is made by Plato. See his arguments, with Callicles and Thrasymachus, against establishing the political order solely on the grounds of satisfying the populace, i.e., on consent alone: Gorgias 481c–486d, 488b–521e; Republic 339b—42e, 344d–54b. See also the last days of Socrates where he is condemned by a “legitimate” but unjust ruling body: Crito 52c–d, 54b–d.

13 Pikin, “Obligation and Consent – II”; Tussman, Body Politic, 25–9, 43–6, 67–9, 73

14 See Bay, Christian, “Civil Disobedience: Prerequisite for Democracy in Mass Society,” Obligation and Dissent, ed. Hanson, Donald W. and Fowler, Robert Booth (Boston 1971), 222–42Google Scholar; Cohen, Carl, Civil Disobedience (New York 1969)Google Scholar; Hanson, Donald W., “What Is Living and What Is Dead in Liberalism?” American Politics Quarterly, 2 (January 1974), 3–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Ake, “Political Obligation and Political Dissent,” 253–5

16 E.g., Benn and Peters, Principles, 385—91; Kendall, Willmoore, John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule (Urbana, Ill. 1965), 87–9, 101–11Google Scholar; cf. Sabine, History of Political Theory, 538, and Wolin, Sheldon S., Politics and Vision (Boston 1960), 309–12.Google Scholar Kendall's monograph develops the thesis of Locke's “absolute” majority with more rigour than is customary, and his work must be recognized as seminal for the “critical” literature on Locke.

17 Treatises, II, 6

18 Ibid., I, 87–8; II, 4–8, 12, 16, 23, 25–6, 56, 59, 63, 66, 86–7, 124, 128–9, 134–5, 149, 159, 183, 198, 212

19 Ibid., II, 63. Also, ibid., II, 17, 22–3, 57, 59

20 Ibid., I, 64; II, 22–3, 57, 63, 129–31, 135

21 Ibid., II, 124

22 The central passages in Locke's justification are at ibid., II, 87–91, 95–9, 123–31, but this paragraph also draws on I, 43, 67, 81, 92–3, 119–26; II, 2–3, 13–14, 21, 77, 94, 105–12, 117, 119–22, 134–5, 138, 143–8, 159, 171, 222. The critical point here is that the right of judgment in one's own case is given up since “Property is to be regulated by the Laws of the Society” (II, 120). I.e., individual rights are delineated and secured by society: ibid., II, 3, 6, 30, 32, 35–8, 45, 50, 87, 119–20, 129–32, 134, 158, 159, 163–4, 171, 205, 208; and see Kendall, Doctrine of Majority-Rule, 68–74, 103–5; Laslett, introduction, 103–4 ff.; Wolin, Politics and Vision, 310.

23 Treatises, II, 95. See ibid., II, 82, 95–9, 120, 127–8, 132, particularly II, 98, for the rationale rejecting unanimity, and II, 82, 96, which underscore that majority rule is a necessity, not a derivative of natural right.

24 Cf. Kendall, Doctrine of Majority-Rule, chs. 6–7; Sabine, History of Political Theory, 538; Wolin, Politics and Vision, 309. On the majority's judgment concerning the Fundamental Law of Government, see Treatises, II, 132, 134–5, 149–58, 212.

25 This is intended to be used in the exact sense used by Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago 1956), 132.Google Scholar

26 Treatises, II, 107, 110–12, 132, 134–42, 143, 147, 149–68, 171; Laslett, introduction, 106–7, 118–9

27 On the dissolution of society, see Treatises, II, 211, and ch. 16; even with the dissolution of government the majority still remains and thus the reasons for the original social compact and its bonds remain (ibid., II, 243). On breach of trust specifically see ibid., II, 221 et seq., and ch. 18; and on revolution, II, 149–53, 155–7, 161, 168, 176, 192, 196, 202–10, 211–43.

28 Ibid., II, 240

29 Cf. ibid., I, 43; II, 87, 89, 94fn, 98–9, 134. (See fn. 22, above.)

30 On his variation on the first question, see ibid., II, 20–1, 87, 89, 94, 97, 161–8, 171, 181, 209–10, 240–1.

31 Ibid., II, 227, 222; also, II, 138–9

32 Ibid., II, 168

33 Locke does assume that men will submit the dictates of their passions to reason and thus can make reciprocity calculations within the law of nature framework. See ibid., I, 58; II, 63, 124, 136, 143, 181, 230. This is not, however, the same thing as the assumption that individual men will be “other-regarding,” an assumption around which Laslett, introduction, 108–16, develops a “doctrine of natural political virtue” for Locke; that position is at odds with the text below.

34 Treatises, II, 98; also, II, 82, 96

35 Ibid., II, 208; also, II, 209. II, 210 and 225 go on to speak of the people recognizing “a long train of Abuses”: the point is that no man alone can, or will, if he is wise, attempt revolution or disobedience. Indeed, it begins to appear that no man would risk even dissent, faced with being perceived as “a raving mad Man, or heady Male-content”; rather, conformity is rationally in his self-interest.

36 Ibid., II, 205

37 Ibid., II, 230. Cf. also, ibid., II, 161, 176.

38 Ibid., II, 209

39 Cf. also ibid., II, 158, 209, 223–5, 230.

40 For an empirical rationale for this, see Berelson, Bernard, et al., “Democratic Practice and Democratic Theory,” Voting (Chicago 1954), 305–23Google Scholar; Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (Garden City, New York 1963), 64–79.Google Scholar Deference on the part of the people was fundamental to Locke's English society, as was the fact that a large proportion of the populace simply did not count in calculating “the people” of Locke's concern, for the social order clearly was patriarchal. See Laslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost (2d ed. New York 1971)Google Scholar, ch. 8, esp. 185–6 ff.

41 Schaar, John H., “Legitimacy in the Modern State,” Power and Community, ed. Green, Philip and Levinson, Sanford (New York 1970), 276–327Google Scholar, esp. 283–90, 291 ff., and Arendt, Hannah, Between Past and Future (Cleveland 1963)Google Scholar, ch., 3. Cf. Winch, “Man and Society,” 246–8. See, also, fn. 12, above.

42 Tussrhan, Body Politic, 46; also, 83–5. See, however, Pitkiri, “Obligation and Consent – II,” 51–2.

43 See Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago 1953), 206–12 ff, 220–3 ff.Google Scholar Cf. Treatises, I, 7.