John Locke's argument, from 1689, for Divine Morality -- it's strengths and weaknesses

This is a lecture concerning John Locke's Two Treatises of Government​, Book II, Chapter 2, Sections 4 & 6. Therein, Locke presents an argument that we have moral obligations not to kill, hurt, enslave, or steal from others. And the reason that we have those obligations, Locke claims, is that God created all human beings and therefore owns them. If people are the property of God, Locke argues, then it is wrong for us to damage his property. But even if this argument succeeds, even if it is valid and ultimately sound, this argument cannot be used to explain where all objective moral facts or laws come from, because the argument's construction presupposes the existence of just that kind of objective morality. This lecture is part of an introductory level philosophy course, Introduction to Ethics.

[uzraafira]

you're the teacher I knew I never had, but I never knew I needed.

[ruprecht]

This is a brilliant video. I'd like to add that the concept of ownership, following creation or other processes, is another moral assumption that must exist prior to Locke's argument. That something sounds logical, or corresponds to habit or tradition, doesn't elevate it to a moral absolute. :-)

To be aware of normative statements in what might at first glance appear to be sound logic, is a good takeaway from this video, in my opinion.

Thanks for great videos!!

[katiekk]

Beautifully explained.
Kindness to all creatures.
So glad I found you.
And Delete Lawz sent me.

[kenknight]

Professor Kaplan, thank you so much for taking the effort to put these video lectures online; I have learned a lot from them. I thought of a question when I watched this one on Locke: would your conclusion as to the efficacy of this argument (and particularly the one restated by you at the end) change at all if you replaced the word “us” in premise #1 with the word “everything”?

[michaelspeal]

Thank you, thank you! This is key to open-minded arguments

[danknfrshtv]

Thanks for all these videos, mate. Clear and engaging presentation of some pretty dense stuff.

[chrisw]

Thanks for another great lecture. I heard about John Locke, but never knew any of his view. Now I feel better about that, because it does not look like he has all the answers either. In fact, based on how humanity acts without government, the objective morality, if any, is definitely not to be super nice to each other. Human nature has very cruel aspects in it, not unlike the nature of wild animals. Many if not most morals are taught to us. At least that's what I believe.

[poorknight]

Seems like a combination of circular reasoning (A cannot harm B’s property rights because B belongs to C and A cannot harm C’s property rights), self contradictory reasoning (it is morally wrong for someone to own another because god owns you) and just nonsensical assumptions(a possession has a moral obligation to protect the welfare of another possession). Locke mainly seems to be relying on the fact that most of his readers would be agreeing with his list of objective morality to lend credence to his arguments.

[jeffreyblack]

I would say there are serious issues with the property version of it.
Consider a parent.
They are taking in materials that they own, to create another human being, their offspring.
Does that mean they own their offspring? That it is their property which they are free to do with as they please? Including potentially sell?

Also, if we are appealing to God's creations, animals and plants are also allegedly God's creations. So does that mean we shouldn't harm them? That we should simply let ourselves die from starvation? If we can harm other possessions of God to live, then why can't we harm other people to live?

[firebirdstark]

Locke’s audience was obviously people who already had these extra steps figured out to make his argument relevant to the question. This was not intended for a godless audience or one that doesn’t have the foundation of previous western knowledge going even back to the idea of the Logos in Greek philosophy. We are not equipped today to handle this as a sufficient position BECAUSE we are not classically educated. Our foundations are not built upon what our founding fathers or Locke knew or understood. I don’t see that as a detriment to the argument when it was for a specific audience.

[uzefulvideos]

If everything is god's property, what distinguishes harming a human from harming other animals, or plants, or even just damaging/changing things in this argument?

[planetary-rendez-vous]

This reminds me of Hume's ought from an is. You can't create an ought from an is and it's very sneaky.

[parheliaa]

24:30 What if we replace "should obey" with something like "obeying X is the most profitable/rational/logical outcome"?

[lanehensley]

If you extend lockes argument to conclude objective mortality, that would basically be begging the question fallacy right?

[hanniballecter]

I now need to consider what God wants me to do when I am alone and naked.

[billbrock]

Humans live in groups, and like all social animals we've evolved a system of cooperation that makes group living possible. We call our system morality. Some moral rules, like the Ethic of Reciprocity and the prohibition of murder and theft, are necessary for a group's existence and have the appearance of, or may be said to be, objective morality.

[lalsenarath]

Originally, when the population was less, people never bothered about environment! When there is threat of destroying environment affects badly for living beings, morality expand to the environment! So it is a developing concept throughout!

[seansuttles]

Doesn’t he also go on to say that even without god that these rights are “self-evident” using Reason alone? Or was that just Jefferson?

[fezmancomments]

How does he write back to front on the glass screen?

[nathanjora]

In the second argument, doesn't the normative claim start in premise 1 ? You wrote « god created us, *knows what is best for us* ». Doesn't that assume a "best", and therefore a normative claim ?

That also seems to me a bigger problem because the « should » could be replaced by « it's in Y's best interest to follows Y's command », and then either that can be reused in the conclusion or a third premise can be added which'd read something like « if Y seeks to do what's best for itself, then Y should follow X's command », where « should » here only means as much as it would when talking about what one « should » do to win a game of chess or something.

Anyway, loved your video, very informative as always.