August 29 – Happy Birthday, John Locke!

nPosted on August 29, 2019

Key points

Thinking about thinking…

nWondering about existence. Pondering what we know about life, the universe, and everything – and pondering what “to know” really means!

nPhilosophy can be a bit hard to define, and some people will listen carefully to any definition and then decide that this sort of meta-thinking is useless. Or maybe even nonsense.

But philosophy is actually quite important to humans, and John Locke was very important to philosophy!

nBorn in England on this date in 1632, Locke studied at university and became a doctor. He served as the personal physician of an important politician – Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. Because he was surrounded by political talk and, later, by talk of trade and economics, he ended up thinking and writing about these topics. Because his boss was a founder of the Whig movement, which was all about a king or other monarch having a limit on his or her powers, Locke ended up thinking about things like human rights, constitutions, and even democracy.

nYou see, in Locke’s youth many rulers could have someone punished without any sort of trial, for any reason, imprison someone, exile someone, or execute someone for any reason or even no reason! That is called absolute monarchy, because the king (or queen, or emperor, etc.) could do absolutely anything.

nAnd Locke was against it.

nLocke’s writings got him in trouble, and he fled to the Netherlands for five years. He returned to Britain after the Glorious Revolution made a big change in that nation: Parliament was more powerful than whoever was queen or king.

n(By the way, after the Glorious Revolution, the “whoever” that was queen was the former king’s daughter, Mary II, and the “whoever” that was king was her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Have you heard of “William and Mary”?)

There is a famous college named William
& Mary in Virginia; chartered in 1693, long
before the U.S. was an independent nation,
it claims to be the first university in the nation.

nLocke’s most important ideas include:

Religious tolerance – the idea that governments and societies should allow people to hold beliefs in any religion (or no religion), and should be able to practice their religion (as long as such practices don’t break laws)

Limitations on governmental powers – the idea that a written constitution (or something like) should spell out what the government can and cannot do

Separation of governmental powers – the idea that different parts of the government should exist so that no one person or group has unchecked power – that the different branches of government would provide checks and balances for one another

Revolution as an obligation – if people are oppressed, and if their rights are violated, they can and SHOULD rebel

Government serves the people – not the other way around – and people should be able to choose their representatives

Government must protect life, liberty, and property

People have natural rights that governments cannot morally take away and therefore should not infringe on – thus they are “inalienable” rights

nCan you see that many of Locke’s important ideas inspired the American Revolution, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and many other representative democracies?