CHAPTER FOUR

MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

Introduction
Modern political through starts with philosophers of modern period. In this we realize a change in
political thought from ancient and medieval period where the emphasis was on virtue, goodness,
greatest good, ethic and morality. These changes lie on a number of factors and themes. They
include:
a) Politics and ethics. They divorced ethics from politics
b) Politics as a game
c) Governance based on political persuasion
d) Democracy – will of the people – number are influential, tyranny of numbers.
e) Reflection of Aristocracy/monarchy but through election
f) Polity to democracy.
g) Power and not common good for the people
h) Majoritarian, plurality and tyranny of numbers became the principle of governance

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI POLITICAL THOUGHT

He was Italian philosopher 1469-1527 sometimes regarded as medieval philosopher because of

the period he existed (enlighten).
His political thought sets him apart from medieval political thought to modern political thought.
Regarded as politician par excellence because he sort in order to gain power, fame, success and
materiality. This was contrary to the view and conviction of the medieval and the ancient political
philosophers. He made paradigm shift from ancient and medieval political thought. In particular
his political thought exposed very unique and extreme political teaching which were anti morality,
virtue and common good.
a) He saw power as the end of politics and not a means to an end.
b) He advocated that politics must be engendered in the pursuit of fame
c) Dominancy and intimidation of the people is not evil for it guaranteed success in
emerging as a leader
d) According to Machiavelli, politics is a Game of number, where those who have
numbers will win and those who have no numbers will lose.
e) Machiavelli became the first political philosopher to introduce the Separation of ethics
from politic. He saw nothing connecting ethics and politics. In other words, morality
has no role in politics. This is because the question of whether one is moral and ethical
has no relationship with political pursuit.

He held that governance, leadership, must involve political cunning and rhetoric. One must be
smart and use all possible wit to win election and to maintain the power without giving it to another
person. In his book The Prince he concentrated on two things. They include:
a) How to emerge or become a new ruler president & prince.
b) How to maintain power and succeed as a prince.

The role of a prince in light of this is to

a) Maintain power, this is done by controlling, the social, political, economic, institutions.
b) A prince must stabilize his new found power. This is by doing the following:

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 a) Intimidate the electorate.
b) cheat the people and deceive them
c) Give the best conceivable promises to make them happy and win election
d) Fulfill very few promises so that they can elect you to continue with the remaining
promises.
e) Those who oppose the prince should not be tolerated, should be sent to exile.
f) As a prince use divide and rule tactics. This will enable one to manage large groups
and navigate through.
g) Use of methodic brute force or deceit
h) Remove the ladder, which essentially mean that cut connection between those who
helped you attain power for they are the people who know all the tactics.

The end of politics is power and one should maintain it at any cost. How should one attain power?
(a) Use any means get to power.
(b) Use any available avenue for the end justifies the means.

In this case, Machiavelli thought that the end result is what is desirable. Any means is justifiable
as long as it leads you to the attainment of power and authority. (Why do you think this is wrong?
Machiavelli had denounced ethics from politics.
a) Politics is a game of numbers. No regard for where the numbers come from
b) Politics is a game of brutes, it must involve hostility, war, intimidation, suppression and others
c) In politics, people’s behavior and actions are judged in relation to what they have acquired.
Machiavelli’s name has been adopted in political dictionary to mean a principle in political
philosophy where one is able to deceive and manipulate others for personal advantages especially
in politics.

THOMAS HOBBES POLITICAL THOUGHT

Introduction

Hobbes is one of the most celebrated political philosophers whose work cannot be ignored in the
modern times. He wrestled with various concepts in line with governance and political
organization. His ideas are that The main practical conclusion of Hobbes' political theory is that
state or society cannot be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows
the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign
may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its
significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues
without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects. Beginning from a mechanistic
understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like
without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would
have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a “war of
all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). The description contains what has been called one
of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind
would be in, were it not for political community.

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 - As politician and a writer of a great works entitled Leviathan. In this work Hobbes raised
a strong perspective in support of social contract theory.
- It can be said that he favored ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY/ABSOLUTEISM. He preferred
the evil of absolute power than the evils of freedom in a society that did not contain such
as an authority. He feared to accept a society where there is no absolute authority because
of his experience of war.
- Due to this he feared a chaotic society and thought that better the evils on absolute authority
than the freedom of people to do anything they wanted.
(a) The reason for this is that in a society where the power is left on everybody (freedom) no
property or lives would be safe at all.
- To ensure domestic tranquility he proposed that there is a need to compel people to obey
the laws of the society and a strong force that should punish them if they did not. In other
words, mere laws are not effective (students to discuss).
- Laws are only effective as the enforcing agency makes them. He insisted that a sovereign
without absolute power to enforce laws in no sovereign at all.
- He must have authority to settle dispute which arise among the citizen. In order to have a
peaceful society it is imperative for rulers to have absolute power or control over the
society.
- The abuses of ruler due to absolute power are immeasurable to chaotic society.

Why should the society be chaotic if there is no absolute authority?

In his book the Leviathan, Hobbes discusses extensively the origin of the state and why there is a
need to have one authority whom he regarded as absolute. In this, he held that the origin of the
state is in social contract. People sitting down, agreeing on how they should live together in society.
They develop rules and guidelines to help them reach this.
But before a society is created, people in the native wilderment lived is solitary lives. Hobbes
contemporizes that they must have lived in a state resembling that of animals in the forest. In this
state of nature or natural state or original state as he refers them, man lived in war against all.
(bellum omnium contra omnes). Man lived as a wolf to another homo –homini lupus. His life before
a state was the most chaotic because everybody had a right to do anything against all others. There
were no absolute authority or laws and rules or reason or justice. All was chaotic, haphazard and
disordered. There was nothing like civility among the people. Specifically, life before the state was
formed was characterizes by:
- Nasty
- British
- Short lives
- Poor
- Solitary
- Archaic.

In general, in the state of nature, such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit
thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of
moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the
earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual
fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

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According to him, man by nature is selfish and egoistic having strong desire to stay alone and live
for himself. He is motivated by selfish desires that requires satisfaction if he/she is to be happy.
Man’s action be explained as an attempt to gratify some desire, such as the desire for sex, for food
for shelter, for fame, for riches and so forth.
For him two or more men may have similar desires that they want to satisfy. Due to this, they will
fight and fight because there is no law or an absolute authority to moderate them. In other word,
men living in large organizations are likely conflict or to break up in their effort to satisfy their
desires at the expense of others.
Life in such society is a battle where the strong wins and the weak lose. Such life is horrible
and demeaning because it goes against human dignity. Hobbes thought that such state cannot be
allowed to exist forever if people are to survive. Due to this, the society or state was developed so
as to end this war of all against all.

The laws of nature

Hobbes argues that the state of nature is a miserable state of war in which none of our important
human ends are reliably realizable. Happily, human nature also provides resources to escape this
miserable condition. Hobbes argues that each of us, as a rational being, can see that a war of all
against all is inimical to the satisfaction of her interests, and so can agree that “peace is good, and
therefore also the way or means of peace are good”. Humans will recognize as imperatives the
injunction to seek peace, and to do those things necessary to secure it, when they can do so safely.
Hobbes calls these practical imperatives “Lawes of Nature”, the sum of which is not to treat others
in ways we would not have them treat us. These “precepts”, “conclusions” or “theorems” of reason
are “eternal and immutable”, always commanding our assent even when they may not safely be
acted upon. They forbid many familiar vices such as iniquity, cruelty, and ingratitude. Although
commentators do not agree on whether these laws should be regarded as mere precepts of
prudence, or rather as divine commands, or moral imperatives of some other sort, all agree that
Hobbes understands them to direct people to submit to political authority. They tell us to seek
peace with willing others by laying down part of our “right to all things”, by mutually covenanting
to submit to the authority of a sovereign, and further direct us to keep that covenant establishing
sovereignty.

What is the society?

A society is a population beneath a sovereign authority to whom all individual in that cedes some
rights for the sake of protection. Ideally speaking a society is a compromise that people enter into
in order to achieve peace, then they give up the attempt to satisfy their desire. This society is
formed to provide protection against insecurity which exists in the state of nature.

How is this done?

Hobbes is one of the political theorist which favoured social contract in order to explain the origin
of the society and the basis of a person’s obligations within society. He held that a society is formed
through social contract. The compromise or social contract consist of an agreement among people
to abide by a contain set of rules or conversion. This constitutes what we now call the laws of the
society. In this people agree to abide by these laws in order to avoid being harmed in conflict that
would rage where there no laws are nonexistent. In order for the society to function well there
must be

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 a) Laws agreed (through social contract).
b) Absolute authority to enforce it.
c) Sovereign be in the hands of one person- king.
d) Penalty for those revolting.

It is on this basis that Hobbes came up with a maxim that “covenant without sword are but words
and of no strengths to secure a man at all”
Hobbes considered monarchy over other forms of government such as oligarchy or aristocracy.
The reason for this is:

a) If it consists of group conflict ay erupt.

b) There shall be division of the power of enforcement.
c) There shall be assurance in enforcement
d) Single ruler has more secrecy of counsel which guards it from leaking.
e) Monarchy decision are only as inconsistence as human nature. It does get affected by
inconsistency of number.
Even with absolute authority Hobbes believed that the subject have liberties.
By liberties he meant, “those things that subject may justify refuse to do even through commended
by the sovereign.”
Liberty include.
- Naturally rights that cannot be transferred.
- Right to life – you can disobey the sovereign you feel your life is jeopardized

Power of the sovereign.

When people mutually covenant each to the others to obey a common authority, they have
established what Hobbes calls “sovereignty by institution”. When, threatened by a conqueror, they
covenant for protection by promising obedience, they have established “sovereignty by
acquisition”. These are equally legitimate ways of establishing sovereignty, according to Hobbes,
and their underlying motivation is the same—namely fear—whether of one’s fellows or of a
conqueror. The social covenant involves both the renunciation or transfer of right and the
authorization of the sovereign power. Political legitimacy depends not on how a government came
to power, but only on whether it can effectively protect those who have consented to obey it;
political obligation ends when protection ceases. In sum the sovereign has the following:
- The sure reign is above the law.
- He is free to abuse power.
- There is no separation of power.
- He is above military ecclesiastical.
- He is not subjected to any law because he is sovereign.
- He is not contracted with the subject therefore he cannot breach the law.

Responsibility and limit of political obligation

When subjects institute a sovereign by authorizing it, they agree, in conformity with the principle
“no wrong is done to a consenting party”, not to hold it liable for any errors in judgment it may
make and not to treat any harms it does to them as actionable injustices. Although many
interpreters have assumed that by authorizing a sovereign, subjects become morally responsible

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for the actions it commands, Hobbes instead insists that the external actions done in obedience to
[laws], without the inward approbation, are the actions of the sovereign, and not of the subject,
which is in that case but as an instrument, without any motion of his own at all. It may be important
to Hobbes’s project of persuading his Christian readers to obey their sovereign that he can reassure
them that God will not hold them responsible for wrongful actions done at the sovereign’s
command, because they cannot reasonably be expected to obey if doing so would jeopardize their
eternal prospects. Hence Hobbes explains that “whatsoever a subject...is compelled to do in
obedience to his sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his
country, that action is not his, but his sovereign’s.” (Leviathan xlii. 11) This position reinforces
absolutism by permitting Hobbes to maintain that subjects can obey even commands to perform
actions they believe to be sinful without fear of divine punishment.

While Hobbes insists that we should regard our governments as having absolute authority, he
reserves to subjects the liberty of disobeying some of their government’s commands. He argues
that subjects retain a right of self-defense against the sovereign power, giving them the right to
disobey or resist when their lives are in danger. He also gives them seemingly broad resistance
rights in cases in which their families or even their honor are at stake. These exceptions have
understandably intrigued those who study Hobbes. His ascription of apparently inalienable
rights—what he calls the “true liberties of subjects”—seems incompatible with his defense of
absolute sovereignty. Moreover, if the sovereign’s failure to provide adequate protection to
subjects extinguishes their obligation to obey, and if it is left to each subject to judge for herself
the adequacy of that protection, it seems that people have never really exited the fearsome state of
nature. This aspect of Hobbes’s political philosophy has been hotly debated ever since Hobbes’s
time. Bishop Bramhall, one of Hobbes’s contemporaries, famously accused Leviathan of being a
“Rebell’s Catechism.” More recently, some commentators have argued that Hobbes’s discussion
of the limits of political obligation is the Achilles’ heel of his theory. It is not clear whether or not
this charge can stand up to scrutiny, but it will surely be the subject of much continued discussion.

Criticism
1. Hobbes theory was accused of being psychological presentation of human nature.
2. His interpretation of origin of society is suspicious.
3. His believe in absolute authority does not reflect modern democracy.
4. He assumed that people without absolute authority would be chaotic is questionable.
5. Notion of social contract is simply an analogy to help talk of political analogy.
6. Human desire are sometimes altruistic not egoistic.
7. His political philosophy is expression of defeatism there being nothing left join.
Recap
What was Thomas Hobbes political theory?
Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government was the
absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work, Leviathan. This belief
stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes' natural philosophy that human beings are, at their core,
selfish creatures.

What was Thomas Hobbes view on human nature?

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Hobbes believed that human beings naturally desire the power to live well and that they will never
be satisfied with the power they have without acquiring more power. After this, he believes, there
usually succeeds a new desire such as fame and glory, ease and sensual pleasure or admiration
from others.

What does Thomas Hobbes say?

Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan (1651) in the midst of the English Civil War. Hobbes
concluded that human beings could only live together if placed under the rule of an absolute
sovereign
What is the Leviathan according to Hobbes?
Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule
by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature
("the war of all against all") could only be avoided by strong, undivided government.

What does Hobbes say about war?

Happily, human nature also provides resources to escape this miserable condition. Hobbes argues
that each of us, as a rational being, can see that a war of all against all is inimical to the satisfaction
of her interests, and so can agree that “peace is good, and therefore also the way or means of peace
are good

What were Thomas Hobbes main ideas?

Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government was the
absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work, Leviathan. This belief
stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes' natural philosophy that human beings are, at their core,
selfish creatures.

Did Hobbes believe in democracy?

Hobbes social contract is not about democracy. On the contrary, his contract defines that citizens
should band together and jointly submit to the rule of a strong and autocratic king. Such an
unlimited power is namely the only measure,that can check the greed and selfishness of man, and
ensure law and order.

What did Thomas Hobbes believe was the main responsibility for the government to
provide?
Thomas Hobbes believed that a government who had a power of a leviathan (sea monster) and a
absolute monarchy, which could impose order and demand obedience. He believed in this type of
government because the ruler needed total power to keep citizens under control.

What rights did Thomas Hobbes believe in?

Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government was the
absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work, Leviathan. This belief
stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes' natural philosophy that human beings are, at their core,
selfish creatures.

Why Thomas Hobbes did preferred an absolute government?

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Because of Hobbes' pessimistic view of human nature, he believed the only form of government
strong enough to hold humanity's cruel impulses in check was absolute monarchy, where a king
wielded supreme and unchecked power over his subjects.

JOHN LOCKE POLITICAL THOUGHT

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period.
In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal
against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people
have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property that have a foundation independent of
the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as
part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social
contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the
government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and
property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the
people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced
with new governments. Locke is thus also important for his defense of the right of revolution.
Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the separation of legislative and executive
powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be used to bring
people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should have
any coercive power over their members. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later political
writing

American political philosopher, an architect of democracy as it is western world today.

His ideas are expressed in his famous work, the Second Treatise on Civil Government.
These ideas were influential in the west word in 17th a reason why American and French republic
owe much to John Locke. As a matter of fact, American constitution reveal documentally to be
replete with phrases such as All men are created equal. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are
held noble. “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All these are extracted from Locke’s treatise.
Locke lived in a period of great social unrest. He fled England 1675 and 1679 due to war and
in all these he is diametrically opposed to Hobbes. He was against Hobbesian absolution. This is
seen when he advocated for separation between church and states, Judiciary, legislature and
executive.
For Locke society is formed out of social contract. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, his state of nature or
original state for man is such that it is totally different from that conceived by Hobbes. The state
of nature is that of reason. Reason guided the life of people. It was not of that of war against all
like in Hobbes’s case. On the contrary, it was a state of peace, liberty, preservation mutual
assistance and good will.
During this time, men lived together according to reason. Reason alone guided then and not
egoistic tendencies. There were no superior, or authority to judge them, no assessment. Here men
knew moral law and ascribed to them. Reason taught mankind that they were equal and
interdependent. No one ought to harm the other’s life.
In this stat men owned properties and had private possession. Property was common in the sense
that each was free to draw raw materials. Private property came due to man’s labour. Labour is the

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justification for man’s ownership. Labour belong to man & whatever he transform using his labour
is his.
Natural state/ original state

Locke’s concept of the state of nature has been interpreted by commentators in a variety of ways.
At first glance it seems quite simple. Locke writes “want [lack] of a common judge, with authority,
puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common
superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.” (Two Treatises 2.19)
Many commentators have taken this as Locke’s definition, concluding that the state of nature exists
wherever there is no legitimate political authority able to judge disputes and where people live
according to the law of reason. On this account the state of nature is distinct from political society,
where a legitimate government exists, and from a state of war where men fail to abide by the law
of reason.

Locke’s theory of the state of nature will thus be tied closely to his theory of natural law, since the
latter defines the rights of persons and their status as free and equal persons. The stronger the
grounds for accepting Locke’s characterization of people as free, equal, and independent, the more
helpful the state of nature becomes as a device for representing people. Still, it is important to
remember that none of these interpretations claims that Locke’s state of nature is only a thought
experiment, in the way Kant and Rawls are normally thought to use the concept. Locke did not
respond to the argument “where have there ever been people in such a state” by saying it did not
matter since it was only a thought experiment. Instead, he argued that there are and have been
people in the state of nature (Two Treatises 2.14). It seems important to him that at least some
governments have actually been formed in the way he suggests. How much it matters whether they
have been or not will be discussed below under the topic of consent, since the central question is
whether a good government can be legitimate even if it does not have the actual consent of the
people who live under it; hypothetical contract and actual contract theories will tend to answer this
question differently.

Locke on the nature of state

The Lockean state is commissioned by a people to serve their interests in securing their rights to
live peacefully. It opposes the organic Aristotelian conception of the state that perceives the state
as the natural result of social growth – a development Locke agrees with but rejects the non-
consensual characteristic of the Aristotelian state. The organic conception of the state collectivizes
the citizenry into a single body, and thereby permits wielding the masses into directions the rulers
see fit – ensuring that the collective as a whole survives and flourishes. We have seen that Locke’s
conception of the state moves away from that of the ship and captain analogy to conceiving the
state as an instrument whose sole purpose is to provide a secure framework for the life, property,
and liberty of the people.

The organic conception is antithetical to the Lockean order. For Locke, government is no more
than a tool that continuously depends on the consent of the people and must not violate the
maximum conditions of securing peace and property – to do so is to violate the trust that is afforded
the institution. It possesses no mystical nature of either a divine or a supernatural order, it is a mere

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prudential institution that can efficiently and effectively provide a better security service (though
that is highly debatable – see above) than individuals working along in the natural state of freedom.

Political power is the power that every man in the state of nature possesses but which is given over
to the society that they form: i.e., to the government set up to create an established and known set
of laws, to arbitrate in disputes, and to preserve the life and property of its members. Locke’s vision
is thusly of a minimal state whose justification can only be that of consent. The state must not
possess arbitrary, absolute powers over the lives and property of the civilians, yet its mandate must
seek the public good and be democratic (that is, majority rule). This opens up issues

ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY STATE.

Although men lived peacefully in the state of nature, occasionally men transgressed the law of
nature. They could attempt to kill or steal property thereby going against the peace and self-
preservation of all. When this occurred the injured party had the right to punish the transgressor.
The reason for formation of the state and subsequent departure from the state of nature is
difficulties that arose about applying punishment to those who transgressed the law. They include:
a) Men in a state of nature were their own judge of right and wrong. There was a need for the
state to make right judgment where there is a transgression
b) Need for adequate force to punish the transgressor
c) The assessment of the degree of punishment was inconsistent
Due to this there was a need for a neutral arbiter. The neutral arbiter must be one who ensures that
the law is enforced, properties are protected, and those who violate are punished without injustice
being propagated. This means they needs three organs to achieve this. They include:
 Judiciary to administer law
 executive to enforce the law
 Legislature to create consistent and uniform law.

In sum the society or state originates from the attempt to develop such institutions for the purpose
of remedying the defects of life without organized society. They voluntary agreed to create these.

NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS

Perhaps the most central concept in Locke’s political philosophy is his theory of natural law and
natural rights. The natural law concept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing the idea
that there were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless of the particular place
where they lived or the agreements they had made. The most important early contrast was between
laws that were by nature, and thus generally applicable, and those that were conventional and
operated only in those places where the particular convention had been established. This
distinction is sometimes formulated as the difference between natural law and positive law.

Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in the Christian tradition, normally
referred to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers.
Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, while divine law can be
discovered only through God’s special revelation and applies only to those to whom it is revealed
and whom God specifically indicates are to be bound. Thus some seventeenth-century

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commentators, Locke included, held that not all of the 10 commandments, much less the rest of
the Old Testament law, were binding on all people. The 10 commandments begin “Hear O Israel”
and thus are only binding on the people to whom they were addressed (Works 6:37). As we will
see below, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart from special revelation,
he saw no contradiction in God playing a part in the argument, so long as the relevant aspects of
God’s character could be discovered by reason alone. In Locke’s theory, divine law and natural
law are consistent and can overlap in content, but they are not coextensive. Thus there is no
problem for Locke if the Bible commands a moral code that is stricter than the one that can be
derived from natural law, but there is a real problem if the Bible teaches what is contrary to natural
law. In practice, Locke avoided this problem because consistency with natural law was one of the
criteria he used when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblical passages.

In the century before Locke, the language of natural rights also gained prominence through the
writings of such thinkers as Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf. Whereas natural law emphasized
duties, natural rights normally emphasized privileges or claims to which an individual was entitled.
There is considerable disagreement as to how these factors are to be understood in relation to each
other in Locke’s theory. Leo Strauss, and many of his followers, take rights to be paramount, going
so far as to portray Locke’s position as essentially similar to that of Hobbes. They point out that
Locke defended a hedonist theory of human motivation (Essay 2.20) and claim that he must agree
with Hobbes about the essentially self-interested nature of human beings. Locke, they claim,
recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations where our own preservation is not in
conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have.

Locke on property and ownership

Locke’s treatment of property is generally thought to be among his most important contributions
in political thought, but it is also one of the aspects of his thought that has been most heavily
criticized. There are important debates over what exactly Locke was trying to accomplish with his
theory. One interpretation, advanced by C.B. Macpherson, sees Locke as a defender of unrestricted
capitalist accumulation. On Macpherson’s interpretation, Locke is thought to have set three
restrictions on the accumulation of property in the state of nature: (1) one may only appropriate as
much as one can use before it spoils one must leave “enough and as good” for others (the
sufficiency restriction), and (3) one may (supposedly) only appropriate property through one’s
own labor. Macpherson claims that as the argument progresses, each of these restrictions is
transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a meaningful restriction with the invention of
money because value can be stored in a medium that does not decay. The sufficiency restriction is
transcended because the creation of private property so increases productivity that even those who
no longer have the opportunity to acquire land will have more opportunity to acquire what is
necessary for life. According to Macpherson’s view, the “enough and as good” requirement is
itself merely a derivative of a prior principle guaranteeing the opportunity to acquire, through
labor, the necessities of life. The third restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually
held at all. Though Locke appears to suggest that one can only have property in what one has
personally labored on when he makes labor the source of property rights, Locke clearly recognized
that even in the state of nature, “the Turfs my Servant has cut” can become my property. Locke,
according to Macpherson, thus clearly recognized that labor can be alienated. As one would guess,
Macpherson is critical of the “possessive individualism” that Locke’s theory of property

11
represents. He argues that its coherence depends upon the assumption of differential rationality
between capitalists and wage-laborers and on the division of society into distinct classes. Because
Locke was bound by these constraints, we are to understand him as including only property owners
as voting members of society.

Reason and violence

Reason teaches the maturing individual to respect others’ rights to their freedom and the extent to
which an aggressor ought to be punished – so far as reason and conscience dictate. Just as we have
seen in his other writings, Locke’s moral absolutism and even Old Testament ethic resurface –
murderers and thieves deserve death, for a man has a right to destroy that which threatens his life.

However, in Locke’s definition of war, that it arises when declared by word or action and not a
“hasty” or a “passionate” action – suggests that a crime de passion may be forgivable, yet it also
raises the possibility that a declared act of war could be a very reasonable option for an aggressor;
yet Locke insists that aggressors have, by the fact of initiating force, renounced reason, despite the
implication of a cold and calculating, “sedate settled Design.” It is an apparent inconsistency which
requires deeper consideration, for aggressors cannot be both lower than beasts, who are motivated
by their appetite say, and be simultaneously of such a calculating mentality. At some point, a man’s
reason could be said to bifurcate, with one branch producing rationalisations – excuses for
initiating violence – and the other branch reflecting the laws of nature that man is free and must
logically accept his neighbour’s right to be free and to live without interference.

An aggressor seeks to gain absolute control over the individual – over his life and his property,
that is, he seeks to enslave him. Nothing, for Locke, can justify such a motive for that would take
away the Freedom that belongs to any one in that State [of Nature]. Locke’s logical development
of the framework is excellent – individuals possess the right of retaliation and defence against
aggressors, who, by initiating force, thereby introduce a state of war, an unjustifiable condition of
violence and inequality that leads to enslavement. But can a man be said to lose his rights if he
aggresses against another? Hobbes was of the opinion that a man possessed an inalienable right to
self-preservation, such that if he were to be executed he would still possess the right to flee.
Locke’s asymmetrical conception of moral status presents problems that begin with the
termination of an inalienable right to life.

Just war theory

Lockean war is judged primarily on the objective distinction between aggressor and defender:
aggressors act without justice and defenders act with justice. But it should be noted that it is a
necessary, but not sufficient, condition of Lockean just war that a party has been attacked. For
although the initiation of force provides the objective criterion that distinguishes just from unjust
acts, it is not a sufficient condition that may sustain a protracted defence of a country once it has
fallen. Locke counsels patience (and prayer) for a defending side that has lost a just war.

But when the violence is over, both sides may subject themselves to the fair determination of the
Law” and agree to the appropriate conditions of reparation and penalty and deterrence from further
aggression, but where no adjudicating body exists, then the state of war continues. This may be

12
read as a very Hobbesian view of international affairs, which is a popular conception that sees the
lack of, or ineffectiveness of international bodies, as evidence of a presiding anarchy between
nations – even in the absence of actual war, such a situation is still, on Lockean and Hobbesian
reasoning characteristic of the state of nature.

The aggressor forfeits his own life and rights when he initiates force and sets up the rule of force
as his standard. The defenders – the prosecutors of a just war – thus gain arbitrary and despotic
power over soldiers captured in a just war. How long should such a right last for? Locke’s
presumption of guilt suggests that a war crime (participating in an unjust war being sufficient) lasts
for the lifetime of the soldier, which raises the question of forgiveness and amnesties and their
applicability in Locke’s system. If we look at it from the position of victorious aggressors in an
unjust war, Locke is adamant that they can never come to have a right over the Conquered. This
surely implies that the guilty can never lose their guilt.

Whether a government or a villain commits aggression does not make any difference, Locke
echoes the words of the philosophers reaching back through Aquinas, Augustine, and to Cicero.
Yet what ought the unjustly defeated do? Remain patient, Locke counsels. Without proper redress
against either a petty villain or an aggressive government, the citizen ought to persevere, for justice
remains with God and aggressors will ultimately be judged there. Nonetheless, in the meantime,
the conquerors in an unjust war have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered.

On the other hand, the conquerors in a just war gain absolute power over those who raised arms
against them in the first place – but there is no collective retribution permitted in Locke’s system.
Those who did not fight – innocents, or in today’s parlance, non-combatants – do not lose any
rights to the just conquerors. There must, accordingly, be a strict distinction between combatants
and non-combatants, which reflects the just war conventions, but, as Locke admits, rarely in the
history of war, conquerors willingly permitting the confusion of War to sweep altogether. The
right over the aggressors is perfectly despotic – that is, they may justly be put to death or enslaved,
but that right does not extend to their property, for that property must also support the lives of
those who did not bear arms. The conqueror has a right to reparation payments to “repair the
damages he has sustained by the War”, but not beyond the aggressor’s estates, for that it would be
robbery on the defender’s side to take more than that which covers his cost of war or to impose on
the property of those who did not fight, such as his wife and children.

Self-defence against individuals or against states that infringe upon the fundament right to life,
liberty, and property justifies defence. So to what extent can the Lockean state expand its
jurisdiction? While its remit is ostensibly minimal or libertarian, other elements in Locke’s
thinking suggest there are loopholes that may deemed utilitarian.

Separation of power and dissolution of government

Locke claims that legitimate government is based on the idea of separation of powers. First and
foremost of these is the legislative power. Locke describes the legislative power as supreme in
having ultimate authority over how the force for the commonwealth shall be employed. The
legislature is still bound by the law of nature and much of what it does is set down laws that further
the goals of natural law and specify appropriate punishments for them the executive power is then

13
charged with enforcing the law as it is applied in specific cases. Interestingly, Locke’s third power
is called the federative power and it consists of the right to act internationally according to the law
of nature. Since countries are still in the state of nature with respect to each other, they must follow
the dictates of natural law and can punish one another for violations of that law in order to protect
the rights of their citizens.

The fact that Locke does not mention the judicial power as a separate power becomes clearer if we
distinguish powers from institutions. Powers relate to functions. To have a power means that there
is a function (such as making the laws or enforcing the laws) that one may legitimately perform.
When Locke says that the legislative is supreme over the executive, he is not saying that parliament
is supreme over the king. Locke is simply affirming that what can give laws to another, must needs
be superior to him. Moreover, Locke thinks that it is possible for multiple institutions to share the
same power; for example, the legislative power in his day was shared by the House of Commons,
the House of Lords, and the King. Since all three needed to agree for something to become law,
all three are part of the legislative power. He also thinks that the federative power and the executive
power are normally placed in the hands of the executive, so it is possible for the same person to
exercise more than one power (or function). There is, therefore, no one to one correspondence
between powers and institutions.

Locke is not opposed to having distinct institutions called courts, but he does not see interpretation
as a distinct function or power. For Locke, legislation is primarily about announcing a general rule
stipulating what types of actions should receive what types of punishments. The executive power
is the power to make the judgments necessary to apply those rules to specific cases and administer
force as directed by the rule. Both of these actions involve interpretation. Locke states that positive
laws “are only so far right, as they are founded on the Law of Nature, by which they are to be
regulated and interpreted”. In other words, the executive must interpret the laws in light of its
understanding of natural law. Similarly, legislation involves making the laws of nature more
specific and determining how to apply them to particular circumstances which also calls for
interpreting natural law. Locke did not think of interpreting law as a distinct function because he
thought it was a part of both the legislative and executive functions.

Implication of lock political thoughts

1) Law and not force is the basis of government. Government without laws is
tyrannical. He was against monarchy because the king can act on unwritten and
untold provisions or laws. This could eventually lead to suppression by creating
rules that protect monarchy and every wrath of the monarch.
2) He highly regarded and valued democracy which was contrary to his predecessor,
Thomas Hobbes. For him, democracy is government by laws that are arrived at
after long deliberations and processes by properly chosen representatives of the
people and that are promulgated so that all men may become acquitted with them.
3) There are certain areas of human life that are immune from government control or
interference. Locke calls these rights, BILL OF RIGHTS. Chapter four of Kenya
constitution emphasizes on these right and regards them as human rights (art 26 –
51) as well as the UDHR art (1-30). Locke’s teaching has been directly borrowed
and used in the US bill of rights in American constitution.

14
 4) The bill of rights stresses that the government is powerless to breach certain types
of conduct of citizenry
5) Locke emphasizes that no government can justly take away private property
because it was created after ownership of property and its role is to protect them. It
is the creation of society or state
6) Equality of all men in terms of rights they have anterior to those given by society
or state.

What was Locke political theory?

In political theory, or political philosophy, John Locke refuted the theory of the divine right of
kings and argued that all persons are endowed with natural rights to life, liberty, and property and
that rulers who fail to protect those rights may be removed by the people, by force if necessary

What was John Locke's big idea?

John Lockes Ideas and Major Works. Perhaps the most influential writtings came from English
philosopher John Locke. He expressed his view that government is obligated to serve the people,
by protecting life, liberty, and property. Also, he went about limiting power of the government

Why did Locke believe in democracy?

Unlike Hobbes, he believed that this social contract should be a democracy. John Locke was a
very important inspiration to the American Revolution. ... These were the "right to life, health,
liberty and property." According to Locke, these "human rights" were derived from "The Natural
Laws", which have been given by God

What are John Locke's 3 natural rights?

Among these fundamental natural rights, Locke said, are "life, liberty, and property." Locke
believed that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of mankind. To serve that
purpose, he reasoned, individuals have both a right and a duty to preserve their own lives

How are John Locke's ideas used today?

John Locke changed and influenced the world in many ways. His political ideas like those in the
Two Treatises of Government, (such as civil, natural, and property rights and the job of the
government to protect these rights), were put into the United States Declaration of Independence
and United States Constitution.

How did Locke influence the constitution?

In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke identified the basis of a legitimate government. ... If
the government should fail to protect these rights, its citizens would have the right to overthrow
that government. This idea deeply influenced Thomas Jefferson as he drafted the Declaration of
Independence.

How John Locke was influenced our government?

15
In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke identified the basis of a legitimate government. ... If
the government should fail to protect these rights, its citizens would have the right to overthrow
that government. This idea deeply influenced Thomas Jefferson as he drafted the Declaration of
Independence.

JEAN JACQUEA ROUSSEAU POLITICAL THOUGHT

Introduction

Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of
his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on
later thinkers. Rousseau’s own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing
philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of
tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity’s natural
impulse to compassion. The concern that dominates Rousseau’s work is to find a way of preserving
human freedom in a world where human beings are increasingly dependent on one another for the
satisfaction of their needs. This concern has two dimensions: material and psychological, of which
the latter has greater importance.

In the modern world, human beings come to derive their very sense of self from the opinion of
others, a fact which Rousseau sees as corrosive of freedom and destructive of individual
authenticity. In his mature work, he principally explores two routes to achieving and protecting
freedom: the first is a political one aimed at constructing political institutions that allow for the co-
existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they themselves are sovereign; the
second is a project for child development and education that fosters autonomy and avoids the
development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. However, though Rousseau believes
the co-existence of human beings in relations of equality and freedom is possible, he is consistently
and overwhelmingly pessimistic that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation,
oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to his contributions to philosophy, Rousseau was active as
a composer and a music theorist, as the pioneer of modern autobiography, as a novelist, and as a
botanist. Rousseau’s appreciation of the wonders of nature and his stress on the importance of
feeling and emotion made him an important influence on and anticipator of the Romantic
Movement.

To a very large extent, the interests and concerns that mark his philosophical work also inform
these other activities, and Rousseau’s contributions in ostensibly non-philosophical fields often
serve to illuminate his philosophical commitments and arguments.

Rousseau political theory and teaching is centered in The Social Contract. The treatise begins with
the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think
themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."

Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which
human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, the division

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of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate
phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also
becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and
his freedom.

According to Rousseau, by joining together into civil society through the social contract and
abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free.
This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees
individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey
themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.

Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands
of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government. The
government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general
will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly.

Rousseau opposed the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative
assembly (Book III, Chapter XV). He approved the kind of republican government of the city-
state, for which Geneva provided a model—or would have done if renewed on Rousseau's
principles. France could not meet Rousseau's criterion of an ideal state because it was too big.
Much subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his
claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free:

The notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy. … It
is, however, an unfortunately obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no
more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor (such as may perhaps
be seen in the French Revolution). Such was not Rousseau's meaning. This is clear from the
Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect
individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it. He is, of course, sharply
aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others.
It is for this reason that loyalty to the good of all alike must be a supreme (although not exclusive)
commitment by everyone, not only if a truly general will is to be heeded but also if it is to be
formulated successfully in the first place".

Political thoughts

Rousseau’s contributions to political philosophy is in his central doctrine in politics that a state
can be legitimate only if it is guided by the “general will” of its members. This idea finds its most
detailed treatment in The Social Contract.

In The Social Contract, Rousseau sets out to answer what he takes to be the fundamental question
of politics, the reconciliation of the freedom of the individual with the authority of the state. This
reconciliation is necessary because human society has evolved to a point where individuals can no
longer supply their needs through their own unaided efforts, but rather must depend on the co-
operation of others. The process whereby human needs expand and interdependence deepens is set
out in the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. In that work, the final moment of Rousseau’s

17
conjectural history involves the emergence of endemic conflict among the now-interdependent
individuals and the argument that the Hobbesian insecurity of this condition would lead all to
consent to the establishment of state authority and law. In the Second Discourse, this establishment
amounts to the reinforcement of unequal and exploitative social relations that are now backed by
law and state power. In an echo of Locke and an anticipation of Marx, Rousseau argues that this
state would, in effect, be a class state, guided by the common interest of the rich and propertied
and imposing unfreedom and subordination on the poor and weak. The propertyless consent to
such an establishment because their immediate fear of a Hobbesian state of war leads them to fail
to attend to the ways in which the new state will systematically disadvantage them.

The Social Contract aims to set out an alternative to this dystopia, an alternative in which,
Rousseau claims, each person will enjoy the protection of the common force whilst remaining as
free as they were in the state of nature. The key to this reconciliation is the idea of the general will:
that is, the collective will of the citizen body taken as a whole. The general will is the source of
law and is willed by each and every citizen. In obeying the law each citizen is thus subject to his
or her own will, and consequently, according to Rousseau, remains free.

The idea of the general will

Rousseau’s account of the general will is marked by unclarities and ambiguities that have attracted
the interest of commentators since its first publication. The principal tension is between a
democratic conception, where the general will is simply what the citizens of the state have decided
together in their sovereign assembly, and an alternative interpretation where the general will is the
transcendent incarnation of the citizens’ common interest that exists in abstraction from what any
of them actually wants. These accounts typically take Condorcet’s jury theorem as a starting point,
where democratic procedures are conceived of as a method for discovering the truth about the
public interest; they then interpret the general will as a deliberative means of seeking outcomes
that satisfy the preferences of individuals and render the authority of the state legitimate. The
tension between the “democratic” and the “transcendental” conceptions can be reduced if we take
Rousseau to be arguing for the view that, under the right conditions and subject to the right
procedures, citizen legislators will be led to converge on laws that correspond to their common
interest; however, where those conditions and procedures are absent, the state necessarily lacks
legitimacy. On such a reading, Rousseau may be committed to something like an a posteriori
philosophical anarchism. Such a view holds that it is be possible, in principle, for a state to exercise
legitimate authority over its citizens, but all actual states—and indeed all states that we are likely
to see in the modern era—will fail to meet the conditions for legitimacy.

Rousseau argues that in order for the general will to be truly general it must come from all and
apply to all. This thought has both substantive and formal aspects. Formally, Rousseau argues that
the law must be general in application and universal in scope. The law cannot name particular
individuals and it must apply to everyone within the state. Rousseau believes that this condition
will lead citizens, though guided by a consideration of what is in their own private interest, to favor
laws that both secure the common interest impartially and that are not burdensome and intrusive.
For this to be true, however, it has to be the case that the situation of citizens is substantially similar
to one another. In a state where citizens enjoy a wide diversity of lifestyles and occupations, or
where there is a great deal of cultural diversity, or where there is a high degree of economic

18
inequality, it will not generally be the case that the impact of the laws will be the same for everyone.
In such cases it will often not be true that a citizen can occupy the standpoint of the general will
merely by imagining the impact of general and universal laws on his or her own case.

The emergence of the general will: procedure, virtue and the legislator

In The Social Contract Rousseau envisages three different types or levels of will as being in play.
First, individuals all have private wills corresponding to their own selfish interests as natural
individuals; second, each individual, insofar as he or she identifies with the collective as a whole
and assumes the identity of citizen, wills the general will of that collective as his or her own, setting
aside selfish interest in favor of a set of laws that allow all to coexist under conditions of equal
freedom; third, and very problematically, a person can identify with the corporate will of a subset
of the populace as a whole. The general will is therefore both a property of the collective and a
result of its deliberations, and a property of the individual insofar as the individual identifies as a
member of the collective. In a well-ordered society, there is no tension between private and general
will, as individuals accept that both justice and their individual self-interest require their
submission to a law which safeguards their freedom by protecting them from the private violence
and personal domination that would otherwise hold sway. In practice, however, Rousseau believes
that many societies will fail to have this well-ordered character. One way in which they can fail is
if private individuals are insufficiently enlightened or virtuous and therefore refuse to accept the
restrictions on their own conduct which the collective interest requires. Another mode of political
failure arises where the political community is differentiated into factions and where one faction
can impose its collective will on the state as a whole.

The Social Contract harbors a further tension between two accounts of how the general will
emerges and its relation to the private wills of citizens. Sometimes Rousseau favors a procedural
story according to which the individual contemplation of self interest (subject to the constraints of
generality and universality and under propitious sociological background conditions such as rough
equality and cultural similarity) will result in the emergence of the general will from the assembly
of citizens. In this account of the emergence of the general will, there seems to be no special need
for citizens to have any specifically moral qualities: the constraints on their choice should be
enough. However, Rousseau also clearly believes that the mere contemplation of self interest
would be inadequate to generate a general will. This may partly concern issues of compliance,
since selfish citizens who can will the general will might still not be moved to obey it. But
Rousseau also seems to believe that citizen virtue is a necessary condition for the emergence of
the general will in the first place. This presents him with a problem for which his figure of the
legislator is one attempted solution. As a believer in the plasticity of human nature, Rousseau holds
that good laws make for good citizens. However, he also believes both that good laws can only be
willed by good citizens and that, in order to be legitimate, they must be agreed upon by the
assembly. This puts him in some difficulty, as it is unlikely that the citizens who come together to
form a new state will have the moral qualities required to will good laws, shaped as those citizens
will have been by unjust institutions. The legislator or lawgiver therefore has the function of
inspiring a sense of collective identity in the new citizens that allows them to identify with the
whole and be moved to support legislation that will eventually transform them and their children
into good citizens. In this story, however, the new citizens at first lack the capacity to discern the

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good reasons that support the new laws and the lawgiver has to persuade them by non-rational
means to legislate in their own best interests.

The figure of the legislator is a puzzle. Like the tutor in Emile, the legislator has the role of
manipulating the desires of his charges, giving them the illusion of free choice without its
substance. Little wonder then that many critics have seen these characters in a somewhat sinister
light. In both cases there is a mystery concerning where the educator figure comes from and how
he could have acquired the knowledge and virtue necessary to perform his role. This, in turn, raises
a problem of regress. If the legislator was formed by a just society, then who performed the
legislator’s role for that society, and how was that legislator formed? How did the tutor acquire his
education if not from a tutor who, in turn, was educated according to Rousseau’s program by an
earlier tutor?

Rousseau’s claim to reconcile freedom and authority

What then of Rousseau’s key claim that freedom and authority are reconciled in his ideal republic
through obedience to the general will? This claim finds notorious and deliberately paradoxical
expression in Book 1 chapter 7 of The Social Contract, where Rousseau writes of citizens being
“forced to be free” when they are constrained to obey the general will. The opening words of The
Social Contract themselves refer to freedom, with the famous saying that Man is born free, but is
everywhere in chains. This ringing declaration, however, is almost immediately followed by a note
of paradox, as Rousseau declares that he can make this subjection “in chains” legitimate. The
thought that Rousseau’s commitment to freedom might not be all that it first appears is
strengthened by other passages in the book, most notably his declaration that those subject to the
general will are “forced to be free.” The value of freedom or liberty is at the center of Rousseau’s
concerns throughout his work. Since he uses the notion in several distinct ways, though, it is
important to distinguish several uses of the term. First, we should note that Rousseau regards the
capacity for choice, and therefore the ability to act against instinct and inclination, as one of the
features that distinguishes the human race from animal species and makes truly moral action
possible. In the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, for example, he characterizes animal
species in essentially Cartesian terms, as mechanisms programmed to a fixed pattern of behavior.
Human beings, on the other hand are not tied to any particular mode of life and can reject the
promptings of instinct. This makes possible both the development of the human species and also
its fall from grace, since individuals can ignore benign impulses (such as pitié) if they wish to. The
freedom to act contrary to the “mechanism of the senses”, and the power of willing and choosing
is, for Rousseau, something entirely outside the laws of the physical world and is therefore not
subject to scientific explanation. Rousseau also takes this freedom to choose to act as the basis of
all distinctively moral action. In The Social Contract the connection between freedom of choice
and morality is central to his argument against despotic government, where he writes that the
renunciation of freedom is contrary to human nature and that to renounce freedom in favour of
another person’s authority is to deprive one’s actions of all morality

In Book I chapter 8 of the The Social Contract, Rousseau tries to illuminate his claim that the
formation of the legitimate state involves no net loss of freedom, but in fact, he makes a slightly
different claim. The new claim involves the idea of an exchange of one type of freedom (natural
freedom) for another type (civil freedom). Natural freedom involves an unlimited right to all

20
things, an idea that is reminiscent of Hobbes’s right of nature” in Leviathan. Since all human beings
enjoy this liberty right to all things, it is clear that in a world occupied by many interdependent
humans, the practical value of that liberty may be almost nonexistent. This is because any
individual’s capacity to get what he or she wants will be limited by his or her physical power and
the competing physical power of others. Further, inevitable conflict over scarce resources will pit
individuals against each other, so that unhindered exercise of natural freedom will result in
violence and uncertainty. The formation of the state, and the promulgation of laws willed by the
general will, transforms this condition. With sovereign power in place, individuals are guaranteed
a sphere of equal freedom under the law with protection for their own persons and security for
their property. Provided that the law bearing equally on everyone is not meddlesome or intrusive
(and Rousseau believes it will not be, since no individual has a motive to legislate burdensome
laws) there will be a net benefit compared to the pre-political state.

Rousseau makes a further claim in the same chapter of The Social Contract, namely that in
conditions of civil society the citizen achieves “moral freedom,” by which he means obedience to
a law that one has prescribed to oneself. Although this latter claim is presented almost as an
afterthought, it is the form of freedom most directly responsive to the challenge Rousseau had set
for himself two chapters earlier, which involved finding “a form of association” in which each
citizen would “obey only himself.” Naturally, this raises the question of whether the citizen does
in fact obey only himself when he obeys the general will. On the face of it, this claim looks difficult
to reconcile with the fact of majorities and minorities within a democratic state, since those citizens
who find themselves outvoted would seem to be constrained by a decision with which they
disagree. Rousseau’s solution to this puzzle is found much later, in Book 4 chapter 3 of The Social
Contract, where he argues that those who obey laws they did not vote for remain bound by a will
that is their own, since the democratic process has enabled them to discover the content of a general
will in which that they share. Many commentators have not found this argument fully convincing.

Rousseau’s invocation of three types of freedom (natural, civil, and moral) in the text of The Social
Contract can appear confusing. The picture is further complicated by the fact that he also relies on
a fourth conception of freedom, related to civil freedom but distinct from it, which he nowhere
names explicitly. This is “republican freedom” and consists, not in my being subject to my own
will, but rather in the fact that the law protects me from being subject to the will of any other
particular person in the manner of a slave or serf. To find Rousseau’s explicit endorsement of this
idea, we have to look not to The Social Contract, but rather to some of his unpublished notes. Yet
the concept is clearly implicit in the notorious “forced to be free” since he there explains that when
each citizen is constrained to obey the general will, he is thereby provided with a guarantee against
“all personal dependence”.

Representation and government

One feature of Rousseau’s political philosophy that has proved least persuasive to later thinkers is
his doctrine of sovereignty and representation, with his apparent rejection of “representative
government”. At the center of Rousseau’s view in The Social Contract is his rejection of the
Hobbesian idea that a people’s legislative will can be vested in some group or individual that then
acts with their authority but rules over them. Instead, he takes the view that to hand over one’s
general right of ruling oneself to another person or body constitutes a form a slavery, and that to

21
recognize such an authority would amount to an abdication of moral agency. This hostility to the
representation of sovereignty also extends to the election of representatives to sovereign
assemblies, even where those representatives are subject to periodic re-election. Even in that case,
the assembly would be legislating on a range of topics on which citizens have not deliberated.
Laws passed by such assemblies would therefore bind citizens in terms that they have not
themselves agreed upon. Not only does the representation of sovereignty constitute, for Rousseau,
a surrender of moral agency, the widespread desire to be represented in the business of self-rule is
a symptom of moral decline and the loss of virtue.

The practical difficulties of direct self-rule by the entire citizen body are obvious. Such
arrangements are potentially onerous and must severely limit the size of legitimate states. It is
noteworthy that Rousseau takes a different view in a text aimed at practical politics:
Considerations on the Government of Poland. Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear that the
widespread interpretation of Rousseau as rejecting all forms of representative government is
correct. One of the key distinctions in The Social Contract is between sovereign and government.
The sovereign, composed of the people as a whole, promulgates laws as an expression of its general
will. The government is a more limited body that administers the state within the bounds set by
the laws, and which issues decrees applying the laws in particular cases. If the laws are conceived
of as the people setting a constitutional framework for society, with the government’s decrees
comprising the more normal business of “legislation,” then the distance between a Rousseauian
republic and a modern constitutional democracy may be smaller than it at first appears. In effect,
the institution of the sovereign may be inconsistent with a representative model, where the
executive power of the government can be understood as requiring it. Such a picture gains
credibility when the details of Rousseau’s views on government are examined. Although a variety
of forms of government turn out to be theoretically compatible with popular sovereignty, Rousseau
is sceptical about the prospects for both democracy (where the people conduct the day to day
running of the state and the application of the laws) and monarchy. Instead, he favors some form
of elective aristocracy: in other words, he supports the idea that the day-to-day administration
should be in the hands of a subset of the population, elected by them according to merit.

Two important issues arise in relation to Rousseau’s account of relations between sovereign and
government. The first of these concerns his political pessimism, even in the case of the best-
designed and most perfect republic. Just as any group has a collective will as opposed to the
individual private will of its members, so does the government. As the state becomes larger and
more diffuse, and as citizens become more distant from one another both spatially and emotionally,
so the effective government of the republic will need a proportionally smaller and more cohesive
group of magistrates. Rousseau thinks it almost inevitable that this group will end up usurping the
legitimate sovereign power of the people and substituting its corporate will for the people’s general
will. The second issue concerns how democratic Rousseau envisaged his republic to be. He
sometimes suggests a picture in which the people would be subject to elite domination by the
government, since the magistrates would reserve the business of agenda-setting for the assembly
to themselves. In other cases, he endorses a conception of a more fully democratic republic.

Although Rousseau rejects Hobbes’s view of the sovereign as representing or acting in the person
of the subject, he has a similar view of what sovereignty is and its relation to the rights of the
individual. He rejects the idea that individuals associated together in a political community retain

22
some natural rights over themselves and their property. Rather, such rights as individuals have
over themselves, land, and external objects, are a matter of sovereign competence and decision.
Individual rights must be specified by the sovereign in ways that are compatible with the interests
of all in a just polity, and Rousseau rejects the idea that such rights could be insisted on as a check
on the sovereign’s power.

Civil religion and toleration

The final full chapter of The Social Contract expounds Rousseau’s doctrine of civil religion.
Contemporary readers were scandalized by it, and particularly by its claim that true (original or
early) Christianity is useless in fostering the spirit of patriotism and social solidarity necessary for
a flourishing state. In many ways the chapter represents a striking departure from the main themes
of the book. First, it is the only occasion where Rousseau prescribes the content of a law that a just
republic must have. Second, it amounts to his acceptance of the inevitability of pluralism in matters
of religion, and thus of religious toleration; this is in some tension with his encouragement
elsewhere of cultural homogeneity as a propitious environment for the emergence of a general
will. Third, it represents a very concrete example of the limits of sovereign power: following
Locke, Rousseau insists upon the inability of the sovereign to examine the private beliefs of
citizens. The tenets of Rousseau’s civil religion include the affirmation of the existence of a
supreme being and of the afterlife, the principle that the just will prosper and the wicked will be
punished, and the claim that the social contract and the laws are sacred. In addition, the civil
religion requires the provision that all those willing to tolerate others should themselves be
tolerated, but those who insist that there is no salvation outside their particular church cannot be
citizens of the state. The structure of religious beliefs within the just state is that of an overlapping
consensus: the dogmas of the civil religion are such that they can be affirmed by adherents of a
number of different faiths, both Christian and non-Christian.

Despite Rousseau’s concern for religious toleration both in the chapter and elsewhere, modern
readers have often been repelled by one striking note of intolerance. Rousseau argues that those
who cannot accept the dogmas can be banished from the state. This is because he believes that
atheists, having no fear of divine punishment, cannot be trusted by their fellow citizens to obey the
law. He goes even further, to suggest the death penalty for those who affirm the dogmas but later
act as if they do not believe them.

What was Jean Jacques Rousseau known for?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of
Enlightenment. His Political Philosophy, particularly his formulation of social contract theory (or
Contractarianism), strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of Liberal,
Conservative and Socialist theory.

What is Rousseau's theory?

According to Rousseau's theory of social contract, people leave an anarchic state of nature by
voluntarily transferring their personal rights to the community in return for security of life and
property. He argues that people should form a society to which they would completely surrender
themselves

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What did Jean Jacques Rousseau believe?
The belief that man, by nature, is good was espoused by the French philosopher, Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712-1778). He believed that people in the state of nature were innocent and at their
best and that they were corrupted by the unnaturalness of civilization.

What did Jean Jacques Rousseau believe about government?

Rousseau argued that the general will of the people could not be decided by elected representatives.
He believed in a direct democracy in which everyone voted to express the general will and to make
the laws of the land. Rousseau had in mind a democracy on a small scale, a city-state like his native
Geneva.

How did Jean Jacques Rousseau impact the world today?

Jean Jacques Rousseau had a major impact on modern governments through the advancement of
the philosophy of social contract. Through his work he was able to transform mostly despotic
government institutions into democratic institutions based on individual freedoms.

What does Rousseau say about freedom?

By proposing a social contract, Rousseau hopes to secure the civil freedom that should
accompany life in society. This freedom is tempered by an agreement not to harm one's fellow
citizens, but this restraint leads people to be moral and rational.

What was the main idea of Rousseau?

Rousseau believed modern man's enslavement to his own needs was responsible for all sorts of
societal ills, from exploitation and domination of others to poor self-esteem and depression.
Rousseau believed that good government must have the freedom of all its citizens as its most
fundamental objective.

What does Rousseau say about property?

Property according to Rousseau is that which is obtained legally thereby purporting legitimate
claim to ones holdings. Now we must consider what gives an individual the right to openly claim
ownership. Rousseau points out that right does not equal might. In other words, ave a right can
never derive from force.

Is the social contract relevant today?

Yes. You could argue that a social contract underpins modern (representative) democracies. In a
simplistic sense, societies reliant on popular sovereignty could claim that there is a contract/
obligation between the people (who make up society) and its government and representatives

What did Rousseau say about democracy?

When Rousseau uses the word democracy, he refers to a direct democracy rather than a
representative democracy. In light of the relation between population size and governmental
structure, Rousseau argues that like his native Geneva, small city-states are the form of nation in
which freedom can best flourish.

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What does Rousseau mean by state of nature?
The state of nature, for Rousseau, is a morally neutral and peaceful condition in which (mainly)
solitary individuals act according to their basic urges (for instance, hunger) as well as their natural
desire for self-preservation. This latter instinct, however, is tempered by an equally natural sense
of compassion

JOHN STUART MILL POLITICAL THOUGHT

Introduction
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was the most famous and influential British philosopher of the
nineteenth century. He was one of the last systematic philosophers, making significant
contributions in logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and social theory.
He was also an important public figure, articulating the liberal platform, pressing for various liberal
reforms, and serving in Parliament. During Mill’s lifetime, he was most widely admired for his
work in theoretical philosophy and political economy. However, nowadays Mill’s greatest
philosophical influence is in moral and political philosophy, especially his articulation and defense
of utilitarianism and liberalism (Nicholson 1998).

Liberal Democracy

We get a somewhat different perspective on Mill’s utilitarian and liberal principles by seeing how
he applies them to social and political issues. We might begin by focusing on Mill’s defense of a
democratic form of liberalism in Considerations on Representative Government and Principles of
Political Economy.

In Considerations on Representative Government Mill argues that a form of representative

democracy is the best ideal form of government. It is not an invariant ideal that holds regardless
of historical or social circumstances. But he does think that it is the best form of government for
societies with sufficient resources, security, and culture of self-reliance. In particular, Mill thinks
that representative democracy is best, when it is best, because it best satisfies two criteria of all
good government:

(1) That government is good insofar as it promotes the common good, where this is conceived of
as promoting the moral, intellectual, and active traits of its citizens, and

(2) That government is good insofar as it makes effective use of institutions and the resources of
its citizens to promote the common good (CRG 390, 392).

Insofar as (2) is really a component of (1), Mill’s ultimate criterion is that good government should
promote the common good of its citizens. Mill does not explicitly invoke his version of
utilitarianism. Perhaps he wants his defense of representative democracy to rest on more
ecumenical premises. But he clearly understands this political criterion of the common good in
broadly consequentialist or result-oriented terms. Moreover, though he may not mention the higher
pleasures doctrine explicitly, it is also clear that Mill understands the good of each in broadly

25
perfectionist terms that emphasize the importance of an active and autonomous form of life that
exercises intellectual, deliberative, and creative capacities.

Democracy

Representative Democracy

Mill thinks that there are two ways in which democracy is, under the right circumstances, best
suited to promote the common good.

First, he thinks that democracy plays an important epistemic role in identifying the common good.
Proper deliberation about issues affecting the common good requires identifying how different
policies would bear on the interests of affected parties and so requires the proper representation
and articulation of the interests of citizens. But failure of imagination and the operation of personal
bias present obstacles to the effective representation of the interests of others. Universal suffrage
and political participation provide the best assurance that the interests of the governed will be
properly appreciated by political decision-makers.

Second, Mill thinks that democracy is also the best form of government because of the constitutive
effects of political participation on the improvement of the moral capacities of citizens. To the
extent that the governed can and do participate in public debate and elections they exercise those
very deliberative capacities that it is the aim of government to develop. They learn to gather
information about their options, deliberate about their merits, and choose a representative that will
give expression to their ideals and preferences. But they deliberate and choose with others about a
public agenda, and in so doing they cultivate abilities to form a conception of a common good, to
take principled stands, to exchange reasons with others, and to learn from others.

So far, these would seem to be arguments for widespread—indeed, universal—direct democracy.

In fact, unlike many of his contemporaries interested in expanding the franchise, Mill defends the
extension of the franchise to women too, rejecting any restriction on their franchise as baseless.
But Mill qualifies this defense of direct democracy in various significant ways.

Democracy presumably involves rule by the will of the people. We might say that a political
system is democratic insofar as the content of its political decisions reflect the will of the people.
A direct democracy, in which every citizen votes on legislation, is one way for political decisions
to reflect the will of the people. But direct democracy is impractical in anything but a small
community (412). Mill defends representative, rather than direct, democracy.

Mill believes that representatives are charged with the task of voting, after free and open
discussion, their own considered views about what would promote the common good (490). Here
Mill expresses doubts about an interest group model of democracy, according to which
representatives are advocates of the sectarian interests of their constituents and democracy is seen
as an impartial aggregation and set of compromises among sectarian interests. Instead, Mill regards
representatives as fiduciaries in a public trust, in which each representative aims at a genuinely
common good, and in which individual and collective deliberations are shaped by a diversity of
experiences and perspectives.

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Many needs are local in nature, and, even when the needs are general, their satisfaction may depend
heavily on local conditions. For this reason, Mill advocates a federal system in which a central
representative body has more limited functions and local or municipal representative bodies
govern in matters involving local affairs or local detail, such as the creation and maintenance of
local infrastructure, including roads, courts, jails, and schools.

However, one important function of a central government, Mill believes, is the need to protect
local political minorities from being systematically disadvantaged by local political majorities
(544). Here he shows his concern with individual rights against the tyranny of the majority, which
was a focus of On Liberty, and suggests that constitutional guarantees may be better preserved by
central, rather than local, authorities. Unfortunately, he does not devote much attention to exactly
which individual rights should be recognized constitutionally.

Mill also insists that a representative democracy, either local or federal, should employ
proportional, rather than winner-take-all, representation Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform. We
can see how proportional representation fits with the epistemic argument for democracy. Winner-
take-all representation may eliminate or reduce effective expression of minority points of view so
essential for free and informed inquiry about the common good and respecting the interests of
political minorities.

As we noted earlier, Mill does not defend representative democracy as ideal under all historical
and social circumstances. There are some social circumstances, he thinks, in which democracy
will not promote the common good. These are backward states of society in which most citizens
are unfit to rule, because they lack necessary ingredients of the culture of autonomy to exercise
decision-making authority responsibly. They lack discipline, or education, or an active and
independent character. Different forms of government are appropriate for such backward states of
advancement. In particular, Mill thinks that benevolent rule by an enlightened one or few, which
aimed at the common good, would be better suited for such societies. Here, Mill is introducing a
scope limitation on the defense of political rights that he recognized explicitly in his defense of
basic liberties in On Liberty. There are important practical questions, which Mill does not address
very clearly, about which societies cross this threshold of capacity for improvement by free inquiry
and political rights. But he does make clear that political participation, like free inquiry, is
important as a necessary condition for the exercise of our higher capacities and has value only
when a threshold level of normative competence is met.

What is true of some societies in relation to others is also true of some individuals in relation to
others within societies that cross this threshold of normative competence. This explains limitations
on the scope of the franchise that Mill recognizes within such advanced civilizations. He confines
the scope of the franchise to mature adults, excluding minors who would not have crossed the
threshold of normative competence. He is also prepared to exclude those adults who are not
literate. This is a failure of normative competence for which society is to blame and which it is
society’s duty to correct. Mill also excludes from the franchise those adults who do not pay taxes
and are on public assistance. Here he expresses the concern that voting gives one a say not only
over one’s own life but also over the lives of others and that without contributing to the production
of an economic surplus one has no right to help determine how this surplus is distributed. Mill is
also committed to doubts about the normative competence of those on public assistance.

27
Elsewhere, Mill insists that charities make beneficiaries dependent on benefactors in ways that
compromise their autonomy and independence. Insofar as this is true, it provides an additional
rationale for excluding dependents from the franchise.

The main limitations on the scope of the franchise that Mill recognizes track this threshold of
normative competence. Mill thinks that the reasons for favoring democracy apply to all those
above this normative threshold. Literate manual laborers have the same claim to the franchise, Mill
thinks, as anyone else. They need to stand up for their own interests and make sure they are
properly reckoned in political decision-making. Moreover, they stand to benefit from political
participation, because of the way it develops their deliberative capacities.

The most direct mode of effecting this, would be to establish the plurality of votes, in favour of
those who could afford a reasonable presumption of superior knowledge and cultivation. The
perfection, then, of an electoral system would be, that every person should have one vote, but that
every well-educated person in the community should have more than one, on a scale corresponding
as far as practicable to their amount of education.

There is an upper limit on the system of plural votes such that the weighted votes of the educational
elite will not give them a majority coalition that could advance its class interests at the expense of
the uneducated.

Mill’s commitment to weighted voting reflects his views about the backward state of the working
classes.

The opinions and wishes of the poorest and rudest class of labourers may be very useful as one
influence among others on the minds of the voters, as well as on those of the Legislature; and yet
it may be highly mischievous to give them the preponderant influence, but admitting them, in their
present state of morals and intelligence, to the full exercise of the suffrage.

Despite these doubts about the working classes, Mill regarded himself as their friend. Mill did not
blame the working classes for their comparative inferiority, and he did not regard their inferiority
as a natural or permanent condition. He thought that improved access to quality primary and
secondary education and greater scope for civic participation would gradually improve normative
competence in the working classes. Insofar as this is true, the qualification to Mill’s commitment
to political equality, represented by his scheme of weighted voting, is temporary and transitional.
In this sense, weighted voting is not part of ideal political theory in the way that (near) universal
suffrage and proportional representation are.

Even if weighted voting tracks the epistemic reasons for democracy and differences in underlying
normative competence, it violates norms of political equality. Mill seems not to recognize the
potentially corrosive effects of weighted voting in terms of the message it sends of second-class
citizenship to the working classes. He thinks that self-respect requires only that one have the vote,
not that one have an equal vote, regardless of normative competence.

There is not, in this arrangement, anything necessarily invidious to those to whom it assigns the
lower degrees of influence. Entire exclusion from a voice in the common concerns is one thing;

28
the concession to others of a more potential voice, on the ground of greater capacity for the
management of the joint interests, is another. The two things are not merely different, they are
incommensurable. Everyone has a right to feel insulted by being made a nobody, and stamped as
of no account at all. No one but a fool … feels offended by the acknowledgment that there are
others whose opinion … is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his.

But why should I care so much about being branded a nobody and not at all about being branded
a lesser somebody? One might well want to harness the resources and expertise of an educated
elite, perhaps, as Mill already imagines, by giving them special roles in the drafting of legislation
or in setting the agenda for public deliberations. But this does not require giving the educated elite
plural votes. Doing that seems to have significant symbolic value, saying that working classes
should have less political standing and say. From this perspective, Mill displays something of a tin
ear for such concerns about weighted voting. Interestingly, while he does not seem especially
sensitive to concerns about the bad effects of second-class citizenship in Considerations on
Representative Government, he seems much more sensitive to such concerns in The Subjection of
Women. As we will see, Mill is acutely aware of the variety of ways in which women’s
contributions can be discouraged and undervalued and of the individual and social costs of
women’s second-class status. Had Mill been as mindful of the costs of according workers second-
class citizenship as he would later be of the costs of according women second-class status, he
might have been more skeptical of weighted voting than he in fact was.

Liberal Democracy and the Common Good

What of the substance of democratic government? Though Mill is an advocate of limited

government in ways that one might expect given his defense of basic liberties in On Liberty, he is
no libertarian. He emphatically rejects the idea that legitimate government is limited to the
functions of affording protection against force and fraud. Instead, he thinks that there are a variety
of ways in which government can and should intervene in the lives of citizens—sometimes as
coercer and other times as enabler or facilitator—in order to promote the common good. Mill’s
claims about happiness imply that the good of each consists in the exercise of her higher capacities.
This requires an active life in which one’s activities are regulated by one’s deliberations and
choices. As we have seen in Mill’s critical discussions of paternalism, this places limits on how
others can promote one’s own good. I can’t promote your good, understood in this way, in ways
that bypass your agency any more than I can win a race for you. But just as I can do things to help
you win the race yourself (training with you, sharing nutritional tips, and helping you plan
strategy), so too I can do things that help you lead an autonomous life. I can provide various sorts
of necessary conditions for your leading such a life. If an individual’s good consists in this sort of
self-realization, then a government which aims at the common good should concern itself in
significant part with the fair provision of opportunities for welfare.

As with basic liberties, opportunities for welfare have value, not in themselves, but as necessary
conditions for the sort of self-realization to which Mill assigns pre-eminent intrinsic value. But
they are no less important for that reason. Indeed, many of the functions of government that he
recognizes can be traced to providing opportunities for self-realization.

29
Though Mill generally opposes paternalism, censorship, offense regulation, and moralism, he does
recognize various functions that government should perform in pursuing the common good. In part
because the opportunities for each depend in part upon the position and resources of others, Mill
thinks that provision of fair equality of opportunity constrains permissible socio-economic
inequalities.

A just and wise legislation would abstain from holding out motives for dissipating rather than
saving the earnings of honest exertion. Its impartiality between competitors would consist in
endeavoring that they should all start fair. Many, indeed, fail with greater efforts than those with
which others succeed, not from difference of merits, but difference of opportunities; but if all were
done which it would be in the power of a good government to do, by instruction and by legislation,
to diminish this inequality of opportunities, the differences of fortune arising from people’s own
earnings could not justly give umbrage.

As Mill makes clear in this passage, his concern is not with inequality as such. Though he envisions
a society in which inequalities are reduced and in which a decent minimum standard of living is
available to all, he does defend the profits of capitalists as a just recompense for their savings, risk,
and economic supervision. Rather, Mill’s concern in this passage is with inequalities derived from
inequality of opportunity and those inequalities that perpetuate inequality of opportunity. To
achieve equality of opportunity, Mill endorses various redistributive tax measures. He defends a
flat tax rate on earned income above a threshold necessary to secure a decent minimum standard
of living, leaving earned income below this threshold untaxed. In addition, he endorses the use of
higher tax rates on unearned income and on inheritance. Such taxes limit intergenerational
inequalities that would otherwise constrain equality of opportunity.

Within this framework established for equal opportunity, Mill defends additional governmental
functions designed to promote the common good. A prime condition of normative competence is
a decent education, and Mill thinks that it is one of the central roles of the state to require and, if
necessary, provide a quality education. Mill thinks that the state can and should require parents to
provide schooling for their children, ensuring that this kind of education is available to all,
regardless of financial circumstances, by subsidizing the costs of education for the poor so that it
is available free or at a nominal cost.

Mill’s liberalism is committed to democratic political institutions in which the franchise is

widespread, private property rights, market economies, equal social and economic opportunity,
and a variety of personal and civic liberties. To appreciate the significance of his brand of
liberalism, it is helpful to focus on the substance of his conception of liberal essentials—the
package of individual liberties and state responsibilities that he endorses—and the way he justifies
his conception of liberal essentials. Millian liberalism is not laissez-faire liberalism, and it justifies
liberal essentials as a way of promoting the common good. The distinctiveness of this brand of
liberalism is perhaps best seen in contrast with two other conceptions of liberalism—a more
libertarian conception of liberal essentials and their justification that dominated the British Liberal
Party at mid-century and the sort of contemporary political liberalism that justifies liberal
essentials as required if the state is to be neutral among rival conceptions of the good life that its
citizens might hold.

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Mill’s Liberalism

Mill’s On Liberty is the most influential statement of his liberal principles. He begins by
distinguishing old and new threats to liberty. The old threat to liberty is found in traditional
societies in which there is rule by one (a monarchy) or a few (an aristocracy). Though one could
be worried about restrictions on liberty by benevolent monarchs or aristocrats, the traditional worry
is that when rulers are politically unaccountable to the governed they will rule in their own
interests, rather than the interests of the governed. In particular, they will restrict the liberties of
their subjects in ways that benefit themselves, rather than the ruled. It was these traditional threats
to liberty that the democratic reforms of the Philosophical Radicals were meant to address. But
Mill thinks that these traditional threats to liberty are not the only ones to worry about. He makes
clear that democracies contain their own threats to liberty—this is the tyranny, not of the one or
the few, but of the majority’ Mill sets out to articulate the principles that should regulate how
governments and societies, whether democratic or not, can restrict individual liberties.

Liberal Principles and the Categorical Approach

In an early and famous passage Mill conceives of liberalism in terms of one very simple principle.

The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the
dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means
used be physical force in the form of legal penalties or the moral coercion of public opinion. That
principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in
interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. That the only purpose
for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against
his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do
so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or
even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or
persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case
he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be
calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is
amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his
independence, is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is
sovereign.

In this passage, Mill distinguishes paternalistic and moralistic restrictions of liberty from
restrictions of liberty based upon the harm principle and claims that the harm prevention is the sole
legitimate basis for restricting individual liberties.

 A’s restriction of B’s liberty is paternalistic if it is done for B’s own benefit.
 A’s restriction of B’s liberty is moralistic if it is done to ensure that B acts morally or not
immorally.
 A’s restriction of B’s liberty is an application of the harm principle if it is done to prevent
harm to someone other than B.

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Later, Mill distinguishes between genuine harm and mere offense. In order to satisfy the harm
principle, an action must violate or risk violation of those important interests of others in which
they have a right.

These distinctions allow Mill to defend a categorical approach to liberal rights. To decide whether
an individual’s liberty ought to be protected, we must ascertain to which category the potential
restriction of liberty belongs: offense, moralism, paternalism, and harm prevention. Mill seems to
permit or forbid restrictions on liberty by category, claiming that the only restrictions that are
permissible involve harm prevention. Of course, a given regulation might fall under more than one
category. Many provisions of the criminal law, such as prohibitions on murder and assault, might
be designed both to enforce fundamental moral provisions and to prevent harm to others. Mill does
not object to moralistic or paternalistic legislation that can also be defended by appeal to the harm
principle. Rather, the objection is to restrictions that can only be justified in these ways and cannot
be justified by appeal to harm prevention.

Harm prevention is a necessary but not sufficient ground for restricting individual liberties. Harm
prevention is sufficient to establish a pro tanto case for regulation, but whether regulation is all
things considered appropriate depends on a utilitarian calculation of whether the benefits of
regulation exceed its costs.

As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has
jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by
interfering with it, becomes open to discussion.

This means that the harm principle is not in fact Mill’s only principle, because we cannot decide
whether regulations that would prevent harm should be adopted without appealing to the principle
of utility. But even if harm prevention is not sufficient to justify restricting liberty, Mill does appear
to claim that it is necessary.

Sometimes Mill suggests that the harm principle is equivalent to letting society restrict other-
regarding conduct. On this view, conduct can be divided into self-regarding and other-regarding
conduct. Regulation of the former is paternalistic, and regulation of the latter is an application of
the harm principle. So on this view it is never permissible to regulate purely self-regarding conduct
and always permissible to regulate other-regarding conflict. But, as Mill himself concedes, very
little conduct is purely self-regarding. Some other-regarding conduct causes mere offense, not
genuine harm. So Mill cannot equate harmful behavior and other-regarding behavior and cannot
think that all other-regarding behavior may be regulated.

It is generally thought that by applying this categorical approach to liberty and its permissible
restrictions Mill is led to offer a fairly extensive defense of individual liberties against interference
by the state and society. In particular, it is sometimes thought that Mill recognizes a large sphere
of conduct which it is impermissible for the state to regulate. We might characterize this sphere of
protected liberties as Mill’s conception of liberal rights. On this reading, Mill is deriving his
conception of liberal rights from a prior commitment to the categorical approach and, in particular,
to the harm principle.

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Categories, Rights, and Utility

There is an apparent tension between Mill’s commitment to a categorical approach to basic

liberties and his defense of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism treats the good as prior to and independent
of the right or duty—defining duty as the promotion of good consequences. Perhaps certain kinds
of actions tend to be good or bad, but, according to direct utilitarianism, the moral quality of a
particular action depends on its own consequences. By contrast, the deontological and natural
rights traditions treat duty or the right as prior to and independent of the good. In particular,
deontologists believe that it is not always one’s duty to promote good consequences. Sometimes
one has a duty to do an act that is suboptimal, and sometimes it is wrong to do the optimal act.
Deontologists recognize moral constraints on pursuing the good. These constraints usually take
the form of categorical rules to perform or refrain from certain sorts of actions (e.g., to keep
promises or to refrain from lying), regardless of the consequences. A special case of this perceived
conflict between categorical rules and utility is the perceived tension between utility and rights.
For, on a common view, individual rights just are a special case of categorical rules. Individual
rights, such as rights to liberties or to freedom from harm, are interpreted as “trumps” or side
constraints on the pursuit of good consequences.

The apparent conflict between utility and rights poses an interesting test for Mill, because he wants
to defend liberal rights that have utilitarian foundations.

It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the
idea of abstract right as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all
ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of
man as a progressive being.

We need to ask if Mill is able to reconcile his defense of utility and liberty without compromising
either his utilitarianism or his defense of a right to liberties.

Freedom of Expression

Mill begins his defense of basic liberties with a discussion of freedom of expression. He thinks
that there is general agreement on the importance of free speech and that, once the grounds for free
speech are understood, this agreement can be exploited to support a more general defense of
individual liberties (I 16; III 1). So his defense of expressive liberties is important not only in its
own right but also insofar as it lays the foundation of his liberal principles.

Mill’s discussion of censorship in Chapter II focuses on censorship whose aim is to suppress false
or immoral opinion. He mentions four reasons for maintaining free speech and opposing
censorship.

1. A censored opinion might be true.

2. Even if literally false, a censored opinion might contain part of the truth.
3. Even if wholly false, a censored opinion would prevent true opinions from becoming
dogma.
4. As a dogma, an unchallenged opinion will lose its meaning.

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It is natural to group these four considerations into two main kinds: the first two invoke a truth-
tracking defense of expressive liberties, while the second two appeal to a distinctive kind of value
that free discussion is supposed to have.

A Perfectionist Defense of Basic Liberties

Though important in its own right, Mill’s defense of freedom of thought and discussion provides
the resources for a more general defense of basic liberties of thought and action that Mill offers in
the balance of On Liberty. A good human life is one that exercises one’s higher capacities a
person’s higher capacities include her deliberative capacities, in particular, capacities to form,
revise, assess, select, and implement her own plan of life. This kind of self-government requires
both positive and negative conditions. Among the positive conditions it requires is an education
that develops deliberative competence by providing understanding of different historical periods
and social possibilities, developing cultural and aesthetic sensibilities, developing skills essential
for critical reasoning and assessment, and cultivating habits of intellectual curiosity, modesty, and
open-mindedness. Among the negative conditions that self-government requires are various
liberties of thought and action. If the choice and pursuit of projects and plans is to be deliberate, it
must be informed as to the alternatives and their grounds, and this requires intellectual freedoms
of speech, association, and press that expand the menu of deliberative options and allow for the
vivid representation of the comparative merits of options on that menu. If there is to be choice and
implementation of choices, there must be liberties of action such as freedom of association,
freedom of worship, and freedom to choose one’s occupation.

Indeed, liberties of thought and action are importantly related. This is apparent in the pre-eminent
value Mill assigns to diversity and experimentation in life-style. Indeed, in his Autobiography Mill
describes this as the central truth of On Liberty:

The importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full
freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.

Diversity and experimentation in life-style are important not only insofar as they are expressions
of self-government but also insofar as they enhance self-government. For experimentation and
diversity of life-style expand the deliberative menu and bring out more clearly the nature and
merits of options on the menu.

Limits on Liberty

Despite this robust rationale for liberties of thought and action, it is also important to see that Mill
is not treating liberty as an intrinsic good or endorsing an unqualified right to liberty.

First, we should note that Mill does not defend liberty per se, but only certain basic liberties. His
defense focuses on three basic categories of liberty.

1. Liberties of conscience and expression

2. Liberties of tastes, pursuits, and life-plans
3. Liberties of association

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Though these liberties evidently include quite a bit, there is no suggestion here that any and all
liberty deserves protection. Why not? Insofar as Mill defends individual liberties by appeal to
deliberative values, he can distinguish the importance of different liberties in terms of their role in
practical deliberation. A central part of practical deliberation is forming ideals and regulating one’s
actions and plans in accordance with these ideals. But some liberties seem more central than others
to the selection of personal ideals. For instance, it seems plausible that liberties of speech,
association, worship, and choice of profession are more important than liberties to drive in either
direction on streets designated as one-way, liberties not to wear seat belts, or liberties to dispose
of one’s gross income as one pleases, because restrictions on the former seem to interfere more
than restrictions on the latter with deliberations and choices about what sort of person to be.

Second, even the exercise of basic liberties is limited by the harm principle, which justifies
restricting liberty to prevent harm to others. Even expressive liberties can be restricted when their
exercise poses a clear and present danger to others.

Even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such
as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that
corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested
when simply circulated through the press, but may justifiably incur punishment when delivered
orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer, or when handed about among
the same mob in the form of a placard.

There are interesting questions about the correct interpretation of the harm principle, which we
will examine later. But Mill’s commitment to some version of the harm principle as a ground for
restricting liberty is hard to dispute.

Third, it is important to be clear about how Mill values basic liberties. To account for the robust
character of his perfectionist argument, it is tempting to suppose that Mill thinks these basic
liberties are themselves important intrinsic goods. But in Mill’s introductory remarks he insists
that his liberal principles do not apply to individuals who do not have a suitably developed
normative competence. So, for instance, the prohibition on paternalism does not extend to children
with immature deliberative faculties or to adults with very limited normative competence, whether
due to congenital defects or social circumstance. Such restrictions on the scope of Mill’s principles
make little sense if basic liberties are dominant intrinsic goods, for then it should always be
valuable to accord people liberties—a claim that Mill denies. Instead, Mill claims that these
liberties have value only when various necessary conditions for the exercise of deliberative
capacities—in particular, sufficient rational development or normative competence—are in place.

The Harm Principle

With a better understanding of the rationale and limits of Mill’s liberal principles, we can take a
closer look at the details of his categorical approach, including its centerpiece the harm principle.

First, recall that Mill distinguishes between harm and mere offense. Not every unwelcome
consequence for others counts as a harm. Offenses tend to be comparatively minor and ephemeral.
To constitute a harm, an action must be injurious or set back important interests of particular

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people, interests in which they have rights. Whereas Mill appears to reject the regulation of mere
offense, the harm principle appears to be the one justification he recognizes for restricting liberty.

Second, Mill envisions that the harm principle is something that we can apply prospectively to
prevent someone from acting in certain ways and causing harm. In many cases all we could
reasonably know is that a given action risks harm. Fortunately, this seems to be all that Mill
requires. There are interesting and important questions about what threshold of risk must be met
for purposes of the harm principle, which Mill does not address. Presumably, the threshold should
vary inversely with the magnitude of the harm risked, so that the probability of harm required to
justify regulation is lower the greater the harm risked.

Third, Mill wants the harm principle to have wide scope. He insists that the harm principle
regulates more than relations between government and individuals. Its application should include
the family, in particular, relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children.

Fourth, though Mill often focuses simply on harm, it appears that his real focus is on non-
consensual harm. He endorses the maxim volenti non fit injuria, (no harm is done to the one who
has consented) which he glosses in Utilitarianism as the doctrine that “that is not unjust which is
done with the consent of the person who is supposed to be hurt by it”. It is not that one cannot be
hurt by something one has consented to or freely risked. Rather, when one has knowingly and
willing risked something harmful, one cannot legitimately complain when that harm comes home
to roost. Having my nose broken surely counts as a harm, but if you broke my nose in a boxing
match, I cannot fairly complain about the harm, because I consented to the risk.

Does Mill really treat the harm principle as the sole legitimate basis for restricting the liberties of
individuals? As we have seen, Mill cannot think that harm prevention is sufficient to justify
restricting liberty.

As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has
jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by
interfering with it, becomes open to discussion.

Later, Mill makes clear that harm prevention is necessary but not sufficient to justify restrictions
on liberty.

It must by no means be supposed, because damage, or probability of damage, to the interests of

others, can alone justify the interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such
interference.

These claims demonstrate that Mill is not committed to a simple version of the sufficiency of harm
for restrictions on liberty. However, these claims are compatible with Mill endorsing a weaker
version of sufficiency.

If anyone does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing him by law or,
where legal penalties are safely applicable, by general disapprobation.

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This suggests that we should distinguish stronger and weaker versions of the idea that harm is
sufficient to justify regulation.

 Weak Sufficiency: Harm to others is a pro tanto justification of regulation.

 Strong Sufficiency: Harm to others is a conclusive justification of regulation.

Once we distinguish these options, there is a pretty compelling case for thinking that Mill rejects
strong sufficiency but embraces weak sufficiency.

But notice that if Mill rejects strong sufficiency then this compromises his one very simple
principle. For only strong sufficiency shows that the harm principle is a complete guide to the
regulation of liberty, telling us both when regulation is impermissible and when it is required. Even
weak sufficiency implies that the harm principle must be supplemented with some other principle,
such as the utilitarian principle, in order to determine if regulation is permissible, much less
required. Mill’s doubts about strong sufficiency imply that his own conception of liberal rights
requires more than the harm principle.

In rejecting strong sufficiency, Mill claims that actions that cause losses in a fair competition
should not be regulated (V 3–4). This case would fall within his “free-trade” exception, which
limits the scope of the liberty principle (V 4). Unfortunately, Mill is not entirely clear about the
basis for the free-trade exception. After all, losses, even in a fair competition, can be harmful. If I
have a successful business selling widgets and then you move into the area selling widgets at a big
discount and drive me out of business, forcing me into bankruptcy, I suffer a significant loss,
making me worse off than I would otherwise have been.

The necessity claim that the harm principle makes is more robust if we interpret it as the basic
liberties harm prevention principle. But, even so interpreted, the necessity claim is still false. For
all versions of the harm principle insist that paternalism is an impermissible rationale for
restriction. But Mill does not in fact accept a blanket prohibition on paternalism. He allows
paternalistic restrictions on selling oneself into slavery (V 11). In a moment, we will discuss the
justification and scope of this exception to the normal prohibition on paternalism. But the
exception itself shows that Mill does not think that the only acceptable restrictions on liberty are
those that prevent harm to others. For this is a case in which it is permissible to restrict liberty, not
to prevent harm to others, but to prevent a special kind of harm to self.

If harm prevention is neither necessary nor sufficient for justifying restrictions on liberty, then
Mill’s “one very simple principle” is over-simple.

Paternalism

Insofar as Mill insists that preventing harm to others is the only legitimate basis for restricting
individual liberty, he is committed to a blanket prohibition on paternalism. Why? Mill offers two
explicit reasons.

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First, state power is liable to abuse. Politicians are self-interested and corruptible and will use a
paternalistic license to limit the freedom of citizens in ways that promote their own interests and
not those of the citizens whose liberty they restrict.

Second, even well intentioned rulers will misidentify the good of citizens. Because an agent is a
more reliable judge of his own good, even well intentioned rulers will promote the good of the
citizens less well than would the citizens themselves.

However, Mill’s perfectionist conception of happiness provides a more robust rationale against
paternalism. For if a person’s happiness depends on her exercise of the capacities that make her a
responsible agent, then a principal ingredient of her own good must include opportunities for
responsible choice and self-determination. But then it becomes clear how autonomy is an
important part of a person’s good and how paternalism undercuts her good in important and
predictable ways. Mill may still not have an argument against successful paternalism, but his
perfectionism gives him an argument that successful paternalism is much harder to achieve than
one might have thought, because it is very hard to benefit an autonomous agent in ways that bypass
her agency.

Despite Mill’s blanket prohibitions on paternalism, he does not (consistently) reject paternalism
per se. For instance, he is forced to qualify his blanket prohibition on paternalism in order to
maintain his claim that no one should be free to sell himself into slavery.

Because it is the importance of exercising one’s deliberative capacities that explains the
importance of certain liberties, the usual reason for recognizing liberties provides an argument
against extending liberties to do things that will permanently undermine one’s future exercise of
those same capacities. In this case, an exception to the usual prohibition on paternalism is
motivated by appeal to the very same deliberative values that explain the usual prohibition. So this
seems to be a principled exception to the usual prohibition on paternalism. We might call these
autonomy-enhancing forms of paternalism.

Mill claims that the reasons for allowing paternalism in “this extreme case” are “evidently of far
wider application. That raises the question of what other forms of paternalism might be justified
as principled exceptions to the usual prohibition on paternalism. Unfortunately, Mill does not
directly address this question. However, in a nearby passage Mill does refer to the “almost despotic
power of husbands over wives”. We might see Mill likening a wife’s consent to marriage, in which
she must surrender various rights of control over herself and her children, to someone contracting
herself into slavery. This, of course, is a theme that he develops in The Subjection of Women
(discussed below).

Offense

As we have seen, Mill distinguishes between merely offensive and genuinely harmful behavior.
Whereas genuinely harmful behavior can be regulated, merely offensive behavior cannon.
However, in his discussion of drunkenness, Mill does at one point allow that offenses against
others may be prohibited, at least when they involve acts of public indecency.

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Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought
not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners and,
coming thus within the category of offenses against others, may be rightly prohibited. Of this kind
are offenses against decency; on which it is unnecessary to dwell, the rather as they are only
connected indirectly with our subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong in the case of
many actions not in themselves condemnable, nor supposed to be so.

The immediate context is otherwise paternalistic restrictions with drink. But when drinking that is
otherwise purely self-regarding is done in public, it becomes offensive and, Mill here claims,
regulable. It seems impossible to square this with Mill’s blanket prohibition on offense regulation.
Why this exception for public offenses? Mill’s answer is that when done in public, the conduct
comes “thus within the category of offense against others.” But if publicity is relevant because it
makes the conduct offensive, then Mill’s real appeal is to offense. But then this exception threatens
to swallow the rule.

RECAP

What were John Stuart Mill's beliefs?

John Stuart Mill believed in the philosophy of Utilitarianism. He would describe Utilitarianism as
the principle that holds "that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness
Who is John Stuart Mill in ethics?

John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher, economist, and exponent of utilitarianism. He was
prominent as a publicist in the reforming age of the 19th century and remains of lasting interest as
a logician and an ethical theorist.

What does Mill mean by higher pleasures?

Mill delineates how to differentiate between higher- and lower-quality pleasures: A pleasure is of
higher quality if people would choose it over a different pleasure even if it is accompanied by
discomfort, and if they would not trade it for a greater amount of the other pleasure.

Is John Stuart Mill an Act or rule utilitarian?

To summarize the essential points: Mill can be characterized as an act utilitarian in regard to the
theory of objective rightness, but as a rule utilitarian in regard to the theory of moral obligation.
He defines morality as a system of rules that is protected by sanctions.

How did John Stuart Mill View freedom?

Liberty. John Stuart Mill's view on liberty, which was influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah
Warren, is that the individual ought to be free to do as she/he wishes unless she/he harms others.
Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their well being.

Who is John Stuart Mill in economics?

John Stuart Mill, usually cited as J. S. Mill, was a British philosopher, political economist, and
civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he
contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy.

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Was John Stuart Mill a capitalist?
Was John Stuart Mill a socialist or a capitalist? Based on his preference for individual liberty and
free markets, he was certainly a capitalist (though in his later years he became somewhat more
amenable to socialist programs, as shown by his later chapters of Principles of Political Economy).

How does John Stuart Mill define utility?

The word utility is used to mean general well-being or happiness, and Mill's view is that utility is
the consequence of a good action. Utility, within the context of utilitarianism, refers to people
performing actions for social utility. ... Mill says that good actions lead to pleasure and define good
character.

Was JS Mill a socialist?

Mill is a socialist only by his own overly broad definition of 'socialism'. He is best viewed as an
advocate of competition and limited (if not minimal) government who happens to believe both that
market economies will spontaneously move in the direction of employee ownership and that this
is a pleasing prospect.

How does utilitarianism determine right and wrong?

Utilitarianism is the method most people use to decide whether an action is right or wrong. We
decide the moral merits of what we do on whether the consequences of that action are good or bad.
... Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce
the reverse of happiness.

How is JS Mill Renowned?

The most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", Mill's conception
of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.
Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy
Bentham.
What is classical liberalism?
Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties
under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom. Closely related to economic
liberalism, it developed in the early 19th century, building on ideas from the previous century as a
response to urbanization and to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America
ASSIGNMENT
1) Nicollo Machiavelli is a renowned for harsh political maneuver involving manipulation
and brutish tactic. Evaluate his political teaching in regard the goal of political power,
acquisition of power, maintenance of power and power plays

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2) Present compare and critique Thomas hobbes and john Locke political thought on the
following heading
a. Nature of original state
b. Origin of the state
c. Social contract
d. Rights and liberty
e. Absolute authority
f. Best form of governance
g. Principle of separation of power

3) Justify why John Stuart Mill is regard as libertarian and utilitarianist.

4) To what extent is Mill right on the limits of rights and the belief in paternalism.

5) Jean Jacque Rousseau is renowned because of his teaching on the origin of private property
and the protection of the same. How different was his thoughts from John Locke?

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