Locke’s Empiricism and Social Contract Theory
Empiricist philosophy denies the existence of innate ideas or principles of understanding. John Locke denies that there are universal truths and moral laws that apply to everyone. He believes that at birth our mind is a blank slate, empty and devoid of content, and that all knowledge is acquired through experience; ideas are rooted in it.
He states that our knowledge is limited by experience; experience is the source of our ideas and the limit of our knowledge. We must examine all ideas in detail to find simple ideas. We must figure out how to associate ideas, as Locke researches the psychological mechanisms of association and combination.
Locke’s Theory of Ideas
Locke meant by ‘idea’ whatever we perceive or know. Our knowledge is knowledge of ideas. He distinguishes two types:
- Simple ideas, obtained directly through experience. Our mind passively receives these ideas. They are classified according to the type of experience:
- External experience allows us to know the external world through the senses, causing us sensations.
- Inner experience (reflection): knowledge that the mind has of its own operations, giving rise to reflections.
- Complex ideas, formed by the relationship, association, and combination of simple ideas:
- Ideas of qualities
- Ideas of substance (For Descartes, substance is what exists by itself; he identified three substances. For Locke, the idea of substance is a complex idea composed of simple ideas.)
- Ideas of relations
Locke on Reality: Self, God, World
Locke agrees with Descartes in distinguishing three levels of reality:
- We know intuitively and immediately the existence of the ‘I’ (the self) through the intuition of inner experience.
- The existence of God can be demonstrated by applying the principle of causality, as we infer the cause of our own existence. (This argument is similar to Descartes’ idea that God is the cause of the idea of God in our minds, and also echoes Aquinas’s Second Way.)
- We are certainly sensitive to the existence of a reality outside our minds, as external objects are the cause of our sensations. While sensitive knowledge does not provide the same degree of certainty as intuition (of the self) and demonstration (of God), Locke considered it sufficient for practical purposes. (This contrasts with Descartes’ rationalist approach.)
Social Contract: Hobbes vs. Locke
Thomas Hobbes proposes his social contract theory, which rejects the divine origin of political power. Political power, according to Hobbes, is the result of a free agreement among individuals constituting society, who agree to accept the authority and laws that govern them in return for protection. Before the pact, individuals lived in a state of nature, where all were equal but not sociable. All had a natural right to freedom.
They leave that state due to the lack of a sovereign power, which leads individuals to a struggle for survival and fear. Individuals seek peace through agreement. This agreement establishes the strong state, or Leviathan, where individuals renounce their natural right to liberty and transfer political power to the sovereign. The state becomes an absolute and indivisible power. The subjects retain only a right of self-preservation, which might legitimize resistance to the sovereign’s power if it threatens their lives.
John Locke also opposed the absolutist theory of the divine right of kings and the belief that their power comes directly from God. Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not believe that humans are inherently evil by nature, but he does not consider them inherently good either. For Locke, human beings are endowed with a *natural law* based on reason, which limits behavior and dictates that “no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.”
Locke argued that the state is the result of a social agreement necessary to establish a political organization with objective laws. Unlike Hobbes’s model, in Locke’s political theory, individuals do not surrender all their rights to the political power, because the contract is bilateral and revocable. The sovereign’s power is limited by the natural law and the terms of the contract. Locke proposed the separation of powers.