Today

1
Today

• Overview of Lockes view of government
• When is a government dissolved?
• When may the people create a new government?
• Who shall judge when a new government will be
  created?
• Big Objection to Lockes view of the
  dissolution of government
• Lockes answer to the Big Objection

2

• Hobbes argued that there should be one sovereign
  with absolute power and that the people should
  have no right of resistance.

3

• Hobbesian government
• Undivided
• Unlimited
• Unconditional

4

• Lockean Government
• Divided
• Limited
• Conditional

5
Overview of Lockes view of government

• Government is divided (into three branches)
• Legislative
• Executive
• Federative

6
Overview of Lockes view of government

• Government is limited (not absolute)
• Absolute power is a violation of the social
  contract and contradicts the reason people had
  for entering society in the first place.

7
Overview of Lockes view of government

• Government is conditional (i.e., legitimate only
  if it fulfills certain conditions)
• If government fails to perform its essential
  functions, the people may resist and thus
  dissolve it.
• Explaining this point is tantamount to explaining
  when and why revolution is justified.

8
When is a government dissolved?

• Dissolution of government is not the same thing
  as dissolution of society (sections 211-212).
• If society dissolves, government will dissolve
  too, but government can dissolve without society
  dissolving.
• The people of a society can retract their consent
  from one government, and give it to another.

9
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when those making the
  laws have not been appointed by the people or
  rule without the consent of the people (section
  212).

10
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when a single person, or
  prince, sets up his own arbitrary will in place
  of the laws (section 214).

11
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when the the legislative
  is prevented from assembling in its due time, or
  from acting freely (section 215).

12
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when the electors or the
  ways of election are alteredwithout the consent
  and contrary to the common interest of the people
  (section 216).

13
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when the people have been
  delivered into the subjection of a foreign power
  (section 217).

14
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when the laws are no
  longer being fairly and impartially executed
  (section 219).

15
When is a government dissolved?

• Government is dissolved when the legislative
  fails to adequately protect the life, liberty and
  estate of the people, or endeavors to invade the
  property of the people, or to take and away and
  destroy the property of the people (section 222).

16

• Whenever any of the things just described has
  occurred, the government is dissolved, the laws
  have no authority, and the people are free to
  create a new legislative.
• If the government violates its trust with the
  people, the people are no longer obligated to
  obey but may legitimately resist.

17

• There is a contract between the government and
  the people.
• If the government does not keep to its end of the
  contract, the people are not obligated to keep to
  theirs.
• Contrast with Hobbes
• the social contract is between each member of the
  commonwealth, who all agree with each other
  always to obey the sovereign
• the sovereign itself does not take part in the
  contract, and so cannot be said to violate it.

18
When may the people create a new government?

• The people are free to create a new government
  before things get so bad that they are enslaved
  (section 220).

19
When may the people create a new government?

• To tell people they may erect a new
  legislative when by oppression, artifice, or
  being delivered over to a foreign power, their
  old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may
  expect relief when it is too late, and the evil
  is past cure. This is in effect no more than to
  bid them first be slaves, and then to take care
  of their liberty and when their chains are on,
  tell them, they may act like freemen. This is
  rather mockery than relief and men can never be
  secure from tyranny, if there be no means to
  escape it till they are perfectly under it and
  therefore it is, that they have no only a right
  to get out of it, but to prevent it.

20
Who shall judge when to overthrow government?

• The people shall be judge (section 240).

21
Big Objection to Locke

• YouLockesay that the people have the right to
  decide for themselves when they should obey
  government, and when they should resist. But
  this will lead to the people disobeying all the
  time, and society will fall to rack and ruin.

22
Big Objection to Locke

• In Lockes own words
• To lay the foundation of government in the
  unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the
  people is to expose it to certain ruin and no
  government will be able long to subsist if the
  people may set up a new legislative whenever they
  take offence at the old one (section 223).

23
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• The inertia of the status quo will keep the
  people from changing the legislative very often.

24

• People are not so easily got out of their old
  forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are
  hardly to be prevailed with to amend the
  acknowledged faults in the frame they have been
  accustomed to. And if there be any original
  defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time,
  or corruption, it is not an easy thing to get
  them changed, even when all the world sees there
  is an opportunity for it. There is a slowness
  and aversion in the people to quit their old
  constitutions (section 223).

25
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Revolutions are legitimate not because of
  isolated cases of injustice, but only when the
  government has shown itself to be systemically
  corrupt (sections 225, 230).

26

• Revolutions happen not upon every little
  mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes
  in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient
  laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be
  born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But
  if a long train of abuses, prevarications and
  artifices, all tending the same way, make the
  design visible to the people, and they cannot but
  feel what they lie under, and see whither they
  are going, it is not to be wondered that they
  should rouse themselves and endeavor to put the
  rules into such hands which may secure to them
  the ends for which government was at first
  erected.

27

• Till the mischief be grown general, and the ill
  designs of the rulers be visible, or their
  attempts sensible to the greater part, the
  people, who are more disposed to suffer than
  right themselves by resistance, are not apt to
  stir. The examples of particular injustice, or
  oppression of here and there an unfortunate man,
  moves them not. But if they universally have a
  persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence, that
  designs are carrying on against their liberties,
  and the general course and tendency of things
  cannot but give them strong suspicions of the
  evil intentions of their governors, who is to be
  blamed for it?

28
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Sometimes resistance to unjust power is
  legitimate we should not value peace at any cost.

29
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• To say that resistance is not ever to be allowed
  because it is destructive to the peace of the
  world is as much as to say that honest men may
  not oppose robbers or pirates because this may
  occasion disorder and bloodshed (section 228).

30

• Those who usurp the power of the people are the
  true rebels they are the ones who are truly
  guilty of rebellion any mischief that comes from
  the resulting conflict is their fault, not the
  peoples (sections 226-237).
• Re-bellion to expose the people anew to the
  state of war.

31
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Some object that inferiors are not allowed to
  punish a superior. But if a person is exercising
  force without right, he is no longer a superior.
• An inferior cannot punish a superior, that is
  true, generally speaking, whilst he is his
  superior. But he may resist force with force,
  as the state of war that levels the parties,
  cancels all former relation of reverence, respect
  and superiority (section 235).

32
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Some object that inferiors are not allowed to
  punish a superior. But if a person is exercising
  force without right, he is no longer a superior.
• Whoever uses force without right puts himself
  into a state of war with those against whom he so
  uses it and in that state all former ties are
  cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one
  has a right to defend himself, and to resist the
  aggressor.

33
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Everyone agrees that we are allowed to resist
  aggression by foreigners, on grounds of
  self-defense.
• But resisting arbitrary rule is just as necessary
  for self-defense (section 231).

34
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Whoever uses force without right puts himself
  into a state of war with the people, and so the
  people may legitimately resist (section 232).

35
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• The crucial point there is a contract between
  government and the people, not simply a contract
  between the people to obey the sovereign.

36
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Locke seems to be saying that regicide in
  sometimes warranted.

37
Lockes answer to the Big Objection

• Locke seems to think that obedience to government
  is an all-or-nothing affair.
• He doesnt seem to recognize the idea of civil
  disobedience.

38

• Locke and the Declaration of Independence

39

• When, in the course of human events, it becomes
  necessary for one people to dissolve the
  political bonds which have connected them with
  another, and to assume among the powers of the
  earth, the separate and equal station to which
  the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle
  them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
  requires that they should declare the causes
  which impel them to the separation.
• General Social Contract View
• Lockes Law of Nature God-given liberty and
  equality
• Lockes account of the dissolution of government

40

• We hold these 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.
• Lockes Law of Nature God-given liberty and
  equality
• Lockes right to life, liberty, and estate.

41

• That to secure these rights, governments are
  instituted among men, deriving their just powers
  from the consent of the governed.
• Lockes account of the original contract.
• Lockes claim that governmental authority must be
  based on consent.

42

• That whenever any form of government becomes
  destructive to these ends, it is the right of the
  people to alter or to abolish it, and to
  institute new government, laying its foundation
  on such principles and organizing its powers in
  such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
  effect their safety and happiness.
• Lockes right of resistance.

43

• Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments
  long established should not be changed for light
  and transient causes and accordingly all
  experience hath shown that mankind are more
  disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
  than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
  to which they are accustomed.
• Lockes claim that revolution will not and should
  not occur because of isolated cases of
  mismanagement or injustice.

44

• But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
  pursuing invariably the same object evinces a
  design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
  it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
  such government, and to provide new guards for
  their future security.
• Lockes claim that revolution is justified when
  there is systemic corruption that constitutes
  evidence of a settled design on the peoples life
  and liberties.

45

• Such has been the patient sufferance of these
  colonies and such is now the necessity which
  constrains them to alter their former systems of
  government. The history of the present King of
  Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries
  and usurpations, all having in direct object the
  establishment of an absolute tyranny over these
  states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to
  a candid world.
• The goal of showing that the King is guilty not
  merely of isolated cases of mismanagement or
  injustice but of systemic corruption.

46

• He has refused his assent to laws, the most
  wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• Lockes claim that the laws must be for the
  public good.

47

• He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of
  immediate and pressing importance, unless
  suspended in their operation till his assent
  should be obtained and when so suspended, he has
  utterly neglected to attend to them.
• Lockes claim that the legislative is the supreme
  power in political society, and that society is
  dissolved if that power is usurped.

48

• He has refused to pass other laws for the
  accommodation of large districts of people,
  unless those people would relinquish the right of
  representation in the legislature, a right
  inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
  only. He has dissolved representative houses
  repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his
  invasions on the rights of the people. He has
  refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
  to cause others to be elected whereby the
  legislative powers, incapable of annihilation,
  have returned to the people at large for their
  exercise the state remaining in the meantime
  exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
  without, and convulsions within.

49

• He has refused to pass other laws for the
  accommodation of large districts of people,
  unless those people would relinquish the right of
  representation in the legislature, a right
  inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants
  only. He has dissolved representative houses
  repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his
  invasions on the rights of the people. He has
  refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
  to cause others to be elected whereby the
  legislative powers, incapable of annihilation,
  have returned to the people at large for their
  exercise the state remaining in the meantime
  exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
  without, and convulsions within.
• Lockes claim that the legislative ultimately
  gains its power from majority rule.
• Lockes claim that the those making the laws must
  be appointed by the people.
• Lockes claim that the prince must not hinder the
  legislative from meeting.
• Lockes claim that the prince must not
  arbitrarily alter the elective process.

50

• He has called together legislative bodies at
  places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
  the depository of their public records, for the
  sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance
  with his measures.
• Lockes claim that a government is dissolved if
  the legislative is prevented from meeting.

51

• He has obstructed the administration of justice,
  by refusing his assent to laws for establishing
  judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on
  his will alone, for the tenure of their offices,
  and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• Lockes claim that a government is dissolved if
  the executive interferes with the other powers of
  government.
• Lockes claim that a government is dissolved if
  the laws arent fairly executed.

52

• He has erected a multitude of new offices, and
  sent hither swarms of officers to harass our
  people, and eat out their substance.
• A pretty cool sentence.

53

• He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing
  armies without the consent of our legislature.
• Lockes claim that government is dissolved when
  it violates the peoples property.

54

• He has imposed taxes on us without our consent.
• Lockes claim that government is dissolved when
  it takes property without consent.

55

• He has deprived us in many cases, of the benefits
  of trial by jury.
• Lockes claim that government is dissolved when
  there are no impartial judges and settled,
  standing laws.

56

• In every stage of these oppressions we have
  petitioned for redress in the most humble terms
  our repeated petitions have been answered only by
  repeated injury. A prince, whose character is
  thus marked by every act which may define a
  tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
  people.
• Lockes account of tyranny and the justifiability
  of resistance to it.

57

• We, therefore, the representatives of the United
  States of America, in General Congress,
  assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
  world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in
  the name, and by the authority of the good people
  of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
  that these united colonies are, and of right
  ought to be free and independent states that
  they are absolved from all allegiance to the
  British Crown, and that all political connection
  between them and the state of Great Britain, is
  and ought to be totally dissolved and that as
  free and independent states, they have full power
  to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
  establish commerce, and to do all other acts and
  things which independent states may of right do.
  And for the support of this declaration, with a
  firm reliance on the protection of Divine
  Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
  lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

58

• Locke seems to believe you have one of two
  options obey the government, or withdraw your
  consent and revolt.
• Is there any other option?
• What if you are profoundly opposed to certain
  aspects of government, but you do not think the
  entire system is corrupt through and through?
• Is civil disobedience (selective disobedience of
  certain laws, while remaining obedient to the
  rest of the laws) a viable alternative?