LOCKE'S ETHICS

Touching upon Locke’s ethical doctrines now, we might, perhaps, find out why so many philosophers have found him reprehensible. (It is hard to imagine that the best of Locke’s political philosophy and the theory of knowledge should be found so detestable by others, as these others, like Lessing, have led us to believe.) I do not intend to make a long story of this, but the bottom line is, as Bertrand Russell puts it, that Locke is very much like Jeremy Bentham in his ethics, and Bentham, as we shall later see, is rather reprehensible in his utilitarian approach to morality. So, let us quote Russell here yet again:

Locke’s ethical doctrines are interesting partly on their own account, partly as an anticipation of Bentham. When I speak of his ethical doctrines, I do not mean his moral disposition as a practical man, but only his general theories as to how men act, and how they should act. Like Bentham, Locke was a man filled with a kindly feeling, who yet held that everybody (including himself) must always be moved, in action, solely by desire for his own happiness or pleasure. A few quotations will make this clear:

Things are good or evil only in relation to pleasure or pain. That we call “good” which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain, in us. (Here is an example of philistine morality. What is good and evil in the context of war?, I may ask. Without relating morality to conflict--- where the notions of pleasure and pain do not apply, or apply very differently than in Locke--- we are glaringly unqualified to talk about morality as such, reducing it to a sterilized idealistic bubble of nonexistent pseudo-reality.

What is it that moves desire? I answer, happiness, and that alone.

Happiness in its full extent is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.

The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty…

It is patently clear from these Lockean quotations how his thinking influenced American democracy. It is also clear how utopian Locke sounds in his ethics, mistaking the happiness of an average man (not even a monster, of which species there are a great many in any society) for the happiness of a saint. There is no doubt that in such profuse exhortations of happiness, a much greater distinction must be made between the good kind of happiness and all the bad kinds of happiness that exist, or else, the word happiness might just turn on us and bite our throat out. It is true, of course, that, as a sensible man, he realizes the deficiencies in the human understanding of happiness, and that, in their pursuit of happiness, men do not always act as he would want them to act. Legal liberty therefore is only completely possible where both prudence and piety are universal (namely, nowhere!); elsewhere, the restraints imposed by the criminal law are indispensable.

This is, in fact, my personal objection to utilitarianism and the pursuit of happiness doctrine, which are in this respect far worse than the communistic theories, because they assume facts not at all in evidence, and with no recourse whatsoever, either to the authority of the Bible, or to the imperative of the State. Having this in mind, let us quote Russell’s conclusion on the subject of Locke’s ethics:

Locke’s ethical doctrines are, of course, indefensible. Apart from the fact that there is something revolting in a system regarding prudence as the only virtue, there are other less emotional objections to his theories. In the first place, to say that men only desire pleasure is to put the cart before the horse. Whatever I happen to desire, I shall feel pleasure in obtaining it; but, as a rule, the pleasure is due to the desire, not the desire to the pleasure. It is possible, as happens with masochists, to desire pain; in that case, there is still pleasure in the gratification of the desire, but it is mixed with the opposite. Even in his own doctrine, it is not pleasure as such that is desired, since a proximate pleasure is more desirable than a remote one. If morality is to be deduced from the psychology of desire, there can be no reason for deprecating the discounting of a distant pleasure or for urging prudence as a moral duty. His argument, in a nutshell, is: We only desire pleasure. But, in fact, many men desire not pleasure as such, but proximate pleasure. This contradicts our doctrine that they desire pleasure as such, and is therefore wicked. Almost all philosophers in their ethical systems first lay down a false doctrine, and then argue that wickedness consists in acting in a manner that proves it false, which would be impossible, if the doctrine were true. Of this pattern, Locke affords an example.

But now, instead of saying Amen to this (although this, of course, sounds and is true) let us remember that, if all philosophers were to be judged by the truth or falseness of their pet theories, their only surviving kind would be found in comedies. But the serious and true value of any philosopher is to be judged by--- just the way Nietzsche put it--- by three anecdotes, or, as I put it, by three sentences powerful enough to inspire our own philosophical disposition, in the process bringing to life ideas of our own. And by this standard at least, Locke more than amply qualifies to be counted among the undoubtedly great ones, and, well, so be it!