Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Degrees and Types of Knowledge

Locke distinguished four types of agreement or disagreement that may be perceived in human knowledge: Knowledge of identity and diversity rests solely upon our recognition of the distinctness of each idea from every other; knowledge of relation employs positive, non-identical connections among ideas; knowledge of co-existence perceives the coincident appearance of a collection of qualities; and knowledge of real existence presumes some connection between an idea and the real thing it represents. [Essay IV i 1] He further supposed that these types of knowledge can occur in any of three degrees:

Intuitive knowledge is the irresistable and indubitable perception of the agreement of any two ideas without the mediation of any other. This is the clearest and most perfectly certain of all degrees of human knowledge. It accounts for our assent to self-evident truths and serves as the foundation up-on which all other genuine knowledge must be established. [Essay IV ii 1] Intuition is most common in our knowledge of identity and relation among clear ideas, but (following Descartes) Locke also supposed that each thinking being has an intuitive knowledge of its own existence. [Essay IV ix 3]

Even when the agreement of ideas is not intuitively obvious, it may be possible to discover a series of intermediate ideas by means reason establishes a connection between them. The resulting demonstrative knowledge of the agreement of the original ideas shares in the certainty of the intuitive steps by means of which it has been proven, yet there is some loss of assurance resulting from the length of the chain itself. [Essay IV ii 2-7]

The success of the entire process depends upon our having clear ideas at each step of the process of demonstration and upon our ability to perceive the agreements between them, and both of these conditions are specific to the nature of human intellectual abilities. [Essay IV iii 4, 26-28]

The most common area of demonstrative human knowledge is mathematics, where our possession of distinct ideas of particular quantities yields the requisite clarity, disciplined reasoning helps to uncover the intermediate links that establish knowledge of identity and relation, and a perspicuous system of symbolic representation helps us to preserve the results we have obtained. [Essay IV ii 9-10]

But Locke supposed that we may be capable of demonstrative knowledge of moral relations as well, provided that we take care in the formation of abstract ideas of the mixed modes of human action. Our only demonstrative knowledge of real existence, he supposed, is that we can have with respect to God. [Essay IV x]

Although only intuition and demonstration offer certain knowledge of general truths, Locke supposed that sensitive knowledge provides some evidence of the existence of particular objects outside ourselves. Although it is not always true that there must exist an external object corresponding to each of our ideas of sensation, Locke argued that veracious cases are different enough from illusory cases to warrant an inference to the real existence of their objects, especially when the accompanying perception of pleasure or pain serves as a reliable guide to the practical conduct of human life. [Essay IV ii 14]

Locke had serious reservations about the reliability of our sensitive knowledge of the natural world, and we'll return later to the chapter of the Essay he devoted entirely to an analysis of its difficulties. [Essay IV xi] ©1999-2002 Garth Kemerling.Last modified 27 October 2001.Questions, comments, and suggestions may be sent to:

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The Limits of Knowledge

One of the most basic themes of Locke's epistemology is that since we cannot know everything, we would be well-advised to observe and respect the extent and limitations of human knowledge. Given the basic definition of knowledge as perception of the agreement of our ideas, it follows that we fall short of knowing whenever we lack ideas or fail to perceive their agreement.

Thus, intuition extendes only to the identiy and diversity of ideas we already have; demonstration extends only to ideas between which we are able to discover intermediaries; and sensitive knowledge informs us only of the present existence of causes for our sensory ideas. [Essay IV iii 3-5] Awareness of our limitations, Locke proposed, should forestall haste, laziness, and despair in our natural search for the truth about the most vital issues into which human knowers can fruitfully inquire. [Conduct 39-43]

Severe Restrictions

Applying the human faculty of reason to the pursuit of knowledge, properly defined, reveals the limitiations within which we must work: We cannot achieve knowledge of things-such as infinity or substantial real essences-for which we lack clear, positive ideas. Indeed, having ideas will not be enough to secure knowledge if-as in the case of human actions-they are obscure, confused, or imperfect. Given faulty memories, we may also fail to achieve knowledge because we are incapable of tracing long chains of reasoning through which two ideas might be demonstrably linked.

In a more practical vein, rational knowledge cannot be established upon false principles-such as those borrowed from conventional wisdom. Finally-in the effort to achieve philosophical or scientific certainty-our efforts to employ reason are commonly undermined by the misuse or abuse of language. [Essay IV xvii 9-13]

Most particularly, on Locke's view, it is difficult to secure the reality of human knowledge in any evidence of its conformity with the nature of things themselves. We readily assume that passively-received simple ideas must be providentially connected with their objects, and since complex abstract ideas are of our own manufacture,

it is our own responsibility to ensure their reality by a consistent use of the names by which we signify their archetypes. But complex ideas of natural substances are intended to represent the way existing things are independently of our perception of them, and of this the content of our ideas never provides adequate evidence. [Essay IV iv] These difficulties trouble all four types of knowledge.

Since knowledge of identity and diversity involves only a recognition that particular ideas are distinct, it is immediately evident whenever we have clear and distinct ideas; such knowledge must be among the earliest that any of us ever achieve. [Essay IV vii 9-11] Even otherwise ignorant beings might well be capable of perceiving the disagreement of ideas at this level, Locke pointed out, so knowledge of "identical Propositions" of this sort is generally uninformative (or "trifling")

rather than any genuinely instructive contribution to morality or science. [Essay IV viii 2-3] The general principle of identity merits no special status among our cognitive states, Locke held, since its particular instances are all either equally obvious or (because of the obscurity of our ideas) irredemable without it. [Essay IV xvii 14-19]

Knowledge of relation requires only that we are aware of non-identical connections among ideas, so (as we'll see in greater detail later) Locke supposed it possible wherever we have clear ideas, especially among the simple modes of number in mathematics and the mixed modes of human action in morality. [Essay IV vii 6] But since general knowledge of relations can never be derived from experimental observation-upon which we depend entirely for our knowledge of material things-it follows that we can never have certain knowledge of relations among substances. [Essay IV vi 10, 16]

What careful observation does provide is knowledge of the co-existence of a collection of qualities in a common subject. But because we are ignorant of the real essences from which observable qualities presumably flow, our knowledge of co-existence is never demonstrable, except in the trifling cases where we have already included the ideas of the qualities in our nominal essence for substances of this sort.

On Locke's view, then, natural science founded firmly upon solid understanding of the inner constitution and operation of material things remains impossible. [Essay IV vi 6-10] Even knowledge of real existence requires some awareness of the connection between the thing and the idea that represents it, and Locke supposed that we lack this in every case except that of self and God. [Essay IV vii 7] The extent of our perfect knowledge of the world and its operations is meager indeed.

Assent and Judgment But perhaps we don't need perfect knowledge very often. Although Locke emphasized the strict limits within which we can attain certain knowledge, he also believed that we invariably possess the cognitive capacities that will provide for the conduct of our everyday lives.

The Understanding Faculties being given to Man, not barely for Speculation, but also for the Conduct of his Life, Man would be at a great loss, if he had nothing to direct him, but what has the Certainty of true Knowledge. For that being very short and scanty, as we have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of the Actions of his Life, perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide him in the absence of clear and certain Knowledge. [Essay IV xiv 1] Although we'd soon starve if we waited for demonstrative certainty about the nutritional value of food,

none of us forget to eat, since human life in what Locke called the "twilight … of Probability" is providentially supplied with alternative methods and motives for practical action. Rational proof is impossible for experimental natural science and uncommon in other matters regarding which we are too lazy to work through the demonstrations on our own,

Locke supposed, but in these cases we don't really have to have genuine knowledge. It is often enough to exercise the faculty of judgment, which accepts a presumptive agreement between ideas without demanding the certainty of a clear perception. [Essay IV xiv 3-4]

Functioning properly, this faculty persuades us to assent to propositions about whose truth we remain ultimately uncertain, whether our ignorance is the product of incomplete thinking or the secret nature of the thing itself. [Essay IV xvii 22] Although mathematicians can demonstrate that the interior angles of every plane triangle sum up to 180 degrees, for example, most of us rely upon their professional testimony rather than following the train of reasoning for ourselves.

Similar degrees of reliance upon less-than-demonstrative certainty Locke believed to support most of the propositions to which we commonly grant our assent. [Essay IV xv 1-2] When we lack demonstrative certainty, the role of judgment is to guide our actions in all of those cases regarding which the best we can do (or the best we are willing to do) is to observe that a pair of ideas often do seem to be related to each other in some way. [Essay IV xvii 16]

The probable knowledge gained by judgment differs from the demonstrative knowledge derived by reason in the nature of its evidence: while demonstration achieves perfect certainty by grounding itself on the clear, immutable connection of two ideas, probable knowledge merely guides our judgment with some degree of likelihood or the appearance of some connection.

Thus, while demonstration yields true knowledge, judgment can provide only some degree of confidence in our opinion, assent, or belief. [Essay IV xv 1-3] The great sources of evidence for our confident assurance of the likelihood of propositions to which we assent by judgment are our own experience and the testimony of others about what they have experienced.

Noting that we commonly evaluate the reliability of testimony by reference to our own experiences anyway, Locke proposed that we can and should depend more often upon things we have personally observed with some regularity than upon what could turn out to be nothing more than the prejudices or false opinions of other people. [Essay IV xv 4-6]

Probable Knowledge

Although the degree to which we assent to a probable proposition ought to depend upon the strength of the evidence in its favor, Locke granted that we often regulate our judgment merely be reference to our faulty memories of past experience.

It is both natural and (in a practical snese) necessary to rely upon the retention of past experience rather that developing our beliefs anew in every moment, it is a dangerous practice, because the propositions we acquire through exercise of the faculty of judgment are bound to remain genuinely uncertain.

Since the supposed relation between the ideas is founded only upon our present estimation of the available evidence, it is always possible in principle that the discovery of additional information in the future may lead us to overthrow or abandon a past judgment, as can never happen with truly demonstrative knowledge.

The difficulty of applying judgment successfully, Locke suggested, should encourage us to be patient and tolerant of those who disagree with us on matters about which neither side can claim anything more sure than probable opinion. [Essay IV xvi 1-4]

The highest possible degree of probable knowledge will occur in cases where the general consent of all human beings happens to coincide with my own invariable experience of some particular matter of fact. This, Locke supposed, will produce a level of assurance virtually indistinguishible from that of demonstrative certainty, and this explains our willingness to act without hesitation upon our conviction that such beliefs truly capture the nature of reality, even though we remain ignorant of the inner constitution of things themselves.

In cases that exhibit a less striking regularity in my own experience and that of others, the degree of my confidence in the probable proposition will be suitable reduced, Locke held, and even in the absence of any direct observation regularity, I am likely to accept the unanimous testimony of impartial witnesses with respect to any specific matter of fact. [Essay IV xvi 6-8]

When experience and testimony do not so clearly agree, Locke supposed, other methods may serve to guide the dictates of judgment. In legal and quasi-legal contexts, we develop a great deal of skill in evaluating the relative merits of conflicting testimony from distinct sources. In the natural sciences, we commonly employ analogical models in an effort to comprehend the real essences of which we are constitutionally ignorant. [Essay IV xvi 10-12]

In addition to all of these legitimate grounds for guidance, the faculty of judgment commonly falls victim to unworthy and unsupported claims to its assent. Someone may demand that I assent to the truth of a proposition only because it is defended by some putative authority, in the absence of any proof of its falsity, or solely because it agrees with other opinions I already hold.

But since all of these matters are formally irrelevant to the truth of the proposition in question, Locke supposed, they should have no bearing on my assent. The only legitimate grounds for agreeing with someone are demonstrative knowledge and probable judgment, both of which ultimately rest only upon "the nature of Things themselves." [Essay IV xvii 19-22]

©1999-2002 Garth Kemerling.Last modified 27 October 2001.Questions, comments, and suggestions may be sent to:

God

Like many of his English contemporaries, Locke was deeply interested in matters of faith and religion. Keenly aware of the theological controversies of the day, he developed and defended views of his own that proved influential on the Deists of the next generation. Although knowledge of God is vital for human life and practical conduct, on Locke's view, it cannot be grounded legitimately on the supposedly universal possession of an innate idea. [Essay I iv 8-9]

Although he claimed to demonstrate the existence of God as the only reasonable explanation for the emergence of thought in an otherwise material world, Locke warned against an excessive reliance upon non-rational considerations in the defense of particular religious doctrines.

Thinking Substances

We form our complex ideas of spirits, Locke held, by adding the notions of a variety of cognitive powers (themselves acquired, as ideas of reflection, from careful observation of our own mental operations) to the abstract idea of substance in general. Since this is perfectly analogous to the way we form complex ideas of bodies from our ideas of sensation, the results are perfectly comparable: although we are familiar with both bodies and spirits in our ordinary experience, the real essences of thinking and moving substances alike remain forever unknowable. [Essay II xxiii 22-25]

It is easy enough to employ an empiricist version of Descarte's cogito ergo sum as a demonstration of my own existence, of course. Thinking of any sort, feeling pleasure and pain, even the act of doubting itself, are all experiences that carry with them a full assurance of my own existence as a thinking thing. [Essay IV ix 3] Notice, however, that Locke declined the further implications of the Cartesian inference to sum res cogitans.

Thinking, he argued, is merely an activity of the soul, not its essence; so the continued existence of an individual thinking thing does not necessarily entail its continuous consciousness. [Essay II i 10-16] Locke frequently expressed significant reservations about the demonstrability-if not the very truth-of Cartesian dualism.

Given our widespread ignorance of the inner constitution and operation of substances generally, Locke notoriously suggested that, for all we know, the power of thinking could be providentially superadded to an organic human body as easily as separate thinking and material substances could be combined. [Essay IV iii 6] But the ultimate origin of thinking itself is another matter.

The Existence of God

According to Locke, the existence of God is an instance of demonstrable knowledge in any reasoning being. Since I know intuitively that I exist as a thinking thing, and since nothing can be made to exist except by something else which both exists and has powers at least equal to those of each of its creations, it follows that from all eternity there must have existed an all-powerful cogitative being. [Essay IV x 3-6]

This amounts to a variation on the Aristotelean / Thomistic cosmological argument for God's existence: there is an instance of thinking; every thinking thing proceeds from some other thinking thing; but there cannot be an infinite regress; so there must have been a first thinking thing, or God.

What most interested Locke in this argument was its emphasis on thinking. Willing though he was to contemplate the possibility that individual human beings are animal bodies that have the power to think, Locke insisted that mere matter-with its primary qualities of solidity, mass, and motion-could never on its own give rise to cogitative activity of any kind. Although it may not strictly be inert, matter is most definitely unthinking. [Essay IV x 9-10]

Materialism can never account for the emergence of thought in a universe containing only senseless matter. Thus, from the fact that there is now thinking in the universe, it follows that there always has been thinking in the universe; the first eternal being from which all else flows must itself be a thinking thing.

What is more, Locke argued, it is likely (though not, technically, demonstrably certain) that this first eternal being is actually immaterial. Whether the original being were a single atom, or an eternal system of many parts, or whether every material thing thinks, Locke thought the possibility of a material thinking being at the start difficult to defend.

On his view, we don't even have respectable grounds for supposing that a separate material reality is co-eternal with the necessarily cogitative first being. [Essay IV x 13-18] Locke's insistence on this point fits nicely with his frequent assertions that atheism amounts to nothing more than the supposition that matter is itself eternal, an objection to the views defended by Hobbes.

So God exists, but what is God? Here, as always, Locke depended upon the formation of ideas on empirical foundations. Although we have no direct experience of God, we do have ideas of reflection from experience of our own mental activity, and we have an idea of infinity as a simple mode derived from the idea of number, indefinitely expanded: put these together,

and each of us develops an abstract complex idea of God as a being that possesses all cognitive abilities to an infinite degree. [Essay II xxiii 33-35] In principle, this idea differs from any of our other ideas of thinking things only in the infinity of the divine attributes. God is abolutely perfect in every conceivable respect, and this is ample provision for a deduction of the moral law.

Faith and Reason

Locke was also interested in traditional issues about the relation between faith (assent to revealed truth) and reason (discovery of demonstrative truth) as alternative sources of human conviction. For propositions about which the certainty of demonstrative knowledge is unavailable, our assent may be grounded upon faith in revelation; but Locke argued that the degree of our confidence in the truth of such a proposition can never exceed our assurance that the revelation is of genuinely divine origin, and this itself is subject to careful rational evaluation. [Essay IV xvi 14]

Since God has provided both avenues of belief for the benefit of human achievement, Locke supposed, they can never conflict with each other if properly used. Faith is appropriate, but only with respect to vital issues that lie beyond the reach of reason; to allow any further extent to non-rational religious convictions would leave us at the mercy of foolish and harmful speculations.

In any case where revelation (understood as an extraordinary communication from God) and ordinary human reason coincide in support of the same truth, Locke argued, it is reason that provides the superior ground, since our assurance of the reliability of the revelation itself can never exceed the perfection of demonstrative certainty. [Essay IV xviii 4-11]

Divorcing the (properly complementary) resources of revelation and reason, Locke supposed, is dangerous because it tends to encourage the promulgation of reckless claims of the revealed origin of otherwise incredible propositions. "Enthusiasm," as Locke and many of his contemporaries feared, rests solely upon the emotional strength of persuasion as grounds for assent, and this is formally independent of the objective likelihood of its purportedly divine origin. [Essay IV xix 4-9]

In a sense, then, reason emerges from Locke's discussion as the ultimate arbiter of all legitimate human assent: either it discovers the demonstrative connections through which the truth of an individual proposition can be established with certainty, or it plays the most crucial role in certifying the legitimacy of a revealed proposition as divine rather than merely delusive. [Essay IV xix 12-16] Even though faith can play a role in human life, reason remains the most important basis for genuine human knowledge.

Morality

From the early essays on the obligatory force of natural law to the careful revisions of later editions of the Essay, Locke continually displayed an intense interest in problems of moral philosophy. The proper aim of human knowledge, he supposed, lies not in the satisfaction of attaining abstract speculative truth, but rather in its application to practical conduct, upon which our happiness in this world and the next ultimately depends.

[King, p. 86-88] Ethical knowledge is a variety of what he called Praktikh, The Skill of Right applying our own Powers and Actions, for the Attainment of Things good and useful. The most considerable under this Head, is Ethicks, which is the seeking out those Rules, and Measures of humane Actions, which lead to Happiness, and the Means to practise them.

The end of this is not bare Speculation, and the Knowledge of Truth; but Right, and a Conduct suitable to it. [Essay IV xxi 3] Since our cognitive faculties are best suited for pursuing that knowledge of ourselves and God that is most likely to lead us toward the dutiful conduct by means of which we may secure eternal happiness, Locke argued, morality is the most vital aspect of study for all human agents. [Essay II xii 11] In what ways do human faculties establish the foundations of moral knowledge?

Grounds for Moral Reasoning

Given their great importance for human life, practical principles would be among the best candidates for special status as innately provided by a benevolent creator; but, of course, Locke held that there is no innate human knowledge. Lists of purportedly innate practical principles-like the ones noted by Lord Herbert-are in fact neither universally accepted nor reliably productive of correct conduct.

The open, remorseless disavowal of moral principles in various cultures, along with the open question for their justification, is ample evidence that they are not truly innate. [Essay I iii 11-19] Only the desires to achieve happiness and to avoid misery are both genuinely universal among human agents and practically effective in guiding their conduct, Locke argued, so it is only the natural tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain that might reasonably be held to be innate.

To the extent that appropriate patterns of human conduct are found to be in widespread conformity with morality, he supposed, it is only in virtue of a providential association of moral rectitude with more short-sighted perception of personal and public welfare. [Essay I iii 3-6] Apart from these general inclinations, he believed, nothing about human morality is universally acknowledged.

Nevertheless, Locke was no moral relativist. Human moral discourse is subject to the kind of perfect precision that should yield the possibility of demonstrable truth. In principle, moral terms-which describe the varieties of human action and delimit the degrees of their rectitude in relation to moral law-are all perfectly definable, since each signifies a mixed mode whose determinate content is secured by its manufacture in the mind. [Essay III xi 15-17]

Although intellectual laziness, malicious arrogance, and culpable self-interest often render moral discourse problematic, Locke believed that careful, dispassionate attention to the complex ideas involved should produce demonstrable moral reasoning.

The mixed modes of human action are complex ideas derived from recombination of the simple ideas of thinking, moving, and power, so all the vocabulary of "Divinity, Ethicks, Law, and Politics" can be derived ultimately from our simple ideas of sensation and reflection. [Essay II xxii 10, 12] But notice that these ideas, and the words that signify them, can be fully formed in the mind independently of their actual instantiation.

We can know what sacrilege and resurrection would be without experiencing their occurrence; we choose to define single words for "murder" and "stabbing" but not for other ideas equally familiar in experience; but we form abstract ideas of those human actions to which we most commonly refer, whether or not they frequently occur. [Essay III v 5-7]

Thus, on Locke's view, such moral ideas as those of obligation, drunkenness, or lying, are formed by combining simple ideas from the mental and physical aspects of human nature without ever supposing that anything conforming to the new composite has ever existed. [Essay II xxii 1] This detachment from questions of real existence, Locke believed, is crucial for establishing the demonstrable status of human morality.

Demonstrable Rules

The moral rectitude of actions of a particular sort, Locke held, is wholly constituted by the demonstrable relation between our clear ideas of such actions and the equally clear conception of the moral law. Indeed, this relation is often so obvious-as, for example, in the cases of "murder" and "theft"-that the moral condemnation comes easily to be included as a part of our complex idea of the action itself. [Essay II xxviii 14-16]

Because both my contemplated action and the moral rule can be abstractly conceived as mixed modes, the applicability of this rule to that action can be determined with perfect certainty. It is a further question whether or not the moral rule itself is demonstrably true.

Locke believed that it often is. To be sure, reliance upon an axiomatic deduction of morality from a fixed set of putatively indubitable first principles would be neither effective nor intellectually sound. [Essay IV xii 4-5] Nevertheless, demonstration is possible in principle wherever we have clear ideas, and Locke was careful to emphasize that indubitable knowledge of relations does not presuppose perfect clarity with respect to the relata.

We might know that one automobile is faster than another, for example, even if we had little information about the mechanical differences that produce this result. Our awareness of relations commonly rises to a level of certainty greater than our knowledge of the things among which they hold. [Essay II xxv 4-8]

What counts toward demonstrability, on Locke's view, is the possibility of perceiving intermediate links between our ideas. Since the mixed modes of human action and the concepts of moral rules are both abstract ideas that serve as their own archetypes, it follows that the relations between them are fully demonstrable. [Essay IV iv 7-9] In this respect, at least, morality is on an equal footing with mathematics.

Where there is no Property, there is no Injustice, is a Proposition as certain as any Demonstration in Euclid: For the Idea of Property, being a right to any thing; and the Idea to which the name Injusticeis given, being the Invasion or Violation of that right; it is evident, that these Ideas being thus established, and these Names annexed to them, I can as certainly know this Proposition to be true, as that a Triangle has three Angles equal to two right ones.

Again, No Government allows absolute Liberty: The Idea of Government being the establishment of Society upon certain Rules or Laws, which require Conformity to them; and the Idea of absolute Liberty being for any one to do whatever he pleases; I am as capable of being certain of the Truth of this Proposition, as of any in Mathematicks. [Essay IV iii 18]

The apparent advantage of mathematical over moral reasoning, Locke speculated, rests only on the relative ease with which we can represent mathematical relationships in perspicuous diagrams and the relative absence of partisan concerns. Were we to approach moral reasoning with the same degree of objectivity we commonly bring to mathematical thinking, he argued, we would achieve the same quality of demonstrable certainty about substantive moral truths. [Essay IV iii 19-20]

Varieties of Moral Law

In general, Locke held that the mental comparisons comprising our ideas of relations are significant for the practical conduct of life. Natural relations among human beings, like the various degrees of blood-kinship, for example, commonly carry the presumption of some special obligation toward other members of our families. Instituted relations based on social agreement ground the governance of human societies, as we'll see in detail in a few weeks.

But moral relations are most vital of all, so that the very descriptions of human action under our ideas of mixed modes commonly carry with them an implicit reference to the moral law under which they are commanded or proscribed. [Essay II xxviii 2-4] Moral valuation, on Locke's view, derives from the demonstrable connections that hold among the ideas of duty,

law, legislator, and sanction. [Essay I iii 12-13] Since no moral law could determine human volition and thereby influence human actions practically without careful provision for punishment and reward as artificial consequences of disobedience and obedience, it follows that moral legislation must derive from legislation by intelligent beings with the power to enforce their dictates by appropriate moral sanctions. On this basis, Locke distinguished three basic types of moral law by reference to the legislative source of each: divine law, civil law, and the law of opinion or reputation. [Essay II xxviii 6-7]

The divine law arises from God's right as creator to dictate morality to all creatures of his own making, his wisdom and benevolence guiding them toward what is best, and his power to enforce this law by distributing in the hereafter punishments and rewards that are both infinite in extent and eternal in duration. Thus, Locke held that the resulting distinction between duty and sin is "the only true Touchstone of moral Rectitude," founded upon the ultimate happiness or misery attached by God to actions of particular sorts. [Essay II xxviii 8]

Thus, Locke held that denial of God's existence, moral legislation, or control over eternal life can only be attributed to an irrational hope of escaping moral law and the divinely ordained consequences of sin, since no one who professes such outrageous opinions is observed to live a life in accord with the Golden Rule. [King, p. 90]

In the second edition of the Essay, Locke carefully noted that the divine law may be known either through revelation or by the manifest light of natural law. In either case, he supposed, the divine law guides human conduct so obviously toward genuine happiness and away from profound misery that even public opinion and private interest commonly defer to its force: even those who behave badly themselves often praise or blame others by reference to the genuine criterion. [Essay II xxviii 8, 11]

The civil law derives its force from the legislation of a government to which its citizens have already consented. Since the commonwealth has been formed for the purpose of protecting "the Lives, Liberties, and Possessions" of its citizens, it has the power to take away any or all of these goods in punishment for the crimes of disobeying its rules of conduct. [Essay II xxviii 9] Although its penalties are more limited than the infinite sanctions of divine law, Locke supposed, their certainty and immediacy provide a secure basis for enforcement of the civil law.

Finally, the distinction between virtue and vice belongs only to the law of opinion or reputation and is sanctioned only by the praise or blame of others. Although public opinion always praises the virtuous, Locke noted, the standards of virtue and vice vary widely among different cultures, though some degree of conformity to the rational dicates of natural law is always to be expected. Although this level of moral law derives from a source no more significant than what other people happen to think, the threat of "Condemnation or Disgrace" from one's fellows is a powerful motivation for many human agents; few of us willingly invoke the disapprobation of others. [Essay II xxviii 10-12]

The emphasis on punishment and reward in these accounts of moral law draws attention to an important distinction between the grounds of moral obligation and the motivation for obeying it, both of which derive from the legislator. We are morally bound to obey because the creator has a right to command, but we are practically moved to obey because God has the power to punish us if we don't.

The practical force of morality-its capacity to determine volition and influence action-derives from the punishments and rewards that secure our compliance. Thus, Locke argued, good and evil are nothing other than pleasure and pain; moral good and evil are just the pleasure and pain artificially annexed to obedience and disobediance by the decree of the powerful legislator. [Essay II xxviii 5-6]

Moral motivation requires only that a rational agent consider the possibility of future pleasure or pain that will result from present actions, and Locke believed that the prospect of eternal happiness or misery ought therefore to weigh upon us at least as firmly as more short-term expectations. [Essay II xxi 70]

Human Action

The first edition of the Essay included a brief chapter, "Of Power," dealing with the nature of human volition. Despite the admiration of his friends, Locke expressed both surprise at the direction his thoughts had taken and confusion about the apparent incompatibility of divine omnipotence with human freedom. [Corr. 1592] Revisions made for the second edition made II xxi the longest chapter in the Essay.

Locke boasted about his willingness, as a sincere "Lover of Truth," to change his views publicly, yet confessed his remaining puzzlement about the more perplexing aspects of our abilities to think and to move, to produce changes in other things either by performing direct action or by forbearing so to do. [Essay II xxi 71-72] Since human action is "the great business of Mankind" on Locke's view, and since moral responsibility is commonly taken to presuppose some degree of freedom, it is vital for his task to seek some clarity on the nature of human action.

Freedom and Responsibility

Development of a basic vocabulary for the issue seems clear enough at first. The quasi-relational simple idea of power is present as an element of our observation of any case of change, both as the active force that produces the alteration and as the passive capacity of that which is changed. Since bodies most clearly exhibit the passive power to receive and communicate motion by impulse, our idea of the active power to initiate action derives primarily from reflection upon our own mental operations as we think or move ourselves. [Essay II xxi 1-5]

This, Locke held, is the power of volition, or the human will.

The liberty of a moral agent is just its further power either to perform or to forbear any action of thinking or moving according to its own mental preference. Clearly thought, volition, and will are all necessary conditions for having this kind of liberty, but on Locke's view they are not even jointly sufficient, since genuine liberty always presupposes the additional possibility of doing otherwise.

Even on those occasions when I do exactly what I want to do, I am not acting freely if there is something that would make me do this whether or not I willed it. It makes no difference whether the determinative force comes from outside me or from the internal operations of my own body, according to Locke, nor whether in compels me to perform an action that might be contrary to my volition or restrains me from performing an action that might be in conformity with my volition. Freedom is the power to do otherwise if my volition were to change. [Essay II xxi 7-13]

Although he never addressed the issue directly in the Essay itself, Locke confessed to Molyneux in correspondence that he found it difficult to reconcile the moral freedom of human agents with the presumed omnipotence and omniscience of God. [Corr. 1592]

Notice that on this account of liberty, the cause or explanation of the volition itself is irrelevant, since it is the agent (not the will) that is free. Human beings act freely just insofar as they are capable of translating their mental preferences to do or not to do into their actual performance or forbearance of the action in question. The ability to do as one wills is all that any moral agent could reasonably expect. [Essay II xxi 19-21]

Clarity of language, Locke proposed, would forestall the vaunted philosophical dispute about "free will." Since the will is just a power to contemplate possible actions in light of our mental preferences regarding them while liberty is the further power to perform actions in accordance with these preferences, it would be a category mistake to attribute one power to the other.

It is only the agent that has the power to will and the power to act, so it is only the agent that is free, not the will. [Essay II xxi 14-16] A demand for freedom of the will is therefore not only absurd but ultimately fatalistic. In particular situations, we must either perform an action or not, and our freedom in doing so is secured in the power to do as we will.

If this prior volition were itself another free "action," then it would have to be preceded by yet another, and so on: freedom would be acting in accordance with a volition that was itself freely performed in accordance with a wish that was freely undertaken, etc., etc ad infinitum. The vicious infinite regress would render freedom impossible. [Essay II xxi 22-25]

What is more, free will would be irrelevant to moral responsibility. Since human liberty is the capacity to act as one wills, agents act freely even when their wills have been determined, so they remain morally responsible and may be justly punished for those actions. [Essay II xxi 56]

In a lengthy correspondence with his Dutch friend Philippus van Limborch, Locke repeatedly insisted that emphasis upon the supposed "indifferency" of the will is theologically unsound and morally mistaken. [Corr. 2925, 2979, 3043, 3192] Only the insignificant actions of the insane are truly indifferent, on Locke's view, and the determination of volition is a necessary condition for undertaking any meaningful human action.

The more surely volition is determined toward pursuit of the good, the happier the agent will be. (God, for example, is supposed to be perfectly determined to the good, yet is surely also supposed to be free.) In the same way, a proper understanding of the causes of human volition will enhance, not undermine, confidence in our moral accountability. [Essay II xxi 48-50]