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Notes for Exam 2 HOPT
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Lecture notes of 60 pages for the course History of political thought at UvA (Lectures 8-14)
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Lecture 8: Spinoza and LockeToday:
I. Spinoza against Hobbes: free speech
II. Locke against Hobbes: private property
III. Locke on the social contract
IV. Natural rights, slavery, and colonialism in Locke
Readings:
- Ryan, Chapter 13 (but not p. 472-74 [section on Filmer])
- Locke, The Second Treatise Ch. 5 & Ch.9;
- Spinoza Theological Political Treatise, chapter 20.
I. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
He was a dutch philosopher and lens-grinder, he got kicked out of Jewish community
because of some biblical criticism. He standed for radical metaphysics: “God is nature”
and was the author of the Theological-Political Treatise (1677).
Theological-Political Treatise (1677): Spinoza makes a remarkable defence of freedom of
thought and speech but it is not grounded in value of free speech; rather it is based on
the fact that it is practically impossible and hence counter-productive to try to restrict
free speech. => This is a Liberal conclusion built on Hobbesian principles, their
divergence is mainly caused by a disagreement about
human nature.
Spinoza and Hobbes → Their social contract theories agree on many points:
1. Humans have a natural right to everything
2. The state of nature is full of hostility
3. A legally unbounded sovereign must be empowered to secure trust and settle
conflict
4. In their actions, citizens must obey the civil law in all things
5. Government power extends over religious affairs as well
6. Peace and self-preservation are main reasons for entering a state
=> Yet for Spinoza, security involves ‘freedom from fear’ (TTP 20.6)
1
, ● Spinoza on right:
Hobbes’s add on the right to everything that on a condition of war, the right of
self-defence permits individuals to do everything.
Spinoza’s has a new argument for the right to everything: God is nature. Everything in
nature “has a sovereign right to everything that it can do, i.e. the right of nature extends as
far as its power extends. For the power of nature is the very power of God who has the
supreme right to do all things” TTP 16.2 => Might equals right!
● No free speech in Hobbes:
Rulers have a duty to secure peace and stability.
- This requires rooting “evil doctrines” which incite people to sedition “out of the
citizens’ minds and gently instil others” - De Cive 13.9
Spinoza: Controlling the freedom of thought and speech is impossible
- Humans will always have the power, and hence the right, to think freely.
● A pragmatic argument for free speech:
Toleration is the best policy given human nature!
“It is a fact that human nature is like this”
- Citizens cannot renounce the ability to make up their own mind and they will
inevitably communicate their thoughts to others (TTP 20.4)
- Repressing free speech is counter-productive since it undermines trust and
inspires spirited resistance (TTP 20.11)
- Rulers lack the power, and hence the right, to control civil opinion.
● Compare rights-based arguments:
1. Locke’s arguments for religious toleration: Political rulers have
not been authorized by the people to take care of our spiritual
welfare. People cannot be compelled to believe things by force;
religious compulsion is in vain.
2. Hobbes: Political control over religion needed to secure social
stability.
3. Spinoza: Any regulation of (religious) beliefs is
counter-productive!
2
, ● Upshot:
Important to know that Hobbes get beaten at his own game.
- Spinoza formulates an internal critique of Hobbes: given Hobbes’s own principles and
goals, he ought to allow free speech: Human nature + peace desiderata ≠ complete state
control
- Locke voices external criticisms against Hobbes. His arguments are based on
principles not shared by the opponent (E.g. the possibility of having private property
outside the state): Liberal conclusions ↔ liberal principles.
II. John Locke (1632-1704)
He is an english philosopher and physician ad another life-
long bachelor. He was the personal secretary of Shaftesbury.
He was a Revolutionary and took a part at plotting the
regicide. Exiled in Holland (1683-88) and he is the author of Two Treatises of
Government (1690).
★ Locke’s state of nature:
Freedom means independence, not “all Men are naturally in… a State of
licence perfect Freedom to order their Actions, and
dispose of their Possessions and Persons as
they think fit, within the bounds of the Law
of Nature, without asking leave, or
depending upon the Will of any other Man”
- ST §4
Norms of justice still apply “Want of a common Judge with Authority,
puts all Men in a State of Nature: Force
without Right, upon a Man’s Person, makes
a State of War, both where there is, and is
not, a common Judge” - ST §19
★ Locke’s state of nature compared; main differences with Hobbes:
1. Right to use force is heavily curtailed
- No right to invade and kill preventively for personal defence
2. Freedom ≠ licence
- No general right to do what you think is right
- All have the right to punish injustices
3. State of nature ≠ necessarily state of war
- Property and binding contracts exist outside the state
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, ★ Locke on the meaning of property:
Respect each person’s property! “The State of Nature has a Law of Nature
to govern it, which obliges every one: And
Reason, which is that Law, teaches all
Mankind, who will but consult it, that
being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his Life, Health,
Liberty, or Possessions” - ST §6
I.e. rights in their persons and in external “Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call
goods by the general Name, Property” - ST §123
★ Property in the state of nature:
The earth in common, your labour your own: “Though the Earth, and all inferior
Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no
Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his own Body, and the Work of his Hands,
we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature
hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joined to it
something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property” - ST §27
=> Unclear how this argument works exactly
★ Limits to appropriation:
a) Spoilage condition:
“The same Law of Nature, that does by this means gives us Property, does also bound that
Property too… As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils;
so much he may by his labour fix a Property in. Whatsoever is beyond this, is more than his
share, and belongs to others” - ST §31
b) Sufficiency condition:
“Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of Land, by improving it, any prejudice to any
other Man, since there was still enough, and as good left… For he that leaves as much as
another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all” - ST §33
★ Money corrupts but doesn’t rot:
Pace Hobbes: no scarcity, for labour is productive
Spoilage condition overcome by money
- “the Invention of Money, and the tacit Agreement of Men to put a value
on it, introduced (by Consent) larger Possessions, and a Right to them”
- For money “keeps without wasting or decay”- ST §§36-37
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