Page 125 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 7: John Locke

individual decrees. All individuals would be governed by the same rules as everyone else otherwise Notes
it would violate the natural moral equality of individuals. He clarified that people could use force
only against unjust and unlawful authority. The right of disobedience could be exercised by the
majority, and not by one person or a small group.
Locke’s insistence that there was a higher law above the law of the state became a part of modern
democratic theory. It made authority transparent, accountable and subject to change for misdeeds
and abuse. He was also sanguine that people would use the right of resistance and revolution
wisely as their bitter medicine, and not as a daily bread. It was only when they realized that
revolution would result in a better social order, that they would resort to it and not for “every little
mismanagement in public affairs” or for trivial causes. Locke emphatically asserted that
governments based on consent, coupled with the right of people to rebel, were the “best fence
against rebellion”. People had the right to judge and assess authority, which was no longer sacred
or supernatural. Locke emerged as a thorough-going contractualist, unlike Hobbes whose premises
were contractual but whose conclusions supported political absolutism, even though both rejected
the divine right of kings and the divine origins of the state. Locke was confident that with
more free communication and greater transparency there would be less need for revolution. He
ruled out anarchy, and insisted on the need for a just civil authority for upholding a decent and
civilized life:
Unlike the Protestant resistance-theorists of the sixteenth century, Locke did not base
his revolutionary theory upon sanctions of conscience or religion; unlike the English
parliamentarians of the 1640s, he did not base it on precedents in English law; unlike
Algernon Sidney, he did not base it on a metaphysical and metapsychological natural
right to liberty; rather he advocated a restrained and considered revolution for the
restoration of proper balance in the body politic.
Locke defended religious toleration and pluralism. In the Letter, he assigned the civil magistrate
the duty to protect the “life, liberty and indolence of body” of the members of the commonwealth.
He held the civil magistrate responsible for regulating religious practice for the peace, safety and
security of his people. Though the magistrate was the ultimate judge of how to promote these
ends, his judgement could not be more trustworthy, in practice, than that of any other believer.
The idea was that truth could look after itself. The magistrate would ensure that other than the
necessity of the state and the welfare of the people, no law was made nor were any restraints
established. Any attempt to interfere with religious beliefs would be unjust, for each person was
responsible for his own salvation. Locke was categorical that no one could give to another person
a power that he did not have. He also ruled out religious persecution on the grounds that it could
not touch the innermost thoughts, and there was no practical merit in persecuting someone who
would confess under stress.
Locke excluded atheists and those religious groups that debarred others from professing and
practising their beliefs from the privileges of toleration. Here he was taking a leaf from his
experiences in France, where the Huguenots were severely persecuted between 1679 and 1685.
The civil magistrate could legally interfere when religious assemblies endangered civil peace, but
ruled out interference with a view to questioning their beliefs. Though Locke did not directly
justify resistance on grounds of religion, he made it clear that oppression of any kind was intolerable
and a sufficient reason for sedition.
Locke defended Christian revelation on the grounds of uncertainties of human perceptions and
knowledge. Therefore, any kind of faith, even drawn from scriptural revelation and complemented
by human reason, was justified. He repeatedly stressed that each individual was fully responsible
for his beliefs and would have to answer God on the day of Judgement. He emphasized that civil
magistrates had to be concerned with peace and preservation of society.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 119