Assignment #2, Question #1 Locke and Moral Duty PHL 210Y Mike Restivo, ID 702115696

Assignment #2, Question #1 Locke and Moral Duty Introduction - Thesis - Abstract Prior to answering a hypothetical question about moral responsibility, several steps of foundation need be performed: I will explain the moral relevance of laws and duties in Lockes account of human moral and ethical behaviour as this account is technically more involved than the assignment question might suggest. Next, I will explain how moral behaviour is motivated according to Locke. I will then explain the deeper motivating aspects of the three categories of laws (i.e. Divine Law, Civil Law, Law of Reputation/Law of Fashion). Next, I will explain how moral freedom (not mere liberty or freedom of action) is the child or consequence of the moral conditioning of external laws, paternally applied. Finally, the notion of responsibility in Locke can be properly understood in view of the foregoing explications.

Given the unexpectedly strong influence of the three categories of laws, I offer an objection to a course handout remark that underestimates the moral economy and forensic paradigm of Lockes Empiricism. Finally, I conclude that Lockes account of moral behaviour of persons (forensically considered), succeeds more than he could have realized when he penned his Essay.

It marked nothing less than a radical reformation of how persons become moral and stay moral in which appeal to religion and/or God, was no longer the only criterion, but one of several, and not always the most influential, as Government and Civil Society each contribute their own moral formative influences, such that all citizens are encouraged to be come morally selfdetermined on their own terms (moral freedom) as a product of their prior social liberty (freedom of action).

Laws and Duties John Locke views humankind as forensick entities; persons to whom either praise or blame can be attributed. It is a legalistic and pragmatic simplification that eschews metaphysical complications of what constitutes a person (i.e. the so-called Mind/Body Problem inherited from Descartes inability to explain how the mind controls the body; indeed, how these two very different Cartesian substances can interact at all.) Locke describes three legal environments to which a person is subject: Divine Law, Civil Law, and Law of Reputation, tabulated infra as Table 1: [1]

Divine Law Violation of Law Punishment sin penance, damnation

Obedience to Law grace, eternal salvation, praise

Civil Law crime imprisonment, fine, torture, death liberty, security, safety, praise

Law of Reputation vice social disapproval , shunning social approval, popularity, praise

Ethics imposes additional responsibilities not specifically mediated by laws such that punishment ensues from the non-performance of these responsibilities. I define major duties as obedience to the 3 categories of laws of Table 1. I define minor duties, which are acts of social responsibility and/or beneficence which are recommended, but not prescribed by any law, either Divine, Civil or Law of Reputation. The failure to perform them is not punishable. Neither blame/punishment, nor praise/reward is attached to non-performance of minor duties. A third class of duties are called supererogatory, which are duties that are over and beyond what is demanded, recommended or expected by any law. These are acts of heroism in the generally accepted sense. Response to the three types of duties performed or not performed is given infra as Table 2:

Duty Type Major Minor Supererogator

Response to Performed Duty praise neutral most praise 3

Response to Not Performed Duty punishment neutral neutral

Motivation for Moral Behaviour Consistent with his forensic perspective of human behaviour, Locke claims a fortieri, that obedience of a law is contingent upon the punishment that its non-observance entails. This is

but a prima facie understanding, however as this essay will prove. Humans, in Lockes view, are motivated by praise or punishment only, hence the applicability once again of the attribution forensick to human behaviour. [2] From Table 2, however, this poses a problem: There appears to be no motivation to perform or not to perform minor duties, since neither praise nor blame is attributable to their performance or non-performance. Locke appears to have omitted an account of how humans can be motivated to do acts of intervention to help fellow persons or perform acts of beneficence towards their welfare. Consider the following example:

I accept that I will not use deadly force to apprehend a suspected perpetrator of a crime (i.e. a major duty), because if I did use unnecessary deadly force, I would be charged with the crime of homicide, tried and punished. The power that government has in enforcing my punishment is a deterring motive not to allow my anger or revenge to motivate me to kill, which crime is contrary to all three laws. I accept also, that I have a duty to give to the poor (i.e. a minor duty). What motivates me to give something, anything, even services to the cause of those in need? Absence of praise or punishment, what motivates me? Law as Instrumental Behavioural Conditioning Even the least intelligent citizen worthy of the name, can be obedient to any law under pain of punishment or spiritual or social reward. As children require a parental basis of control to enforce external discipline upon them, so citizens have external laws applied to them as a paternal measure, so to speak, to conform citizens, through repetition, such that the laws become internalized codes of self-discipline and are obeyed sans threat of penalty for disobedience or non-performance.

That is, from habituation, most mature citizens behaviour

is law abiding automatically,

disregarding the consequences and deterrent effect of punishment for laws violations. If the major duties are obeyed pro forma, the minor duties likewise will be obeyed. Yes, but does this not require habituation in doing major duties prior to habituation in doing minor duties? Until moral maturity is conformed through regular major duty observance, indifference to minor duties can persist. What additional motivation influences the citizen? According to Locke, human behaviour is overdetermined by the Law of Reputation: Its motivating influence,

according to Locke, is disproportionately greater than even the Divine and Civil laws. [3] Humans value the estimation of their peers because such estimation gives an account of a persons economic worth, social dignity, and moral honour. Moral Freedom from Laws How humans treat each other in the performance or non-performance of minor duties is an indicator of the culture of a society, whose sophistication varies directly with the independence of behaviours from instrumental conditioning such as positive re-enforcement (i.e. rewards/praise) or positive punishments (i.e. blame/imprisonment/fine/torture). Until citizens reach the moral and ethical maturity of indifference to the consequences of their actions, they can take pleasure in the form of pride of their moral formation, which allows them to live as morally free. Externally applied laws parentally conform moral formation. They allow citizens to enjoy freedom of action, security and peace, that would not otherwise be possible unless they were all improbably more morally advanced, like moral and ethical perfectionists. For those able to develop further morally and ethically, under the three categories of law, such citizens can be described as enjoying and practicing moral freedom, as internally constituted moral agents, that is, rational and autonomous persons who do moral acts, as agents, according to generally accepted moral principles adopted as their own moral code and are not motivated in the practice of said moral behaviour by the moral consequences of any of doing or not doing a given action. Responsibility

Locke holds that persons are rational and free. They possess a power of will [4] and power of suspension of will. [5] Humans live under the encouragement and deterrent effects respectively, of rewards and punishments of Divine Law, Civil Law and Law of Reputation. Governments take pains to proclaim their laws to all citizens. The Law of Reputation or Social fashion, as Locke calls it, conditions by approval and disapproval, and to which humans respond accordingly. Of awareness of the Divine Law, Locke holds that most citizens have some

acquaintance with their religion at large. [6]

With respect to major duties, persons are responsible. With respect to minor duties, persons are also responsible, notwithstanding the absence of reinforcements or deterrents. A persons own moral code, previously conformed by habitual experience and regulation under the three categories of laws, moderates a persons will to do any moral act and the suspension of same in deliberation over its moral merits compared to a persons internalized moral code. To the moral perfectionist, laws, both internal and external, represent not constraints upon freedom of action, but rather opportunities for moral freedom, in which persons can enjoy life as

humanely as possible, or in Aristotelian terms, enjoying the highest degree of moral virtue, human dignity and friendship for the sake of the other person(s) for themselves, not as objects and/or means for selfish purposes. Course Handout Objection Given this thoroughly forensic account of human moral formation and behaviour, Ill revisit a claim given in one of the course handouts (i.e. Locke on Freedom and Morality), with which I have an objection: It is possible, then, to recognize something as good and yet remain

unmoved by it: Not all sources of pleasure attract us all the time., reads the handout. This motivation appealing to appetative lusts may be true, but human moral formation is conditioned not only by positive re-enforcement (i.e. treats as reward for desired/good acts), but also by positive punishment (i.e. restraint, and beating) , and indeed by negative re-enforcement (i.e. Spartan living to teach self-discipline) and negative punishment (i.e. forfeiture of accustomed 7

privileges). Locke merely suggests, but his treatise consistently supports, persons freedom as a resultant of several factors, both internal (volition/suspension of volition) and external (all three types of categories of laws). Pleasure attraction and pain aversion are not the only factors influencing human moral behaviour. Behaviour as a law abiding citizen and acts which fulfill personal dignity (i.e. morally free, not just being at liberty) exert their own behaviour mediating influences. The morally conforming influences of Divine Law, Civil Law and Law of

Reputation are prodigiously instrumental and conditioning of moral behaviour and simultaneously applied always. Violations of major duties, entail a rebellion of irrational attributions (psychological disorder) or insufficient conditioning (due to youth or diminished mental capacity). Weakness of the will, per se, should get instrumentally conditioned out of citizens through the three categories of laws, theoretically.

Lockes account of moral law and motivation to obey same is pragmatic and deceptively elementary. By employing law as moral behavioural conditioning across the domains of

Religion, Government and Society, persons are trained, paternally as it were, to grow into morally free citizens, but if they cant, or wont, the external laws provisions for praise and blame suffice to ensure that virtuous/good behaviour will be maintained by an amalgam of enforcement and encouragement. Lockes account succeeds and moves Ethics and Morality into disciplines in their own right, not as creatures of religion and theology only. Lockes Empiricism shows that persons can be moral and ethical without only appealing to religion at large, and/or only appealing to God as either Judge or Benefactor as the ultimate motive for lawful, if not morally free, behaviour.

Cited References [1] Adaptation from PHL 210Y course handout on categories of law. [2] Bk II, Chap. XXVIII, Sec. 6, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, by John Locke, Oxford University Press, 4th edition 1700, paperback edition, 1979 [3] Ibid., Sec. 12 [4] Ibid., Bk II, Chap. XXI, Sec. 15 [5] Ibid., Bk II, Chap. XXI, Sec. 47 [6] Ibid., Bk IV, Chap. XX, Sec. 3