About a year ago, at Oxford in United Kingdom, the guide of our walking tour was showing us various colleges of those prestigious academic environs.
He showed us a building where he said philosophy students might have debated and discussed radical ideas, for centuries.
Among the philosophers he mentioned was one special name. John Locke.
A few months ago, when I was listening to Michael Sandel's video lectures on ‘Justice’ - available freely on YouTube, from Harvard University - I met the name again. John Locke.
Born some 400 years ago, John Locke the English philosopher and physician had influenced politics and justice systems in ways more powerful than, probably, how many other front-runners of western philosophy have done.
It was on this day, 29 August, in 1632, that he was born in Somerset, England. And it is unlikely that anyone may have thought then, that John Locke would grow up to become one of the most influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment (1620s – 1780s).
In fact, he went on to be called the "Father of Liberalism".
Some political philosophers even say that his writings had generated such agitation in political discourse that they are the main reason the French and American Revolutions actually happened!
His philosophy had influenced French thinkers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his momentous work called ‘Two Treatises of Government’, in particular, had given monarchs, government leaders and politicians radical new perspectives on ‘governance’ that they were unable to ignore.
This British scholar was among those who argued that all of us have a ‘natural right to life, liberty and property’; and that governments, based on ‘social contract’, must not violate these rights.
Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, was so captured by the teachings of John Locke that he had incorporated them into the US Declaration of Independence of 1776.
When Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration, borrowing from Locke, he gave three examples of "unalienable rights" which all his country’s citizens must be entitled to, namely "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The related text in the US Declaration of Independence says: “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 them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed”.
The choice or the consent of its citizens is therefore paramount when it comes to the conduct of elected governments.
While it may have the right to control what its citizens do, the government must note however that it can do so, only to the extent that it does not violate the natural rights of individuals.
Locke had believed that no government should ever take away any individuals’ fundamental rights.
For example, since the fruit of a man’s labour is effectively his property, how much of it can be taken away as ‘tax’? Is it with his consent? Moreover, is the man able to enjoy the results of what he has gained without undue government intervention?
Conservative governments may not hold the same view as liberal governments. But it is essential for us to understand that Locke made us think of governance by social contract that benefits nation, society and the individual.
Is there a threat to the life of an individual? Is the liberty of the individual restricted? Is the individual unable to fully enjoy his own property?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then the government is failing in following moral principles. At least those laid down by Locke.
