there was no pre-contractual law in Hobbes’s state of nature there was nothing to
adjudicate. Because individuals in Locke’s state of nature have the capacity to
recognise the moral law, and the state is created as a judge and an enforcer, it
follows that should the state fail in these tasks individuals are justified in rebelling
against it.Locke and liberalism
There is much that is anachronistic in Locke. In particular, his claim that native
Americans do not possess property because they cannot recognise natural law,
and thus America was ‘unowned’ (Locke, 1988: 293), is an embarrassment to
contemporary defenders of Locke. Also, the Christian basis of his thought is
problematic in modern, pluralistic societies, although his appeal to natural law does
provide a route to a secularised notion of human rights. However, overall, the key
contributions that Locke made to the liberal tradition are:
(a) The idea that there are what Robert Nozick calls ‘side constraints’, which limit
what the state, or society in general, can do to human beings (Nozick, 1974: ix).
(b) Natural (or moral) rights provide a standpoint from which we can judge the
state. Unlike Hobbes, obligation to obey the state is not for Locke an ‘all or
nothing’ matter. Although we give up a certain degree of moral judgement when
we contract into the state, we do not ‘hand over’ all our autonomy.
(c) There is much more discussion of the institutions of liberal democracy in Locke
than in Hobbes, and that discussion has been hugely influential. Locke is
identified as a key influence on the formation of the American Constitution.Kant
From a different intellectual tradition Kant defends the idea of ‘side constraints’,
and thus moral rights. More difficult to understand than Locke, but arguably a
more sophisticated philosopher, his moral theory is a standard part of the moral
philosophy syllabus, but his political theory is less commonly found in a course on
the history of political thought. However, a powerful reason for studying Kant is
that in the twentieth century there was a significant revival of interest among
political philosophers in his work, and he was an important influence on such major
thinkers as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.
We will briefly set out Kant’s moral theory, and then explain how it influences
his political theory. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals(Kant, 1996:
37–108) Kant outlines a method for determining how we should behave – the
categorical imperative. He offers a number of formulations, the differences intended
to capture different aspects of moral relationships. Simplifying a great deal, what
is morally right is what would be chosen if we were to view a situation from an
autonomous standpoint, unaffected by emotional, and other, attachments. If we
abstract from those attachments then we will necessarily see the world from a
universal perspective; moral reasoning entails universalisinga ‘maxim’ (a maxim is
a claim that we intend to form the basis of a moral law). If we cannot universalise
that maxim then it cannot become a moral law.184 Part 2 Classical ideologies