Rawls J. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

he opposes royal absolutism. So one ought not to say Locke accepts the

class state. He is really not taking any stand on this question, nor on the

equality of women.

Now, I sympathize with this reply. It may be correct. For our purposes I

simply assume that he does accept the class state in the following weak

sense: he thinks such a state could, and in fact did, come about and exist in

the English mixed constitution of his day. I don’t say that he accepts the

class state if this means he fully endorses its values and is satisﬁed with it.

2. Again, one might reject the problem as not allowing Locke to appeal

to reasons of necessity. That is, his thought in accepting the class state, so

far as he appears to do so, might be that even in ideal history social condi-

tions can be quite harsh and limiting, so that if a class state is justiﬁed, and

could come about consistent with his view, that is only because of harsh

and limiting conditions. As things get better over time, a class state will no

longer be legitimate by Locke’s own principles; only a regime founded on a

more equal franchise and distribution of property will meet his require-

ments for legitimacy. Eventually a just constitutional state may come about

that answers fully to the ideas of liberty and equality in his doctrine.

As before I am sympathetic to this objection. I don’t deny Locke the

plea of necessity, as political philosophy must recognize the limits of the

possible. It cannot simply condemn the world. Nor do I deny that there are

ideas of liberty and equality in Locke that can provide much of, though per-

haps not all of, the basis of a conception of what we would regard as a just

and equal democratic regime.

Rather, the point is this. For Locke to accept a class state, it is only re-

quired that there should exist, in ideal history, some conditions under

which, consistent with his view, a class state could come about. To show

this to be the case all we need do is to tell one plausible story about such

conditions, a story that answers to all the enumerated constraints. We

might then conjecture that such is the way Locke may have thought the

English constitution could have come about, although of course it did not.

(Recall what we said earlier about William the Conqueror.) What we are

doing is testing Locke’s account of legitimacy. Here it should be stressed

that there can be other conditions in which not a class state, but only a state

far closer to our present ideals, could come about.

We need to keep in mind the point of this exercise: namely, to illustrate

how, in Locke’s doctrine, the terms of the social compact and the form of

regime depend on various contingencies, including people’s bargaining ad-

[ 151 ]

Property and the Class State

EXAM COPY

vantages, external to the compact situation. This is because knowledge of

these is not excluded. The parties who are to determine the basic principles

of the social compact are not behind a “veil of ignorance,” as in justice as

fairness.

The result is that persons enter the compact situation not solely

as free and equal, reasonable and rational, but also as in this or that situa-

tion with this or that amount of property. Their legitimate interests are

shaped accordingly and may set them at odds. If we want to work out a po-

litical conception in which the terms of social cooperation and the form of

regime are independent of such contingencies, we must ﬁnd a way to revise

the social contract view.

§6. A Just-So Story of the Origin of the Class State

1. I conclude with a brief sketch showing how a class state could arise

in ideal history. We have seen that everyone is assumed to act both reason-

ably and rationally. No one violates their duties under the fundamental law

of nature or fails to act rationally in advancing their legitimate interests.

These interests are interests in their property in the broad sense, that is,

their lives, liberties, and estates, however small their property in land (real

property) may be.

Following Joshua Cohen, we say the social compact must satisfy three

criteria:

(a) Individual rationality: Each person must reasonably believe that he

or she will be at least as well off in the society of the social compact as in

the state of nature where each now is. The standard used to decide whether

persons are better off is their legitimate interests, as deﬁned above by refer-

ence to their property in the broad sense.

(b) Collective rationality: There must be no other alternative social

compact (including the form of regime it establishes) such that everyone

would prefer it to the agreement in question. Put another way, there is no

other agreement that would make some of them better off without mak-

ing any of the others worse off. (This is simply Pareto.)

[ 152 ]

locke

14. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. See §6: “The Idea of the Original Po-

sition.”

15. See Joshua Cohen, “Structure, Choice and Legitimacy: Locke’s Theory of the

State,” pp. 311–323. Together these conditions deﬁne the core of a cooperative game.

EXAM COPY

assume there are only two coalitions: one includes all those with enough

property to meet the voting qualiﬁcation (40 shilling freehold rule, say).

Call these people those with (sufﬁcient) property. The other coalition in-

cludes those who fail to meet that qualiﬁcation, although they may have

some property less than 40 shillings. Call these people those without (suf-

ﬁcient) property. Coalition rationality now means that both coalitions, and

their individual members, think they will do better under the proposed so-

cial compact than under any other agreement mutually acceptable to both

coalitions. The members of both coalitions must think the agreement

better than their coalition’s going off on its own, or splitting.

Again to cut through complexities, we assume there are only four alter-

natives:

(i) class state (with 40 shilling freehold voting qualiﬁcation).

(ii) democratic state with universal suffrage.

(iii) Split into two states:

(a) a state of those with (sufﬁcient) property.

(b) a state of those without (sufﬁcient) property.

(iv) state of nature, or the status quo.

Once more to cut through complexities (we keep having to do this!),

we assume that there are no preferences for the form of the state as such:

regimes are judged by people solely by reference to the expected fulﬁllment

of their legitimate interests (those compatible with their duties under the

fundamental law of nature and speciﬁed in terms of their property in the

broad sense).

2. Now, a bit of elaboration: Both the class state and the democratic

state are constitutional states. That is, they both satisfy the rule of law, as

Locke deﬁnes it in ¶¶124–126, 136f, 142. So even those who do not meet

the property qualiﬁcation can expect greater protection for their lives, liber-

ties, and estates, however small, than in a state of nature. By individual ra-

tionality, then, the class state is to be preferred to the state of nature.

There is, however, an opposition of interests between the class state and

the democratic state. Those with property prefer the class state, those with-

out property prefer the democratic state. The propertied fear that those

without property may use the democratic franchise to redistribute their

real wealth.

(a) Let’s assume that those with property will refuse to agree to the

democratic state and prefer to split, or go off on their own, instead. This

they can do under the law of nature, provided that the principle of charity

[ 153 ]

Property and the Class State

EXAM COPY

is not violated. I understand Locke’s view as permitting withholding coop-

eration in these circumstances (¶95).

(b) Those without property have to decide, then, whether to go it alone

in a democratic state, or to join the class state with those who have prop-

erty. If they decide that joining the class state is indeed rational for them,

the class state is coalitional rational. Both coalitions prefer it to any other

mutually acceptable alternative.

Now suppose, as Locke would require, that the class state meets the fol-

lowing principles:

(a) Everyone is a citizen with the protections of the rule of law (¶120),

including, of course, passive citizens (those without sufﬁcient property to

vote).

(b) Citizenship carries with it a reasonable opportunity to acquire, with

diligence and industry, sufﬁcient property to meet the voting qualiﬁcation.

This means that opportunities for gainful employment must be guaranteed.

justice, which among other precepts, guarantees for all the product of their

honest labor.

(d) Finally, by the principle of charity, the class state recognizes a claim

on the surplus of society so as to keep everyone from extreme want.

These principles are among the terms those with property offer those

without property. We assume that these terms, once accepted, will be hon-

ored: that is, strictly complied with and that everyone knows this. Those

without property do not have to calculate how likely it is that the proper-

tied are going to renege, and so on.

3. Given all these stipulations, we can see how the class state might arise

as follows:

Conditions of Acceptance: Let X be the proposed social compact. X is

agreed to when it meets the following three conditions:

(a) Individual Rationality: all individuals prefer X to the state of nature.

(b) Collective Rationality: there is no alternative Y such that all individ-

uals prefer Y to X.

native Y such that either A or B prefers Y to X, or such that either A or B

can enforce Y by going off on its own, or by splitting.

Locke’s conjectured social compact:

(a) the set of alternatives is: Class State, Democratic State, Split, State

of Nature.

[ 154 ]

locke

EXAM COPY

(b) Preferences of Propertied: Class, Split, Democratic, State of Nature.

Both coalitions prefer a class state to a split, and since the propertied can

enforce a split, the chosen social compact is the Class State; the propertyless

cannot prevent a split, so they join the Class State.

4. If this story is sound and compatible with ideal history, Locke’s

mixed constitution with its forty shilling franchise can arise. Other stories,

however, are also possible. It is an important aspect of Locke’s view that

many different forms of regime could come about. His view does not re-

quire a class state; it simply permits it. Cohen describes other conditions,

like those of the nineteenth century, under which it is plausible to hold that

democracy would be agreed to. Locke himself describes in ¶¶107–111 how

monarchy came about in the early “golden age” when properties were

small and roughly equal and before vain ambition corrupted men’s minds.

What is important about this is that what is basic to Locke’s view is the

kind of justiﬁcation it proposes for political institutions. When people

agree to the social compact he views them as individuals who know their

particular social and economic interests as well as their position and status

in society. This means that the justiﬁcations citizens give to one another in

arriving at the social compact take these interests into account.

One aim of our story about the class state was to defend Locke against

MacPherson’s misinterpretation. But in doing so we have uncovered a dis-

turbing feature of his view. Not only does it make citizens’ rights and liber-

ties depend on historical contingencies in ways we would like to avoid, but

it also raises the question of whether the constitutional settlement should

not be reconsidered after each important shift in the distribution of political

and economic power. It would seem that the basic freedoms and opportuni-

ties of a constitutional regime should be ﬁxed far more solidly than that,

and not be subject to such changes.

Hence, as I have said, we must ﬁnd some way to revise Locke’s contract

doctrine. Both Rousseau and Kant make revisions, and justice as fairness

follows their lead. In conclusion, I should stress that I am not criticizing

Locke the man, who as I said was a great ﬁgure, and whose social compact

view was well framed for his purposes at the time of the Exclusion Crisis.

We are probing his view and ﬁnding it is not well framed for our purposes.

That is not surprising, since as Collingwood would say, our problems are

not his problems and they call for different solutions.

[ 155 ]

Property and the Class State

EXAM COPY

hume

EXAM COPY

hume i

“Of the Original Contract”

§1. Introductory Remarks

So far we’ve talked about Hobbes and Locke, and have gone over them

rather quickly.

That is inevitable, given the scope and aim of these lectures,

and I’m not going to apologize. I just hope you are aware that there is, of

course, much more that we could talk about in each of them. The problem

facing us today is to get some sort of natural transition from talking about

Hobbes and Locke, who are two writers in the social contract tradition, to

talking about Hume and Mill, who are two writers in the utilitarian tradi-

tion. We seek a point of view that highlights the main points of contrast

between them and brings out the philosophical differences that divide them

and concerning which the debate took place.

One might say that any main philosophical tradition, whether in politi-

cal thought or elsewhere, often bases itself on certain intuitive ideas, and re-

quires the elaboration and development of these ideas; and you ﬁnd various

authors over time doing that in different ways, and so different variants

arise. The intuitive idea of the social contract tradition is the notion of

agreement—agreement between equal persons who are at least rational,

and their somehow agreeing to a certain way of being governed, either, as

in Hobbes’s case, to authorize a sovereign, or in Locke’s case to join a com-

munity and then to organize somehow the will of the majority to set up

the legislative power or the constitution. That notion of agreement is, I

think, intuitively appealing. If I agree to something, then I am bound by the

terms of the agreement, and that goes back, you might say, to the basic idea

[ 159 ]

1. [The two Hume lectures are derived from transcriptions of recording tapes of lec-

tures delivered on March 4 and 11, 1983, for Rawls’s class in Modern Political Philosophy at

Harvard University. Relevant passages from Rawls’s handwritten lecture notes have been

added. —Ed.]

EXAM COPY

of consent, or promising. I think Locke takes the notion of promising as

somehow given, as something that we all understand. There is not any at-

tempt on his part to derive it from the fundamental laws of nature.

Of course, the social contract view will vary in many ways, depending

on how the notion of agreement is spelled out in some sort of detail. What

are the conditions of agreement? Who agrees to it? How are the persons

who agree described? What are their intentions? What are their interests? A

lot of other things have to be developed and worked out. We made a con-

trast between Hobbes and Locke when, in the case of Hobbes, I empha-

sized the point that he seems to be concerned with giving everyone com-

pelling reasons, addressed to their own interests, for why it is rational for

them to want an effective sovereign to continue to exist. That’s a notion,

then, that would try to base obligations on peoples’ rational and fundamen-

tal interests. In Hobbes there is not, on the whole, an appeal to the past. If

the sovereign exists now, then everyone has an interest in wanting the sover-

eign to continue to exist, and it does not matter how the sovereign power

actually arose in the past. We are obliged, each of us, in terms of our fun-

damental interests, to support an effective sovereign now.

Locke’s view is, of course, quite different. It begins with a condition of

equal rights in the state of nature, and then imagining that through a series

of agreements over time, each of these agreements having to satisfy certain

conditions, a regime is established. For Locke, a legitimate regime will be

one that could have been established in a certain way and that meets certain

conditions. This is true whether or not any regime can be shown to have

come about in this way historically. Therefore, in his case legitimacy de-

pends on the form of the regime, and how it could have come about, and its ac-

tual protection of certain legitimate rights.

If you spell out the contrasts here between the Lockean and the

Hobbesian arguments—the form that they would take, say, in public discus-

sion in 1688 and 1699—a Hobbist would say, after William and Mary were

securely established, that everyone had an obligation to comply with their

regime because it was an effective sovereign. If a sovereign is effective then

we are obliged to support that regime. Whereas a Lockean argument

would actually be somewhat different. It would say, presuming that we ap-

ply Locke’s argument to the same situation, that the previous regime had

violated the rights of the people. Political power had then reverted to the

[ 160 ]

hume

EXAM COPY