being a right to anything, and the idea to which the name 'injustice' is given being the invasion
or violation of that right, it is evident that these ideas being thus established, and these names
annexed to them, I can as certainly know this proposition to be true as that a triangle has three
angles equal to two right ones. Again: 'No government allows absolute liberty:' the idea of
government being the establishment of society upon certain rules or laws, which require
conformity to them; and the idea of absolute liberty being for any one to do whatever he
pleases: I am as capable of being certain of the truth of this proposition as of any in the
mathematics." *
This passage is puzzling because, at first, it seems to make moral rules dependent upon God's
decrees, while in the instances that are given it is suggested that moral rules are analytic. I
suppose that, in fact, Locke thought some parts of ethics analytic and others dependent upon
God's decrees. Another puzzle is that the instances given do not seem to be ethical propositions
at all.
There is another difficulty which one could wish to see considered. It is generally held by
theologians that God's decrees are not arbitrary, but are inspired by His goodness and wisdom.
This requires that there should be some concept of goodness antecedent to God's decrees, which
has led Him to make just those decrees rather than any others. What this concept may be, it is
impossible to discover from Locke. What he says is that a prudent man will act in such and such
ways, since otherwise God will punish him; but he leaves us completely in the dark as to why
punishment should be attached to certain acts rather than to their opposites.
Locke's ethical doctrines are, of course, not defensible. Apart from the fact that there is
something revolting in a system which regards 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 may 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 its opposite. Even in Locke's own
* Op. cit., Book IV, Ch. III, Sec. 18.