John Locke & Immanuel Kant are two of the greatest philosophers in western history, and both had quite a bit to say about the state and its role in our lives. The two both argued that freedom was essential to human rationality, but they differed as to how it was affected by the formation of the state.
Locke held that men give up their ‘natural power’ when they come into the state to gain the benefits of long life and peace. People create a social contract in which they give up a portion of their absolute liberty in order to gain long life and happiness, which it is the state’s duty to provide. No longer can anyone do exactly as he pleases, because he must submit to the laws of the governing body. Such is the necessary trade-off for Locke: give up the right to perfect liberty in order to gain the good of society.
Kant, on the other hand, proposed that the state is formed to protect freedom. Kant argued that in a pre-state society, any sufficiently strong person or body can coerce others into doing whatever the coercer wants. There is no true right to property or freedom or anything else, because there is no one who can protect them. Sure, a person can do exactly as he wants to do, but no one could legitimately defend him against those who oppress him. His rights, therefore, do not exist. The state, however, can enforce a monopoly on coercion, and legitimately protect the oppressed against the oppressors. Thus, Kant argued, the good of society is to preserve freedom.
Which view is right? Are either correct? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
<>< Josh Rule : : 2008 MCPP Intern
Are they really mutually exclusive? You give up the freedom to kill someone in the hopes that your right to life is protected. Complete freedom can encroach on other’s freedoms, so the purpose of a state is to attempt to maintain a fair and equal balance of rights among the people.
http://www.QuestioCunctus.com
I don’t know much about Kant, but I’ve read Locke. From your description it’s hard to see what the difference is. Your description of Kant reminds me of this from Hayek on how the concept of “freedom” became corrupted:
” . . . Socialism was to bring ‘economic freedom,’ without which political freedom was ‘not worth having.’
“To make this argument sound plausible, the word ‘freedom’ was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth.”
(Road to Serfdom)
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The late Stephen Dresch, a great man who was also an MCPP scholar, always used the phrase “the state’s monopoly on legal violence.” :grin:
In civil society you’re allowed to whack someone in an emergency to protect yourself or another, but otherwise you have to let the state deal with it. So if’a you mess’a with’a my sister, I can’t hire Luca Brasi to perform some quick surgery on’a you kneecaps, capisc’? I have to call the cops and let the criminal justice bureacracy deal with it. My sister can sue you for weregeld though.
@ jmchugh4u: I actually don’t know that much about Locke, but I have read some Kant. Kant argues that we have no property rights until the state is established. Locke, as far as I understand him, claims that we have property rights even in a state of nature. Under Kant, there is absolutely nothing wrong with me completely taking all your stuff, all the time, in a state of nature. Once the state is involved, though, possession becomes defensible, and property rights emerge.
Also, Kant claims that simply forming a contract with each other and promising to be nice to one another is not enough. We have to formally create a ‘omnilateral’ will, the state, to protect our rights. Otherwise, there is nothing to prevent a bully from ignoring my claims to my property. It seems to me that Locke claims we can successfully live in a state of nature but choose not to do so. Again, Kant claims we cannot live well in a state of nature, and that we cannot live freely.
@ For Prez ’24: In certain ways, the two are mutually exclusive. Locke argues that we can live well before establishing a state, while Kant argues that we cannot (See above). Similarly, Kant emphasizes the preservation of freedom through the state, while Locke’s theory seems to highlight the freedom we lose by entering the state.
While I haven’t gone into depth on Kant and Locke, they both seem to draw from the state of nature arguments. But those arguments have problems, right? After all, we don’t remember what the state of nature was like, right? Hasn’t anthropology highlighted some important differences in societies? (Similarities, too)
Who’s to know whether these natural men just spend their time tolchocking each other and robbing what and when they feel? Or do they, quite naturally, feel a degree of empathy towards their fellow man?
For an interesting (if brief) discussion on some of the problems for arguing from the state of nature, I recommend the section in From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun.
And as our previous post on Leeson’s piracy work has shown, there can be a remarkable amount of civility in stateless areas. Are men in the state of nature as civil as pirates?
@ James Hohman: At least in Kant, the state of nature is simply any society that does not have a state. Kant doesn’t care if people are nice as can be or absolutely brutal. The degree of empathy toward another is irrelevant to his argument. He proposes that without a monopoly on coercion, there is no way to ensure protection from oppressors. So, the state is necessary, he argues, to create rights protecting freedom. It is necessary to keep the oppressors from acting.
Now, there are problems with his argument. I am simply trying to present it clearly.
I disagree that there are problems with arguing from a “state of nature” – contrary, I think it impossible to form any logically valid theories of rights without doing so.
This is similar to studying economic theories in a perfectly free-market vacuum – only when you assume complete non-intervention, perfect competition, etc. can you successfully isolate various factors and discover what makes things work as they do.
I think we’re missing the point of the arguments made by these men (and others) if we debate whether a “state of nature” is possible – it doesn’t matter whether it’s possible, it is a mental construct, a sort of blank slate from which to start. Thinking of man in the abstract, thinking of “being” in the purely metaphysical sense, what attributes does man have? What about man and nature? Man and man? Man and groups of men? It is this kind of abstraction which is neccessary to form a cogent theory or political philosophy.
I think both Locke and Kant make some good arguments about why people form governments and what they are formed to do. I think neither presents a convincing argument that government as described is the only possible, or even the best outcome. Both jump from the fact that man wants to protect property and self (whether derived or natural rights) and jump to a coercive state as the means, never sufficiently covering other non-coercive arrangements of protection or security. Later studies in economics, public choice and competition have perhaps shed more light on other possible arrangements of rights protection.
Mr. Rule states above,…“a person can do exactly as he wants to do, but no one could legitimately defend him against those who oppress him. His rights, therefore, do not exist. The state, however, can…protect the oppressed against the oppressors. Thus, Kant argued, the good of society is to preserve freedom.”
Or, to stand that statement on its head, and as the situation is now fast becomming, the state can protect the oppressors. The state functions to diminish freedom, e.g, European laws against questioning the holocaust, and the enactment of “hate laws” in the States, both of which diminish freedom of speech.