Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and
Disposition in the Thought of John Locke and
Jean Jacques Rousseau:
A Philosophical and Contextual Examination of Locke’s and
Rousseau’s Theories of Volition and their Moral and Political
Significance
Submitted by Mr. Benjamin C. Thompson, to the University of Exeter as a
thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics, January 2009.
This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright
material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without
proper acknowledgement.
I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been
identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved
for the award of a degree by this or any other University.
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Abstract
This thesis addresses the creative encounter between volition and politics, in the
philosophical, theological and political writings of Locke and Rousseau. Utilising historical,
contextual and philosophical forms of interpretation, it aims to explore whether Locke or
Rousseau held consistent views about volition and what those were. It then seeks to cash
out these views for their understanding of political institutions and political agents.
This thesis explores the way Locke and Rousseau understood volition according to
a traditional distinction between active and passive powers; however, both of them
reconsider the nature of this dichotomy. Locke, it is argued, thought volition could be
either active or passive. Rousseau, by contrast, believed volition to be a composite of
interrelating active and passive capacities. Both thinkers identify active willing with real
virtue and freedom, and both believe a kind of sublimated love is essential to realise this
activity. Furthermore, this thesis considers the ways in which these theories of volition
underlie Locke and Rousseau’s broader understandings of an agent’s disposition. This
links Locke’s views on active volition to the mentalities appropriate for discourse,
philosophy and Christian charity. Likewise, Rousseau’s understanding of true philosophy
and virtue presuppose the conditions of active, moral will.
This thesis cashes out the political importance of volition for Locke and Rousseau
in two ways: a) as a heuristic and polemical device to reject unacceptable forms of
government and to construct appropriate ones; b) as a philosophical framework with which
the relationship between political agents and political institutions can be explained and
constructed so as to cultivate citizens’ active will. Thus, the active dispositions appropriate
to legitimate communication and politics are pivotal for Locke’s refutation of Filmer. But
further, Lockean politics is constituted to preserve a space in which active dispositions
might actually flourish. For Rousseau, the terms of the state of nature, the original compact
and the Sovereign itself are all attuned to human agency, yet, this thesis explores how this
scheme of political justice is only realised when the General Will is determined and
enlightened. Thus, Rousseau uses his understanding of agency to explain the Legislator, his
relation to the body politic, and the subsequent relations amongst the people, the
Sovereign, Government and public moeurs as actual phenomena by which an active will is
evoked.
2
Note on Primary Texts
In this thesis I have made use of a variety of primary texts. Most of these have
been published editions that are readily available in English. For Locke, I have used Peter
Laslett’s edition of The Two Treatises, and Peter Nidditch’s edition of An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, both of which are considered standard. I have made use of several
other collected volumes of Locke’s writings. Wherever possible, I have included the
section or paragraph number from Locke’s works to expedite cross referencing. For
Rousseau’s texts, I have had first recourse to English translations. Generally, I have found
these acceptable for my purposes. But, I have felt free to change terms to better accord
with the French, which I indicate accordingly. For this, I have used the standard Pléiade,
Oeuvres Complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. My references to the Oeuvres Complètes are in
brackets and follow the page number of references to Rousseau’s translated works.
Similarly, for the first citations of Rousseau’s letters, I have included reference to the
Correspondance Complètes. Full details of these standard French collections are included in the
Bibliography.
3
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Table of Contents
Title Page
1
Abstract
2
Note on Primary Texts
3
Table of Contents
4
Acknowledgements
6
Chapter 1, Introduction
7
Volition, active and passive powers and the politics of dispositions
10
Structure of the thesis
14
Methodologies
16
Chapter 2, Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of
Innate Ideas and Language
21
Part I: Innatist stupefaction, slavishness, and tyrannical desire
22
Part II: Language, society and morality
32
Conclusion
53
Chapter 3, The Ethics of Lockean Volition
55
Part I: Hedonism, motivation and the recasting of Locke’s
theory of volition
56
Part II: Active and passive volition
62
Part III: The normative teleology of Lockean will
68
Part IV: Will and the pursuit of knowledge
73
Conclusion
84
Chapter 4, Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and
Political Thought
86
Part I: Linguistic abuse and insidious dispositions in Locke’s
response to Filmer
88
Part II: Volition, law and politics
94
Part III: Charity – the epitome of Lockean dispositional obligations
107
Conclusion
125
Chapter 5, Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
127
Part I: Neo-Platonic traditions in Rousseau’s context
128
Part II: Rousseau’s neo-Platonic studies
135
4
Part III: Rousseau and Plato
135
Conclusion
152
Chapter 6, Knowledge, Reason, Will and the problem of Passion in
Rousseau’s Moral Thought
154
Part I: Epistemology, judgment and passion in The Discourse on the
Origins of Inequality
157
Part II: Will in Political Economy
165
Part III: Motives and interests in Rousseau’s letter to D’Offreville
173
Part IV: The activity of passivity, willful vice and the love of virtue in
‘The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’
179
Conclusion
191
Chapter 7, The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
193
Part I: Passion and legislators in early modern
French Christian Platonism
194
Part II: Sublimation of passion and love of virtue in
On Heroic Virtue and Emile
196
Part III: Passion and authority figures in Julie
203
Part IV: The gods speak
213
Conclusion
223
Chapter 8, Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
226
Part I: Force and will in institutions of slavery and right
228
Part II: The being of the body politic and the activity of the sovereign
237
Part III: The inadequacy of the General Will as autonomy or as a
formal corollary of the original compact
247
Part IV: The Legislator and the enlightenment of the General Will
252
Conclusion: The Politics of Disposition
257
Chapter 9, Conclusion
Volition, philosophy, morality and virtue
262
262
Volition and Politics: heuristic devices and political life as an
actual phenomenon
263
The plastic nature of mankind and the political response to passion
265
Policy and participation; the mastery of politics in Locke and Rousseau
268
Bibliography
272
5
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Acknowledgements
PhD theses do not write themselves. They are the product of many debts. My
greatest is to my supervisor, Professor Iain Hampsher-Monk.
He has consistently
encouraged my research on will, dispositions and morality, and provided me the
opportunity to refine my intuitions concerning sublimated Eros in the thought of Locke
and Rousseau. My work is immeasurably stronger and its arguments sharper thanks to his
guidance.
All research has a beginning; I must thank Professor Patrick Riley and Professor
Richard Boyd especially. Patrick guided my first steps in political theory, imparted to me
an enduring love of sagacity and eruditely commented on early portions of this thesis. My
debts to Richard are no less pronounced, for his supervision of my undergraduate thesis
was the first iteration of my research on Lockean will, love, charity and freedom.
I must also thank Dr. Robert Lamb, who has been a splendid colleague and cowriter on Lockean charity and on the Fénelonian disinterested ethos. He has read much of
this thesis and his suggestions and advice have proved invaluable. Dr. Dario Castiglione
has mentored my PhD and his practical wisdom has brought me through the vicissitudes
of research life.
All of my PhD colleagues at Exeter have been tremendously supportive over the
years. Particularly, my fellow travellers Mike Cailes and Nikola Regent have aided me along
the way. Nikola has given me valuable commentary on Lockean charity, in addition to first
directing me toward Locke’s translation of Pierre Nicole’s Essais. I must also thank Dr.
Rebecca Ford, for assisting me with the translation of some of Rousseau’s annotations in
his copy of Plato’s Dialogues.
Her knowledge of eighteenth century French proved
invaluable.
Lastly, I thank my family. My parents have been long suffering, and I could never
have undertaken this research without their support. Most of all, I thank my wife Ahreum
Han. She has made my scholarly life both possible and satisfying, and she has listened
attentively to my philosophical ramblings with grace and repose.
6
Chapter 1
Introduction
This thesis addresses the importance of will in the political, social and moral
thought of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. The most obvious locus of volition in
their politics is their similar understanding of political legitimacy as the consequence of
voluntary consent. In The Social Contract, Rousseau argues that the only form of legitimate
politics is the particular social compact he defines.1 In order to support this, Rousseau
states, ‘since no man has a natural authority over his fellow-man, and since force produces
no right, conventions remain as the basis of all legitimate authority among men’,2 and:
To renounce one’s freedom is to renounce one’s quality as a man, the rights of humanity, and
even its duties. ... Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man, and to deprive
one’s will of all freedom is to deprive one’s actions of all morality. Finally, a convention that
stipulates absolute authority on one side and unlimited obedience on the other, is vain and
contradictory.3
Similarly, Locke tells us:
MEN being, as has been said, by Nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put
out of this Estate, and subjected to the Political Power of another, without his own Consent.
The only way whereby any one devests himself of his Natural Liberty, and puts on the bonds of
Civil Society is by agreeing with other Men to joyn and unite into a Community, for their
comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure Enjoyment of their
Properties, and a greater Security against any that are not of it. 4
Thus, it might make sense to compare Locke and Rousseau analytically on the coherence
of their views about agency, consent and political legitimacy.5 Or it might be enlightening
to examine the history of voluntarism and contract from Locke to Rousseau.6
Nevertheless, these projects will not be the subject of this thesis. In part, this is
because the logical importance of promising in a consensual account of political legitimacy
tells us little about the kind of will political agents have or should come to have. It
indicates still less about whether Locke or Rousseau thought this an important matter to
address. Particularly, the contract does not tell us what kind of will is appropriate for
consenting to a political system in which agents actually take themselves to be obliged. Is
the calculative will, for instance, sufficient for such a felt commitment? Hence, I shall ask
Rousseau, The Social Contract, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau; The Social Contract and other later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Bk. I, Chap 6, p. 49-50, [OC, III, 360].
2 Ibid., Chap 4, p. 41, [355].
3 Ibid., pp. 45-46, [356].
4 John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press: 1988), Chap. 8, §95.
5 Such an analysis of Locke and Rousseau, along with Hobbes, Kant and Hegel can be found in Patrick Riley,
Will and Political Legitimacy, (Harvard, Harvard University Press: 1982).
6 Cf. Patrick Riley, ‘Social contract theory and its critics’ in M. Goldie and R. Wokler (eds.), The Cambridge
History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2006), pp. 347-353, 358362. David Boucher and Paul Kelly (eds.), The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, (London, Routledge: 1994).
1
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
whether Locke or Rousseau hope to utilise will and consent not merely as an heuristic for
calculating possible principles of political right but more substantively in accounting for the
motives, experiences and behaviours of political agents as actual phenomenon. I hope to
show that both Locke and Rousseau think about will and politics in this later sense and that
both do so according to theoretically developed understandings of volition. This study
shall examine Locke and Rousseau independently and consider two distinct but not
dissimilar genealogies of political agency. What unifies this investigation is an exploration
of the ways in which Locke and Rousseau appreciated the nature of human agency and
thought it important for constructing broad accounts of political behaviour, political
morality and for addressing the connections among these, political institutions and political
practices.
If I am right, these aims address an important set of aporias found in both Locke
and Rousseau scholarship. It is not my purpose to review the literature on Locke and
Rousseau here comprehensively.7 I have borrowed from and addressed this literature in a
fairly targeted way in each of my substantive chapters on Locke and Rousseau.
Consequently, it is redundant to iterate that review of the literature here. However, it is
helpful to attend the gap in the scholarly literature on Locke and Rousseau that my work
addresses. I am not convinced Locke and Rousseau scholarship has convincingly engaged
their philosophy of agency or recognised its philosophical scope. For instance, influential
scholars doubt whether a metaphysically or psychologically thick theory of volition matters
for Locke’s and Rousseau’s political thought, political volition is rather a matter of rational
calculation, formalistic logic, or juridical reasoning. 8 Meanwhile, many historians and
theorists appreciate that a theory of volition matters in some way for Lockean and
Rousseauian politics, but have not sought to thoroughly examine the ways in which Locke
and Rousseau conceptualised volition, to recapture the place of agency in their philosophy
broadly speaking, or to ask whether such a concept of volition offers explanatory purchase
for political and social behaviour in Locke’s and Rousseau’s thought.9 Of the studies that
The literature on Locke and on Rousseau is vast. Work on Locke and Rousseau is undertaken by scholars
from multiple perspectives including literature, political theory, history of political thought, intellectual history,
history of philosophy and history of science, to name just a few. Because of this large and multidimensional
literature, my PhD research has been necessarily selective.
8 For sources that question the importance of Locke’s theory of will for his political thought see John Dunn,
The Political Thought of John Locke, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1969), p. 121. Prominent work
questioning the importance of a theoretical sense of will for Rousseau’s political thought include, Richard
Dagger, ‘Understanding the General Will’, in The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1981); Joshua
Cohen, “Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy”, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3
(Summer, 1986); and most recently Mathew Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, (London, Continuum:
2006).
9 For Locke, I have in mind: Neal Wood, The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy, A Social Study of ‘An Essay Concerning
7
8
Introduction
have undertaken systematic interpretation of Locke’s and Rousseau’s thoughts on agency
and the mental faculties which underlie it, many have focused on a purely philosophical
evaluation or have not paid sufficient care to the details of their positions.10 Particularly,
investigation into whether philosophically coherent theories of volition inform Locke’s and
Rousseau’s respective presuppositions about the mental state(s) and behaviour(s) of
political agents has been limited. There are, of course, exceptions to which I am greatly
indebted but whose analysis I hope to extend and deepen.11 The devil is in the details, and
Human Understanding’ (Berkley, University of California Press: 1983); Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics &
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1986); James Tully, An Approach to
Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1993); and John Marshall, John
Locke Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994). Although I do not
think Tully has adequately addressed the nature of Lockean will, I have found Locke in Contexts tremendously
influential, particularly in thinking about ways political life might be geared to change the dispositions of
political agents. For Rousseau, see Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, (Princeton, Princeton
University Press: 1968); Shklar, Judith Men and Citizens; A Study of Rousseau’s Social Thought, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 1969); Rosenblatt, Helena, Rousseau and Geneva, (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press: 1997); Williams, David Lay, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, (University Park, PA, Penn State
Press: 2007).
10 This is a particular problem in scholarship on Locke’s theory of volition. See M. R. Ayers, ‘The Ideas of
Power and Substance in Locke’s Philosophy’, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 98, Jan. 1975; Anthony
Flew, ‘Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity’, reprinted in Martin and Armstrong (eds.), Locke and
Berkeley, (London, 1968); Gideon Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name, Locke on Free Agency, (Princeton, 2000), which
is probably the most significant systematic study on the subject yet written; John Yolton, Locke and the Compass
of Human Understanding, A Selective Commentary on the ‘Essay’, (Cambridge, 1970), Chapter 6; Vere Chappell,
‘Locke on Freedom of the Will’, in G. A. J. Rogers (ed.), Locke’s Philosophy; Content and Context, (Oxford, 1994)
and Chappell, ‘Power in Locke’s Essay’, in Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke’s “Essay
Concerning Human Understanding”, (Cambridge, 2007). This difficulty is less prominent in Rousseau scholarship
but see particularly Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, (London, Routledge: 1999), who regularly questions the
philosophical credibility of Rousseau’s commitment to dualism to which his understanding of volition is
appended. See also Andrew Levine, The Politics of Autonomy; a Kantian Reading of Rousseau’s Social Contract,
(Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press: 1976), who undertakes a rather impressive study of Lockean
volition as a form of legal will or proto-Kantian autonomy, but who advances the theses that Rousseau says
little to justify autonomy and that Rousseau’s attempts to realise autonomy politically are precarious.
11 My greatest debts are to Patrick Riley who has laboured to reconstruct the political importance of volition
for Locke and especially Rousseau. See Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy; A Critical Exposition of Social Contract
Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel, (Cambridge Mass, Harvard University Press: 1982), Chap. 4;
Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau, The Transformation of the Divine in to the Civic, (Princeton, Princeton
University Press: 1986); Riley, ‘Freedom of a particular kind’ in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty,
(Manchester: Manchester University Press: 1995), Chap. 1; Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, in Riley (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2001). Other influential writers on
the relations between Locke’s understanding of agency and politics include: Hans Aarsleff, ‘The state of
nature and the nature of man in Locke’, in John Yolton (ed.), John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, (Cambridge
University Press, 1969). I see my work extending and deepening Aarsleff ’s account of the relations between
will, lawfulness and political behaviour in Locke’s thought. Of particular interest is Aarsleff ’s superb account
of the history of the composition of the Essay, Bk. II, Chap. 21. In the same volume see also Raymond
Polin, ‘John Locke’s conception of freedom’. For valuable accounts of will and Rousseuaian politics see:
Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Peter Gay (trans.), (Bloomington, Indiana University Press:
1963); Andrew Levine, The Politics of Autonomy; John Plamenatz, ‘On le Forcera d’Etre Libre’ in M. Cranston
and R. S. Peters (eds.), Hobbes and Rousseau; A Collection of Critical Essays, (New York, Anchor Books, 1972);
Geraint Parry, ‘Thinking One’s Own Thoughts; Autonomy and the Citizen’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and
Liberty, Chap. 5; John Hope Mason, ‘‘Forced to be Free’’, in Rousseau and Liberty; Steven G. Affeldt, ‘The Force
of Freedom; Rousseau on Forcing to be Free’, in Political Theory, Vol. 27, No. 3, (Jun., 1999); George
Armstrong Kelly, ‘A General Overview’ in P. Riley (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Rousseau; Robert Wokler, ‘The
Fanciful Liberties We Have Lost’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty; Maurice Cranston, ‘Rousseau’s
Theory of Liberty’, in Rousseau and Liberty; Eve Grace, ‘The Restlessness of “being:” Rousseau’s protean
sentiment of existence’, in History of European Ideas, No. 27, (2001). I find Kelly’s depiction of the
9
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
I aim to provide convincing reasons in this thesis why I take this to be an important
interpretive caesura and a compelling point of departure.
Volition, active and passive powers and the politics of dispositions
In this thesis, I engage in a thorough juxtaposition of Locke and Rousseau,
on the way in which they conceptualised agency and the mental processes and
faculties by which an agent exercises choice. I consider the connections amongst
agency, political and civic life, socialisation, principles of political right and the
purposes of political activity and governance. Teasing this out, I seek to unpack two
common philosophical topoi in the work of Locke and Rousseau. First, I examine
their respective philosophies of volition, and ask how they are situated within the
broader context of their thought on reasoning, knowledge formation and moral
virtue. Second, I consider the ways both Locke and Rousseau use their theories of
volition to define terms of political legitimacy, describe political behaviour as a
phenomenon of human agency, and devise an understanding of political practices
and political institutions by which certain forms of willing are elicited, harnessed, and
reinforced.
My first aim is to reconstruct Locke and Rousseau’s respective theories of volition.
Although volition has been a subject of sustained analysis in both Locke and Rousseau
scholarship, I think the way in which they situate volition within a framework of traditional
active and passive mental or psychological powers benefits from more sustained analysis
than has currently been undertaken. Locke and Rousseau think active powers are the
capacity of agents to make choices, reason, judge or act independently of any extrinsic
causes while passive powers are the liabilities of agents to passions, emotions and
proclivities determined or caused extrinsically. Yet Locke and Rousseau seemingly invoke
this simple analytical dichotomy to transfigure it. Indeed, I argue that they both develop
distinct understandings of volition that involve both active and passive powers in the
determination of the will in ways which are both dynamic and complex.
Against trends in Locke scholarship that take volition to be an exemplary active
power, I counter that the central pivot in Locke’s theory of volition as a complex mental
faculty (in contrast with will as a Lockean idea of power) is the distinction between active and
psychological and phenomenological aspects of Rousseau’s thought inspired. I hope to advance a deeper
understanding of the connection between Rousseau’s thought on human psychology and the particular
political model he develops in The Social Contract.
10
Introduction
passive modes of will. More specifically, I aim to evince that Locke thinks the will can be
determined by either active or passive means. The difference between these active and
passive modes of will lies, I take it, in the way in which agents desire. This is determined by
what Locke calls the ‘elevation of desire’. For Locke, the elevation of desire in its complete
sense allows agents to construct their own sense of happiness, their own sense of good and
ill and to suspend the immediate play of uneasiness and desire to make desire and, by
extension, will the object of their activity. Put briefly, the elevation of desire allows the
agent to transcend the passive mode of will and become truly active.
Rousseau writes that humans are perfectly free, active beings, with a spiritual free
will undetermined by natural causes. Yet, at the same time we are natural, animalistic
machines subject to natural impulses and extrinsic sensational causes. Thus, our actual
behaviour is typically bifurcated between freedom and will on the one hand and necessity
and passion on the other.
active/passive distinction.
This is a metaphysical mind-body distinction and an
Interestingly, this distinction is frequently taken to be
unnecessary or unimportant by Rousseau scholars or is understood like the Kantian fork
between autonomy and heteronomy; however, I argue that it is actually the core of a
dynamic analytical psychology,12 which is quite unlike Kant’s account of will and crucial to
Rousseau’s mature thought on human action, philosophical endeavour and moral virtue.
As I hope to show, Rousseau thinks our active powers are themselves responsible for our
most powerful and corrupting passions. Rousseau depicts a nexus between psychological
phenomena and powers on the one hand and ideas and knowledge on the other. This
nexus includes sensation, comparison and judgment, idea formation and emotion. I argue
that Rousseau returned to the nexus of psychological phenomena and ideas repeatedly over
the 1750s and early 1760s. He fully and convincingly explicates it in Emile’s ‘Profession of
Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’.
Concurrently, I seek to elucidate how this analytical
psychology is indeterminate. As I shall elaborate, this analytical psychology can explain the
origin and force of vicious loves such as amour propre, yet it is equally suitable for explaining
the true realisation of an agent’s active powers through the support of a higher form of
love, be it love of beauty, the fatherland, truth or virtue.
Thus, both Locke and Rousseau advanced distinct and comprehensive theories of
agency which are grounded upon a reconceptualising of traditional active and passive
powers. At the same time, I submit both incorporated an understanding of ascending love:
the elevation of desire for Locke and the sublimation of Eros for Rousseau. Despite the
By the phrase analytical psychology, I do not suggest Rousseau’s thought on the human mind resembles or
anticipates Freud’s.
12
11
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
significant differences in the interaction between active and passive powers, Locke and
Rousseau both think that this ascent involves changes to the objects of human love and
desire. But, perhaps more importantly, this ascent also involves a transfiguration of the
way in which human agents love. And for both Locke and Rousseau, this change in
desiring is of the greatest moral significance. Both think rational behaviour depends on an
ascent of love and both of them think moral behaviour depends on rationality in this sense.
My second aim is to elucidate the important ways in which Locke and Rousseau
utilised these mental and psychological accounts of agency to think about politics. I hope
to illustrate the dual importance of volition in Locke’s and Rousseau’s critical and
controversialist political works and in informing their understandings about the normative
possibilities that political institutions and authority, law and social life might advance. To
signify the complex of mental states, loves, desires and predominant modes of volition to
which such an understanding of politics is attuned, I deploy the term ‘disposition’
throughout this thesis.
For Locke, I claim that his understanding of philosophical practice, law, Christian
charity and the norms appropriate for political governors and political subjects are
concomitant with his worries about what might best be called mental dispositions. I want
to show that these dispositions are conceptualised within the framework of active and
passive modes of agency and they share in the normative stakes of Lockean volition.
Within this framework, the family of passive desires and dispositions – the love of
dominion, the love of being deceived, the love of self and the love of esteem – threaten
philosophy, communication, virtuous socialisation, morality, justice and political freedom.
Conversely, those same goals require the support of the love of truth, lawfulness,
beneficence and, ultimately, charity - active, discerning, rational, and moral dispositions.
This matrix of views about agency and dispositions is crucial to Locke’s political
thought in several ways. I argue that he uses the concepts of his epistemological and
dispositional understanding of philosophical language in his controversialist opposition to
Filmer. I submit that Locke ties his understanding of punishment and its role in the
political administration of law to his understanding of agency. But most interestingly,
Locke is able to conceptualise important exceptions to his usually juridical understanding
of politics with the resources of his understanding of active, charitable dispositions. He
generally exempts charity from juridical coercion in order to stimulate that same virtue in
civic and political life. Because law can only be protected from extraordinary circumstances
through discerning, benevolent and necessarily particular (not self-interested) decisions,
12
Introduction
Locke justifies extra-legal but institutionally delimited monarchical prerogative while also
indicating that these institutional limitations make the monarch’s wise benevolence more
likely.
I argue that Rousseau constructs the precise, formal terms of the original compact
and, consequently, that he defines the Sovereign’s authority according to his understanding
of psychology. I also claim that that same understanding of psychology precludes these
formal terms from fully constituting political right. On the contrary, I submit that political
right must be actualised through the determination and enlightenment of the General Will.
I mean this in the sense that the General Will becomes the predominant will of each
individual, but also in the sense that the General Will of the Sovereign must change from a
purely formal concept of right to a rational, moral and determinate will. Against a number
of interpretations which identify the formal terms of sovereignty with political right, I argue
that this transformation is integral to the full elaboration and actualisation of political right.
Furthermore, Rousseau understands both the enlightened and determined General Will as
a fully active and rational form of will supported by a form of higher love. In order to
realise an enlightened and determined General Will, Rousseau thinks a Legislator must
‘institute’ a people. Upon my reading, this institution is distinct from the formation of the
body politic. Rather, instituting a people involves giving them a particular set of moeurs,
which are not merely habitual but involve moral dispositions, an elevated form of patriotic
love and a mode of truly active agency unique to a particular people.
Thus, Locke and Rousseau develop broadly similar views about the mental state of
political agents, political institutions, the exercise of political authority and political
behaviour as actual phenomena. Both find the relationships amongst these pivotal for
convincing political argumentation and political thought. Both believe the dispositions of
political agents central to principles of political right. Both think the limits of political
authority as important as its direct exercise for eliciting the right dispositions amongst
political agents (for both political officials and citizens). In both cases, this politics of
dispositions maps on to the elevation of desire (for Locke) or the sublimation of Eros (for
Rousseau). And in both cases the politics of disposition normally requires indirect means;
Locke’s delimitation of executive authority and its extra-legal exercise as prerogative and
the non-authoritarian work Rousseau assigns the Legislator both, in different ways, make
political dispositions that are morally upright, active, voluntary and crucial to the preservation
of political life possible.
13
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Structure of the Thesis
I advance these claims independently for Locke and Rousseau, dividing the thesis
into two halves. The first half concerns John Locke’s philosophy, his understanding of
agency therein and the role this plays in his social and political thought, both as a
controversialist tool and as an underpinning of a political theory attuned to human
dispositions. The second half assesses Rousseau’s intellectual engagement with Platonism,
his neo-Platonic and neo-Lockean analytical understanding of the psyche and the
importance of these for his formal analysis of political right and for the dynamic
psychological phenomena that, I claim, are constitutive of his understanding of politics.
In the second chapter, I address two aspects of Lockean philosophy – innate ideas
and language. This chapter demonstrates that these two philosophical concerns were
inextricable from Locke’s consideration of the mental dispositions and their social
importance. This chapter considers how some mental dispositions are a cause of wilful
intellectual abuse while others explain susceptibility to that abuse. Both of these problems
crystallise in Locke’s critique of the doctrine of innate ideas and linguistic abuse.
Concurrently, the chapter shows that Locke’s philosophical solution to linguistic abuse
entails an alternative, morally upright dispositions.
In Chapter 3, I turn to Locke’s theory of will. Distinguishing between will as a
simple idea and will as an elaborate and complex faculty, I focus on the latter and consider
the way in which Locke’s theory of will incorporates both active and passive modes.
I
explicate the role of what Locke calls ‘elevation of desire’ in the transformation of will
from a form of passive and passionate response into a faculty which is the result of our
own active self-reflection and active construction of our sense of happiness, good and evil.
Lastly the moral role of elevated desires and active volition is explored as a pivotal part of
Locke’s account of moral reasoning and moral knowledge.
In chapter 4, I turn to the social and political dénouement of Locke’s complex
thought on agency and dispositions. I reconsider Locke’s assault on Filmer’s Patriarcha in
the First Treatise and elucidate the pivotal role Locke’s thought on language plays therein.
Subsequently, I explore Locke’s understanding of punishment as a means of deterrence and
repentance and his views about freedom as a consequence of the ‘prescription of the law’,
claiming these presuppose Locke’s understanding of both active and passive will. Next, I
examine the place of charity as a disposition in Locke’s political thought. The chapter
considers the exemption of charitable dispositions from juridical coercion and suggests this
preserves a space in which politics can indirectly advance active, moral dispositions. By way
14
Introduction
of conclusion, I address Locke’s thought on prerogative and speculate that monarchs, in
the administration of legal justice, are also expected to adopt an active, moral will
themselves.
I commence interpretation of Rousseau in Chapter 5, which retraces his
engagement with neo-Platonic philosophy and his reading of Plato during the 1730s. I
highlight the importance of disinterested love and sublimated Eros in Rousseau’s
intellectual context and compare Rousseau’s commitment to disinterested and sublime love
with that of the Archbishop Francois Fénelon. Turning to the details of Rousseau’s
reading of Plato, this chapter considers current interpretation of the Rousseau/Plato
rapport and argues that these can be supplemented by closer attention to Rousseau’s
marginalia in his copy of Plato’s Dialogues. Contextualising Rousseau’s platonic reading
indicates he may have utilised the intellectual resources of French neo-Platonism. Lastly,
this chapter investigates Rousseau’s interest in Platonic politics, psychology, Eros and the
connections amongst these.
Chapter 6 explores Rousseau’s analytic psychology. I trace out the development of
Rousseau’s psychological views historically, devoting sections to the Discourse on the Origins
of Inequality, Political Economy, Rousseau’s ‘Letter to D’Offreville’, and finally the ‘Profession
of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’ in Emile. The chapter attempts to analyse Rousseau’s
understanding of volition by recovering his distinction between active, intrinsic powers on
the one hand and passive or extrinsic powers on the other. The chapter also unpacks the
complex and fluid interrelationships between these active and passive capacities. With
these complex relations in place, this chapter is able to reconsider the moral importance of
Rousseau’s account of agency. The chapter also explores the ‘indeterminacy’ of Rousseau’s
analytical understanding of psychology and how it can be instantiated socially in a variety of
different ways.
Chapter 7 is the first of two chapters that address the relationship between
Rousseau’s analytical psychology and his political thought. Chapter 7 considers the unique
psychology of the Legislator and its grounding on Rousseau’s analytical psychology and on
his reception of neo-Platonic Eros. To support this reading, I consider the importance of
sublime love in Fenelon’s writings about lawgivers. I next examine ‘prototype’ Legislators
Rousseau develops in the Discourse on Heroic Virtue and Emile’s sublimation of Eros. I lastly
scrutinise authority figures in Julie, or the New Heloise, arguing that the most important quasiLegislator in the novel is St. Preux and that he undergoes a radical sublimation of Eros,
which is underpinned by Rousseau’s analytical psychology. Lastly, the chapter cashes out
ways in which St. Preux’s transformed persona allows him to act like a Legislator and what
15
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
this implies for the relationship between the Legislator and the body politic in The Social
Contract.
The eighth chapter analyses the terms of the original contract and the definition of
sovereignty, explaining that Rousseau grounds their precise sense upon his analytical
psychology. As a corollary, the view that Rousseau deduces the General Will from the
formal terms of the original compact is rejected. Instead, I suggest that political right is
only actualised or realised when the General Will is determined and enlightened, neither of
which is entailed by the original compact itself. But by returning to the relationship
between the Legislator and the body politic, the chapter argues that it is his instituting of a
people and the creation of their unique moeurs that actualises the General Will. Finally, the
chapter addresses the broader relationship Rousseau develops between the government
and the veneration of the laws, suggesting that while the body politic, the Sovereign and
Government can be logically disentangled, as actual political phenomena, they are all deeply
interconnected in the actualisation of political right
Methodologies
Before turning to Locke and Rousseau, I present some of the methodological
assumptions made in this thesis. Generally, I have eschewed strict application of any
particular methodological framework; I have favoured a more syncretic hermeneutical
approach. I remain unconvinced that any particular methodology apprehends the complex,
sometimes obtuse and invariably unique intellectual phenomenon that I examine. Thus, it
is worth distinguishing between an ontological theory of intellectual history or conceptual
change, which I shall not elaborate here, and a defensible yet flexible scholarly heuristic.
My approach is the latter. I hope to account for this approach and why I find it reasonably
plausible and practicable.
Broadly speaking, I have avoided evaluating the philosophical adequacy of Locke
and Rousseau’s views. Instead, I seek to reconstruct what agency might have meant for
them and how they might have thought it important for convincing accounts of political
institutions, civic society and political right.
As part of this, I have found the
methodological writings of Quentin Skinner and the ‘Cambridge School’ and their
interpretive practices insightful. I join these historians and political theorists in thinking
that the terms, phraseology, topoi and a wide variety of other semantic phenomena which a
given author has uttered are frequently occasioned and conditioned by a number of
contextual philosophical, rhetorical, political and controversialist reasons for which a text
16
Introduction
might have been written. Moreover, grasping the semantic and intellectual resources
available to an author is pivotal for convincing interpretation.
Similarly, an author’s
particular historical circumstances, their friends, family members, teachers, colleagues,
patrons, students, competitors, interlocutors, political affiliations, religious commitments,
etc., sometimes seen as sociological matters, are of great consequence for the plausibility of
a given philosophical ‘reading’.13 Hence, I have attempted to be alert to ways in which
either Locke or Rousseau reiterate arguments, concepts, or terms which their
contemporaries or predecessors used.
All of that said, I have operated under the assumption that historical
contextualisation cannot, ultimately produce a sufficient explanation of the particular
phenomena entailed in the authorship of a text. I do not see how historical research of this
kind can discriminate between different intellectual contexts or if it should.
More
importantly, there seems to be a gap between these conditions and the way in which
particular acts – the choice of a word, the composition of a sentence, the organisation of a
paragraph, the publication of a book – occurred. If an explanation of a specific action is
sought, its context really only establishes perimeters within which explanation of a specific
act can be plausibly situated. Thus, recovering the intellectual and linguistic resources
available to a thinker, identifying his audience and his problem, must be distinguished from
the particular way in which a thinker actually assembled and reconnoitred his views to
sustain, modify or abandon a particular line of argumentation. Further, I concur with Mark
Bevir, in thinking that authorial intentionality can matter in the historical recovery of
meaning, even if it need not be foundational.14 Capturing an author’s objectives and the
particular way in which he hopes to sustain them need not be naively disassociated from
contextual conditions but I have not assumed that contexts explain action or meaning.
Thus, I move methodologically between historical contextualisation and other more direct
forms of philosophical interpretation,
As a matter of practice, the balance I have sought between contextualisation and
philosophical exegesis has been intuitive. In my research, I have favoured philosophical
exegesis as a starting point whilst deploying contextual analysis to vindicate or attenuate my
interpretive intuitions. To show why I have proceeded in this way, I shall consider several
reservations I have as a practitioner about part of the methodology Skinner outlines in
‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’.
Cf. Richard Ashcraft, ‘Introduction’, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, (Princeton,
Princeton University Press: 1986).
14 Mark Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1999), pp. 116-124.
13
17
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Skinner advances a methodological view in which the interpreter of a speech act
must verify all possible contextual meanings or intentions of that act. He writes:
…the most illuminating way of proceeding must be to begin by trying to delineate the full range
of communications that could have been conventionally performed on the given occasion by
the issuing of the given utterance. After this, the next step must be to trace the relation
between the given utterance and this wider linguistic context as a means of decoding the
intentions of the given writer.15
The tasks Skinner seems to have in mind are, I think, both indeterminate and openended.16 How does one delineate what a particular utterance is? Is it the choice of a word,
a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph or an entire book? An utterance might be part of a larger,
more comprehensive and systematic response. The author may want the statement to
address a particular controversy but to do so within and with the resources of broader
philosophical convictions. All of these contingent possibilities affect the connotations of
an utterance and might make the identification of a single statement daunting.
The ‘relations’ between an utterance and its linguistic context are equally
problematic. Is it not the case that the context must be reconstructed by the historian?
And yet the reconstruction is grounded, invariably, upon an array of individual texts and
documents. Because contexts are not given, because historical interpretation of each
individual text seems necessary to recapture a context, yet because the context is a
prerequisite for the plausibility of those interpretations constitutive of it, this form of
contextual history faces problems of circularity.17
Moreover, identifying contexts is an indeterminate task. How wide is the wider
context? Is it not more appropriate to think of a plurality of relevant contexts, perhaps
with varying degrees of preponderance? Are not authors constructive participants in their
own contexts? Are contexts contemporaneous? Can we think about intellectual traditions,
perhaps as sociological functions of educational institutions or religious groupings? Or,
might an author’s semantic repertoire be mediated by the linguistic techniques of those
long dead?
Ultimately, the set of possible communications made and the possible
Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, in Visions of Politics, Vol 1,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2002), p. 87. Skinner has softened this passage from the altogether
more essentialist and prescriptive methodological position entailed in the original of the same title in History
and Theory, Vol. 8, (1969), p. 49. Nonetheless, Skinner clearly retains the view that this method is optimal.
16 For an alternative and, I think, convincing critique of this passage see Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas,
pp. 80-89. Whereas I focus on the practical difficulties of undertaking contextualism in this way, Bevir argues
that conventionalist ‘logics of discovery’, like historical contextualism, are unnecessary for recovering the
illocutionary force of an utterance and may, in certain cases, occlude such recovery.
17 I do not argue that circular arguments should be avoidable in the practice of interpretation. But I think it
worth admitting, quite frankly, the limitations of methodologies like that advocated by Skinner as interpretive
prescriptions.
15
18
Introduction
connections between all of these and all of the possible contexts might approach X ∞, even
if the set does not include Xanything.18
My intuitions, therefore, are that contextualization is not a compelling starting
place. However, relaxing the standards of methodological exactitude seems promising.
Although I advance, more or less, systematic interpretations of Locke and Rousseau and
defend these by arguing that their thought, is more or less, systematic, at best these
readings should be situated within a tolerant set of likely, possible historical meanings.
Robert Wokler advocated a similar viewpoint in an article published in the History of Political
Thought in 1999. Wokler depicted the state of the field of contextualist history of political
thought, noting that even within this school and despite its sometimes dogmatic focus on
the correct method, 19 there remain major differences in actual interpretations. 20 And
amongst more overtly philosophical approaches and more traditional historical analysis it is
not at all clear contextualism has, in fact, delivered knock-down arguments.
Most
importantly Wokler argues that some sources, especially manuscripts, are not always
composed in ways conducive to meaningful interpretation as speech-acts. The point is not
that manuscripts are not the consequence of speech acts but, rather, that many of them are
not written for others. In these cases, the explanatory purchase of the relationship between
authorship and context is absent because that relationship is indelible.21 At the same time,
it is quite obvious that manuscripts offer more personal reflection of an author’s beliefs
and they constitute part of the process by which an author develops his views. If historical
contextualism cannot grapple with such ‘snapshots’ of an author’s thinking, then it cannot
purport itself to be a complete methodology. Wokler responds to these problems by
recommending greater tolerance of methodological differences. Historical contextualism is
procedurally imperfect, so it makes little sense to censor other similarly imperfect
methodologies. This study follows Wokler’s recommendations.
Of course, none of this means an end to rigor. Rather than beginning with
historicism, I deploy it at an intermediary stage of my investigations. I typically begin with
analytical philosophical exegesis, but I have tried not to explain earlier works with later
works and have avoided assumptions about an author’s coherence or incoherence. It is at
this point that my work on Locke and Rousseau deploys historical contextualism. Starting
For the distinction between an infinite number of possible significations and the signification of anything
at all, I borrow from Umberto Eco, The Limits of Interpretation, (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana
University Press: 1990), chap. 1.
19 For an example of this focus on correct method see Skinner, ‘Motives, Intentions and the Interpretation of
Texts’, in New Literary history, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter 1972), p. 2.
20 Robert Wokler, ‘The manuscript authority of political thoughts’, in History of Political Thought, Vol. 20, No. 1,
(Spring 1999), pp. 109-114.
21 Ibid., p. 115.
18
19
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
with my exegetical possibilities, I next address questions such as: were other
contemporaneous writers espousing similar ideas; could Locke or Rousseau have been
aware of these views; were any turns of phrase or topoi they deployed commonplace; or is
there a good reason to believe Locke or Rousseau might have innovated semantically or
conceptually. By developing an intuitive interpretation and evaluating it against historically
plausible conditions, I am practicing an art of the humanities rather than a methodological
science. But it is an art which is rigorous, self-reflective of its limitations and, I hope,
argumentatively compelling. The only adequate test of these assumptions is the exegetical
process I undertake and the convincingness of the conclusions drawn.
20
Chapter 2
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and
Language
The notion that Locke’s thought is ‘compartmentalized’, divided amongst
fundamentally irreconcilable interests, while once the vogue of Locke scholarship, has been
largely discredited over the past 40 years. For instance, the realisations that Locke’s politics
is deeply indebted to his theology has revolutionised the way Lockean studies are
undertaken. 1 Similarly, the distinctions between Locke’s philosophy and his political
thought have been seriously questioned.2 I want to cash out this shift in scholarship for
some significant aspects of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Locke’s polemic
against innate ideas and his understanding of language. This chapter demonstrates that
Locke situated these philosophical concerns, which have often been understood as
technical issues in epistemology and semantics by modern interpreters, on terrain that is
actually both mental (or psychological) and social. For Locke, the philosophical, mental,
and civic are inextricably and argumentatively bound together. To justify this, I seek to
elucidate the central role mental dispositions3 play in Locke’s polemic against innate ideas
and his explication of the proper role of language.
I argue that Locke’s philosophical critique of innate ideas and their proponents
relies on an understanding of the mental operations required for reasoning. This, in turn,
allows Locke to advance the notion that doctrines of innatism are grounded on
problematic dispositions, which include love of dominion and love of opinion. These
dispositions lead to intellectual errors, thwart the process of philosophy and corrode the
attitude necessary for philosophical thought. In Locke’s discussion of language, he shows
that a correct sense of it is not simply a matter of curiosity. There is a real sense of
The most important text for the religious turn in studies of Locke’s politics is John Dunn, The Political
Thought of John Locke, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1969). For Dunn, Locke’s politics is steeped
in religious presuppositions. Subsequently analysis of the relationship between Locke’s political thought and
his religious thought and between these aspects of Locke’s work and his intellectual milieu has been
remarkable. Prominent works include: Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s Two Treatises of
Government, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1986); James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy;
Locke in Contexts (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1993).John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion
and Responsibility, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994); Ian Harris, The Mind of John Locke,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994).
2 Major studies which cast doubt on the compartmentalisation of Locke’s politics and his philosophy include:
Neal Wood, The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy, A Social Study of ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ (Berkley,
University of California Press: 1983); Ashcraft, Revolutionary Poltics & Locke’s Two Treatises of Government; Tully,
Locke in Contexts; Harris, The Mind of John Locke.
3 By mental dispositions, I mean the mental state of an agent insofar as his loves, proclivities, and attitudes are
concerned.
1
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
communicative duty in Locke’s account and the fulfilment of this duty appears to be
grounded in a story about the dispositions appropriate to sincere discussants.
Ultimately, Locke’s thoughts on innate ideas and on language do not rely singularly
on technical philosophical definitions of ideas, the proper understanding of linguistic
signification or the elaboration of better procedural accounts of communication. These
two aspects of Locke’s thought present a united front on the importance of dispositions
for his philosophy. Locke’s concern for the maintenance of civic peace and public morality
is common to both of these projects, evincing their interconnectedness. The realisation
that these central philosophical positions rely on mental dispositions opens the
philosophical terrain for evaluating the role of dispositions in Locke’s thought as a whole.
Part I: Innatist stupefaction, slavishness, and tyrannical desire
Book I is notorious for its exhaustive dismantling of innate ideas. However, this is
not the only aspect of Book I which proves interesting. Locke also demonstrates a
tenacious antipathy for dispositions that contravene legitimate intellectual endeavour and
appropriate socialisation. This section aims to demonstrate the substantial role of such
problematic dispositions in Locke’s polemic against innate ideas.
It is important to begin by exploring the target of Locke’s assault. Just which
doctrines concerned him? Who espoused these? The historicity of the doctrines that Book
I criticises has been the subject of perennial doubt. The common view is that many serious
thinkers in Locke’s time upheld some version of innatism (Descartes, the Cambridge
Platonists, Stillingfleet, and numerous university scholastics spring to mind), but that the
innatist views Locke attacked in Book I were largely specious. In this traditional narrative,
contemporary innatists never believed that innate ideas were ‘occurent’, that is prenatal,
fully formed and available to intellection upon birth; rather, seventeenth century
intellectuals held the ‘dispositional’ account of innatism in which innate ideas are
connatural only in terms of potentiality. 4 Specifically, ‘dispositional’ innatists think the
innateness of ideas lies in the human disposition toward developing certain ideas when
certain conditions of reasoning and or experience are met first. Upon this interpretation,
Locke was really only interested in scoring rhetorical kudos against a thinly disguised
‘occurent’ straw man.5
Samuel C. Rickless, ‘Locke’s Polemic against Nativism,’ in Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2007), pp. 35-43;
and Michael Ayers, Locke; Epistemology & Ontology, (London, Routledge: 1991), p. 267.
5 Rickless, ‘Lockes Polemic,’ p. 34. See also John Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas, (London, Oxford
University Press: 1956), pp. 26-29; Ayers, Locke, p. 267. E.J Lowe, Locke, (London: 2005), p. 26.
4
22
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
This reading though is distinctly odd especially because Locke’s contemporaries
took Book I seriously and thought Locke’s understanding of ideas one of the most
controversial of the Essay’s positions.6 Perhaps unsurprisingly, several studies have taken to
task this traditional interpretation and the corollary that Book I offers no serious argument
against more sophisticated ‘dispositional’ accounts of innatism.7 The emerging consensus
is that Book I offers arguments that probably proved troublesome to advocates of both
‘occurent’ and ‘dispositional’ innatism. Helpfully, these revised accounts evaluate the
argument in Book I in terms of its theoretical adequacy within the contemporary philosophical
context. 8 But it is also worth asking just what Locke felt was at stake in overturning
innatism.
To answer this question it is important to investigate who held ‘occurent’ and
‘dispositional’ innatist views.9 It is relatively clear that ‘dispositional’ innatism was prevalent
in academic philosophy of the time.
Locke’s reading of prominent proponents of
‘dispositional’ innatism (Cudworth, More, Descartes) is well known. So far the largely
academic philosophical context attributed to the dispute sticks. However, John Yolton’s
analysis of contemporaneous sources suggests that ‘occurent’ innatism was widely prevalent
and was never eclipsed by more sophisticated ‘dispositional’ variants. 10 Although many
philosophers, moralists and theologians who advocated the ‘occurent’ position were aware
of its conceptual vulnerabilities, they upheld it because they thought the doctrine essential
to public morality. 11 Consequently, the supposition that Locke’s polemic was solely an
academic, philosophical gambit, clearing debris for his preferred epistemology, requires
scrutiny. Indeed, Locke’s careful attention to the ‘occurent’ form of innatism is perhaps
Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas, pp. 86-97. For indicative views of Locke’s contemporaries see
Thomas Burnet, Remarks Upon An Essay Concerning Humane Underftanding: In a Letter Addrefs’d to the Author,
(London: 1697); Thomas Burnet, Second Remarks Upon An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, (London:
1697); John Norris, ‘Cursory Reflections Upon A Book Call’d An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,’
(London: 1690) in Christian Blessedness: or Discourses upon the Beatitudes of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
(London: 1690).
7 Rickless and Ayers both refute, convincingly I think, the notion that Locke does not mount a direct and
plausible attack against dispositional innatists. Yolton shows that occurent innatism was not a rhetorical
construction and that occurent innatist views were actually quite prevalent in the 17 th century and carried on
being so into the 18th. Interestingly, Yolton shows that occurent innatist views were prevalent enough that
even dispositional innatists opposed these simpler epistemological explanations. An important historical
investigation is Ian Harris’s account of Locke’s earliest rejection of innatism around the time of Drafts A and
B at the start of the 1670s. See Harris, The Mind of John Locke, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994),
pp. 152-154. Harris thinks Locke rejects innatism because it effaces the importance of human reason.
Reason separates men from animals, and allows us to be productive beings according to God’s will.
8 See particularly, Rickless, ‘Locke’s Polemic’.
See Lowe, Locke, pp. 23-32 for the perseverance of older
interpretations of the Essay, Book I.
9 I do not intend a fully comprehensive historical survey, which lies outside the scope of this chapter. Rather
I adduce general evidence from extant historical investigations and probe selected documentary material in
greater depth.
10 Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas, pp 27-39.
11 Ibid., p. 39.
6
23
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
indicative of significant alarm about its widespread non-philosophical currency. In other
words, if Locke’s real concern was academic innatist epistemology, his focus on popularised
‘occurent’ variants of the doctrine would be altogether inexplicable. So even while Locke
emptied philosophical space for his own epistemological project, it seems likely that he also
had other aims.
What might these be? Locke’s stated reasons for opposing innatism are indicative.
Locke wants to advance two basic claims against the procedural ramifications, both social
and intellectual, of innate ideas.
The first is largely philosophical, while the second,
qualifies the first with normative force. The claims are first, that innatism obscures the
mental processes required for reason, resulting in nothing more than the conveyance of
mere opinion under terms of certain knowledge, and second, that this transferring of
opinion is often the perverse result of an array of warped predilections, including vanity, love
of opinion, and love of dominion.
The confusion of ideas and knowledge; innatism and opinion
In Chapter 1, Locke depicts the confusion amongst knowledge, ideas, and opinions,
which he thinks quintessential to innatist doctrines. Locke describes his primary ‘Purpose’
as an enquiry into the ‘Original, Certainty, and Extent of humane Knowledge’. 12 This
enquiry shows the importance of distinguishing between opinion and knowledge. 13
Establishing these dimensions is not a matter of speculative curiosity, for even under a
number of limiting conditions, Locke thinks people are able to comprehend the existence
of divinity and the force of our duties, both of which are ‘their great Concernments’. 14
What is important here is that in submitting to his reader this distinction between belief or
opinion and knowledge, later developed systematically in Book IV, Locke is indicating the
categorical distinctiveness of these two kinds of proposition.
This distinction is
normatively charged. In Locke’s view, the problem is that opinion replaces knowledge all
too easily and often all too enthusiastically, yet it is our duty to maintain their distinctiveness.15
Although the distinction between knowledge and ideas is crucial throughout the
Essay, it is of specific importance for Book I because Locke’s charges innatist doctrines
with conflating ideas and knowledge. To show this, it is important to draw attention to the
way in which Locke and innatist thinkers construed ideas in different ways. Michael Ayers
Locke, Essay, Book I, Chap. 1, §2, p. 43.
Ibid.
14 Ibid., §5, p. 45. Locke’s confidence in matters of ethical knowledge and his comparative pessimism in
terms of most other forms of knowledge concerning substance and natural phenomenon is clear throughout
the Essay.
15 Ibid., §2, p. 44.
12
13
24
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
argues that in Locke’s view the innatist explanation of ideas is both ‘superfluous’ and ‘selfcontradictory’. 16 Upon Ayers’ reading, one of Locke’s stratagems against ‘dispositional’
innatists was to show that only ‘occurent’ innatism could make any sense at all. If ideas
were supposed to be understood as objects of the understanding, 17 then the proclivity to
develop certain ideas, which is outside the understanding, cannot be equivalent to ideas at all.
Indeed, Locke argues that all ideas must be either ‘innate, or all adventitious’ whereas the
attempt to make further distinctions is ‘in vain’.18 Because of this, ‘dispositional’ innatism
is contradictory in Locke’s view, for it implies that ideas or ‘innate Maxims’ might ‘be in the
Understanding’ yet not be understood or ‘be in the Mind’ yet ‘never’ ‘be perceived’; both
possibilities, for Locke, are equivalent to the contradictory notion that ‘any thing is, and is
not, in the Mind or Understanding’. 19 On Locke’s account, the ‘occurent’ form of
innatism, while probably more farfetched in general, can at least provide a legitimate
definition of ideas as connatural objects of the understanding. Yet precisely because many
‘dispositional’ innatists shared Locke’s antipathy towards the ‘occurent’ variety, the claim
that only ‘occurent’ innatism could offer a coherent definition of ideas at all was devastating.
‘Dispositional’ innatism must either collapse into ‘occurent’ innatism or, as Locke
sometimes suggests, be transfigured into agreement with his own views.20
What Locke has done here, is not reject the conclusions of the innatists from
shared philosophical grounds but shift the intellectual framework altogether. Locke’s
definition of ideas as objects of the understanding is different from the kind of definition
used by many of his contemporaries, who might have attributed ideas with real being and
(or) might have described innate ideas in terms of ‘synteresis’ or an active sagacity of the
soul.21 Damaris Masham (nee Cudworth) writing to Locke describes innatism in exactly
these terms. 22 Masham admits that much of this process is sensational, but something
Ayers, Locke, p. 267.
Ibid.
18 Locke, Essay, Book I, Chap. 2, §5, p. 50.
19 Ibid., pp. 50-51.
20 Ibid, ‘Epistle to the Reader’ and Book II, Chap. 28, §11, footnote †, pp. 354-355. The two locations
reproduce each other. It is a lengthy response to James Lowde, whom Locke does not name, who wrote A
discourse concerning the nature of man both in his natural and political capacity, both as he is a rational creature and member
of a civil society : with an examination of Mr. Hobbs's opinions relating hereunto, (London: 1694), which Locke added
in the second edition of the Essay. Locke addresses the matter of ‘innate Notions.’ In Chap 3 of A Discourse
concerning the nature of man, Lowde espouses a straightforward account of ‘dispositional’ innatism. According
to Locke however, Lowde says nothing precisely about innate ideas at all. Locke seems to minimise the
distance between their positions. Pointing out the authors confusing use of the ‘exerting’ of the Soul to
mean the perception of innate notions, Locke supposes that this ‘exerting’ really means the previous
circumstances and experiences of the soul or, put differently, the soul’s experience are necessary to perceive
innate ideas. Remove the language of innate ideas from this, and Lowde’s position resolves neatly into a
Lockean one; hence, Locke’s belief that their differences amount to ‘so little controversy’ is justified.
21 Yolton, John Locke and the Way of Ideas, pp.33-40; 91-95.
22 Damaris Masham [nee Cudworth], in John Locke, Selected Correspondence, Mark Goldie (ed.), Letter 1040, p.
122. As she puts it, Masham borrows from ‘some friends’, who are most likely her father and Henry More.
16
17
25
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
prior to sensory data, which she calls ‘an Active Sagacitie in the Soul’, ‘Judges of’ and
‘Detects Impostures’ therein.23 This sagacity provides real hints that the Soul then follows
in the construction of knowledge and ideas; moreover, these turn out to be nothing less
than ‘Intelligible Notions exerted from the Mind Itself’.24 For ‘actual knowledge’ to not
only be known but to also play this functional role it must resemble both Lockean ideas
and a faculty of the mind at the same time. This entails a definition of ideas utterly unlike
Locke’s objects of the understanding. Locke and Masham disagree to an extent on the
origin of ideas, but despite Masham’s own insistence on similarities between her view and
Locke’s own, they differ fundamentally in regard to the nature of ideas.
Unsurprisingly, John Yolton has adduced evidence indicating that Locke’s
contemporaries tended to object to his use of the word idea, worrying that he had cavalierly
or even suspiciously altered his terminology from normal usage. 25 One example of this
reception is the exchange between Thomas Burnett and Locke.
Their exchange is
particularly interesting because Burnett interrogates both the philosophical and moral
adequacy of the Essay in the same move.26 Burnett considers the distinction between virtue
and vice or justice and injustice, the morality of revealed religion, and the immortality of
the soul. In each case Burnett targets Locke’s rejection of innate ideas in favour of
experience. Burnett submits that the soul must always think, we must know the good and
the ill suddenly, and ‘without any Ratiocination’; and we must deduce not just the
metaphysical attributes but the ‘Moral attributes of God’, that is God must have ‘Goodnes,
Justice, Holiness, and particularly Veracity’ as opposed to being simply ‘an Eternal, Allpowerful, and All-knowing’ deity. 27 In each case Burnett suggests that experience is
inadequate, mutable and contingent; these intellectual foundations simply cannot ground
morality adequately, nor can they demonstrate that God is moral. 28 The upshot of
Burnett’s argument seems to be that some version of innate ideas would succeed where
Locke’s empiricism fails, or that Locke’s position requires substantial improvement before
it provides a convincing alternative.
These arguments are unsurprising, but there is a snag in Burnett’s position. Early
in his critique of the Essay, he indicates his unease about the mind ‘Picking up all our
Knowledge from our five Senses.’29 For Locke, the empirical claims he wishes to make in
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 122-123.
25 Ibid., p. 87.
26 Thomas Burnet, Remarks Upon An Essay Concerning Humane Underftanding: In a Letter Addrefs’d to the Author,
(London: 1697), pp 3-4.
27 Ibid., pp. 8, 5, 7.
28 Ibid., pp. 10, 4-5, 7.
29 Ibid., p. 4.
23
24
26
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
Book II, to which Burnett seems to refer, are in regard to ideas. Rigorously speaking,
Lockean knowledge only appears in Book IV and is propositional, that is, the subject of
linguistic mediation. Lockean knowledge ought to follow a process of deductive reasoning,
not immediate apprehension. Lockean knowledge requires a certain kind of commitment,
which Burnett fears erodes the applicability of moral truths. Lockean ideas, on the other
hand, are the immediate objects of the understanding. Locke’s response gives Burnett
particularly short shrift because he had ignored or misunderstood this significant
difference.30 The conceptual breakdown in the Burnett-Locke debate is interesting because
it is indicative of the different philosophical perspectives Locke and some of his critics
held. Locke is using the same terminology, but the criteria behind his objections to
innatism are based on substantially different beliefs about what knowledge, ideas and
philosophy are.
The uncertainty with which contemporaries, like Burnett, approached Locke’s
idealism is revealing. The dispute over the definition of ideas, more than the disagreement
over the origination of ideas, indicates the ontological differences between ideas as real beings
and as objects of the understanding. Further unpacking what this ontological shift means
for Locke’s philosophy requires investigation into the relationship between ideas and the
understanding in his thought.
It becomes apparent that Locke’s ontological re-
conceptualisation of ideas also includes a broader mental or even psychological understanding
of epistemology.
Considering Locke’s procedural objections to innatism illuminates the mental
dimension of his epistemological view. Ayers’ work is again instructive. Upon his reading,
Locke thinks all innatists get epistemology wrong, but moreover, their account of ideas
circumvents or undermines reasoning and due intellectual diligence.
This is because
accounts of innate ideas seem to reduce ideas, axioms and other knowledge claims into
each other. This elision undermines the importance of examining evidence and proofs and
perceiving intuitive connections between propositions.31 Another problem Locke raises is
that ‘dispositional’ innatism makes reason requisite for discovering ‘what was imprinted by
Burnett and Locke also dispute the veracity, or truthfulness of God. Burnett wants to claim that Locke has
shown God to be all knowing, but that this does not demonstrate divine truthfulness. Locke seems to reject
this claim, for upon his account of knowledge, one must already have a handle on truth, or the agreement of
terms in propositions, if one is to be knowledgeable. This would be invariably true of God, and so divine
omniscience would necessarily include divine veracity in Locke’s view. The point is that Burnett clearly does
not understand Locke’s epistemology.
31 Locke, Essay, Book I, Chap. 4, § 22, p, 99. See also Ayers, Locke, p. 268. Despite the fact that our intuitive
grasp of propositions might look like innate knowledge, it would be wrong to conflate the use of the faculty
of reason with ideas and propositions which are supposed to be prenatal. Reason perceives the sense of a
proposition and the connection of ideas that make it true or evident. No such grounding is part of an innate
idea.
30
27
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Nature, as the Foundation and Guide of our Reason.’32 For Locke, dispositional innatism is a
circular doctrine that confuses a sense of ideas with knowledge whereas he thinks ideas and
knowledge are distinct epistemological categories that result from distinguishable mental
processes.33
To unpack this further it is worth considering some of the ‘ideas’ Locke targets.
They include moral principles, knowledge of God and geometrical conceptions. One of
Locke’s arguments against such ideas is that they are simply farfetched, being the subject of
near universal disagreement, contrary to ‘occurent’ innatist claims. But this is only part of
Locke’s case, for from his point of view, the innatist position entailed intellectual confusion
between principles and ideas, or predicates and conclusions. Innatists equated ‘the Maxims
of the Mathematicians, and the Theorems they deduce from them’ or put generally, they
conflated ideas, which require relatively little human conceptual activity, with knowledge,
which ‘requires’ substantial philosophical ‘Pains’. 34 Clearly, the problem is not simply
epistemological confusion, for the bracketing off of the mental activity required for
knowledge is pivotal for Locke’s rejection of innatism. By blurring the differences between
ideas and knowledge and by undermining the intellectual effort knowledge requires,
innatism challenges not just Locke’s understanding of ideas, but the very practice and
mindset of philosophy.
Now if it is the case that belief in innate ideas occludes reasoned proof, that is, if
innate ideas are simply taken as given, then Locke’s fears about opinion subverting
knowledge are quintessential to the whole of the Essay. For Locke, innate ideas cannot
possibly be more than opinions because they are not derived from the rational procedures
required to validate actual knowledge claims.
And as matters of opinion they are
misleading because they pretend to the status of knowledge rather than straight forwardly
accepting probabilistic justification. Even if someone else had actually proved the point of
knowledge that we take for opinion (which is not the case with innate ideas), it is not
‘science’ for us but ‘Opiniatrety’.35 Locke waxes poetic that this kind of ‘borrowed Wealth,
like Fairy-Money, thought it were Gold in the hand from which he received it, will be but
Leaves and Dust when it comes to use’.36 Innatists make a jumble of coherent intellectual
distinctions, belief and probability, and ideas and knowledge.
Locke, Essay, Book I, Chap. 2, § 10, p. 52. Italics mine.
As a general point, it is worth noting that Locke thinks some ideas are also known as soon as they become
objects of the understanding. The distinction in cases like this is analytical rather than phenomenal. This
kind of immediate knowledge is discussed in Chapter 3, Part IV of this thesis.
34 Locke, Essay, §§ 8, 10, 12, pp. 51-53; Chap. 4, § 1, p. 85. The confusion Locke identifies between ideas and
‘principles’ ‘Maxims’ or ‘discoveries is evident in these passages.
35 Ibid., Chap. 4, § 23, p. 101.
36 Ibid.
32
33
28
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
Innatism and perverse dispositions
For Locke, the confusion of opinion, ideas, and knowledge is rarely an innocent
intellectual oversight. Locke depicts the support of innate ideas in terms of immoral
‘subterfuge’.37 This kind of opining is fraught with deceitfulness, implying the relevance of
mental dispositions to the discussion. Indeed, it is through the problematic dispositions
which it fosters that Locke condemns normatively the doctrine of innate ideas and its
adherents.
Locke is convinced that were it not for the psychology or the mental state of the
opiner described above, the glaring errors of innatist epistemology would be starkly
evident. The reason why mental activity is shirked and innate ideas preferred falls down to
the human predilection to love one’s own beliefs. Locke’s explanation of the origin of
innatist beliefs also invokes the culpability of dispositions. Locke deploys an argument that
shows how innatists convictions do not begin with an innatist doctrine in general but with
a set of particular supposedly innate ideas or principles. This is usually the result of an
emotional tendency – unquestioning trust, especially formed in long forgotten early
education.38 If one cannot remember where such deep seated ideas originate, then, Locke
surmises, it is easier to attribute them to our very being. From the agent’s point of view,
what began as an object of trust before conscious memory transmogrifies into an
emotional attachment to these ideas akin to or exceeding what most people feel toward their
bodily appendages.39
Were agents to think critically about these attachments, they might realise the
spuriousness of them, but further analysis of these habitual notions is often prevented by
the common preoccupation with pleasures. But the distraction of pleasure seeking, is only
part of the issue, for these beliefs are often supported by an even stronger psychological
dependency. Locke reflects on a behavioural fact, especially prevalent in his age: men often
prefer the sanctity of their opinions to their own lives.40 In a social setting this love of opinion
is usually extended to sectarian tenets. As Locke explains it, fancied innate ideas are further
entrenched by tangible communal benefits awarded to conformity and by severe costs, like
social ostracism, imposed on intellectual integrity.41 The moral stakes of these incentives
and disincentives are striking because they map precisely onto Locke’s understanding of the
law of opinion and its power.42 Just as in that latter section, Locke finds the force of this
Ibid., Chap. 1, § 10, p. 52.
Ibid., Chap. 3, §§ 24-25, pp. 82-83.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid., § 21, p. 81.
41 Ibid., § 25, p. 83.
42 Cf. Ibid., Book II, Chap. 28.
37
38
29
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
disposition formidable but its ethical arbitrariness disturbing. Clearly, the tenacity of innate
ideas is tied to human mental dispositions.
As in Chapter 28, this kind of adherence to innatism is the result of a disposition
steeped in the preferences and desires prompted by communal esteem. Communal norms
often map onto higher natural standards, but there is no guarantee. Similarly, the role of
opinion in Book I described thus far is bereft of rational justification. Just as the similarity
of Locke’s thought between these sections suggests, he condemns the belief in innate ideas
in an explicitly normative way:
The great difference that is to be found in the Notions of Mankind, is, from the different use
they put their Faculties to, whilst some (and those the most) taking things upon trust, misemploy their
power of Assent, by lazily enslaving their Minds, to the Dictates and Dominion of others, in Doctrines, which it
is their duty carefully to examine: and not blindly, with an implicit faith, to swallow. 43
Thus, the problem with innate ideas exceeds the conflation of ideas and knowledge.
Indeed, mental disposition and normative disapprobation conjoin in Locke’s analysis.
Evidently, the occlusion of the mental activity required for reasoning and assent in favour
of the lazy acceptance of opinions is nothing less than the enslavement of the mind itself.
What might this mean?
The failure to employ one’s faculties correctly amounts to slavery in two ways. First,
by submitting oneself to the dominion of the opinions of others, one is a willing slave. It is
not a slavery of physical coercion but far more grievous mental enslavement. Inviting
parallels with Locke’s ‘Letter on Toleration’, physical coercion is unlikely to change belief
whereas the influence of innatism does.
If legitimate ethical and religious belief is
undermined, the stakes for Locke are high indeed. Second, in the laziness of assent, one is
following desires without determining their value. It is clear that Locke condemns the
acceptance of particular innate ideas because this is irrational, lazy, and slavish. This
acceptance may be contrasted with rationality, attentiveness, and freedom. Put simply,
Locke’s moral claim depends on the kind of disposition an agent has. At the same time,
this disposition seems to be tied to a theory of will (in terms approximating those Locke
develops in his account of will in the Essay, Book II, Chapter 21, which is the subject of my
next chapter). Both of these slavish tendencies depend on the formidable psychological
nature of this problem.
And because Locke imagines that this psychological aspect of
innatism is worth confronting, it is precisely these issues in the development of the case
against innatism that are relevant for his social thought as a whole.
Because the stakes of this debate are more than just academic, Locke does not spare
the purveyors of innatism his indignation.
43
While recipients of such opinions are
Ibid., Chap. 4, § 22, p. 99. Italics mine.
30
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
bamboozled conformers, active promulgators of innate ideas are potentially aware of the
power their doctrine gives them over these simpletons. Locke is adamant that their
position is more sinister than philosophical conviction ever could be. The acute problem is
defined in terms of an ironically sinful disposition: love of dominion. Once it has been
taken to be true that certain principles are innate, the purveyors of this view gain
tremendous power. Locke writes:
…it was of no small advantage to those who affected to be Masters and Teachers, to make
this the Principle of Principles, That Principles must not be questioned: For having once
established this Tenet, That there are innate Principles, it put their Followers upon a necessity
of receiving some Doctrines as such; which was to take them off from the use of their own
Reason and Judgment, and put them upon believing and taking them upon trust, without
farther examination.44
Locke explains that the simple-minded and idle do not merely take ideas on trust. Rather,
their leaders induce this complacency.
Then, the authority of these elites becomes
unquestioned, and an uncritical attitude is entrenched in and by the very notion of innatism.
Locke finds the exercise of this kind of authority suspicious. He continues:
In which posture of blind Credulity, they might be more easily governed by, and made
useful to some sort of Men, who had the skill and office to principle and guide them. Nor
is it a small power it gives one Man over another, to have the Authority to be the Dictator
of Principles, and Teacher of unquestionable Truths; and to make a Man swallow that for
an innate Principle, which may serve to his purpose, who teacheth them.45
Consequently, it is those who had ‘affected’ to be teachers or masters, those who had
‘affected’ to work for the benefit of their students or apprentices, who are inculcating
innate principles in order to dictate ‘unquestionable truths’. This is done not out of
innocent error but from the desire to govern, control and gain the service of the duped. It
would seem that Locke takes at least some innatists to be well aware of this potent and
highly tempting power over other men. Where obvious tyranny fails to undermine the
religious and intellectual freedom of men, this insidious dominion succeeds. Consequently,
opposing this design and desire for power is imperative, not in the least, because it
promotes intellectual tyranny, social strife (given the multiplicity of incommensurable
innatist credos) and slavish ignorance.
Thus, Locke falsifies the normative claim
proponents of innatism defend vigorously: that innate ideas are required to maintain moral
knowledge and behaviour.46 Having already dissociated innatism from knowledge as such,
Ibid., § 24, pp. 101-102.
Ibid., p. 102.
46 This claim was seen above in Thomas Burnett’s critique of Locke. See also Damaris Masham, Selected
Correspondence, Letter 1040, p. 123. Even Damaris Masham iterates a far less forceful variant of this claim in
her correspondence with Locke, for she identified the differences between Locke’s views and the Cambridge
Platonists only ‘so far as they may Weaken, or establish in the Minds of Any the foundations of Natural or
Reveal’d Religion’
44
45
31
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
he shows that rather than promoting moral behaviour or dutiful dispositions, it entrenches
the psychologies of slavery and tyranny.
This explains Locke’s worries about the dangers posed to philosophical processes,
moral knowledge and correct dispositions by the doctrine of innate ideas.
Locke’s
refutation of innatism involves the social and psychological elements of his philosophy. It
becomes increasingly clear in Book I that the socialisation of knowledge formation is a
central Lockean theme. My next section turns to the means of intellectual sociability,
which Locke situates in his theory of language.
Part II: Language, society and morality
Mental dispositions are pivotal for Locke’s theory of language, which is elaborated
in Book III of the Essay. However, Book III is better known for such semantic matters as
words, the signification of ideas by words, communicative usage of language, and the role
of language in the propositional nature of knowledge. While there are exceptions, most
scholarship on Lockean language has been largely concerned with the philosophical
adequacy or significance of Locke’s understanding of linguistic signification, that is how
and how well Lockean words signify, represent or token ideas both for ourselves and for
our communication with others.47
Given these apparently straightforward semantic and epistemological topics, it is
interesting that Locke introduces language in Book III from a strikingly different
perspective – he begins with God. More precisely, he writes, ‘God having designed Man for
a sociable Creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have
fellowship with those of his own kind; but furnished him also with Language, which was to
be the great Instrument, and common Tye of Society.’48 Simply put, Locke actually invokes
language for two reasons – one social, in which language is conceived teleologically as
For indicative analytical studies see, David Berman, ‘Particles and Ideas in Locke’s Theory of Meaning’, The
Locke Newsletter, No. 15, (1984); Margaret A. Crouch, ‘Locke on Language and Reality,’ Locke Studies, Vol. 1,
(2001); Roland Hall, ‘Locke’s Doctrine of Signification’, The Locke Newsletter, No. 29, (1998); Michael
Losonsky, ‘Language, Meaning, and Mind in Locke’s Essay’, Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Losonsky,
Linguistic Turns in Modern Philosophy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Douglas Odegard, ‘Locke
and the Signification of Words’, in Locke Newsletter, No. 1, (1970); Walter Ott, Locke’s Philosophy of Language
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004). Several historical studies of Lockean language also focus on
signification and the distinction between words and ideas. See Hans Aarsleff, From Locke to Saussure; Essays on
the Study of Language and Intellectual History (University of Minnesota Press, 1982); E.J. Ashworth, ‘“Do Words
Signify Ideas or Things?” The Scholastic Sources of Locke’s Theory of Language’, Journal of the History of
Philosophy, Vol. XIX, No. 3, (1981); Ashworth, ‘Locke on Language’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XIV,
No. 1, (March 1984); Ott, Locke’s Philosophy of Language; Hannah Dawson, Locke, Language, and Early Modern
Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
48 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 1, §1, p. 402.
47
32
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
serving social ends, and the other epistemological, in which language ties ideas and
knowledge together.
In this section, I aim to interpret Locke’s social understanding of language.
Attending to the social aspects of language shows the following: it helps unpack the
epistemological and semantic relationship amongst ideas, words and knowledge Locke had
in mind; it connects Locke’s general thought on the social purposes of communicative
language with both what he calls ‘civic use’ of language, or the language of every day
discourse, and more importantly, ‘philosophical use’, or the rigorous and certain language
of philosophical discourse;49 and it elucidates the important, neglected and normative role
of the dispositions of speakers.50
Two aspects of language; epistemological and teleological
Before excavating the normative and dispositional aspects of Locke’s thought on
language, it is worth considering the two reasons Locke gave for studying language in
further detail. I begin with the epistemological importance of words in Locke’s thought.
Locke’s original schema for the Essay moved directly from the formation of ideas to their
development into knowledge. In Draft B of the Essay, Locke had discussed naming, words
and difficulties in communication.51 But in Draft B these considerations were entangled
with Locke’s ideational thought. The distinctions he would come to draw between these
interrelated matters were not yet in place. Indeed, Locke only started writing Book III in
1685 and finished development of his linguistics in 1686.52 Locke recounts how he came
to see the inadequacy of his earlier position:
…I find, that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words; and our abstract
Ideas, and general Words, have so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible to
speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without
considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language; which therefore must be
the business of the next Book.53
In brief, Locke could not explain knowledge claims in terms of ideas because knowledge
claims are propositions. It is no great imaginative jump to see that if some knowledge is
propositional, it must be, in some way, integrally linguistic or symbolic.
Ibid., Chap. 9, §3, p. 476.
By disposition I mean the outlook, attitude, or mentality of a speaker, particularly in regard to speaking and
communication. Thus, a speaker might be disposed toward charity in conversation and earnestly endeavour
to grasp others’ meanings, or he might be afflicted by vanity and inclined to view speech as a way of
confirming eloquence, superiority or authority.
51 Locke, Draft B of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter Nidditch (Sheffield:
University of Sheffield, 1982), §§25, 62-93i.
52 Losonsky, ‘Language, Meaning, and Mind’, p. 285. In his view, the linguistic turn was in place by the
writing of Draft C in 1685 but was not yet fully worked out.
53 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 33, §19, p. 401. See also Book III, Chap. 9, §21, p. 488.
49
50
33
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
The conventional story on Lockean linguistics takes this to be the primary historical
reason why Locke undertook a concerted investigation of language.54 For whatever reason
Locke decided to study language, his discussion of it details communication, or
signification to others, which cannot be reduced to a purely epistemological matter.
Language is social. Indeed, Locke argues that language as an actual phenomenon is entailed by
man’s inherent sociability. As shown above, Locke’s God has not only made humans
inclined toward the conviviality of society he has also put them under the ‘necessity’ of
‘fellowship’ with their own kind.55 Book III is agnostic about the precise orchestration of
such fellowship, but there is no doubt here that men are naturally unfit for a-social
existence. Consequently, if we know men are meant to be social, then logically this must
entail some means of socialisation. There is only one possible adequate candidate in
Locke’s view: our capacity for language.
The importance of language as a means of communication has been pivotal in
Hannah Dawson’s recent work on Lockean Language. Dawson is less concerned by the
semantic details of how Locke conceives of linguistic signification as such.56 What is most
revealing for her is Locke’s pessimism about the possibility of successful signification of
our ideas to others. As part of this, she makes the convincing case that Locke aimed to
overturn the view that things, ideas, and words could be equated or identified with each
other without difficulty.
Crucially, Dawson’s interpretation opens ground for further
investigation into the broader social aspects of Lockean language.
However, Dawson is somewhat dismissive of Locke’s invocation of God’s
purposes in the opening lines of Essay’s third book.
Dawson indicates that Locke’s
depiction of the divine origin of language is a commonplace and is, relatively speaking,
theoretically insignificant.57 Because Dawson elucidates the way in which Locke’s recourse
to God is a typical refrain in contemporaneous rhetorics,
58
her position is not
unconvincing. However, this is a matter which requires further hermeneutical validation,
for the fact that contemporary rhetorics included similar reference to God does not, prima
facia, say much about the significance of this for Locke. On the contrary, because Locke
frequently takes God’s objectives to be philosophically and socially indispensable,59 being
Losonsky, Linguistic Turns in Modern Philosophy, p. 3-4.
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 1, §1, p. 402.
56 Hannah Dawson, Locke, pp. 2-5, 187.
57 Ibid., p. 186.
58 Ibid. p. 1, 186.
59 For instance, see Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), §§7-8, 135. The religious turn in studies of Lockean politics also evinces the
importance of divine purposes for his thought. See John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke; An Historical
Account of the Argument of the ‘Two Treatises on Government’, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); John
54
55
34
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
alert to corresponding objectives in his theory of language seems sensible. Thus, I want to
investigate whether God’s purposes for language matter in a substantive way for Locke’s
understanding of communication.
As it happens, the details of Locke’s argument in the early sections of Book III
depend on the invocation of God and the importance of socialisation. In the second
chapter Locke explains what is at stake in social life and why language neatly fits its
desiderata:
Man, though he have great variety of Thoughts, and such, from which others, as well as
himself, might receive Profit and Delight; yet they are all within his own Breast, invisible, and
hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to appear. The Comfort, and Advantage
of Society, not being to be had without Communication of Thoughts, it was necessary, that
Man should find out some external sensible Signs, whereby those invisible Ideas, which his
thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. For this purpose, nothing was so
fit, either for Plenty or Quickness, as those articulate Sounds, with which so much Ease and
Variety, he found himself able to make.60
In God’s agenda, language’s social purpose is its raison-de-etré.
This creates a
framework in which language must operate and in which issues of signification must
be construed.
The organisation of both the first and second chapters of Book III is indicative of
Locke’s teleological understanding of language.
Locke introduces the social and
communicative aims of language before discussing the epistemological role it plays in
signifying our ideas. These aims seem to qualify Locke’s notoriously unclear use of the
term ‘immediate’ in regard to the way words signify ideas. In a central passage following
that last cited Locke writes:
The use Men have of these Marks, being either to record their own thoughts for the Assistance
of their own Memory; or as it were to bring out their Ideas, and lay them before the view of
others: Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind of
him that uses them, how imperfectly soever, or carelessly those Ideas are collected from the Things
which they are supposed to represent. When a Man speaks to another, it is, that he may be
understood; and the end of speech is that those Sounds, as marks, may make known his Ideas
to the Hearer.61
This social role seems to be carried into the sense of ‘signification’ which Locke deploys.
We first use language to signify our own ideas. The use of language cannot be dissociated
from the immediate relationship between our words and ideas. But Locke is also trying to
indicate that language should not be conceptualised purely in terms of its immediate and
internalised role. There is also a communicative linguistic purpose which is not immediate.
Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Ian
Harris, The Mind of John Locke, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
60 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 2, §1, pp. 404-405.
61 Ibid. §2, p. 405. While most of this passage makes its way into the secondary literature, it is unfortunate
that it is rarely taken together and rarely analysed systematically within the textual context in which it appears.
35
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
When we speak to others they must still understand us, no matter how we ‘immediately’
signify our ideas with words to ourselves. This intersubjective aim qualifies the kind of
verbal signification of ideas with which we must operate. Nevertheless, this does not mean
that communication between speaker and hearer involves some categorically different
signification from that we immediately deploy for ourselves. Locke is not clear about how
communication can be squared with signification, but his point is apparently that the
relationship between words and ideas must be compatible with communication.
This teleological framework is central to Lockean language precisely because
speaking with others is not optional.
Locke stresses the ‘necessity’ of successful
communication by introducing the social purpose of language in Book III before
discussing the epistemological status of words. If words fail to do more than signify ideas
to ourselves, the ‘Comfort,’ ‘advantage’ and mutual ‘Profit and Delight’ that society
provides are lost. Because these aims are parallel to those Locke had already devised in the
Second Treatise62 in accordance with nothing short of natural law and the duty to acquire and
improve property for the betterment of life,63 it stands to reason that he thought they were
of paramount normative importance.
And if this is true, Locke must have believed
accounting for God’s intentions was crucial for theorising about language. Ultimately,
these intentions underlie some of Locke’s most solemn intellectual concerns, and play a
central role in his theory of language.
Civil and philosophical use
Because Locke argues that socialisation is dependent on successful communication
and similarly conceptualises signification along lines of social necessity, it is important to
ask what kinds of language sustain human civility and in what ways. Early in his chapter,
‘Of the Imperfection of Words’, Locke provides a potential answer by distinguishing
between ‘philosophical’ and ‘civil’ usage of language for communication.64 Unfortunately,
this distinction has been relatively unpronounced in most studies of Lockean language.65
This seems peculiar because Locke clarifies that the ‘double use’ of language – ‘Civil’ and
Locke, Second Treatise, §95, p. 331.
Ibid., § 6, p. 271; §32, p. 291. The natural law of self-preservation is not construed in purely negative terms.
It is also a law of self-improvement. Similarly, Locke considers the pursuit of rational happiness to be in
some way essential to our moral obligations under natural or divine law in the Essay, Book II, Chaps. 21, and
28. See also the nearly identical relationship between happiness and security and the notion of morality in
Locke, ‘Morality’, in Political Essays, edited by Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
64 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 9, §3, p. 476. This is usage in communication, as opposed to our use of
language to record our own thoughts.
65 Cf. E.J. Ashworth, ‘Locke on Language’, p. 65. While Ashworth raises this distinction, she pays little heed
to its apparent structural importance for Locke’s discussion; rather, it is reduced, in one sentence, to a
‘practical hint’ for using language meaningfully.
62
63
36
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
‘Philosophical’ - is fundamental to the communicative, rather than internal, use of language.66
Understanding the communicative purpose of language – and perhaps its relationship with
linguistic signification – benefits from closer attention to this distinction.
So what are the ‘civil’ and ‘philosophical’ uses? Starting with ‘Civil’ usage, Locke
comments that it makes up the regular communication of everyday life. 67 It does not
require faultless rigor and need not convey ideas with perfect accuracy and precision.
‘Philosophical’ usage, on the other hand, must be carefully phrased and is tied to the
pursuit of knowledge claims. Locke writes specifically:
By the Philosophical Use of Words, I mean a use of them to express, in general Propositions,
certain and undoubted Truths, which the mind may rest upon and be satisfied with, in its
search after Knowledge.68
Philosophical language is still communicative and public, but because it is aimed at the
‘search after knowledge’ it might be tempting to read it as largely extraneous to Locke’s
civic teleology. That is to say, civil usage alone might satisfy the teleological invocation of
language. Indeed, when Locke comes to discuss ways to improve the use we make of
language for purposes of communication, he seems to be largely satisfied with civil usage.
Locke did not take the goal of linguistic improvement to be perfecting language universally
or even in a specific country. Such reform projects, like that espoused by the seventeenth
century artificial language reformer John Wilkins’, An Essay Towards a Real Character and a
Philosophy of Language (1668), were ridiculous and misguided. 69 Clear and precise use of
language, that is philosophical usage, should not be apodictically required, but if it were,
Locke quips that the result would make men either ‘very knowing, or very silent.’ Recalling
the language of Francis Bacon (if not conveying precisely the same point), Locke is
perfectly happy for the ‘Market and Exchange’ to be ‘left to their own ways of Talking, and
Gossippings not be robb’d of their ancient Privilege…’.70 If this is right, civil usage might
neatly satisfy Locke’s social invocation of language, and the rest of Book III could return to
the semantic questions of signification and the philosophical usage of language.
Ibid., Chap. 9, §3, p. 476.
Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., §2, p. 509. The remarks here are likely directed against universal and artificial language projects
dating from the mid 17th century. See further Rhodri Lewis, Language, Mind and Nature; Artificial Languages from
Bacon to Locke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 190-226; Mary Slaughter, Universal
Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.
198-207. Lewis and Slaughter both detail the historical connections between Locke and universal/artificial
language reformers. Both explain why Locke came to oppose these views. Lewis, especially, emphasizes
Locke’s role in the waning of that movement. Slaughter’s account should be taken cum grano salis, for she
reduces Lockean philosophy to scientific knowledge and Lockean language to words about substances. She
also conflates Locke’s worries about the advisability or possibility of artificial or philosophical language in all
communication with his thought about the possibility of philosophical some of the time.
70 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 9, §3, p. 509.
66
67
37
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
As appealing as this interpretive move might be, I think it should be rejected.
Instead, I submit that Locke’s philosophical usage is central to the social purpose of
language. In order to show this it is important to determine what civic life requires of
language, in Locke’s view. Does it require more of language than the exchanges of the
market place and day to day conversation?
If Locke hoped only to sustain social
interaction, then civil usage would surely suffice. However, if Locke’s social aims were
more elaborate and demanding, then the imprecise communication afforded by civil usage
might have difficulty meeting them.
The overwhelming weight of textual evidence available on Locke refutes any
reading that limits his social purposes to the mere sustenance of social interactions.71 As
elaborated above, language not only allows society to exist, it is requisite for the
‘advantages’ and ‘comforts’ of society. Civil usage is certainly crucial to this, for it upholds
‘common Conversation and Commerce, about the ordinary Affairs and conveniencies of
civil Life…’.72 However, Locke does not imagine that all the ‘advantages’ of society are
those connected with ‘common’ communication and ‘ordinary’ affairs. Again referring to
the Second Treatise, the vulnerability of natural society is one reason which prompts more
sophisticated social and political life. Such epochal change in social organisation, which
results from covenants and upon which civil society, laws, and government depend, surely
requires extra-ordinary communication. In the Essay, Locke claims that God provides man
with language not only for it to be the ‘common Tye of Society’ but also to be society’s
‘great Instrument’. 73
By virtue of having this instrumental status (not just being
instrumental as such), Locke clearly implies that language not only maintains society but
also serves additional ends. Because civil usage only serves ordinary communicative ends,
it is not plausible that it could be the ‘great instrument’ of society when both the aims and
conditions of Lockean society exceed mundane exchange and conversation. It remains to
be seen whether philosophical usage provides a superior social instrument.
Probability and philosophical usage of language
Further analysis of the epistemological status of philosophical speech helps
elucidate its fitness for Locke’s social invocation of language. Locke defines philosophical
use of language in part as statements which conform to truth. But a truthful statement is
Locke, Second Treatise, §135, pp. 357-58. Locke claims that civil society is bound to uphold natural law.
Subsequently, political society is similarly obliged. The point is that society, whether political or not, is held to
normative standards that are not met by simply existing. See further, Andrew Mason, ‘Locke on
Disagreement Over the Use of Political Terms’, Locke Newsletter, No. 20, (1989). Mason’s work on the
importance of philosophical language to resolve political disagreement is illustrative.
72 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 9, §3, p. 476.
73 Ibid., Chap. 1, §1, p. 402.
71
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Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
not necessarily a knowledge claim (though all legitimate knowledge propositions must be
true statements in Locke’s view). Locke defines truth simply as the agreement of signs in a
proposition.74 Yet even in philosophically careful speech there is apparently relatively little
that guarantees the elements of a proposition will precisely convey truth or the
underpinning ideas of a proposition. In fact, vocalisation only inherently conveys sounds. 75
Although Locke intends language to convey meanings, it seems vocalisation is radically
inadequate for this task. How is it that language of any kind facilitates socialisation?
Locke supposes that regular usage of words provides some regulatory function, but
this could only be adequate for the relatively loose standards of ‘civil’ use.76 Propriety and
convention are far too contestable to clarify and determine meanings in the way
philosophical language requires. 77
At a more indirect level, words about empirical
phenomena, simple ideas and complex ideas of substances, whilst originating in particular
individual experience, benefit from a kind of underlying regularity. This is because the
phenomena which produce the experiences signified by ideas and subsequently words are,
more or less, regular and comparable.78 Nevertheless, these regulatory fallbacks seemingly
fail for mixed modes, particularly moral terms. This is because they have no external
empirical references at all, being voluntary and subjective intellectual constructs.79 Given
this evidence, it is not surprising that the scholarly consensus seems to be that Lockean
communication either suffers from or includes a doctrine of epistemic probability.
My purposes being interpretive, I shall focus on the latter position. Hannah
Dawson argues that the way language signifies ideas is a red herring; the primary aim of
Locke’s theory of language is to establish the manageable uncertainty of linguistic
communication.80 In Walter Ott’s discussion of Locke as a proponent of language as a
theory of indication, it is clear that words (and ideas) only allow us to infer or token that to
which they refer.81 In a certain sense, Ott concludes that words do not convey ideas at all
and such inferences could never be certain. 82 For Michael Losonsky, Lockean speakers
Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap. 5, §2, p. 574. These signs can be either verbal or ideational. Locke stresses
the importance of the distinction between these, even though it is a hard dichotomy to maintain, particularly
when one frequently thinks with words not just ideas. I will not treat the ideational sense of truth in great
detail here.
75 Ibid., Book III, Chap. 9, §6, p. 478.
76 Ibid., §8, p. 479.
77 Ibid.
78 This epistemic regularity is probably thanks to Locke’s understanding of God’s regulation of both the
universe and the human senses. For exploration of human sense perception, the divinely organised regularity
of sense phenomenon and the connection of both of these two language, see Margaret A. Crouch, ‘Locke on
Language and Reality’, pp. 92-93.
79 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 9, §§6, 7, pp. 478-479.
80 Dawson, Locke, pp. 8-9, 188, 190-193.
81 Ott, Locke’s Philosophy of Language, pp. 24-39.
82 I follow Losonsky, ‘Language, Meaning, and Mind’, in noting that Ott asserts that verbal signs are only
74
39
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
convey meaning through the process of rectification, or the way we introduce and settle
meanings and definitions with each other.83 But the process of rectification does not entail
certainty. Losonsky reads Locke as being finally convinced that only rational belief, not
knowledge, can be the product of discourse.84 This is because our idea-formation depends
on our sensations and our reflections on the workings of our mind.85 Consequently, any
mediation of personal ideas through language, qua fact of nature, would have to be
probabilistic.
Although it is common to attribute epistemic uncertainty to Lockean language, the
cases for this pay insufficient attention to Locke’s aims in Book III. Claims about Locke’s
commitment to the epistemic uncertainty of all communication are troublesome in several
interrelated ways. These problems arise because of insufficient attention to Locke’s clear
statements regarding the epistemological relationship between language and knowledge and
because of inadequate treatment of Locke’s social and teleological understanding of
language and his subsequent distinction between civil and philosophical usage, the latter of
which entails some form of certain communication.
The
probabilistic
reading
presents
epistemological invocation of language.
irresolvable
problems
for
Locke’s
That is to say, if language is a necessary
intermediary between ideas and propositional forms of knowledge, knowledge is possible
and knowledge is certain, all of which Locke maintains, then why would he conceptualise
language in such a way whereby communication could only ever yield probable results,
invariably violating these claims? Thus, probabilistic readings of Lockean language are
inadequate precisely because they employ Locke’s epistemology too generally and because
they tend to disregard the specific categories Locke deploys in his discussion of language.
For example, Losonsky quotes part of the following passage:
But I am apt to imagine that were the imperfections of Language, as the Instruments of
Knowledge, more thoroughly weighed, a great many of the Controversies that make such a
noise in the World, would of themselves cease; and the way to Knowledge, and, perhaps,
Peace too, lie a great deal opener than it does. 86
Losonsky, having concluded that conversation can at best yield probable belief takes this to
be an entreaty to discontinue contesting the ground of perfect terminology and to be satisfied
indicative despite Locke’s explicit claim that words convey ideas. See Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 1, §2, p. 402.
Locke writes that words must ‘stand as marks for the Ideas within his own Mind, whereby they might be made
known to others, and the Thoughts of Men’s Minds be conveyed from one to another.’
83 Losonsky, ‘Language, Meaning, and Mind’, pp. 293-296. Interestingly, this would also seem to show contra
Dawson that Locke spent considerable effort elaborating the way in which language conveys ideas.
84 Ibid., p. 295-296.
85 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 1.
86 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 9, §21, p 489.
40
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
with probability.87 But this view cannot square with the fact that Locke claims this realisation
also opens the ‘way to Knowledge.’ And the importance of language for knowledge is not
exceptional here, for Locke describes equivalent relations in sections 13 and 22 of Chapter
10.88 In whatever way Locke imagines language conveys ideas, it is clear that concomitantly
or through some further procedure language must be able to contribute toward knowledge.
Thus, the results of linguistic communication, in some sense or under certain conditions,
must not be merely probabilistic, for the intentions which Locke clearly states in regard to
language in general, and particularly ‘philosophical’ usage, preclude the validity of strong
probabilistic interpretations of his theory of language.
Further muddying the waters, this body of scholarship tends to minimise, or
neglect altogether, examination of ‘mixed modes’ and, especially, moral ideas in Lockean
language in favour of Lockean words signifying simple ideas and substances.89 If Locke’s
only concern was speech about simple ideas and substances, the probabilistic status of
language would make more sense.
Indeed, there seems to be consensus that Locke
believed knowledge about substances or the causes of our senses was impossible. We are
limited to nominal essences. But these conditions are not true for mixed modes, for their
signatory status (for Locke ideas, prior to their vocalisation, already signify something
else90) is ‘self-archetypal,’ as Locke depicts it, and the knowledge claims that can be had
about such ideas are, he claims ardently, demonstrative and certain rather than inferential
and probable. 91 Locke is at his most enthusiastic about the demonstrability of moral
knowledge, crediting it with geometric certainty.92 Both in terms of conceptualisation and in
propositional deployment ‘mixed modes’ in general and moral terms in particular are subtly
unlike ideas of substances. It stands to reason that philosophically precise speech provides
a form of discourse which allows moral knowledge to be constructed out of self-archetypal
mixed modes. It is precisely this discourse that would be necessary for the similarly
normative, social purposes of language. Thus, the analytical lacuna in regard to moral
Losonsky, ‘Language, Meaning, and Mind’, p. 296.
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 10, §§13, 22, pp. 497, 504.
89 Interpretations of Lockean language tend to limit Lockean ideas to the subset of ‘simple ideas’ and
complex ideas about ‘substance’. For instance, see E.J. Ashworth, ‘Locke on Language’ p. 65-66. Ashworth
discusses mixed modes and moral ideas but does so with the intention to ‘dispose of the names of mixed
modes quite quickly…’ For her, their role in language is not exceptional, but the way Locke conceptualises
such ideas themselves is problematic.
90 Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap. 21, §4, pp. 720-721.
See further, Roland Hall, ‘Locke’s Doctrine of
Signification’, pp. 85-89.
91 Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap. 4, §§5-7, pp. 564-565. See also, Ibid., Book III, Chap. 5, §4, p. 430. At the
very least, Locke thinks these kinds of concepts are ‘the Workmanship of the Mind’. Although I think Locke
wants to claim more for this kind of knowledge than this, nothing hangs on this claim for my current
argument. It is however important for the normative status of knowledge in Locke’s view, which I address
later in this chapter and especially in Chapter 3, Part IV.
92 Ibid., Book IV, Chap. 3, §§18-20, pp. 548-552; Chap. 4, §7, p. 565.
87
88
41
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
terms and propositions in the literature committed to the epistemic uncertainty of Lockean
communication is distinctly problematic when the epistemological characteristics, the
normative terminology, and the discursive nature of Lockean language are considered.
Because the epistemological role of language includes moral propositions, it
suggests an overlap between Locke’s epistemological and social invocations of language.
Locke’s discussion of philosophical usage evinces its importance for civic life. Consider
the passage last raised. Failure to understand the limitations of philosophical language
contributes to ‘such a noise in the World’. Now, it would be hard to imagine someone of
Locke’s political experience to have intended this ‘noise’ to mean excessive academic
disputations. Indeed, when the limitations of philosophical language are apprehended,
Locke predicts an easier route to ‘Peace’.
Continuing, Locke later indicates that
‘Discourses’ about the socially pivotal subjects ‘Religion, Law, and Morality’ entail even
more formidable difficulties precisely because they are matters of the ‘highest
concernment’ – subjects of philosophical speech. 93
Locke warns of the difficulties
philosophical use faces if it is to include these subjects, but he does not entreat the reader
to abandon them but rather proceed with the strictest caution. These difficulties are
avoidable with ‘a constant defining the terms, of conveying the sense and intention of the
speaker, without any manner of doubt and uncertainty, to the Hearer.’ 94 This requires
exceptional care, but that is, after all, what philosophical use of speech is all about. The point
is that philosophical use is crucial for the pursuit of knowledge, in preventing confusion
and social instability, and stabilising discussion of normative imperatives. These subjects
require philosophical usage, but their implications are at once philosophical and civil.
The relationship between philosophically rigorous language and moral matters can
be traced back to Draft B of the Essay and is found elsewhere in Locke’s work from the late
1680s, notably Locke’s manuscript entitled ‘Of Ethic in General’ written sometime
between 1686 and 1688, around the same time as Book III of the Essay.95 In ‘Of Ethic’,
Locke identifies a clear normative problem when language is dissociated from morality.
When discussing the limitations of mere linguistic conventionalism, Locke worries about
discourses, schools of thinking or particular languages that only name moral modes.96 In
Ibid., Book III, Chap. 9, §22, p. 489.
Ibid.
95 It is fairly clear that language already plays an epistemological role in Draft B of the Essay. However, even
as late as the 1686 Draft C, Locke had not included a full book on language. Even if much of what became
Book III was already simmering long before the late 1680s, it is clear that it was not composed in final form
until 1686 or after, around the same time as ‘Of Ethic’. See Losonsky, Linguistic Turns in Modern Philosophy, p.
4, for a thorough investigation of the history of Book III.
93
94
96
Locke, ‘Of Ethic in General’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
42
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
paragraph 6, Aristotelians are the object of Locke’s critique. He worries that ‘the ethics of
the schools’ do not teach morality, though they might call it this; instead, they really only
teach the recognition of names, or the labeling of actions ‘as Aristotle does’, that is how ‘to
speak their language properly.’97 In paragraph 9, Locke further unpacks the nature of this
mistake fully. So long as such discourse goes no further than designating terms, speakers
might learn how to converse with apparent intelligibly with those informed of such
designations.98
Much of the discussion in ‘Of Ethic’ dates to Draft B of the Essay, where Locke
draws a distinction between moral words which are ‘perfect jargon and insignificant’ and
moral language which is grounded in ‘law’, ‘punishment’, ‘obligation humane or divine’ or
at least ‘common consent’ in ‘Societys of men’ on matters of ‘virtues & vices Justice
Temperance & Fortitude...’.99 As in ‘Of Ethic’ Locke worries about flimsy discussion of
moral matters. Societies teach us only ‘to speak properly according to the fashion of the
country we are in without any great improvement of our knowledge more then what men
meant by such words’.100 Moreover, ‘this is the knowledg conteind in the common Ethicks
of the schools’. 101 Returning to this point again in ‘Of Ethic’ Locke notes that such
superficial intelligibility includes no reference to the consequences imposed by a superior
for such actions; consequently, ‘the force of morality is lost, and evaporates only into words and
disputes about niceties’.102
Implicit in Draft B and worked out more directly in ‘Of Ethic’ is the normative
aporia of such vacuous jargon. Such speakers ‘mistake their business, and become only
language masters where they do not do this [prepare us to carry out the right actions and
avoid the wrong ones]; when they teach us only to talk and dispute, [and] call actions by the
names they prescribe, when they do not show the inferments that may draw us to virtue
and deter us from vice’.103 In opposing this kind of normatively hollow speech, Locke
shows that language ought to be connected to our awareness of what right and wrong
behaviours are, why they are right and wrong and what consequences we face for our
moral (or immoral) behavior.
Language, moral knowledge, normative practice and
motivation are interwoven in these revealing passages.
1997), par. 9, p. 302
97 Ibid., par. 6, p. 300.
98 Ibid., par. 9, p. 302.
99 Locke, Draft B, §157, p. 322.
100 Ibid., p. 323.
101 Ibid.
102 Locke, ‘Of Ethic’, par. 9, p. 302. Italics mine.
103 Ibid., par. 6, p. 300.
43
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
By the time Locke wrote ‘Of Ethic’, there is no doubt that he was committed to
some form of linguistic certainty.
Anticipating what Losonsky calls the power of
‘rectification’ in the Essay, wayward Aristotelians use merely ‘what power everyone has,
which is to show what complex ideas their words shall stand for’. 104 This is evidently
insufficient for the moral purposes Locke has in mind. Such rectification only shows empty
definitions and not consequences. So while Losonsky thinks the power of rectification is
the ultimate, if probabilistic, guarantee of Lockean communication, Locke clearly thinks
language can and ought to transcend that intermediate power.
Given what has been discussed above, there is little evidence to believe Locke’s
views in ‘Of Ethic’ were different when he wrote Book III of the Essay. Together, they
show rather clearly that the epistemological role of language contributes, in Locke’s view,
to certainty, particularly of moral knowledge. This moral knowledge is equally pertinent to
moral practice and, ultimately, to peace and stability.
Thus, the epistemic status of
language is wedded to the performance of social virtue – linguistic certainty makes the
moral and social purposes of language possible. Concurrently, Locke’s discussion of
semantics is valuably clarified by the social purposes toward which it is so clearly directed.
Abuse of language
Because Locke’s epistemological and social accounts of language seem to be so
interconnected, it makes sense to return to his more sustained analysis of the latter. The
clearest social stakes are identified in Locke’s critique of linguistic abuses. In the Essay,
Locke’s sustained attack on a number of common linguistic abuses shows the very same
normative and social stakes as philosophical language, and concomitantly the imperative
social role of certain types of knowledge in connection with linguistic use.
Pivotally, this
discussion shows that the right kind of mental disposition is requisite for successful
philosophical usage.
Locke’s objections to linguistic abuse incorporate both the intellectual problems
that abuse of words raise and the problematic dispositions that ground these unnecessary
errors. Locke is clear that abuse of language is intellectually and mentally debilitating.
Frequently, Locke traces these abuses to intellectual dishonesty. This dishonesty comes in
several varieties. In one case, words might be used in discourse which never had any clear
meaning. 105 Locke surmises that these terms have been introduced by the ‘Sects of
Philosophy and Religion’ or the ‘great Mint-Masters of these terms’, ‘the Schoolmen and
104
105
Ibid., par. 9, p. 302.
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 10, §2, p. 490.
44
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
metaphysicians’, typically in order to support ‘strange Opinions’ or to obscure
argumentative weaknesses.106 The repercussions of such radically ungrounded terminology
for the pursuit of knowledge are obviously dire. Another fault, ‘Inconsistency,’ also afflicts
words when a term is used for distinct collections of ideas within the same discourse. 107
This could be the result of error, but Locke’s experience does not lead him to be sanguine
about the sources of ‘Inconsistency’. All too often inconsistent terms are the ones ‘most
material in the Discourse, and upon which the Argument turns’.108 Thus, the potency of
inconsistency in discourse is too enticing for wilful abusers for Locke to accept that honest
mistakes usually lie behind it. Instead he attributes inconsistency to ‘a greater dishonesty’
than any financial cheating, truth being the far ‘greater Concernment’.109 A third abuse is
the case of ‘affected obscurity,’ which is the introduction of ‘new and ambiguous Terms,’
which elude normal definitions.110 Locke fears intellectual sabotage, for this obscurity is
frequently intended, again by sects, to ‘confound the Signification of words, which like a mist
before People’s Eyes, might hinder their weak parts from being discovered’.111
Locke sums up the machinations behind these linguistic abuses, stating, ‘For
Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of Man, there is no other defence left for
Absurdity, but Obscurity’.112 Clearly, linguistic abuse compounds the inherent difficulties
of communication with wilful and artificial barriers to coherent discussion. Locke’s prose
emphasises that insidious dispositions lie behind these dangers to intellectual endeavour.113
Importantly, linguistic signification cannot be all that is at stake here, if intentions are placed
so centrally in Locke’s critique. But, why is it that these psychological considerations are
critical to Locke’s consideration of the process of communication?
Locke’s comparison of the practitioners of deliberate obscurantism with ‘Dens of
Robbers’ is especially illustrative.114 The metaphor is apt for Locke’s purposes because the
wilfulness behind this obscurantism is not a matter of mere caprice but of greed. In
Locke’s view these abusers seek or are tempted to gain considerable advantage from their
Ibid., p. 491.
Ibid., §5, p. 492.
108 Ibid., pp. 492-493.
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid., p. 493.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid., §9, p. 495.
113 For an alternative reading see Hannah Dawson, Locke, pp. 8-9. Dawson seems to claim that Locke
minimises the wilful abuse of words to focus instead on the epistemic uncertainty and imperfection of
language as such, marking a significant and radical change from previous writers on language. The idea that
some discourse is epistemically uncertain in Locke’s view is perfectly convincing, but Locke’s section on the
abuse of words is not a critique of language as such and according to the evidence adduced above seems to
show that he also believes wrong intentions lie behind much abuse. Intriguingly, Locke is most rhetorically
heated, when considering these. This abuse can and ought to be rectified, which is why Locke is so incensed
that it so often is not.
114 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 10, §9, p. 495.
106
107
45
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
deceptions. This is because Locke believes that by instructing others with their subtle
incoherence, they ‘profit their lives’.115 The bamboozled will show ‘no small admiration’
for the swindler.116 In this sense, it is the disposition of the abuser that is as problematic as
the linguistic abuse itself.
Unfortunately for society and for knowledge, the advantage seeking of obscurantist
speakers is complemented by the tendency of sectarian devotees to give themselves over to
their sect’s systematic abuse of language. In this passage Locke deepens his position from
that in ‘Of Ethic in General’. These devotees are ‘persuaded that the Terms of that Sect
are so suited to the Nature of things that they perfectly correspond with their real
Existence.’117 This is an obvious intellectual error in Locke’s view because terms always
signify ideas or, in the case of simple ideas or substances, their material causes. Even in
Locke’s definition of mixed modes, which are self-archetypal ideas with no direct
predication in the causes of sense phenomena, terms remain annexed to ideas in such a way
that they are not equivalent to them.118 This is, then, a clear misapprehension of the proper
role of linguistic signification. But the problem is not just error as such; this case also
exemplifies the dangers of sectarian group thinking. Specifically, Locke attributes this
abuse to one’s socialisation into a sect – philosophical or religious. He explains that from
their initiation into a sectarian tradition of thinking, ‘their Masters and Systems lay great
Stress upon’ such terminology. 119 This tendency is so insidious that it often defeats
otherwise earnest, philosophically minded individuals. Sects of philosophy are likely to
display this weakness because these terms come from eminent teachers and because
members have become habituated to, reliant on and comfortable with sectarian
discourse.120 It is emotionally hard to eschew this kind of abuse, even though it causes
needless disputation and defeats philosophers’ ‘interest’ in truth.
Again, problematic
dispositions are behind the susceptibility to linguistic abuse.
At the end of Chapter 10, Locke further explicates this dispositional and discursive
relationship. One word appears to summarise these multiple linguistic abuses – rhetoric.
Continuing to use metaphors of theft and fraud, Locke submits that rhetoric is a ‘perfect
cheat’; rather than presenting carefully defined, truthful propositions for consideration, it
Ibid., §11, p. 496.
Ibid.
117 Ibid., §14, p. 497.
118 Ibid., Chap. 5. The relationship between mixed modes and their signifying words is close and complex,
owing to the self-archetypal nature of these ideas. Indeed the name of a mixed-mode often helps the mind
hold together the complex idea. Thus certain complex ideas may only be possible through linguistic
intervention. Nevertheless, the name does not become the idea, which would be a clear case of
indeterminate speech.
119 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 10, §14, p. 497.
120 Ibid., §16, p. 499.
115
116
46
Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
‘insinuate[s] wrong Ideas,’ and ‘move[s] the Passions’.121 Consequently, the passions feed
the abuse of language, are further empowered by the same abuse, and thereby preclude
philosophical usage and circumvent correct judgment. Thus, this irreducible conjunction
of impassioned mindset and intentionally wayward speech violates the social purpose of
language at the same time as it obscures the appropriate relationship between terms and
ideas. That Locke integrates his thought on passions and language need not come as a
surprise. Such a motivational turn in Locke’s thought on language was already underway in
‘Of Ethic’. Similarly, the association between motivation or disposition and language was
already common in 17th century explanations of linguistic abuse.122
Locke’s interest in the connection between discourse and dispositions (or
motivations) might date back at least to his time in France in the late 1670s. Locke’s
admiration for the Port Royal Logic, is well known, but less carefully considered for Locke’s
thought on language is his own translation of Pierre Nicole’s Essais de Morale.123 Nicole
writes in the third Essais that our manners and intentions in discourse are the most likely
cause of strains in our interpersonal relationships. Disputes arise because our opinions
have been contested; we tend to identify our opinions as an object of love, and we love
even more the unquestioned acceptance of our opinions by others. Locke might have
imagined that the propositional aims of truth and knowledge would simply vanish from
discourse because of the intentions of such opiners. Locke translates Nicole’s sense of
domineering tyranny in the love many have for opining:
That, which raises in us the spirit of contradiction, is this. That we cannot endure in others,
thoughts different from our own. And we are concerned, not because their opinions are
contrary to truth, but to ours. We would fain be absolute over the mindes of men, & give laws
to the opinions of all the world. We have noe desire to benefit those, with whom we must
contest. … We have a mind to set our selves above them, & make them vaile to our
judgement. Or rather, we would in dispute vent our spleens, & let loose our choler upon them,
for dareing to touch our darlings.124
And later:
They would fain all be tyrants, be absolute over other men, who must all submit, & give way to
their inclinations. But because this naturall ambition is too unreasonable, too ilfavoured to
appear bare faced, men have been taught, by self love, to vaile their passions, under the name of
justice: and to pretend what makes them soe concerned, when they meet with opposition. 125
Navigating this ‘natural’ predisposition is obviously a formidable task, for it is loaded not
only with a love of power but in a deeply rooted will to dissimulation. The important point
Ibid., §34, p. 508.
Dawson, Locke, pp. 8-9.
123 Jean Yolton (ed.), John Locke as Translator; Three of the Essais of Pierre Nicole in French and English, in Studies on
Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, (2000: 7).
124 Ibid., 3rd Essais de Morale or Treatise Concerning the Way of Preserving peace, Par. 39.
125 Ibid., Par. 72.
121
122
47
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
here is that Locke had been interested in the relationship between discourse and
disposition for quite some time. This background suggests the psychological dimension of
Locke’s position on linguistic abuse.
Much as in Nicole’s analysis of discourse and disposition, in the Essay, Locke
explains that rhetorical abuse is entangled with a will for and love of deception and being
deceived. The passions played upon by rhetoric are integral to the dilemma. Locke
assesses the human gullibility preyed upon by rhetoricians:
‘Tis evident how much Men love to deceive and be deceived, since Rhetorick, that
powerful instrument of Error and Deceit, has its established Professors, is publickly
taught, and has always been had in great Reputation… 126
At the heart of the matter, abuse of language is entrenched by habit, but originates in this
love of deceit and in sycophantic complacency. Thus, Locke’s analysis of rhetorical trickery
depends on his understanding of such deeply entrenched, faulty dispositions.
This
provides an account of linguistic abuse that shows that the epistemological and social roles
of language are interdependent and entwined with the dispositions which motivate
speakers.
Dispositions, freedom, slavery and the stakes of language
At this point, it is perfectly clear that the social role of language is pivotal in Locke’s
understanding of both philosophical communication and his account of linguistic abuse.
The question remains, what are the specific social ramifications of philosophical language
that Locke finds so normatively indispensable. Locke makes clear that remedying speech is
a matter of social and intellectual imperative. He introduces the objectives of the eleventh
chapter:
The natural and improved Imperfections of Language, we have seen above at large: and Speech
being the great Bond that holds society together, and the common Conduit, whereby the
Improvements of Knowledge are conveyed from one Man, and one Generation to another, it
would well deserve our most serious Thoughts, to consider what Remedies are to be found for
these Inconveniences above-mentioned.127
Locke reiterates his dual commitment to the social and intellectual ends of language,
which, as shown above, converge with our knowledge of morality and religion.
Language is necessary for these concerns; the natural imperfection and wilful abuse
of language threaten the social bond and the ‘Improvements of Knowledge’.
Consequently, addressing linguistic abuse and the limitations of communication are
126
127
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 10, §34, p. 508.
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 11, §1, p. 509.
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Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
important enough that they warrant ‘our most serious Thoughts’. Locke clearly
ranked what followed as one of his most important social and intellectual projects.
In the end, it is philosophical speech, not the speech of everyday affairs that must
be resuscitated if these goods are to be preserved. It is those who take it upon themselves
to ‘maintain’ or ‘search after’ ‘Truth’ who are ‘obliged to study’ how communication can be
achieved ‘without Obscurity, Doubtfulness, or Equivocation, to which Men’s Words are
naturally liable, if care be not taken.’ 128 In one sense, this duty is entailed by the very
project of securing knowledge.
If we agree that language is essential to knowledge
formation and only true statements are eligible to be knowledge claims, then in the attempt
to make a knowledge claim we must ensure that our statements do not boil down to
gibberish.
Locke moves on to explain that philosophical usage is, in regard to moral matters, a
general moral obligation. I shall show that the normative aspect of this duty arises thanks
to Locke’s conviction that the proper product of communication is moral knowledge.
Furthermore, Locke’s sense of the moral imperative of language becomes clear in two
different ways. The first, I submit, lies in his discussion of the imperative to clarify moral
terminology and obtain moral certainty. The second is found in his juxtaposition of the
personalities of the cogent discussant and the obscurantist. Concurrently, I argue that Locke’s
position on the importance of moral communication is tied to an understanding of
dispositions. The stakes are high: linguistic propriety in this full sense stands to guarantee
freedom, but linguistic impropriety threatens men with enslavement and inflames tyranny.
Beginning with importance of language and moral certainty, Locke discusses the
perfect demonstrability of moral knowledge. He thinks this possible because of the selfarchetypal quality of the mixed modes (as opposed to the external archetypes of substances
and simple ideas) that constituent moral ideas.129 If we suspend disbelief, it seems to be
Locke’s view that these archetypes are integral to the ideas of mixed modes themselves,
and because of this the archetypes are communicable. The means of this are definitions. 130
Locke must suppose that it is not so much my particular idea of a mixed mode, but the
formal, general archetype I have in mind that is definable. In other words, I do not have an
idea of this or that murder but a conceptualisation of murder as such. In Locke’s view this
understanding of words, by contrast with the scholastic terms he had castigated as early as
Draft B, allows them to serve an intermediary purpose that ends in philosophically certain,
Ibid.
Ibid., §16, p. 516.
130 Ibid., §§16, 17, pp. 516, 517.
128
129
49
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
moral knowledge. Correspondingly, Locke thinks the consequences of discourses on moral
philosophy are pivotal. He states:
This I have here mentioned by the bye, to show of what Consequence it is for Men, in their
names of mixed Modes, and consequently, in all their moral Discourses, to define their Words
when there is Occasion: Since thereby moral Knowledge may be brought to great Clearness
and Certainty. And it must be great want of Ingenuity, (to say no worse of it) to refuse to do
it: Since a Definition is the only way, whereby the precise Meaning of moral Words can be known; and yet a
way whereby their Meaning may be known certainly, and without leaving any room for any
contest about it. And therefore the Negligence or Perverseness of Mankind, cannot be
excused, if their Discourses in Morality be not much more clear, than those in natural
Philosophy...131
Given Locke’s understanding of the normative consequences of moral terminology –
punishment and reward, as I discussed above – there can be little doubt that this statement
means: a) that moral knowledge can be known and must actually be known and upheld,
and b) that necessary discursive procedures, such as definitions and clarity of terminology
are required for this clear moral knowledge. It is the consequences of failure which verify
these two points, for obtuse and opaque moral discourse is not only dim-witted. It is
normatively inexcusable, for Locke claims the ‘Perverseness of mankind’ hangs in the
balance.
In this process, upright linguistic communication is entwined with moral
knowledge and both are normatively obligatory.
As we saw above, part of Locke’s problem with the abuse of language is that it is
grounded in insidious dispositions. Linguistic abuse destroys both the procedures of clear
communication and the motivation to engage in it. Upon Locke’s account, the terminology
and practice of linguistic abusers is obviously untenable, except that the obscurantists and
their followers desire to hide absurd claims.
Their conscious awareness of this technical
impropriety provides insufficient motivation to rectify their discourse.
In order for
knowledge of terminological propriety to have any effect on discursive behaviour, correct
dispositions must also be addressed.
What is interesting in all of the cases of linguistic abuse discussed earlier is that
Locke has not written about emotional dependency, aggrandising tendencies, intellectual
dishonesty, and social difficulties as contingently related facts. It is relatively clear that the
dispositional problems highlighted are not only products of linguistic abuse; they also
contribute to the erosion of communicative rigour. Technical linguistic errors create
epistemological and social ones, which in turn reinforce the harmful dispositions which so
frequently cause or are conducive to linguistic abuse in the first instance.
Most worrisome is the effect of linguistic abuse on the two most important human
concerns and those that had originally occasioned the composition of the Essay – morality
131
Ibid.
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Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
and divinity. Dishonesty is part of the problem, but it runs deeper. Locke states the full
extent of his fears succinctly:
…it has invaded the Great Concernment of Humane Life and Society; obscured and
perplexed the Material Truth of Law and Divinity, brought Confusion, Disorder, and
Uncertainty into the Affairs of Mankind; and if not destroyed, yet in great measure
rendered useless, those two great Rules, Religion and Justice. 132
Locke’s grievance against the wilful abuse of words is that it threatens to dissolve the
foundations of stable social interaction and moral behaviour. In the Second Treatise, Locke
makes it explicitly clear that divinely ordained justice is a (if not the) pillar of natural
society.133 Following political organisation, ‘The Obligations of the Law of Nature, cease
not... but in many Cases are drawn closer, and have by Humane Laws known Penalties
annexed to them, to inforce their observation’. 134 This set of imperatives applies, in
different ways, to governments in regard to citizens, citizens to governments, and citizens
to each other. Interestingly, the fatal threat to religion and justice is much like that posed
by a tyrant. The despotic will to deceive and to obtain advantage, influence and esteem,
and the proclivity to slavishly accept those machinations subvert justice altogether. This
subversion is opposed in both texts. Philosophical speech could not be of greater civic
importance.
Indeed, Locke links the conditions of slavery and tyranny to linguist abuse and the
dispositions which lie behind it. Locke states:
When I shall see any of those Combatants [controversialists and disputants], strip all his
Terms of Ambiguity and Obscurity … I shall think him a Champion for Knowledge,
Truth, and Peace, and not the Slave of Vain-glory, Ambition, or a Party.135
This passage presents some fascinating interpenetrations of Locke’s thoughts on
disposition, passion and language. He presents a tripartite distinction between knowledge
and vainglory, between truth and ambition, and between peace and party. The first of each
pair is worthy of a champion, the second a source of slavery. We have already seen how
Locke believes subsuming one’s critical capacities for the interests of party or sectarian
thinking is slavish. It is interesting that Locke views vain-glory and ambition similarly. The
consideration of language in the Essay indicates the qualities of discourse and the
dispositions required for slavery and slavishness to fester. This is because linguistic abuse
stimulates tyrannical motives, provides a smokescreen for tyrannical machinations (through
obscurity and indeterminate language), and enlists the enthusiasm of the multitude in their
own enslavement. Slavishness is readily induced in the multitude duped by linguistic abuse
Ibid., §12, p. 496.
Locke, Second Treatise, Chap. 11, §135, pp. 357-58
134 Ibid.
135 Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap. 11, §7, p. 512.
132
133
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
thanks to their sectarian passions, love of opinion and love of being deceived. Because
Locke argues in the Second Treatise that the prospective tyrant should be exposed and
opposed before his power is irresistible,136 it is no wonder that abused language, with all it
entails, is such a grave social threat.
Moreover, the tyrannical linguistic abuser is also drawn into a state of slavishness.
It is clear that in their vainglory, ambition and partisanship, these disputants fail to
understand what their desires ought to be. When one willingly abuses language one is an
‘Enemy of Truth and Knowledge’ but is also trapped in one’s own growing conceit and
obstinacy. 137 However sophisticated and calculated the linguistic abuse might be, the
desires behind it make the abuser a slave. Perhaps this is because he does not fathom or,
worse, knows perfectly well that he could make rational and moral choices but does
otherwise.
Thus, wilful linguistic abuse presents a dual threat of slavery. It stands to dupe
citizens and puts them under intellectual bondage to sectarian leaders or tyrants. At the
same time, the abuser enslaves himself and is bereft of reason and rational morality. In
both ways, linguistic abuse devastates the moral freedom Locke thinks agents ought to
have.
The promise of upright language is quite different: knowledge, peace, truth and
liberation. To realise this upright communication , men must ‘take care’ to never use empty
signifiers, to signify clear and distinct ideas by their words, to use words and significations
as are in common use, to declare their meaning, and to define exactingly.138 These are
technical procedures, but it is clear that speakers must actually ‘take care’ to deploy them.
All of them, logically, require forethought, balancing, consideration, patience and
commitment. We must be willing to engage others in conversation, to explain our views
with great care and to revise our position when we are wrong. Locke does not unpack
these dispositional requirements in Book III, but, especially in light of the problems caused
by obstinate, vain and domineering dispositions, it is clear that they presupposes them.
Lockean linguistics is clearly part of a philosophical system that is at once
psychological, social, and ethical. Locke’s theory of language shows that these strands are
not independent or even contingently related, but deeply intertwined. The right kind of
psychology is central to Lockean language and to Lockean morality. It makes possible the
communication upon which socialisation subsists while at the same time empowering the
search for knowledge. Ultimately, philosophical linguistic use according to upright and
Locke, Second Treatise, Chap. 19, §220, pp. 411.
Locke, Essay, Book III, Chap 11, §5, p. 510.
138 Ibid., §§8-13, pp. 512-515.
136
137
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Disposition and Society in Locke’s Treatment of Innate Ideas and Language
open moral dispositions is integral to discovering and maintaining moral knowledge.
Without this crucial understanding of language and attitude toward it, the morality of a
society and its capacity to reason and communicate freely is undermined. Worse, sectarian
partisans and tyrannical leaders can use the dispositions implicated in the collapse of
rational communication to control their followers intellectually and politically. But such
leaders actually enslave themselves too. Without this crucial understanding of language, its
possibilities and its liabilities, society is destined to become no more than a league of mere
survival or, perhaps worse, a confederation of slaves.
Conclusion
Linguistic theory and the status of ideas are sometimes taken to be narrowly
epistemological topics, but for Locke they are obviously loci of normative obligations. The
implications of Locke’s theory of language and his rejection of innate ideas are social and
political. Clearly, Locke’s thought on language and innate ideas is sometimes explicitly and
always immanently civic. The political and social dénouement in Books I and III of the Essay
should not be overlooked, for the hazards and stakes that Locke enumerates therein are
connected to the problems of tyranny and slavery which Locke also elaborates in the Two
Treatises of Government.
At the same time, Locke’s philosophy appears to be inextricably mental in its
considerations. In both Locke’s polemic against innate ideas and his theory of language,
matters of epistemological classification and philosophical procedure entail an important
sense of disposition. Right and wrong dispositions and the ramifications of these are
essential to Locke’s analysis of innatism and of language. It is the dispositional aspects of
Locke’s linguistic theory and his rejection of innate ideas which gives these parts of his
philosophy their normative force. This is because Locke thinks non-domineering social
interaction and the possibility of moral knowledge are dependent on upright dispositions.
In a very real sense, Locke’s deployment of dispositions as obligations ties epistemology
and linguistics to practical, moral and political philosophy.
The Lockean positions I have unpacked in this chapter depend on these
psychological considerations, yet because of this they raise further questions.
If
dispositions which are morally suspect can be distinguished from those which are
normatively imperative, how is it that Lockean agents come to hold them? This question is
not answered by Locke’s linguistics or his anti-innatism. If these mental aspects of Locke’s
thought are formulated systematically, it is necessary to seek other sources for this aspect
53
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
of his philosophy. Doing so is hermeneutically imperative if we are to fully understand the
paramount social role Locke accorded to dispositions in his philosophical work.
From the evidence I have adduced above, it is clear Locke often constructs these
dispositions in terms of love (of dominion), desire (for power, for truth, for deception),
and autonomous decision making (the slave vs. the free champion). Thus, Locke’s reliance
on social dispositions seems to depend on the motivations and the rationality (or
irrationality) behind decision making. To explain this, Locke would have to produce a
systematic theory of volition. This is exactly what Locke undertakes in the important
chapter, ‘Of Power’, in the Essay. It is to this that I now turn.
54
Chapter 3
The Ethics of Lockean Volition
This chapter aims to substantiate an account of Locke’s sense of normative
dispositions by focusing on his explicit examination of voluntarism. Locke’s theory of
volition is the central topic in Book II, Chapter 21 of An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, entitled ‘Of Power’. Locke describes volition or will as an instance of the
idea of power. However, Locke also examines volition as an innate human faculty. 1 Thus,
the notion of will exists for human agents as a concept or idea while at the same time a
theory of will describes the mental or psychological processes which produce decisions and
actions. Volition also plays an important, obvious role in Locke’s understanding of politics,
for he grounds the legitimate exercise of political power and the occasioning of political
obligation on the voluntary consent of individuals. Given the multiple uses Locke makes of
volition, understanding what he means by voluntary and whether he has a consistent
understanding of volition have been perennial problems.
Significant work has been
dedicated to the study of will in both of these senses; 2 however, much of this tends to be
focused on political and philosophical evaluation, paying less attention to reconstructing
the full nature, scope and role of Locke’s understanding of will. This opens an interpretive
lacuna.
In this Chapter, I focus on Locke’s philosophy of volition, setting aside
consideration of its political role for the following chapter. Furthermore, I focus on
volition as a human faculty rather than a simple idea. I argue that evaluating Locke’s
distinction between active and passive types of ‘power’ is crucial for interpreting his theory
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter Nidditch (ed.), (Oxford, Oxford University
Press: 1975). Book I, Chap. 3, §3, p. 67.
2 In regard to the political importance of Lockean will, perhaps the best study is Patrick Riley, Will and Political
Legitimacy, (Cambridge, Mass, 1982). Also insightful is Hans Aarsleff, ‘The state of nature and the nature of
man in Locke’, in John Yolton (ed.), John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, (Cambridge University Press, 1969).
In the same volume see also Raymond Polin, ‘John Locke’s conception of freedom’. Polin argues that the
morality of Locke’s liberalism only becomes clear with the realization that his metaphysics, especially agency,
are tied to his morals and both with his politics. See also Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in R.
Goodin and P. Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy, an Anthology, (Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress:
1997).
For work on Locke’s philosophy of willing, see M. R. Ayers, ‘The Ideas of Power and Substance in Locke’s
Philosophy’, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 98, (Jan. 1975); Anthony Flew, ‘Locke and the Problem of
Personal Identity’, reprinted in Martin and Armstrong (eds.), Locke and Berkeley, (London, Macmillan: 1968);
Gideon Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name, Locke on Free Agency, (Princeton, 2000), which is probably the most
significant systematic study on the subject yet written; John Yolton, Locke and the Compass of Human
Understanding, A Selective Commentary on the ‘Essay’, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1970), Chapter 6;
Vere Chappell, ‘Locke on Freedom of the Will’, in G. A. J. Rogers (ed.), Locke’s Philosophy; Content and Context,
(Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1994) and Chappell, ‘Power in Locke’s Essay’, in Lex Newman (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press: 2007).
1
55
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
of volition. This distinction is raised in the first sections of the chapter ‘Of Power’.
Activity and passivity signify the two ways Locke takes powers to effect changes: when
something has the capability to act, it possesses an active power whereas when something
has the liability to be acted upon, it has a passive power.
Against a number of common evaluative interpretations of Lockean agency, my
central proposition is that the Lockean power of volition is not straightforwardly an active
or a passive power. As a corrective to readings which argue otherwise, I suggest that Locke
conceives of volition as a complex power borne by human agents that may and ought to be
active but is also liable to be passive.
In brief, Locke discusses two discreet modes of
volition, one active and the other passive.
This interpretive position supports several further contentions about Locke’s
theory of will. First, Locke’s thought on this subject as he composed and revised the Essay
is more consistent than is generally purported, especially in regard to hedonism. This is
because Locke does not hope to overcome hedonism as such. Rather, he hopes to clarify
how it might be transformed from a deterministic passive response to an object of
independent activity. Second, the distinction between active and passive will clarifies the
way in which, and the reasons why, Locke thought volition normative. This distinction is
played out in terms of the autonomy of human agents and the imperative status of this
autonomy. Finally, this understanding of volition provides the underlying structure of
Locke’s thought on knowledge-formation, reasoning and true philosophy.
These claims are supported by both exegetical and historical examination. This
study begins with the problems of and interrelationships between hedonism and
motivation in ‘Of Power’ and moves to the active/passive distinction in that chapter. I
then consider the normative importance of what Locke describes as the ‘elevation of
desire’. This chapter finally turns to Locke’s discussion of deductive reasoning in Book IV
of the Essay, considering voluntary and involuntary knowledge, the role of passion in the
various threats the pursuit of knowledge faces, and the importance of active will and the
elevation of desire for what Locke calls the love of truth.
Part I: Hedonism, motivation and the recasting of Locke’s theory of volition
Locke’s Essay went through many published revisions; Book II, Chapter 21, ‘Of
Power’ is central to his changes. The chapter is ostensibly about the nature of the ‘simple
idea’ of power, but most of the text focuses on one power in particular – will. I want to
begin by discussing the reasons Locke might have had for his revisions to the chapter. I
think this discussion helps situate the problems Locke’s active/passive distinction probably
56
The Ethics of Lockean Volition
addressed. Typically, scholarship on Lockean volition suggests the revisions he made to
‘Of Power’ were directed toward one of two kinds of problem that his initial theory
suffered: an adequate explanation of motivations or the problem of hedonic determinism.
I am not sure a choice needs to be made.
In the first edition, Locke argues that the human understanding of the greater good
determines the will. 3 Within Locke’s philosophy this presented a problem of hedonic
determinism. The reason for this is that in the previous chapter, Locke tied the formation
of our ideas of good and evil to the causal power of our experience of pleasure and pain.
Some scholarship has taken this to be the key problem Locke grappled with in revisions to
the chapter.4 But, interestingly, these original sections remain largely intact. They are often
not replaced with but supplemented by new material. This makes the status of Locke’s
rethinking difficult to ascertain precisely. Given the peculiarity of the revisions, it seems
odd that hedonic determinism would be the only problem Locke addressed. Because
Locke clearly did not withdraw all hedonic or deterministic statements from his theory of
will, it is worth asking if the situation is more complex.5
Taking the second edition revisions seriously seems to indicate that Locke’s
modifications are not directed toward the determinism problem in any immediate sense at
all. Instead, Locke became worried that his original text merely identified conceptions of
the good . It was not clear that this offered an explanation of human motivations. Or if
the original text did, it might have reduced his theory of will to Socratic intellectualism – to
know the good is to will the good. Indeed, William Molyneux’s criticism of the chapter
raises the problem of Socratic intellectualism directly. Locke retracted this intellectualism
in the second edition, ‘but yet upon a stricter enquiry, I am forced to conclude, that the
For a different interpretation see Aarsleff, ‘The state of nature and the nature of man’, pp. 112-117.
Aarsleff takes the position that because pleasure and pain are instrumental in explaining human behaviour
after the second edition version of chapter 21 and that they figure prominently in similar roles in other
sections of the Essay in both the A and B drafts as well as the first edition, and in various other texts
predating the composition of the first edition, the argument in the first edition version of the chapter is
inadequate but not in opposition to the revisions. I agree with Aarleff on the specific point that Locke’s
understanding of the moral role of pleasure and pain, as divinely ordained means by which the law of nature
is enforced, was longstanding. However, as far as volition is concerned, I am not convinced that the evidence
Aarsleff adduces allows a distinction between pleasure and pain serving as predicates of uneasiness and
desire and pleasure and pain serving as predicates of conceptualisation of good and evil. If this is absent, I
am not sure his argument entails consistency for Locke’s theory of volition, though it might for his general
sense of normative behaviour and how it is produced.
4 See Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, pp. 79-81.
5 By inquiring about the complexity of this matter, I do not interpret Locke as advocating a compatibilist
position on volition, which is the notion that freedom of will is compatible (and sometimes only possible)
under some deterministic conditions. Whilst I agree with advocates of such an interpretation of Lockean
agency that Locke is at once committed to determinism in certain ways and to volitional libertarianism in
others, I think the relationship is structurally more elaborate than the notion of admixture seemingly entailed
by the compatiblist view. For a compatiblist reading of Lockean volition see Chappell, ‘Power in Locke’s
Essay’, pp. 144-146.
3
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
good, the greater good, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so, does not determine
the will, until our desire, raised proportionally to it, makes us uneasy in the want of it’.6 This
move detaches behaviour from knowledge whilst stipulating ‘uneasiness’ as a motive power
distinct from knowledge. For Locke, uneasiness is a kind of desire; ‘an uneasiness of the
Mind for want of some absent good’.7 Moreover, Locke does not link the power of this
kind of desire to the nature of the absent good itself. On the contrary, it is even possible
for the mind to be completely disaffected by some absent goods of which it is aware.8
Thus, the mind moves according to the nature of desire, not its conception of the good.
Because Locke stresses the importance of the way in which humans desire rather than the
nature of the objects of their desire, he moves firmly away from his earlier, apparently
intellectualist position.
Where some commentators miss the importance of the problem of motivation,
others think the story largely ends here – the issue of hedonic determinism has not been
raised at all. This view overlooks the significance Locke would have likely drawn from
Molyneux’s criticisms. Molyneux worried that Locke had shifted the responsibility of sin
onto the understanding, and away from the weakness of the will, subsuming ‘the Great
Question of Liberty and Necessity.’ 9 Intellectualism is part of this worry not simply
because it is in itself theologically problematic (which it clearly was in Molyneux’s view) but
also because it had lead Locke away from confronting probably the most pressing
philosophical and theological question of his age, predestination. Furthermore, Molyneux, as
a supportive reader of Locke, must have known that ‘the understanding’ had a precise
terminological status for his friend. It is not just intellection or cognition, but the whole
matrix of experience, reception, memory, and idea-formation Locke had been depicting in
Book II of the Essay. If the will is really reduced to the Lockean ‘understanding’, then the
apparently sensationalist underpinnings of this present a vexing quandary. Because Locke
did not revise his account of our conceptualisation of the ideas of good and evil through
sensation, the way he comes to separate an agent’s desire and the determination of their
will from their knowledge of the good should be closely attended to see whether he
responds to the deterministic problems Molyneux had indentified.
Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap 21, §35, p. 253.
Ibid., §31, pp. 250-251.
8 Ibid., §35, p. 253. For instance, Locke writes, ‘let a Drunkard see, that his Health decays, his Estate wastes;
Discredit and Diseases, and the want of all things, even of his beloved Drink, attends him in the course he
follows: yet the returns of uneasiness to miss his Companions; the habitual thirst after his Cups, at the usual
time, drives him to the Tavern, though he has in his view the loss of health and plenty, and perhaps the joys
of another life: the least of which is no inconsiderable good, but such as he confesses, is far greater than the
tickling of his plate with a glass of Wine, or the idle chat of a soaking Club.’
9 Locke Letter 1579, William Molyneux to Locke, Dublin, 22 December 1692 in M. Goldie (ed.), John Locke;
Selected Correspondence, (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2002), p. 175.
6
7
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
To explicate the nature of desire in will we must realise that Locke plays on the
distinction between it and our sense of the good, correct or otherwise, in his account of
decision-making.
Nevertheless, the good continues to play a formidable role in this
process. Locke describes the raising of desire toward the good: ‘I am forced to conclude,
that good, the greater good, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so, does not
determine the will, until our desire, raised proportionally to it, makes us uneasy in the want
of it.’10 Unlike in the first edition, the good is only willed contingently, upon what Locke
calls elevation of desire. After these revisions, the Lockean agent is perfectly able to
conceive of goods and to will acts incompatible with them.
Locke begins to explain the elevation of desire through its specific relation with
uneasiness. Recapitulating the idea that even the ‘infinitely greatest confessed good’ lacks
sufficient motivational force, he notes that ‘prevailing uneasiness’ whether pain, romantic
love or the desire for revenge, easily keeps the will sure and steady in the pursuit of
associated desires.11 When there is only one uneasiness/desire pair, this equation is simple.
But, it is precisely because humans bear a multitude of desire/uneasiness pairings that the
problem of how we will what we know we ought arises.
Because desire is tied to
uneasiness, it is only possible to know how desire is raised if the means by which a given
uneasiness becomes preponderant are known.
At first Locke answers in a strikingly Hobbesian way, the uneasiness which is
preponderant is simply the most pressing one. But then he qualifies the meaning of this.
Intriguingly, Locke asserts that the preponderant uneasiness is the one judged most capable
of being resolved.12 What exactly Locke means by this judgedment is not particularly clear.
Nevertheless, Locke is certain that this constant psychological feature ‘determines the will
in its choice of the next action’ even if he has not yet explained what ultimately makes a
desire most pressing.13 What is crucial is that judgement is not itself an act of will, but part
of the process leading to volition. 14
When evaluating Locke on this point, it is normal to stress that the role of
uneasiness in desiring remains grounded in happiness and misery. These feelings are
caused by sensations and are the same feelings by which humans are able to define good
and evil. If this is the case it is relatively clear that Locke has not managed to dodge the
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. 21, §35, p. 253
Ibid., §38, p. 256.
12 Ibid., §40, p. 257
13 Ibid., p. 258.
14 Although Locke wants the judgment of pressing desires to be part of the process leading up to a decision,
it actually looks like he wants something like a decision to determine the preponderance of a specific
uneasiness. This is not the only case in which Locke seems to expect the something like volition to act
anterior to itself.
10
11
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
problem of determinism; it remains a tension associated with his hedonism just as it had
been in the first edition. 15 In fact, the hedonic definition of good and evil outlined in
Chapter 20 is restated in sections 41 and 42 of Chapter 21. This seems to mean that the
problem of determinism remains despite Locke’s changes because the definition of good
and evil apparently imports hedonic determinism into human desiring.
If Locke was
remedying the problem of determinism in his philosophy of agency, it might seem he had
only succeeded in showing just how sticky that quandary was.
An evaluation of the hedonism in ‘Of Power’ would rightly point out that the
agent’s original conceptualisation of good and evil is derived from raw feelings of pleasure
and pain; however, it should be made clear that this is not necessarily the final
epistemological status of good and evil. A distinction can be drawn in Locke’s account
between the origin of our ideas and the content we eventually give them. Locke would
never suggest that autonomy could consist of somehow pulling undetermined ideas of good
and corresponding feelings of desire and uneasiness out of a magician’s hat. Our ideas and
categories have to come from somewhere. And yet, that sensational basis of our ideas of
good and evil may not necessarily be sufficient to determine the will. It is at this point that
Locke’s understanding of active powers becomes relevant for the way in which he thinks
human agents will. Locke seems to emphasise the wealth of goods and evils which human
beings encounter and, as Raymond Polin has described, the autonomy inherent in their
capacity to organise, emphasise and de-emphasise possibilities within this multitude – a
kind of freedom by ordering preferences.16 Humans are only able to make any sense of
different goods and evils by actively comparing them and hierarchically ordering them.17
Upon this view, even though the raw nature of feelings is derived from the “Operation of
… Objects … on our Minds or our Bodies,”18 it is how agents handle happiness and misery
Despite the complexity and depth of Yaffe’s analysis of Lockean will, he seems to consistently neglect the
role of hedonism in Lockean voluntarism. See also Aarsleff, “The state of nature and the nature of man,” pp.
112-116, 121. Aarsleff gives hedonism significantly more attention than Yaffe, but ultimately concludes that
criticisms of Locke’s hedonism misconstrue its meaning. He sees that pleasure and pain are transmitted by
sense, but ultimately grounded in God’s power and goodness. Hedonism is always a means of motivation
rather than a first principle. This is especially true for Locke’s thought on law and the revised Chapter 21. As
mentioned above, I take a similar view, but by eliding the issue in this general sense, Aarsleff appears to
neglect the efforts Locke took to allow the mind to distinguish the hedonistic prompting of our notions of
good and evil and some kinds of volition from possible normative standards of good and evil and congruent
volition.
16 Polin, ‘John Locke’s Conception of Freedom’, p. 8. Drawing on Chapter 21, §8, Polin comes to the
conclusion that Lockean freedom consists of the human capacity to order preferences. The autonomous
nature of this ordering is clearly present in this section as well. But in examining how this part of Locke’s
thought on volition and freedom plays out, Polin’s conclusion is overly abrupt. Human autonomy turns out
to be considerably deeper in Locke’s view.
17 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap 21, §42, p. 259.
18 Ibid., §43.
15
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
and prioritise goods and evils that determines which desires are most pressing and how
strong they are. Locke’s emphasis is on the mind as active and independent organiser.
And there is a second, more important, independent capability that Locke attributes
to human agents regarding their sense of happiness. Locke’s suggests that agents are able
to actively determine the nature of their happiness. Agents are able to do this before they
include any particular goods and evils in their sense of happiness. Goods and evils which
do not fit into this conception are simply excluded; they fail to excite desire or,
consequently, effect the will.19 Thus, we can see that for Locke although happiness is a
concept provided by sensations of pleasure and pain, this origin does not provide
happiness, qua concept, with any particular content. On the other hand, the human agent
seems to be able to determine the content of the concept or category of happiness. Thus,
Locke’s story about the role of our greatest immediate uneasiness is more complex than it
might first appear.
In the course of willing, an agent’s potential to define what his
happiness is in particular and his ability to order and emphasise certain goods and evils
demonstrate the robust independence of human agents that Locke’s understanding of
elevated desire can support.
Doubtless these two capabilities are only relevant for independence if agents
actually use them. Locke’s considered view seems to be that while we have these powers
we often fail to use them in the active sense just outlined. Most of the time human beings
are motivated by strong appetitive desires, not desires built on a sense of good and evil that
they have evaluated for themselves. That is to say, our motives regularly typify Lockean
passive powers. As Locke explains, present goods and evils always bring present misery and
present pain whereas absent goods do not.
Indeed, humans have a difficult time
prioritising absent goods that do not harness a sense of immediate fear or pleasure; absent
goods are normally only a conditional part of human feelings of happiness. 20 Even with
the agent’s capacity to arrange desires and define happiness, the point of Locke’s argument
is that these potentialities do not normally function as causes but as effects of the passive
transmission of power within the psyche. Upon Locke’s own definition, volition normally
seems to be determined externally by sensations. If I am right, Locke’s challenge is to
explain how the passivity of our will to hedonic stimuli might be transcended so that we
can make use of our independent powers. It is to the details of Locke’s response to this
challenge that I now turn.
19
20
Ibid., §44.
Ibid., §44, p. 260.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Part II: Active and passive volition
Given the evidence adduced above, it is unsurprising that some commentators have
claimed Locke simply did not substantiate a non-deterministic theory of will, even upon the
revisions to Chapter 21.21 Upon such views, Locke held philosophical beliefs about the
sensational origin of ideas that are invariably in tension with his equal commitment to
human autonomy. However, I think this reading overlooks the crucial importance of a
caveat in Locke’s worries about the passivity behind our sense of happiness and our
organisation of desires – most of the time. This means that humans might not necessarily
make decisions according to hedonic causes. As I began to suggest above, this means
Locke differentiates between two modes of willing: one passive and desirous and the other
autonomous, independent and active. I shall argue that the history of Locke’s thought on
volition verifies that this power can be active or passive. Furthermore, I submit that the
way Locke depicts the elevation of desire suggests how an agent might transform their will
from a passive response to an active power.
If I am right in thinking Locke distinguishes between active and passive modes of
willing, the distinction would follow his definition of activity and passivity, elaborated in
the first pages of Chapter 21. Locke describes how all powers (capacities for modification)
are categorised according to active and passive types. Strictly speaking, powers which are
able to effect modification are active and entail proper actions, while powers which involve
the capacity to be modified are passive and entail the passions. 22 As Susan James has
elucidated, this active/passive dichotomy is longstanding and influential in classical,
medieval and early modern accounts of action and human decision making. 23 Typically,
Locke’s contemporaries and predecessors conceived of reason and volition as examples of
active powers. Because of this it is historically tempting to suppose Locke conceived of
volition similarly, as an active power. Indeed this is precisely what most scholars do.24 Yet
For examples see Chappell, ‘Power in Locke’s Essay’, pp. 144-146 or Susan James, Passion and Action; the
Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1997), p. 287. For Chappell, Locke
is a compatiblist, and so both the liberty and determinism present in Locke’s view are intentional. For James,
Locke intends to avoid determinism, tries to substantiate self-control, but ultimately espouses a view which is
equivalent to a Hobbesian ‘conception of the will as the last appetite.’
22 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §§2-4, pp. 234-236.
23 James, Passion and Action.
James unpacks the Aristotelian and Thomistic roots of the active passive
dichotomy, the discontent with that legacy in the seventeenth century, and the various models proposed by
Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza and Malebranche to rethink activity and passivity. See particularly Chapter 12,
pp. 268-294 for Locke’s contribution to these debates. See also James, ‘Reason, The Passions, and the Good
Life’, in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (eds.), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, Vol. II,
(Cambridge, 1998), pp. 1366-1367. James discusses the widespread currency of the active passive distinction,
and the role it plays in the thought of Locke’s contemporary, Spinoza.
24 Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 77; Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name, pp. 82-88; Chappell, ‘Power in Locke’s
Essay’, p. 133. Yaffe recognises the uncertainty about which type of power we attribute to particular actions
but not in how we describe the powers themselves. Thus, certain actions, being modifications in substances,
may seem to be active in regard to the totality of the object which performs a modification, but in regard to
21
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
it is worth bearing in mind, as James has shown, that in the seventeenth century, traditional
scholastic views on action and passion were vigorously contested, rejected and
reformulated.25 Thus, the traditional association of will with man’s active powers cannot be
taken as a decisive guide to Locke’s understanding of agency. Moreover, it is important to
reject the notion that Lockean will is straightforwardly an active power, when the text
shows he says nothing of the sort. What Locke says is that our reflection on the operations
of our mind provides us with examples of the idea of active powers.26 Locke also says that
will is a power of the mind.27 But the claim that all actions of the mind, as such, are active
and only active does not follow from the fact that we draw examples of the idea of active
power from some operations of the mind. On the contrary, Locke tells us that one power
of the human mind, thinking, is sometimes passive but can also be an ‘active power’. 28
Consequently, the claim that Lockean volition is active because it is a power of the mind is
unsustainable. According to my reading, Locke’s evident indeterminacy about whether the
power of will is active or passive is philosophically significant.
I suggest that interpreting Locke’s faculty of volition as bifurcated between active
and passive modes is important for explaining why Locke’s apparent hedonism in certain
sections of Chapter 21 is not an oversight but part of a complex analysis of the different
ways in which humans will. This active/passive reading allows the more deterministic
sections in ‘Of Power’ to be juxtaposed systematically with the more autonomous strands
of Lockean volition without undermining the sense in which he describes either.
Moreover, this interpretation is not merely philosophically plausible; it seems to fit the
historical development of Locke’s work on will and passion. It is to the development of
Locke’s voluntarism that I now turn
The chronology of Locke’s understanding of will and passion is important for
interpreting his initial and revised statements on these subjects in the Essay. Although
consideration of power, passions and the will had concerned Locke for some time, his
systematic development of these themes has no exact precursor in the earliest drafts of the
the particular part of the object which enacts the modification are only passive. However, in regard to the
power of will itself, he argues that it is a specific type of active power. Chappell infers that because willing is
one of the clearest sources for the idea of active power that it must be an active power as such. He further,
and, without evidence, attributes to Locke, the view that active and passive powers are mutually exclusive.
See also James, Passion and Action, pp. 284-288. James discusses will and passion as in conflict with each other,
which is similar to the interpretation I propose here but different in that volitions never include passions and
seem ultimately violable by them.
25 James, Passion and Action, pp. 71-81.
26 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §4, p. 235-236.
27 Ibid., §5, p. 236.
28 Ibid., §72, pp. 285-286.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Essay.29 However, volition appears systematically in his 1676 manuscript ‘Pleasure, Pain,
the Passions’. The timeframe runs roughly parallel to his mature political work 30 and
corresponds with his translation of Pierre Nicole’s Essais in 1676, in which, as was
considered in the previous chapter, problematic passions and dispositions play a prominent
role. An analysis of this manuscript shows that Locke’s earliest writing on will do not
represent the overly hedonic and determinist characteristics sometimes ascribed to ‘Of
Power’. Hedonism and sensationalism are present here, yet reason, consideration and
active and passive willing are also represented. I want to draw attention to the nascent
active/passive distinction in this document.
Locke does not use those exact terms, but it is clear that their meaning is
presupposed in the manuscript. In this case bodies are able to be put into motion but are
‘indifferent to’ motion.31 Similarly the soul is ‘indifferent’ to thought; it always thinks.32
Both of these are clear precursors to passive power or passion. Conversely, the soul, while
bearing this indifference some of the time, also uniquely possesses the power to act.33 The
terminology of active power is nearly in place. Importantly, Locke writes that thoughts are
produced by this power to act which are not subject to predication.34 This use of concepts
like those lying behind Locke’s work in Chapter 21 is pivotal. Locke’s clear distinction
between instances of the soul’s indifference and its capacity to act means it is unlikely he
believes agency is grounded on hedonic determinism or that it is a purely active power.35
Interestingly, Locke draws a distinction between love and desire. 36
Love is
immediately caused by sensory apprehension, but desire can be mediated by reason. Desire
Aarsleff, ‘The state of nature and the nature of man’, pp. 116-117. Aarsleff shows how there are
important parts of the revised version of Chapter 21, especially concerning punishment, moral behaviour,
and natural law that are worked out in Drafts A and B, the document “Of Ethics in General,” the 1676
manuscript I reference, and also in other parts of the first edition of the Essay. However, these sections are
not immediately part of Locke’s account of power, specifically volition.
30 The debate on the precise dates when Locke composed the Two Treatises is formidable, but the most
convincing claims are between 1677-78 and 1684. Given the formative nature of several manuscripts I
reference in this thesis, I think it is unlikely that Locke wrote the Second Treatise earlier than 1679. Of course,
important revisions are made to the Two Treatises before their publication in 1689. The point is all of these
dates are contemporaneous with Locke’s work on ‘Of Power’ in the Essay and later than the 1676 manuscript
‘Pleasure, Pain, the Passions’.
31 Locke, ‘Pleasure, Pain, the Passions’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Locke; Political Essays, (Cambridge, 1997), p. 244.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 This seems to controvert Yaffe’s claim that volition is a specific type of active power, since actions of the
soul can transmit actions or can instantiate action. There is no reason to imagine Locke’s view changes by the
Essay, since desires are sometimes passively determined through a chain of causality originating in sense
impressions and concluding, after desire, in will. Moreover, because Locke’s views about the soul’s
indifference and its capacity to act are disentangled, it seems unlikely that Chappell’s reading of Lockean will as
a form of compatiblism is satisfactory. When the soul acts its indifference is out of the picture altogether,
which seems unlike the kind of mediation between liberty and determinism a compatiblist view would seem to
entail.
36 I think Locke drops this distinction in Book IV of the Essay. I discuss this in Part IV of this chapter, in
29
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
may have ‘ultimate objects’ like love, but desires ‘may be prevailed upon by reason and
consideration to fix upon painful and troublesome things.’ 37 Were it Locke’s view that
hedonism determined all motivations, it would be peculiar for him to introduce an
apparently independent principle of the mind (reason) and allow that principle to
contravene the normal motive force of pleasure and pain. But, clearly he has.
It is important to note that Locke is unwilling to make confident pronouncements
concerning the ethical implications of his formative thought on the passions. What he is
willing to say is that our physical embodiment and the continual importuning material
objects effect on us are obstacles to our recognition of ‘spiritual things’.38 These spiritual
objects rarely affect us, leaving our happiness in this world ‘very imperfect’.39 It looks as
though Locke wants to find a way to deploy passivity within his psychology without
surrendering man’s active capacities to it; sensation and self-conscious contribute to our
behaviour in alternate ways.
Because Locke was already grappling with the distinction between active and
passive powers in regard to human agency in ‘Pleasure, Pain, the Passions’, it makes little
sense to imagine that he was committed to a strict account of will either as an active power
or a function of passive, hedonic determinism – Locke’s intentions were more complex.
Thus, in 1676, Locke cannot have intended his psychology to be purely hedonic,
deterministic, or even sensationalist. The complex relationship between hedonism and
passive power and rational freedom and active power seems to date back to Locke’s
formative work on volition. Consequently, the story that Locke held a set of purely hedonic
views that he then recanted in 1694 is possible but not very plausible. The changes Locke
did make were probably directed differently.
The nature of Lockean will as a power with both active and passive modes also seems
to be corroborated in the Second Treatise. Patrick Riley has drawn attention to Locke’s
ambivalence about hedonic determinism in the Second Treatise. Riley argues that a key
passage in Paragraph 61 elaborates an almost proto-Kantian will ‘as the capacity to bring
oneself to act according to the conception of a law that one understands and uses in
shaping one’s conduct’.40 As a general point, this is quite right. Similarly, Yaffe shows that
Locke may be edging toward something conceptually rather similar even in the first edition
which I argue that some forms of love (the love of truth) are forms of elevated desire. Regardless, the effort
which Locke takes in this commonplace entry to think through the ways in which human agency is not
determined by hedonic causes is worth emphasising.
37 Locke, ‘Pleasure, Pain, the Passions’, p. 239.
38 Ibid., p. 242. This would seem to suggest against Yaffe’s conclusion that no divisions within the mind
explicate the deep importance of will for human beings.
39 Ibid.
40 Patrick Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, (Harvard, Harvard University Press: 1982), p. 81.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
‘Of Power’, arguing that Locke already believes freedom must be found in some standard
outside ourselves. 41
Specifically, the statement Riley highlights is found in the context of Locke’s thought
on paternal authority. In part, Locke is trying to show why natural parental authority is not
an abridgement of freedom. Rather the boundaries of parental authority are consonant with
freedom. The reason why this is the case comes down to children’s lack of reason. At this
point in their development children only possess freedom through their father’s
understanding and government. 42 In contradistinction, the freedom of adults consists
specifically in the rationality of their will. Locke writes:
The Freedom of the Man and Liberty of acting according to his own Will, is grounded on his
having Reason, which is able to instruct him in that Law he is to govern himself by, and make
him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an
unrestrain’d Liberty, before he has Reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the priviledge
of his Nature, to be free; but to thrust him out amongst Brutes, and abandon him to a state as
wretched, and as much beneath that of a Man, as theirs. 43
Locke is not deploying his active and passive terminology here, so it is difficult to draw
precise comparisons with Chapter 21. However, what is clear is that freedom could not be
built upon will in this normative sense if will could not be directed toward human
rationality. Setting aside the normative importance of this passage for the moment, pure
impulse and immediate desire could not be redirected in this way. Liberty before the
development of reason leaves man like a ‘brute’, like an animal.44 His liberty is hollow
without the kind of will that leaves him with the freedom that is the ‘priviledge of his
Nature’. This also means that willing in accordance with Law, is not automatic. It is also
perfectly plausible for man to will like a brute. In this passage, will is clearly a complex
power with both brutish and elevated, autonomous modes. Although Locke does not
deploy the terminology he develops in the Essay, it is relatively clear that in the Second
Treatise his use of human agency presupposes the notion that volition is sometimes active
and at other times passive.
So it remains historically possible that at some point after the 1676 manuscript and
after the composition of the Second Treatise but before the 1694 revisions to Chapter 21
Locke believed, temporarily, that will was hedonically determined or perfectly active. But
the relatively short time frame of Locke’s work on the matter reduces the credibility of this
interpretation. It is clear that by 1694 he had rejected these views, if he ever held them at
all. This is not surprising, given Locke’s consistency over the same period and in the same
Gideon Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name, p. 37-38.
Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge, 1988), §61, p. 308.
43 Ibid., §63, p. 309.
44 In a real sense, this is precisely the fate of the tyrant, whom Locke thinks animalistic and predatory. I shall
address this application of will in Locke’s political thought directly in Chapter 4.
41
42
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
documents on the related issues regarding natural law, the relationship between pleasure
and pain, and the motivations requisite for moral behaviour.45 Thus, it is clear that in the
vital period when Locke planned and drafted ‘Of Power’, he had eschewed both hedonic
determinism of the will and the perfect independence of the will in favour of a twofold
system embodying the sense of his active/passive distinction.
Returning to the Essay, Locke had yet to detail how precisely desiring was to be
‘elevated’. In fact, Locke’s development of active willing maps on to this requirement.
Locke outlines the process of elevated desire: ‘…by a due consideration and examining any
good proposed, it is in our power, to raise our desires, in a due proportion to the value of
that good, whereby in its turn and place, it may come to work upon the will, and be
pursued.’46 It is in this process where our potential to organise goods and determine our
conception of happiness is realised. Due consideration and examination are not just things
which happen in us, they are in ‘our power’ according to our independent valuation –
clearly active power, not passive transmission. Evaluating the consistency of Locke’s statements
indicative of hedonism misses his point in teasing out two modes of volition - one passive
and problematic and the other active and desirable.47
Ultimately, Locke supposes that human beings have this active power outside the
grip of passive, hedonic determination because they have a power to suspend the
‘execution’ of desires.48 It is this power of suspension and the use of or failure to use it
which is the lynchpin of Locke’s distinction between passive and active wills. Locke
declares:
In this lies the liberty Man has; and from not using it right comes all that variety of
mistakes, errors, and faults which we run into, in the conduct of our own lives, and our
endeavours after happiness; whilst we precipitate the determination of our wills, and engage
too soon before due Examination. To prevent this we have a power to suspend the
prosecution of this or that desire… This seems to me the source of all liberty; in this seems
to consist that, which is (as I think improperly) called Free Will. 49
Thus, the problematisation of passive will seen above is clearly instrumental to Locke’s
reasoning. Passive will is tantamount to slavery because it is determined by passion, a
technical term for a passive power, i.e. the capacity for extrinsic forces to determine an
Aarsleff, “The state of nature and the nature of man,” pp. 116-121.
Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §46.
47 This is not to say that Locke’s bifurcated account of will resolves itself without any tensions. On a critical
note, it is certainly dubious whether this source of freedom anterior to the act of will is fully comprehensible.
The active role of the mind here seems far too much like an act, a choice. The problem is not one of
determinism, but an overly strict definition of the term will purely as a final decision making act. Hobbes
distinguishes between deliberation and volition only to define deliberation in quasi-mechanical terms as an
automatic process which produces volitions. Locke refuses to think of evaluation in this sense, but because
of this there is a danger that the something quite like the will must act prior to itself in order for will to be
active. This is, of course, question begging because it presents a regression problem.
48 Ibid., §47, p. 263.
49 Ibid., §47.
45
46
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
agent’s actions.50 Doubly, because Locke indicates that such passions are incommensurable
with reasoning, they will necessarily yield error and entrap agents in the pursuit of false
happiness. This is why passive will is anathema to Locke’s sense of human freedom.
The suspension of desire places Lockean volition on a fork between passivity and
activity. The will can be determined by active or passive desires; it is the suspension of
desires which allows the agent to overcome passive determination and exercise his activity.
The power of suspension has no extrinsic predicate. It is self caused, or in Lockean terms
an active power. The inclusion of the suspension of desire allows an active form of willing
and consequently liberty or freedom.
Part III: The normative teleology of Lockean will
Active volition provides an explanation of human behaviour which does not
depend on prior causes. But Locke does not develop this theory for purely descriptive
purposes. In this section I want to show that Locke values active will precisely because it
allows for moral behaviour and normative responsibility. Moreover, normative, active
willing is, for Locke, not just a means to moral ends but constitutive of them. This is why
the suspension of desire is not just a possibility but is ‘our duty’.51
The importance of man’s active power for the conceptualisation of moral goods
had been important to Locke for some time. In ‘Of Ethic in General’ which was probably
written sometime between 1686 and 1688, Locke states that the only ‘difference between
moral and natural good and evil’ is that natural goods and evils are felt by ‘natural
efficiency’ whilst moral good and evil are produced by the ‘intervention of the will of an
intelligent free agent, or, as Locke had first written, ‘by the appointment of an intelligent
being that has power’. 52 Natural efficiency describes in the traditional terminology of
Aristotelian efficient causes exactly what passive powers are defined to do in ‘Of Power’.
But another, uncaused or active power is responsible for an agent’s conceptions of moral
good and evil. Clearly it is the role of activity in will, the capacity to not only suspend
desires but to reformulate our very sense of good, evil, and happiness, that bears normative
weight for Locke.
Locke’s ascription of moral status to active will relies upon the
equivalence between happiness properly understood and the true good.
Because willing actively depends on the elevation of desire, it is no surprise that
Locke describes moral willing in terms charged with ardour. He writes:
Ibid., §§2-4.
Ibid., §47, p. 264.
52 Locke, ‘Of Ethic in General’, in Mark Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press: 1997), par. 9, p. 301. See fn. 65 for the older wording.
50
51
68
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Let a Man be never so well perswaded of the advantages of virtue, that it is necessary to a Man,
who has any great aims in this World, or hopes in the next, as food to life: yet till he hungers and
thirsts after righteousness; till he feels an uneasiness in the want of it, his will will not be determin’d to
any action in pursuit of this confessed greater good; but any other uneasiness he feels in himself
shall take place and carry his will to other actions. 53
Fully moral active willing does not suppress desires; it transforms them and enlists their
motivational power. The moral rectification of desire explains how righteous aims come to
be willed. This is why elevating desire is a moral imperative. The rhetorical force of
Locke’s example verifies the normative importance of elevated desires because he would
have thought his audience hard pressed to conceptualise a good superior to their ‘hopes in
the next’ world. Locke clearly indicates that virtue and righteousness can never be
functions of mere cognition, they must be the consequence of elevated desiring. Because
this moral aim is so crucial, its appearance here serves the instrumental role of elucidating
the fatal54 problem of unrepentant desire and passive will.
It is quite clear that Locke thinks active, moral volition and the elevated desires
incorporated in that mode of willing are normatively imperative. But Locke is less clear
about the nature of the greater good. He clearly thinks that morality itself depends on our
ability to autonomously conceptualise moral goods, but there is a sense in which this is tied
to our understanding of happiness. Indeed, there are substantial portions of Chapter 21 in
which Locke seems to describe the pursuit of the moral good as nothing more than a
rigorous pursuit of our own best happiness, whatever that may be. However, Locke’s
equivocation between our greatest happiness and the greatest moral good introduces
tensions between the apparent subjectivity of happiness and the apparent universality of the
greatest good. Stated succinctly, if the greatest subjectively experienced happiness is the
greatest good, then surely whatever my greatest happiness happens to be will qualify as the
greatest good. If I desire a lower form of subjective joy, Locke would be justified in saying
it would more pleasurable and therefore advisable for me to elevate this desire. But what
makes this change obligatory? This complication grows out of the philosophical difficulty
Locke faces in accounting for the ultimately universal moral imperatives he draws from the
particular experience of pleasure.
To explicate this tension, some grasp of Locke’s specific sense of moral duty in and
as the end of active will is crucial. Locke approaches the normativity of active will through
his explanation of the human pursuit of happiness. Felicity is not just something we might
Ibid., §35, p. 253.
Locke fully subscribes to the notion that the wages of unrepentant sin are death, as opposed to eternal
torment.
53
54
69
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
will because we enjoy a state of pleasure; we are under an obligation to seek it. 55 Locke
makes the further claim that true happiness does not consist of whatever pleasure we might
first imagine to be the best56. The pursuit of happiness requires thoughtfulness. There are
kinds of happiness which, for us, might be better than others. As I discussed in Part I,
happiness as a category arises out of our sense of pleasure, but pleasure does not
exclusively determine the content of that category for us. True happiness and lesser joys
are not differentiated quantitative by pleasure, but by our judgment in regard to pleasure.
The pursuit of happiness also requires long term planning. This is where active
willing is relevant. By suspending the execution of immediate desires, the agent is not only
able to make the best choice amongst them, but he is also freed to consider remote goods
and to examine their effects on his happiness. 57 The choices made here transform and
expand free agency. The scope of active will is wider than deliberating and weighing
desires already given, or present, to the mind. The inception of that set of desires, as
explained above, is not necessarily in the power of the agent. But when desire is suspended
for the purpose of determining long range goods, the scope of agency expands.
Specifically, long term deliberation allows the agent to prioritise what he determines to be
his greatest good in a way whereby that priority is reflected in the subset of desires
immediately present to the faculty of will.58 Lockean activity thus replaces passivity in the
very process of desire formation, provided the agent applies the mental exertion needed to
achieve this. In other words, it is the human agent who has become the active cause of his
own desires.
Thus, Locke’s argument in these sections emphasises that this sort of
heightened activity prior to acts of will is crucial because it allows human beings to lay hold
of what is most good for them, what is best for their happiness.
But it remains unclear how Locke intends to square this position on the cultivation
of a particular sense of happiness with a universal conception of moral duty. Surely,
following this obligation entails only relativistic conceptions of the good, even following full,
due, long-range deliberation. Locke seems to belabour this relativity:
The Mind has a different relish, as well as the Palate; and you will as fruitlessly endeavour to
delight all Men with Riches or Glory … as you would to satisfy all Men’s Hunger with
Cheese or Lobsters… Hence it was, I think that the Philosophers of old did in vain enquire,
whether the Summum bonum consisted in Riches, or bodily Delights, or Virtue, or
Contemplation… . For as pleasant Tastes depend not on the things themselves, but on
their agreeableness to this or that particular Palate, wherein there is a great variety: SO the
greatest Happiness consists, in having those things, which produce the greatest Pleasure:
and in the absence of these, which cause any disturbance, any pain. 59
55Locke,
Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §52, p. 267.
Ibid.
57 Ibid., §56, p. 270.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., §55, p. 269.
56
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Thus it seems that Locke’s empiricist epistemology and his apparently subjective sense of
happiness, good and evil are in full force. If the feeling of pleasure does not indicate what
the greatest good is, the greatest good still seems to be the astute cultivation of personal
happiness.60 In resolving true happiness into a matter of taste, generalised conceptions of
the good would seem to be precluded.
Certainly, Locke can advance the view that human agents have a moral obligation to
realise their own greatest subjective happiness, but it is not clear that Locke wants to
endorse relativism in this way. Indeed, he may advance a more objective understanding.
In immediate succession to his rejection of the Summum Bonum, Locke strengthens the
contrary position: ‘For though his will be always judged good by his Understanding, yet it
excuses him not: Because by a too hasty choice of his own making, he has imposed on
himself wrong measures of good and evil; which however false and fallacious, have the
same influence on all his future conduct, as if they were true and right’.61 Even if cheese
and loyalty please some while lobsters and betrayal please others, good and evil may not be
equally relative.
In this passage, the implication for Locke’s argument is that some
measures of good and evil even if they seem right are not actually so. The agent seems to
be obliged to direct his sense of happiness toward what is really good. But does this require
anything more than he being right about his own happiness?
Locke seems to think the answer is yes.
Intriguingly, human agency must be
exercised over our very conceptions of pleasure and pain. Locke adamantly claims that
‘pains should be taken to rectify’ wrong notions of the good instilled by opinion. 62
Furthermore, it is imperative that a moral understanding of the good be correctly
appreciated. Thus, Locke thinks developing the right kind of agency is itself a fundamental
duty. If agency did not have power over the human sense of pleasure and pain, this painful
correction would surely be impossible. It is only through our active power over our
estimation of pleasure and pain that the actual happiness of morality can be apprehended.
Locke assures the doubtful:
…this yet is certain, that Morality, established upon its true Foundations, cannot but determine
the choice in any one, that will but consider: and he that will not be so far a rational Creature as
to reflect seriously upon infinite Happiness and Misery, must needs condemn himself, as not. 63
Yaffe, Liberty Worth the Name, pp. 70-74. Yaffe does not acknowledge that this is serious matter for the
interpretation of Chapter 21. Such hedonism would turn Locke into Hobbes, and Hobbes must be wrong, in
Yaffe’s view. This reaction to the matter obscures the subtlety with which Locke handles the hedonism at
each level wherein active, moral willing is distinguished from passive wilfulness.
61Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §56, p. 271.
62 Ibid., p. 281.
63 Ibid., Chap. 21, §70, p. 281.
60
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
For Locke, when we place our feelings of pleasure and pain under the power of agency in
accord with rational normative standards, the power of will becomes part of human moral
behaviour. This moral agency is not optional. On the contrary, morality is the ‘true
foundation’ of happiness toward which the understanding should be applied. Ultimately,
active will itself is conceptualised as a duty which pains should be taken to establish
because it seems to make possible the very rationality necessary for the discovery of
normative principles.
In these passages, Locke has been addressing why punishment and moral
responsibility presuppose active will. Locke knows that the nature of active will does not
entail moral obligations on its own account. This is why he argues that external and eternal
standards of the good are binding on human beings. He admonishes the hasty deliberator:
‘The eternal Law and Nature of things must not be alter’d to comply with his ill-order’d
choice. If the neglect or abuse of the Liberty he had, to examine what would really and
truly make for his Happiness, misleads him, the miscarriages that follow on it, must be
imputed to his own election.’64 Hence, the duty to find our greatest good, which is also a
duty to raise desires and will actively, if executed, will match eternal normative standards.
The duty is important because of these moral ends. By finding our authentic sense of good
and happiness, we will find the moral law. Although knowledge of the good cannot
determine the will directly, the agent must be able to uncover moral knowledge in
systematic form if he is to deliberate and prioritise this objective notion of the good,
elevate his desire and determine his particular decisions accordingly.
This close relationship between active will and reason both as the normative end of
elevated desires, and in another sense as the means of their elevation, is not a return to
Socratic intellectualism. This is because Locke includes hedonism of a peculiar kind in his
theory of volition. By focusing on the elevation of desire behind moral willing, he can
reasonably claim that knowledge of the moral good leads to moral behaviour, not
immediately, but through the activity of the human agent. This is why the crux of this
moral duty is not just knowledge of the good but desire for and a sense of happiness from
it. Because Locke ties moral willing to desire, he is able to ensure that agents can be
motivated to behave morally. This is not through the passive role pleasure and pain and
desire frequently play but through the active, rational and normative re-conceptualisation
of true happiness, good and evil and the active elevation of desire toward them. Locke’s
reformulated hedonism squares knowledge and motivation through the active agent’s
control over his desire-formation and his rational sense of good and evil. It is because
64
Ibid.
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hedonism has become a matter of the agent’s activity and not a conduit of passive
determinism that Locke believes his understanding of will and morality works. In Locke’s
view, only a better, active sense of pleasure can offset erroneous and passionate estimations
of pleasure and pain. If Locke did not harness the agent’s desires in this active way, his
immediate pleasure would always trump even what he knows to be upright. This is
precisely why agents are obliged to elevate their desire, cultivate a moral sense of goodness
and will accordingly.
Part IV: Will and the pursuit of knowledge
In this section I aim to show how Locke cashes out active and passive volition,
moral imperatives included, in his understanding of knowledge and reasoning. Specifically,
I examine the centrality of active agency and the ‘elevation of desire’ for Locke’s views about
deductive reasoning and the demonstrability of moral knowledge. I demonstrate this
centrality through three considerations: first, I examine the overlapping distinctions
between intuitive and deductive knowledge with involuntary and voluntary activity; second, I
unpack Locke’s understanding of the vulnerability of knowledge and his attribution of this
to opinionated believing, which I argue is no different than passive volition; and last, I
reconstruct his conceptualisation of the legitimate pursuit of knowledge or deductive
rationality as a process of active volition and the elevated desire that is the love for truth.
Agency in intuition and deduction
Locke is well known for believing that certain considerations might induce ‘intuitive
Knowledge’. Such knowledge is ‘irresistible, and like the bright Sun-shine, forces itself
immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the Mind turns its view that way…’.65 Locke
clearly describes the power of this certain knowledge in involuntary terms. If the mind
considers certain subjects of this nature, the apprehension of such knowledge is automatic
and necessary. I want to show that regardless of the involuntary nature of some knowledge,
most knowledge and moral knowledge specifically depends on the active volition I have
adduced above.
Locke believes that most things which can be known are not intuitive. Indeed,
Locke claims that there are two fundamental kinds of knowledge – intuitive and
Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap 2, §1, p. 531. For helpful elucidation of Locke’s analogy between sight and
knowing see Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
1996), pp. 38-40. Wolterstorff makes perfectly clear that this view is longstanding and unproblematic for
Locke and his contemporaries.
65
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
deductive.66 Deductive knowledge requires a chain of intuitive steps and due procedural
propriety, 67 eventually constituting certain knowledge claims.68 Whilst intuitive knowledge
is involuntary, Locke clarifies that deductive knowledge is voluntary.69 As Locke explains
later in Book IV, knowledge like sight ‘is neither wholly necessary, nor wholly voluntary’.70
Repeating a discussion from ‘Of Power’, Locke argues that because human beings are
sensory creatures and because they possess both ‘Memory’ and a ‘distinguishing Faculty’, it
is necessary that some ideas will be received, some memories retained and some truths
realised.71 Maintaining the analogy of sight, there are certain objects, or propositions, that
human agents will perceive or know if they see or considers them, but whether they consider
them is a matter of independent volition.72
There is a second, more important dimension in which knowledge is ‘in a Man’s
Power’. This, like the decision to investigate an object in our line of sight more closely, is
the ‘voluntary’ decision to employ or withhold ‘any of our Faculties from this or that sort of
Objects’. 73 Once our intellectual faculties have been engaged ‘our Will hath no Power to
determine the Knowledge of the Mind…’. 74 In light of Locke’s distinction between intuitive
knowledge and deliberative knowledge, it is clear that intuitive realisations fall outside of
volition yet the advancement of any chain of deduction depends upon the commitment and
application of man’s agency. Locke stresses the necessity of many intellectual realisations,
including knowledge about triangles and God, upon our consideration of the necessary
predicating propositions. However, Locke adds the caveat that these same truths, be they
‘ever so certain, ever so clear’, are still avoidable if humans fail to ‘take the Pains to employ’
Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap 2, §§1-4, pp. 530-532.
See Ibid., Chap 17, “Of Reason” for Locke’s most thorough discussion of the procedural requirements for
successful reasoning.
68 Ibid., Chap 2, §7 pp. 533-534.
69 Wolterstorff, John Locke, pp. 47, 49-50, 61. Wolterstorff discusses how Locke thinks believing and knowing
are sometimes an ‘enduring mental state’ yet also thinks judging and assent are ‘mental acts’. Wolterstorff
thinks rightly that Locke comes to confuse this distinction. But while Locke’s discussion clearly invokes the
imagery of his thought on agency, Wolterstorff does not pursue this. Indeed, he expressly rules out the
notion that Locke differentiates different categories of certainty and probability not only according to their
‘truth-likelihood’ but also according to how they fulfil our intellectual responsibilities. Wolterstorff also
thinks Locke’s account of the faculty of judgment (the way in which we assent or withhold assent to probable
beliefs) is not a matter of will, but his discussion of this is not detailed and the evidence for it drawn from
Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration and not from the Essay. Wolterstorff is right that Locke does not think
opinion voluntary and knowledge necessary, as had a number of Locke’s predecessors. He is also right to
suggest that will might have something to do with assent and why we are responsible for it, but he does not
expand on this suggestion.
70 Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap 13, §1, p. 650.
71 Ibid.
72 Contrast with Wolterstorff, John Locke, pp. 40-41. Whereas I focus on the requirements of voluntary
activity for Locke’s account of knowledge, Wolterstorff focuses on our faculty of knowledge as openness to
knowledge. Strictly speaking, on this Wolterstorff is quite right, but I think Locke’s views about the way in
which men cultivate this openness requires further reconstruction.
73 Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap. 13, §2, p. 650.
74 Ibid., pp. 650-651.
66
67
74
The Ethics of Lockean Volition
their ‘Faculties’ as they should.75 These requirements and the corollary that demonstrable
knowledge is avoidable would seem to explain why Locke thinks such knowledge is less
certain that immediately intuitive knowledge. 76
Locke reiterates the requirement he
advanced in ‘Of Power’ that we must take pains to ensure that we elevate our willing
toward appropriate ends. Ultimately, Locke makes it plain as daylight that reasoning is an
instantiation of our voluntary powers.
Locke’s further considerations on the voluntary aspects of reasoning deploy the
specifics of his theory of agency, including active and passive volition. On the face of
things, the type of willing Locke has in mind in regard to deductive reasoning is none too
clear. Certainly, that knowledge of God and triangles requires ‘pains’ maps onto the
important changes agents must make in their desiring and their sense of happiness for their
activity to be realised. Nevertheless, this apparent correspondence is too slim to be
conclusive. In order to read Lockean deductive knowledge as a fully-fledged matter of his
theory of volition, it would be necessary to show that an agent’s failure to undertake
rational deduction can be attributed not only to his negligence but to passive desires.
Interestingly, Locke wrote a short manuscript, entitled ‘Thus I think’, sometime
between 1686 and 1688 in which the interrelationship between will and knowledge is
further explored. Thus, this commonplace book entry was penned over the same period
Locke wrote up much of Book IV. In ‘Thus I think’, Locke recounts the way he takes will,
passion, knowledge and intellectual endeavour to relate.
In this text, knowledge is
embedded within Locke’s understanding of elevated desire. Locke begins the manuscript
with his familiar injunction of happiness-seeking and misery-avoidance. In this note, Locke
proposes this as an obligation to himself – ‘I will…make it my business’.77 Importantly, the
nature of the obligation is equivalent to that he proposed in ‘Of Power’. Locke wants to be
sure that he does not mistakenly ‘prefer a short pleasure’ to a lasting one.78 Just as in his
writing on volition, Locke describes success as a matter of the greatest happiness and of
Ibid., §4.
For a contrasting view see Wolterstorff, John Locke, pp. 58-59. Wolterstorff thinks the connection between
a lesser degree of certainty and the pain and effort Locke discusses inexplicable. This would be right if
Locke thinks certainty simply a quality of truth. By this I mean the term certainty might signify a proposition
that is true whereas uncertainty stands for propositions which are probable to some extent (it doesn’t matter
to what extent). But this overlooks the important way in which Locke’s account of certainty is also
connected to an understanding of liberty, necessity and agency, as I discuss throughout this section. Perhaps
then, when Locke says something is very certain, he means it is both true and known necessarily whereas
when something is less certain it may be equally true but the knowledge of which is avoidable and dependent
on the activity of the agent.
77 Locke, ‘Thus I think’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p.
296. Italics mine.
78 Locke, ‘Thus I think’, p. 296.
75
76
75
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
autonomy. After describing the deleterious consequences of a number of vices, Locke
concludes:
Therefore all vicious and unlawful pleasures I will always avoid, because such a mastery of my
passions will afford me a constant pleasure greater than any such enjoyments…. All innocent
diversions and delights, as far as they will contribute to my health, and consist with my
improvement, condition, and my other more solid pleasures of knowledge and reputation, I
will enjoy, but no further, and this I will carefully watch and examine, that I may not be
deceived by the flattery of a present pleasure to lose a greater.79
This passage makes clear that Locke was ruminating on the same concepts he deployed in
his thought on volition. Harmful passions are not only vicious, they are jurally abhorrent.
Locke thinks the law (which law is not clear) condemns him himself if he fails. In
contradistinction, Locke’s ‘mastery’ of his passions must be lawful. Thus, the autonomy of
active will is entailed by this passage. And just as in ‘Of Power’, the need for us to guard
our desires and examine them (the same word used in ‘Of Power’) are represented here.
Although Locke’s reflection on his personal moral credo does not reproduce the depth of
his treatment of these matters in the Essay, it is abundantly clear that he is labouring on the
same philosophical, mental and moral framework.
This passage is all the more interesting because Locke lists ‘knowledge’ as one of
his ‘solid pleasures’. This is included even more explicitly earlier in the manuscript. There
Locke enumerated the ‘most lasting pleasures of this life’.80 These are health, reputation,
knowledge, doing good and the expectation of eternal bliss, in that order. 81 Reflecting on
why he is so committed to knowledge, Locke writes, ‘for the little knowledge I have, I find
I would not sell at any rate, nor part with for any other pleasure’.82 Locke then clearly
incorporates knowledge 83 into his reflections on his own actively constructed sense of
happiness. Locke implies that the commitment to seeking knowledge should guide his
examination of desires at the same time that knowledge itself should be an aim of his
decision-making and a primary element of his sense of happiness. Thus, the pursuit and
content of knowledge are neatly embedded in Locke’s theory of will. If this self-reflection
holds true in the Essay, then deductive reasoning is voluntary in the complex and active way
he elaborates in ‘Of Power’.
Ibid., p. 297.
Ibid., p. 296.
81 Ibid., pp. 296-297.
82 Ibid., p. 296.
83 The similarity of Locke’s use of the term knowledge here with its usual meaning in the Essay seems to be
verified by his admission that he has very little of it. Just as here, Locke always maintains in the Essay that
while the bounds of knowledge are narrow its importance is paramount.
79
80
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The vulnerability of knowing and the problem of the passions
Returning to the Essay, it is important to test whether Locke’s intuitions about
knowledge and the psychology of will are manifested in Book IV. Locke’s worries about
threats to epistemologically certain, non-geometrical knowledge are, in fact, concerns about
the passions. These fears are equivalent to those Locke raises in his opposition to linguistic
abuse and to innate ideas. They also reiterate Locke’s castigation of passive willing. In
brief, Locke believes the reason why deductive knowledge fails is that the gamut of
passionate decision making, including various forms of opinion, enthusiasm, vainglory, and
love of dominion, is irrationally tempting.
The passionate dispositions facing deductive knowledge come to light early in Book
IV, where Locke juxtaposes the possibilities of knowledge and the perils it faces. He
elaborates:
Nevertheless, I do not question, but that human knowledge, under the present Circumstances
of our Beings and Constitutions may be carried much farther, than it hitherto has been, if Men
would sincerely and with freedom of Mind, employ all that Industry and Labour of Thought,
in improving the means of discovering Truth, which they do for the colouring or support of
Falsehood, to maintain a System, Interest, or Party, they are once engaged in. 84
Then later in the same chapter:
This at least I believe, that the Ideas of Quantity are not those alone that are capable of
Demonstration and Knowledge; and that other and perhaps more useful parts of
Contemplation, would afford us Certainty, if Vices, Passions and Domineering Interests did
not oppose or menace such Endeavours.85
And similarly a few pages after:
Confident I am, that if Men would in the same method, and with the same indifferency, search
after moral, as they do mathematical Truths, they would find them to have a stronger
Connection one with another, and a more necessary Consequence from our clear and distinct
Ideas, and to come nearer perfect Demonstration, than is commonly imagined. But much of
this is not to be expected, whilst the desire of Esteem, Riches, or Power makes Men espouse
the well endowed Opinions in Fashion, and then seek Arguments, either to make good their
Beauty, or varnish over, and cover their Deformity.86
Locke believes demonstrable, geometrically certain, moral knowledge is perfectly attainable.
Sound methods can be identified to pursue such knowledge. However, this intellectual
endeavour is difficult, requiring ‘industry’ and ‘labour’. Just as in Locke’s condemnation of
linguistic abuse and innate ideas, a litany of sins, including vanity, greed, power seeking,
‘interests’, ‘vices’, ‘Passions’ and energetic sectarian devotion, sabotage deductive reasoning.
In each case, the problem originates in an injurious set of desires which lead to error.
These objections reflect Locke’s conceptualisation of passive will. Moral knowledge is
obscured thanks to passive desires run amok.
Locke, Essay, Book IV, Chap 3, §6, p. 540.
Ibid., §18, p. 549.
86 Ibid., §20, p. 552.
84
85
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
In contradistinction to the appropriate pursuit of knowledge, Locke condemns the
efforts of sectarian groups to maintain fervent belief in their position. He writes:
Nothing being so beautiful to the Eye, as Truth is to the Mind; nothing so deformed and
irreconcilable to the Understanding, as a Lye. For though many a Man can with satisfaction
enough own a no very handsome Wife in his Bosom; yet who is bold enough openly to avow,
that he has espoused a Falshood, and received into his Breast so ugly a thing as a Lye? Whilst
the Parties of Men, cram their Tenets down all Men’s Throats, whom they can get into their
Power, without permitting them to examine their Truth or Falshood; and will not let Truth
have fair play in the World, nor Men the Liberty to search after it; What Improvements can be
expected of this Kind? What greater Light can be hoped for in the Moral Sciences? 87
As earlier in Book IV, truth (and consequently knowledge) is appealing, beautiful and
satisfying. Men should desire truth. Lies, unlike physical ugliness, ought to be unbearable.
In both cases, Locke’s discussion is informed by both the language and the
conceptualisation of the passions – of desire and uneasiness. In ‘Of Power’ the failure to
recognise the actual merit of truth and knowledge followed wrongly passionate decisionmaking. Locke seems to reckon that because men ought to be averse to lies, when they
overlook their repugnance it must be due to a breakdown in suspended judgement,
deliberation and examined belief. The failure to will and to reason rightly, seem to be much
the same thing.
In ‘Of Power’ this difficulty is attributable to the agent, but the situation is more
complex in Book IV because these individuals have failed to recognise sectarian lies. This is
not just a matter of personal morality, for other agents interfere with the rational freedom
each individual possesses and ought to exercise. Thus, Locke describes the machinations
of sectarian leaders to ‘force’ their truths upon others under their ‘power’ as an affront to
‘liberty’. This coheres with his views in the later sections in ‘Of Power’ because this kind of
coercive power is exercised over the formation of moral knowledge, rationality and the way
in which people will. In ‘Of Power’ the right use of these active capacities is integral to our
liberty. Sectarian leaders attack this liberty when they interfere with the upright use of our
active capacities.
Locke reiterates these concerns about desires in a number of instances throughout
Book IV. The foci of these worries concern irrational belief systems. I shall argue that
Locke wheels out un-elevated desires, including laziness and conventional pleasure but also
more sinister varieties, such as love of dominion, vanity, love of conformity, love of
opinion and the love of self-deception, to show why such inexplicable beliefs are zealously
defended. Indeed, it is the zeal of such believers rather than the inexplicableness of their
beliefs that is the problem in Locke’s analysis. Parallels with Locke’s polemic against innate
87
Ibid.
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
ideas and his discussion of linguistic abuse are clear. I will not recount that evidence but
instead turn to the central role of passive desires in Locke’s writing on knowledge.
The problem of vicious desires is evident in Locke’s chapters on maxims and the
improvement of our knowledge. This discussion is closely connected with his rejection of
innate ideas. Indeed, ‘Maxims and Axioms, have passed for Principles of Science’ because
they are taken to be both ‘self-evident’ and ‘innate’;88 furthermore, it has been believed that
‘Maxims were the foundations of all Knowledge… built upon certain præcognita, from
whence the Understanding was to take its rise.’89 As examined in Chapter 2 of this thesis,
this kind of belief is problematic because Locke thinks it errs about the true origin of ideas
and, more importantly, because it conflates ideas with developed principles and obviates
the importance of due philosophical process. The result of this is the obfuscation of
proper philosophical reasoning. This remains Locke’s position in Book IV.90
From Locke’s point of view, the consequences of this view are actually more
pernicious than they might first appear. Locke writes that ‘Nothing can be so dangerous, as
Principles thus taken up without questioning or examination; especially if they be such as concern
Morality, which influences Men’s Lives, and give a biass to all their Actions’.91 As long as
maxims are matters of academic speculation their ramifications might be negligible, but
because these principles are often taken to ground morality in general and because they
frequently include propositions of practical philosophy, their uncritical and non-rational
status poses formidable risks.
Locke believes that maxims and precognitive principles are intellectually untenable.
Any clear-sighted ‘examination’ of the cases for and against maxims should reveal their
epistemological emptiness, but, Locke is ever so clear, the exercise of our rational powers is
remarkably precarious. For Locke, matters of opinion tend to be thoroughly entrenched;
the reasons why opinions are so formidably defended lies in the relationship between
passions and decision-making.
Ibid., Chap 7, §1, p. 591.
Ibid., Chap 12, §1, p. 639. See also Ibid., Chap 7, §8, p. 595.
90 Ibid., Chap 7 §§4, 10, pp. 594, 596. Maxims and principles invert the order of philosophical reasoning.
Locke shows the ridiculousness of this inversion by indicating that no one needs the axiom ‘it is impossible for
the same thing to be, and not to be’ to determine that blue and red are not the same colour (§4). Locke agrees that
many maxims are in fact self-evident, but the fact of the matter is that many other, non-general truths are
equally so (§10). Consequently, it is inconceivable that such ‘magnified Maxims’ are also the ‘Foundations of all
our other Knowledge’ (§10). For Locke the self-evidence of many common sense realisations shows that
maxims and principles themselves cannot be the foundation of epistemological claims.
91 Ibid., Chap 12, §4, p. 642.
88
89
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
For instance, Locke’s worries about the misuse of maxims correspond with the way
he teases out the love of dominion and esteem felt by propagators of innate ideas and
linguistic abuse.92 Consider Locke’s view on the expeditiousness of maxims:
I ask, Whether these general Maxims have not the same use in the Study of Divinity, and in
Theological Questions, that they have in other Sciences? They serve here too, to silence
Wranglers, and put an end to dispute. 93
Maxims offer a tempting advantage in argumentation. The motivation to control debate
decisively is all too likely to undergird commitment to maxims. Thus, their prevalence
shows how easily desires can contravene our deliberative powers.
A few pages later, Locke provides a little more context as to why the ulterior motives
behind maxims might arise. This is part of a conjectural history about the way in which
maxims came into use in the schools. Nevertheless, the desires and passions this story
reveals explicate Locke’s understanding of this pseudo-rational system as a function of
passive desire. Locke remarks:
The schools having made Disputation the Touchstone of Mens Abilities, and the Criterion of
Knowledge, adjudg’d Victory to him that kept the Field: and had the last Word was concluded
to have the better of the Argument, if not of the Cause. …To prevent, as much as could be,
the running of Disputes into an endless train of Syllogisms, certain general Propositions…
were look’d on as general Measures of Truth, and serv’d instead of Principles. 94
Superficially, Maxims are an expeditious device employed by misinformed scholastics to
prevent their disputes from running on ad infinitum. The conditions of a finite world simply
require some restraints for even the most abstruse debaters. But, if Locke is exploring the
rationale behind maxims, we should ask why long winded arguments would bother those
committed to a process of deductive reasoning? Locke clearly thinks the real motive for
maxims is not expeditiousness as such, but the desire for victory. Victory is not only an aim
in itself; it also turns out to be the means by which academic disputants are considered
capable and knowledgeable by their peers. If this is what such academics desire, then it is
obvious they have departed from anything like a desire for reason or truth. Instead their
passion for victory and esteem determines the use of their intellectual capacities.
As the story continues, Locke uses the language of dispositions to further elaborate
the Scholastic devotion to maxims. Locke worries that their debates do not proceed from
the hope of ‘finding and imbracing’ ‘Truth’;95 rather:
Ibid., Chap 7, §9, ln. 10, p. 595. The fact that Locke explicitly associates maxims with the innate ideas he
attacked in Book I is suggestive that the same dispositional problems lie behind the entrenchment of both
doctrines.
93 Ibid., §11, p. 598.
94 Ibid., p. 600.
95 Ibid., p. 601.
92
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
...the method of the Schools, having allowed and encouraged Men to oppose and resist evident
Truth, till they are baffled, i.e. till they are reduced to contradict themselves, or some
established Principle; ‘tis no wonder that they should not in civil conversation be ashamed of
that, which in the Schools is counted a Vertue and a Glory; viz. obstinately to maintain that
side of the Question they have chosen, whether true or false, to the last extremity.96
It is clear then, that the stakes of public esteem or glory among scholastic academics, upon
Locke’s view, require the obfuscation of and opposition to truth as he conceives it. This
essentially vainglorious disposition overrules any adherence to truth.
The evidence in the Essay indicates that the failure to engage in deductive
reasoning, and to obtain such knowledge, is not simply a failure to ‘look at’ such matters.
Locke clearly thinks irrationality and the avoidance of deductive reasoning are problems
which accord with his full understanding of agency. Only the un-elevated desires, like the
love of glory, and the problem of passive will explain the persistence of maxims even in the
face of ‘evident truth’.
Active Will and Deductive Knowledge
There is good reason to believe that legitimate rational activity, just like
commitment to maxims and other sectarian truths, relies on Locke’s full sense of volition;
only in this case active rather than passive will is harnessed. In other words, because
apprehension of the procedural requirements of deductive reason is insufficient to guarantee
their use, Locke makes requisite a certain frame of mind and dedication to ensure the
success of deductive reasoning. This is best explained as an instantiation of Locke’s
understanding of elevated desire and active, moral volition.
This frame of mind is often found in juxtaposition with Locke’s complaints against
the interference of passive desires interfering with reasoning. In his analysis of maxims,
Locke is explicit about the importance of elevated desire for the pursuit of knowledge.
Shortly after castigating the scholastic love of esteem and of dominion, Locke identifies a
laudatory approach to reasoning. He worries that that the scholastic’s maxims are ‘a
strange way to attain Truth and Knowledge’; so strange, in fact, that ‘the rational part of
Mankind not corrupted by Education, could scarce believe should ever be admitted
amongst the Lovers of Truth…’.97 Using maxims, then, is inexplicable for those who love
truth. Might this mean Locke thinks the love of truth a precondition for pursuing truth?
Locke’s use of ‘Lovers of Truth’ is inconclusive because it follows a crescendoing blast
against scholastic disputation; Locke might invoke Philo Sophia for rhetorical purposes.
This reading makes sense if the term doing conceptual labour is simply truth, with love
96
97
Ibid.
Ibid., Chap 7, §11, p. 601. Italics mine.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
adding dramatic effect.
But as it happens, Locke’s clarifies that his use of love is
substantive. He writes a few lines later:
How much such a way of Learning is likely to turn young Men’s Minds from the Sincere
Search and Love of Truth; nay, to make them doubt whether there is any such thing, or at least
worth adhering to…98
Evidently, Locke thought the adamant love of truth worth protecting. Indeed, the love of
truth is decisive in the analytical framework Locke deploys against the potential dangers of
scholastic disputation. Here Locke shows his hand. The sincerity of the search and love of
truth is crucial. Given the context of the discussion on the deleterious consequences of
maxims and disputation for the process of rational deduction, it would seem disregarding
the search for truth is tantamount to the neglecting rationality altogether. Surely, Locke need
not say more, if reasoning was simply a procedural matter. But on the contrary, Locke
thinks the love of truth is the sine qua non; it must be preserved from the dangers of
scholastic pseudo-reason and it is inextricable from deductive reasoning.
Locke does not waiver from his views about the indispensable role the love of truth
plays in motivating agents to undertake deductive reasoning. He elaborates similar views in
the chapter ‘Of Enthusiasm’, which he added in 1700 to the fourth edition of the Essay.
‘Of Enthusiasm’ promises and delivers an analysis of wilful and ardent opinion and belief
gone haywire.99 Although Locke’s aims in the chapter are critical, he begins by giving an
encomium of the way philosophy ought to be undertaken. He writes:
He that would seriously set upon the search of Truth, ought in the first place to prepare his
mind with a Love of it. For he that Loves it not, will not take much Pains to get it; nor be
much concerned when he misses it.
And shortly thereafter, Locke shows that the love of truth and its absence are decisive in
our willingness to assent to rational and irrational propositions respectively:
Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent [the level of assurance a proof warrants], it is
plain, receives not the truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some other
bye-end. For the evidence that any Proposition is true (except such as are self-evident) lying
only in the Proofs a Man has of it, whatsoever degrees of Assent he affords it beyond the
degrees of that Evidence, ‘tis plain all that surplusage of assurance is owing to some other
Affection, and not to the Love of Truth: It being as impossible, that the Love of Truth should
carry my Assent above the Evidence that there is to me, that it is true, As that the Love of
Truth should make me assent to any Proposition, for the sake of that Evidence, which it has
not.100
Ibid.
Enthusiasm is the conviction some people have that God has given them some special revelation or transrational insight into sacred truths. This, then, represents the worst of the wilful ignorance and ardent
irrationalism Locke depicts throughout the Essay. Locke’s general aim in ‘Of Enthusiasm’ seems to be a
clarification of well worn patterns of thought.
100 Ibid., Chap 19, §1, p. 697.
98
99
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
In this passage Locke explicates the importance of the love of truth definitively. 101
Conceptually, Lock is only dealing with matters of voluntary, deductive reasoning,
bracketing involuntary, intuitive knowledge from this disquisition.
Returning to a central theme in his discussion of deductive reasoning, Locke
imagines that without the desire for truth, the ‘pains’ necessary for the perseverance of
reason in the face of a variety of contravening motives would be impossible. This appears
to be much like the role elevation of desire played in ‘Of Power’, which indicated the pains
needed for the powers of ‘suspension’ and ‘examination’ to be used fruitfully.
Upon the grounds of Locke’s theory of volition, he preserves love of truth as a real
‘affection’ for good reason; only desires, elevated or otherwise, are capable of determining
the will. Assent seems to be a voluntary act, which is born out when Locke describes the
love of truth causing rational assent. Locke is obviously applying his understanding of
willing as a complex mental faculty to this kind of intellectual activity. Thus, the love of
truth must work as a kind of elevated desire when it determines the voluntary activity
constitutive of deductive reasoning. It is for precisely the same reason that Locke is
worried about other dubious affections, for rational or not, they possess potent
motivational force in Locke’s theory of volition. Thus, Locke’s understanding of the
relationship between knowledge and desire in determining the will holds true even when
the object of human activity is knowledge itself. Knowledge can never motivate in its own
right in Locke’s developed theory of volition, nor can the prospect of truth motivate
without the corresponding elevated desire or love for it in his epistemology. It is, then,
hardly surprising that Locke labels this section, ‘Love of Truth Necessary’.
As I have shown, the way in which Locke discusses the certainty of different types
deductive propositions, especially moral knowledge, reveals more than a taxonomy of
different, certain intellectual categories. Rather, Locke’s portrayal of certain knowledge is
nothing less than an instantiation of his understanding of active volition. Both the success
and failure of rational deduction are regularly attributable to human will. Thus, Locke calls
them voluntary.
In one sense, rationality can be classified technically, according to the procedures
that must have been followed and the intermediary intuitive realisations which must have
occurred for a proposition to be known, or proven true. However, this very process of
See alternatively, Wolterstorff, John Locke, pp. 80-81. Wolterstorff thinks Locke’s use of love of truth lacks
cogency and that Locke does not explain what love of truth is. Indeed Locke does not, but the way in which
it determines how we judge beliefs and the way it is juxtaposed with other affectations is suggestive. As I
argue, it is fair to conclude that this understanding of the love of truth is undergirded by Locke’s theory of
agency. His explicit discussion of assent as a matter of ‘judgment’, and his discussion of some knowledge as
voluntary and some knowledge as involuntary (all topics from ‘Of Power’) confirms this.
101
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rational examination is a suspension and examination of desires. As I adduced above,
Locke clearly indicates that desire for knowledge or the love of truth must both lead and keep
steady the agent in the pursuit and acceptance of demonstrable knowledge. Important,
demonstrable knowledge includes moral knowledge. Deductive reason then, instantiates the
elevated desires that were so important for the success of suspension and examination and
for the realisation of man’s morality. Indeed, deductive reasoning is itself a form of active
will. Ultimately, Locke’s practical epistemology is undergirded by his understanding of
active and passive willing.
Conclusion
Locke does not simply examine volition as an ‘idea’. Nor does he conceptualise it
merely as an active power or a function of hedonic determinism. Rather, Locke thinks
volition is a complex faculty constituted by both active and passive modes. In either case
our desires, or precisely speaking, our most pressing desires, determine the will. As I have
shown, this is not the end of Locke’s account of volition as a faculty, for he shows that our
active agency can play a central role in the organisation of our desires and in the formation
of them. Specifically, agents can actively construct their sense of happiness, which Locke
thinks integral to how certain desires become preponderant for them. This is true even
though the idea of happiness is prompted by our experience of pleasure and pain. Locke’s
account is not unproblematic, quite the contrary; however, the problem does not consist of
deterministic tensions which simply escaped his attention. Rather, issues of motivation
seem to be Locke’s most pressing concern in his revisions to ‘Of Power’. This is why
Locke understands the activity of the will as a matter of elevated desire. Locke’s challenge is
not to escape desiring altogether but to find a way for human agents to rise above
unreflective, passive desires.
This portrayal of volition is clearly tied to Locke’s moral philosophy. The active
will that human agents can cultivate makes them independent of deterministic hedonism
while at the same time bringing them into conformity with the moral law. Liberty can
never be license for Locke because liberty lies precisely in the activity of agency and the
elevation of desires toward the only good that is not false or grounded in passions – the
moral good. Thus, the theorisation of volition is not a compartmentalised subsection of
Locke’s Essay, but an undertaking crucial for the practice of moral philosophy and the
knowledge of the moral law.
Importantly, this plays out in Locke’s explicit discussion of knowledge and the
philosophical processes which lead to it. Although some knowledge is irresistible and
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The Ethics of Lockean Volition
involuntary, most knowledge must be teased out through deductive reasoning. Locke tells
us deductive reasoning is voluntary.
Locke also says deductive reasoning produces
knowledge. The results of deduction are certain, Locke explains, because each step relies
on intuitive realisations. Despite the role of intuitionism in deductive reasoning, the
process remains voluntary precisely because its steps are difficult, lengthy, treacherous and
avoidable. Those who will passively are likely to eschew proper deductive procedures, or
worse, may misdirect their rational capacities. This is a problem for personal morality, but
these tendencies are also the object of manipulation; the entrenchment of maxims in
scholastic disputation, for instance, evinces the vainglory and libido dominandi of many
academic disputants. In both cases, passive willing presents a threat to the independence
and the moral autonomy Locke explained in ‘Of Power’.
The realisation of moral
knowledge, on the contrary, is a normative imperative. Locke consistently thinks this kind
of knowledge is man’s ‘great concernment’. It requires human agents to cultivate an active
mode of willing, including a comprehensive elevation of their desire toward the love of
truth.
In this move, Locke’s theory of volition and his beliefs about epistemology are
united in the same normative dénouement.
Now it is clear that Locke’s fixation with
dispositions in his refutation of innate ideas and his critique of linguistic abuse flows out of
his understanding of the relationship between volition and moral knowledge. But those
concerns were not simply intellectual, for they pointed toward Locke’s practical and
political philosophy. They suggested that social life depended on the cultivation of moral
dispositions, i.e. an active will and elevated desires. The failure to cultivate these threatened
moral collapse, intellectual slavery and political domination. If I am right, the relationship
between will and knowledge also plays out in Locke’s political thought. To show this, it
will be necessary to elucidate the ways in which Locke’s political thought depends on his
understanding of dispositions, active and passive forms of agency and the elevation of
desire. This is the subject of the next chapter.
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Chapter 4
Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
It is normal to think about Locke’s politics in terms of consent and voluntary
obligation. Sometimes, it is asked whether Locke thinks citizens must actually consent to
their government or whether the political place of will is, rather, an intellectual device with
which Locke can advance an argument about the rationality, and hence legitimacy (or
illegitimacy) of different governments. Responses to this question include firm denial; for
instance, John Dunn suggests that Locke’s use of will in his political thought is a corollary
of his juridical thought and makes no substantive use of his philosophy of agency.1 Others,
like Patrick Riley, suggest that Locke’s theory of volition plays a central role in his
understanding of consent.2 What unites these two positions is their focus on consent and
legitimacy. In this chapter, I want to pursue a broader interpretation of the way in which
Locke’s understanding of agency might inform his political thought.
If one takes Locke’s understanding of volition in its broadest sense as a faculty
constituted by active and passive modes and if one takes into account the connection
between this understanding of agency and Locke’s thought on normatively upright and
problematic dispositions, then it is possible to think about the relationship between
Lockean politics and his theory of agency in a different way. Toward this end I do not
focus my interpretation around consent, rights and obligations. While these are obviously
central to Locke’s politics, they crystallize around one moment of will – the social contract
– when there is reason to believe the will of agents is of continual importance for Locke’s
political thought. Locke’s understanding of majoritarian government raises this issue. For
it is one thing to understand that logically a body must be able to act, and so the great force
– the majority – should count as an ‘act of the whole’ that ‘determines, as having by the
Law of Nature and Reason, the power of the whole’. 3 In one sense, Locke legitimises
majoritarian governments, but in another sense, Locke begs the question. In order to give
civil-society a lasting, vital constitution after every man consents ‘to make one Body
Politick under one Government’, each member of the ‘body politick’ must actually take
John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1969), p. 121.
Specifically, Dunn contends that the framework of natural rights and natural obligations logically entails some
postulating of will and autonomy, but it is the logical relationships that are material – Lockean voluntarism
plays no substantial role
2 See Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press: 1982), pp. 70-73 for a
discussion of the mutual entailments between Lockean consent and the formal role of natural law and pp.
62-64 for a summa of the conceptual positions in the debate on Lockean political voluntarism.
3 John Locke, The Second Treatise, in Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), §96, p. 332.
1
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
themselves to be under ‘an Obligation’ to everyone else, which entails that they ‘submit to
the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it’.4 If not, the liberty left to
each individual would be no different than their liberty in the state of nature. This means
that Locke is not simply interested in justifying a majority’s legitimate exercise of political
authority, in a sense he wants minorities to believe or decide the will of the majority is
legitimate and binding. This chapter addresses the question of how this might come about,
allowing me to elucidate several ways in which Locke’s political thought is attuned to the
dispositions of political agents.
Specifically, I advance several important claims about Locke’s understanding of
politics that depend on his theory of agency and his thought on dispositions. First, I
suggest that important parts of Locke’s argument against Filmerian absolutism are
grounded in his understanding of will, dispositions, linguistic use and epistemological
propriety. Second, I advance the view that cultivating lawful dispositions amongst political
agents is an important aspect of Locke’s political thought. Contra Dunn, I submit that
Locke theorises about lawfulness and that he discusses its juridical and political
implementation in such a way that only really makes sense if we understand that Locke is
making use of his understanding of active and passive will and the elevation of desire. For
Locke, coercive punishment must be compatible with and help produce the conditions
under which lawfulness is possible; however, coercion cannot induce lawfulness directly.
Third, I argue that the most important moral disposition in Locke’s view is charity.
Although charity is the greatest Christian virtue, it is also the pre-eminent universal moral
disposition in general, and crucial to Locke’s ethical and political thought.
Political
authority advances charity not through direct activity but through the creation of spheres
of interpersonal and civic relations free of government interference which preserves the
possibility of charity, qua disposition, flourishing. Ultimately, these claims allow me to
demonstrate the interpenetration of Locke’s political thought and his philosophy of
volition.5
Ibid., §97, p. 332.
By this I do not mean to say that Locke’s thought about philosophy operates independently of politics. A
number of historians have elucidated why we should reject compartmentalised readings of Locke’s thought
and readings that stipulate the dependence of Locke’s political thought on his philosophy. Of course, the
most concerted challenge to the compartmentalisation of Locke’s philosophy and his politics remains Neal
Wood, The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy; a Social Study of ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, (Berkley,
University of California Press: 1983). But Cf. Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s Two Treatises of
Government, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1986, pp. xiii, 3-7, 109-111, 123-125. Ashcraft argues that
Locke’s philosophy ought to be seen as a response to the epistemological, theological and political
controversy against royalist, high church dogmatists in which a number of religious dissenters were engaged
in the 1670s. I find Ashcraft convincing in thinking Locke’s Essay was informed by this dissenting discourse;
however, I am not convinced by Ashcraft’s argument that this discourse is the most important basis of
Locke’s deepening epistemological views. These issues were also the subject of broader debate in England
4
5
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
I support these claims through a combination of historical contextualisation and
close analytical exegesis of Locke’s political, philosophical and religious texts. I first turn to
the First Treatise of Government, Locke’s response to Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, showing
the importance of Locke’s understanding of language and dispositions for the way in which
he rebutted his predecessor’s position and the political importance of this. I next turn to
Locke’s philosophical understanding of law and the way in which it is tied to an account of
agency and motivation provided by Locke’s active and passive understanding of volition. I
then apply this general framework to Locke’s political thought and show that he devised
the purpose of punishment and freedom as the ‘prescription’ of law according to the same
paradigm. Finally, I turn to the meaning of charity in Locke’s thought, sounding out its
definition as a disposition in his philosophical and religious writings, before exploring its
general ethical and political dénouement and the complex approach governments must take
toward its cultivation.
Part I: Linguistic abuse and insidious dispositions in Locke’s response to Filmer
As I sought to demonstrate in Chapter 2, Locke believed linguistic abuse and the
dispositions that lead to it preclude both coherent communication and subvert moral
knowledge. I return to language and dispositions now because I think they are centrally
important to Locke’s political thought. I argue in this section that the role of language and
dispositions in the First Treatise evinces the congruence of Locke’s political philosophy with
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and shows his long standing concern for the
political stakes of upright dispositions. 6 Indeed, Locke’s repudiation of Filmer depends
largely on a linguistic and conceptual framework that corresponds with the one developed
in the Essay.
Contra Hannah Dawson, 7 this shows that Locke’s social invocation of
language and the analysis of dispositions and motivations this reflects are central to his
and Europe more generally. Ashcraft’s account of Locke’s philosophy tends to be reductionist, and by the
time he examines the Two Treatises, the Essay plays little role in Ashcraft’s interpretation. See also, John
Marshall, John Locke; Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994), pp.
77-81, 94, 101-102, 118-122, 128-130. Marshall argues that the context and the problems for the early drafts
of the Essay was both political and religious. He situates Locke’s investigations into epistemology, including
knowledge, reason, faith, and Locke’s understanding of friendship and charity, in a milieu of latitudinarian
divines and intellectuals. For an argument of the importance of Locke’s understanding of epistemology,
including his thought on rational belief and opinion, for Locke’s understanding of the juridical apparatuses
that ought to be utilised by states see James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy; Locke in Contexts,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1993), pp. 182-239.
6 See also Tully, Locke in Contexts, p. 182. Tully notes how epistemological uncertainties and new intellectual
paradigms helped delegitimize traditional governmental norms and practices. This seems to me, to be
precisely Locke’s aim – to apply his own epistemological standards contra Filmer. But, the battle lines drawn
over epistemology in the First Treatise also include the procedures and the dispositions upon which
propositional knowledge depends.
7 See Chapter 2, Part II.
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
social philosophy.
Contra Peter Laslett, 8 this shows that Locke incorporated his
philosophical views on linguistic signification and linguistic abuse into his political thought.
One recurrent feature of Locke’s critique is Filmer’s irregular, obscure, inconsistent
and indeterminate use of words, language and propositions.
In the ‘Preface’, Locke
complains that Filmer’s position, if it were not for a ‘Flourish of doubtful Expressions’
would obviously be one of the greatest exemplars of ‘glib Nonsense’ in the English
language. 9 In Chapter II, Locke’s very first substantive objection concerns Patriarcha’s
propositional negligence. Filmer has neither ‘told us expressly what Fatherly Authority is’,
‘defined it’ nor ‘given an account of it’ in such a way that provides the reader with ‘an
Entire Notion of the Fatherhood, or Fatherly Authority’. 10 Similarly, in Chapter III,
Locke’s objections first and frequently turn on Filmer’s linguistic impropriety. Locke
objects that Filmer does not define ‘by God’s Appointment’ when he explains the origin of
Adam’s absolute power. 11 Filmer’s discussion of Adam’s gubernatorial privilege over
humanity is equally slippery. For Locke, Filmer’s account leads to the notion that prior to
being actually a father Adam ‘was Governor in Habit, and not in Act’, which includes the
semantic absurdity that Adam was ‘a Governour without Government, a Father without
children, and a King without Subjects…’.12 In Chapter IV, Locke worries that Filmer’s
claim about Adam’s title to sovereignty by donation ‘begins in one Sense, and concludes in
another…’.13 In the final chapter, ‘Who Heir’, Locke claims that because Filmer does not
clarify what an heir could be, then ‘without it [the definition of an heir] all Discourse of
Government and Obedience upon his Principles would be to no purpose, and Fatherly
Power, never so well made out, will be of no use to any body.’14 The fact that Filmer does
not define either parents or heirs in the process of inheritance or, at best, does so by
indeterminate abstractions, which ‘will signifie just nothing, when they are to be reduced to
Practice…’,15 seems to result in the failure of his absolutist position. Locke deploys similar
Peter Laslett, ‘Introduction’, in Locke, Two Treatises of Government , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988). Laslett interprets Locke’s political writings as having relatively little connection to his philosophical
works on the grounds that both the ‘plain historical method’ of the Essay and the use of definitions are
lacking in the Two Treatises. Whilst Laslett appreciates that Locke reproaches Filmer for his failure to define
properly, that is the end of the matter in his view.
9 Locke, The First Treatise, in Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), ‘Preface’, p. 137.
10 Ibid., Chap. 2, §6, p. 144.
11 Ibid., Chap. 3, §16, p. 152.
12 Ibid., §18, p. 153.
13 Ibid., Chap 4, §22, p. 156.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., p. 229. Italics mine.
8
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
linguistic objections quite concertedly throughout the First Treatise, and I will not belabour
their prevalence further.16
In brief, Locke complains that Filmer’s propositions are confused. This is not
mere mockery but, rather, a philosophically developed set of complaints that, I shall argue,
relies upon the same intellectual framework with which Locke analysed linguistic abuse in
the Essay. Crucially, the way Locke uses linguistic grounds against Filmer anticipates the
epistemological issues concerning language he considers in the Essay. This is true first in
regard to the relationship between verbal consistency and ‘truth’ as discussed above and
second in terms of the ideational signification of words. Beginning with the former,
Filmer’s distinction between Adam’s governance in habit and in act proves particularly
irksome for Locke. Locke writes:
…I have unavoidably been engaged in it [extended analysis of the act/habit distinct] by our
A–‘s [Filmer] way of writing, who hudling several Suppositions together, and that in doubtful
and general terms makes such a medly and confusion, that it is impossible to shew his
Mistakes, without examining the several Senses, wherein his Words may be taken, and without
seeing how, in any of these various Meanings, they will consist together, and have any Truth in
them…’17
Had Filmer been communicating correctly, the propositions with which he constructed his
argument would have been clearly distinguished and the terms therein consistent.
However, Filmer’s language, like abused language in the Essay, is inconsistent and
indeterminate, undermining appropriate philosophical usage. This passage provides even
more compelling grounds for associating Locke’s critique of Filmer with his analysis of
language. Consider the consistency of Filmer’s ‘various Meanings’ and the ‘Truth’ in them.
As discussed in Chapter 2, Locke defines truth propositionally: a true proposition is one in
which the terms and the ideas they signify consist without contradiction.
As an
epistemological criterion, this linguistic definition of truth is not sufficient but is necessary
for knowledge claims. The semantic relationship between the consistency of a proposition
and truth in this passage is remarkably similar. Locke may not have fully developed the dual
linguistic and epistemological status of truth when he wrote the First Treatise, but ten years
earlier in Draft B of the Essay he had defined truth in roughly the same way.18 It is then,
interesting to situate Locke’s political argumentation in the First Treatise within the
Cf. Ibid., §23, pp. 156-157; Chap, 11, §§108-109, p. 220; §111, p. 221.
Ibid., Chap. 3, §20, p. 155.
18 Locke, Draft B, §154-155, p. 319-320. The truth of relational ideas lies in the agreement of the simple ideas
which form the relation. The difference between this and Locke’s later position seems to lie primarily in the
more ideational than linguistic status of truth and falsehood in Draft B. But this may say too much, for
Locke’s discussion at this point in the text treads on both language, what we name and call, and ideas, what
we conceptualise. Both will remain matters of signification in the Essay; this is discussed above in the double
signification of words and ideas.
16
17
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
trajectory of his propositional and linguistic thought running from Draft B to the completed
Essay.
The relationship between words and propositions and the ideas they signify proves
decisive in Locke’s repudiation of Filmer’s absolutism. Filmer underpins monarchical
absolutism, in part, by his interpretation of the Fifth Commandment – honour thy father
and mother.
Commandment.
Locke objects that absolutism cannot be deduced from the Fifth
Locke’s position depends on terminological rigour in general and,
specifically, on an argument about the ideational signification of terms. Locke concedes
that he and Filmer may simply disagree on what they signify by particular words. But,
Filmer cannot escape the fact that a distinction between different terms must be
accompanied by a distinction between the ideas signified by them. Thus, Locke is able to
show that ‘monarchical authority’ and ‘honour thy father and mother’ must signify
different ideas. They cannot be taken to signify the same relations.19 Locke discusses this
specifically as a matter of signification:
If Honour thy Father and Mother signifies the duty we owe our Natural Parents, as by our
Saviour’s Interpretation, Matth. 15.4 and all the other mentioned places, ‘tis plain it does, then
it cannot concern Political Obedience but a duty that is owing to Persons, who have no Title
to Sovereignty, nor any Political Authority as Magistrates over Subjects. For the Persons of a
private Father, and a Title to Obedience, due to the Supreme Magistrate, are things
inconsistent; and therefore this Command, which must necessarily comprehend the Person of
our Natural Fathers, must mean a duty we owe them distinct from our Obedience to the
Magistrate, and from which the most Absolute Power of Princes cannot absolve us. 20
Filmer’s claim constitutes an abuse of linguistic signification because the Fifth
Commandment signifies a particular set of complex ideas involving a mixed mode: a
particular duty of obedience to parents and the relationship between children and parents.
For Locke the signification of something like this by the Fifth Commandment is
indisputable. On the contrary, the complex relations and mixed modes signified by royal
authority must be different. Although Locke is not articulating his argument with the
specific ideational terminology of the Essay, his falsification of Filmer’s views concerning
the Fifth Commandment is conceptually similar. Filmer’s position, consequently, amounts
to linguistic abuse not unlike the ‘affected obscurity’ that Locke castigates in the Essay.
In Chapter IX, repudiating Filmer’s views on inheritance is pivotal to Locke’s
overall position. Locke utilises the specifics of his understanding of language to do this.
For the sake of argument, Locke suspends disbelief and accepts that Adam had absolute
paternal authority. Nevertheless, Locke argues that this authority cannot be inherited. 21
This obviously undermines divine right claims, but it is worth asking not just what this
Locke, First Treatise, Chap. 4, §64, p. 187.
Ibid., §66, p. 189.
21 Ibid., §§98-103, pp. 213-216.
19
20
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
move achieves but how Locke thinks he can sustain it. If authority was a right of office, then
it would make sense for it to be alienable and inheritable. Whoever holds the office also
holds the authority appended to that position. But Locke thinks Filmerian kingship derives
from fatherly authority, which ultimately originates in the begetting of children. Locke
ponders what Filmer’s ‘begetting’ signifies precisely. For Locke, Filmer tries to signify too
many things when discussing power, inheritance and begetting for authority to be
bequeathed as Patriarcha stipulates. Locke attributes to Filmer the view that paternal
authority is a power which originates as ‘a Right acquired by Begetting to Rule over those
he had begotten’.22 It is impossible, in Locke’s view for this to be inherited because the
father’s heir cannot become the father of the father’s children.
But if begetting children gives fathers absolute authority over their children, why is
alienating that authority to another not within its remit? It would seem that Locke’s
argument relies on the relational characteristics of Filmerian paternal authority. Begetting
binds father and child together because of the relationship of generation between them. In
the Essay, Locke identifies this as a ‘moral relation’. If the terms of a relation are changed,
then that relation no longer exists. This view was already longstanding in Locke’s thought,
having been elaborated in the early drafts for the Essay in which parenthood, kingship and
justice were conspicuous amongst the moral relations he enumerated.23 Filmer’s argument
fails in Locke’s view because it grounds the moral idea of parental authority on the
relational ideas of fatherhood and begetting. In order to move to inherited royal authority,
Filmer must change the terms of the relation and consequently dissolve the very ground he
claims for royal authority. Thus, Filmer wants to treat royal authority as one kind of moral
relation existing between fathers and their children and, at the same time, as another
relation between successor of royal office and the rights of that office. For Locke, this is
simply untenable; it is a clear technical example of falsehood. Locke’s argument against
Filmer is grounded upon the incoherent relation between Filmer’s terms and the ideas he
signifies by them.
Locke’s argument in the First Treatise also exemplifies the way in which linguistically
faulty arguments for absolutism are still threatening because they simultaneously stimulate
love of dominion and deception. If Filmer’s argumentation is so defective,24 we must ask
Ibid., §98, p. 213.
Locke, Draft B, §100, p. 245; §149, pp. 312-313.
24 Filmer’s argument concerns what Locke would call matters of our greatest concernment in the Essay. It
should require immediate or deductive proofs upon which knowledge claims could be grounded. All things
being equal, the propositional incoherence of Filmer’s position and its lack of any self-evident support should
lead to its failure by default. That is to say, we are able to and should just know Patriarcha is wrong. The
implication is that something is interfering with our innate capacity to acknowledge self-evident truths. For a
slightly different reading of this problem confronting our capacity to reason, see Tully, Locke in Contexts, pp.
22
23
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
why Locke bothers devoting his most elaborate political work to its refutation? In fact, it
is because Filmer’s absolutism depends on some ‘interest’ other than reason that Locke
thinks it dangerous.25 This is true of Filmer’s motives for promoting absolutism and the
means by which he hoped to realise it. In an argument familiar to readers of the Essay,
Locke concludes that Filmer’s cause ‘required in its Defender Zeal to a degree of warmth,
able to warp the Sacred Rule of the Word of God, to make it comply with his present
occasion; a way of proceeding, not unusual to those who imbrace not Truths, because
Reason and Revelation offer them; but espouse Tenets and Parties, for ends different from
Truth’.26 Filmer’s zeal, like that of the Essay’s many villains, is responsible for his wayward
language and reasoning. But worse, Filmer sets out to manipulate the emotions of his
readers. Locke argues using the language of appetites and passions. Specifically, Filmer’s
linguistic abuse is intended to minimize ‘Aversion’.27 This dissimulation allows Filmer to
avoid the uneasiness and the proceeding judgment that his position ought to engender.
Furthermore, Filmer’s argument does not provide definitions, but it does ‘flatter the
Natural Vanity and Ambition of Men’, thereby ‘perswading those, who by the consent of
their Fellow-Men, are advanced to great, but limited degrees of it [power], that by that part
which is given them, they have a Right to all’ and ‘therefore may do what they please’ even
if it is ‘neither for their own, nor the good of those under their Care’.28 Thus, Filmer aims
to inflate an already precocious love of dominion on the part of the monarch and to
subvert the fear of that dominion amongst the people. Both objectives depend on the
perverse interplay of faulty language, un-elevated desires and insidious dispositions.
Thus, absolutism in the First Treatises has its roots in the passions leading to, excited
by and preyed upon by the abuse of language.
consequences of this linguistic abuse.
Locke leaves no doubt as to the
Filmer’s argument may be flimsy, but it still
contributes to ‘endless contention and disorder’ 29 Filmer’s abuse of language poses the
same threats to social stability and morality that linguistic impropriety did in the Essay, but
there is a final twist.
Because the threat to civic peace comes not in the form of
184-188. Tully thinks Locke’s epistemology rejects all innate tendencies to assent to correct or true
propositions. As I have shown in the previous chapter, Locke thinks nothing of the sort. Tully fails to deal
with self-evident knowledge in a convincing way. Thus the gap between what we legitimate claim about
governmental authority and our willingness to believe an absolutist account like Filmer’s is more radical than
Tully thinks. Nevertheless, Tully and I agree that much belief formation follows acquired dispositions rather
than standards of rational enquiry.
25 Locke, First Treatise, Chap. 2, §13, p. 150.
26 Ibid., Chap. 6, §60, p. 184.
27 Ibid., Chap. 2, §7, p. 146. As Laslett notes, Locke’s discussion shows his understanding of apothecary
practice, but it also utilises his philosophical understanding of appetite and aversion as a matter of decision
making and belief. See further, Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21.
28 Ibid., Chap. 2, §10, p. 148.
29 Ibid., Chap. 11, §106, p. 219
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decentralised social breakdown but as a particular tyrant and his coterie of flatterers, the
story ends with slavery. As Locke is keen to impress upon the reader, Filmer’s position
entails the enslavement of all mankind.
The role of language and dispositions in the First Treatise helps resolve several
important interpretive issues. The recurrent role of linguistic critique in the First Treatise
both drives Locke’s argument forward and provides the intellectual framework for him to
repudiate some of Patriarcha’s most pivotal claims. Thus, compartmentalised readings of
Lockean politics and philosophy, at least in regard to language and dispositions, are hard to
sustain.
Simply put, the First Treatise shows us that Locke’s political, linguistic, and
dispositional thought are interdependent. The First Treatise, despite being written before
Book III of the Essay, relies upon related concerns pertaining to linguistic abuse, the
relationship of propositions with truth, the signification of ideas by words and propositions
and the tyrannical and slavish consequences of faulty dispositions for civic life.
Part II: Volition, law and politics
If Locke’s castigates the way in which language and dispositions are corrupted and
abused in Filmer’s argument and the kind of politics Filmer justifies, then it stands to
reason that the positive aspects of Locke’s response might advance an alternate account of
dispositions in legitimate politics. Specifically, a compelling retort would be attuned to the
mental phenomena by which people make decisions and act and to the ways by which
politics might cultivate or preserve active, moral dispositions and the elevation of desire. I
think this is evinced by the relationship between Locke’s understanding of will and the
motivations required for lawful mentalities. In this section, I consider this relationship in
order to show that lawfulness as a disposition is central to Locke’s political understanding
of punishment and the freedom entailed by the ‘prescription’ of the law. I turn first to
Locke’s development of this relationship in the Essay before turning to its substantive role
in his political thought.
Law and legal motivations in the ‘Essay’
I want to explore whether the practical dénouement of active will can be recovered in
Locke’s explicit understanding of law. As is well known, Locke insists that law is only law
at all when it is sanctioned by rewards and punishments.30 That is to say law as such must
bring to bear not only moral knowledge but also the means of motivation. As I showed in
Tully, Locke in Contexts, pp. 208-239. Tully unpacks the apparatus of rewards and punishments behind
Locke’s notions of divine law, political law, and the law of opinion.
30
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
the first chapter, Locke had long thought the difference between law and merely moral
terminology depended on the combination of moral propositions with the motive force of
rewards and punishments. For example, in ‘Of Ethic in General’ Locke insists that due to
the corrective power of punishment, the standards of law are grounded in such a way
where, unlike moral words or knowledge, they allow ‘living well and attaining happiness’
instead of simply ‘speaking properly’.31 It was, then, a particularly longstanding contention
for Locke that law must bridge the gap between knowledge and practice.
Conceptually, this puts Locke’s definition of law on the terrain of agency. As I
elucidated in the previous chapter, by the time Locke wrote the Essay he had worked out
his understanding of volition as a complex faculty composed of active and passive modes.
In ‘Of Ethic’, Locke defines law as a matter of agency: ‘…since it would seem utterly vain,
to suppose a Rule set to the free Actions of Man, without annexing to it some
Enforcement of Good and Evil, to determine his Will, we must, where-ever we suppose a
Law, suppose also some Reward or Punishment annexed to that Law.’ 32 Locke thinks
punishment is essential to the definition of law, so that law harness the motivational forces
requisite for determining the will.33
As we saw in Chapter 2, Locke tells us in ‘Of Power’ that the apprehension of
punishments and rewards, which triggers pleasures, pains, desires and fears, is one way in
which law can motivate agents.34 Later in the Essay, Locke argues, as he had in ‘Of Ethic’,
that legal enforcement is essential to the very concept of law; he remarks ‘Good and evil,
Pleasure and Pain’ attend ‘our observance, or breach of the Law.’35 In order for law to be
law, it must command the positive desires and negative fears that lead to decisions and acts.
The precise terminology that Locke deploys at this point is equivalent to that he developed
in ‘Of Power’, indicating that his theory of law deploys his theory of volition in general and
the relationship between our desires and our decisions in particular. In the case of legal
enforcement and punishment, it is evident that law makes use of the passivity of desires, i.e.
their capacity to be caused extrinsically by hedonic causes, in order to prevent or limit
criminal behaviour.
Locke, ‘Of Ethic in General’, in Mark Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press: 1997), par. 10, p. 302. See also, Locke, Draft B, in P.H. Nidditch and G.A.J. Rogers (eds.), John Locke;
Drafts for the ‘Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, and Other Philosophical Writings, (Oxford, 1990), pp. 269-270.
32 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. 28, §6, p. 351.
33 Cf. Tully, Locke in Contexts, pp. 214-215. Tully ties Locke’s juridical thought to his understanding of will.
But whereas Tully thinks uneasiness a penal mechanism included in Locke’s thought on will so that will might
be linked to Locke’s ‘juridical apparatus’, I think Locke’s juridical thought is conceived as it is because of
Locke’s theory of will. Tully’s account of Lockean will is not as thorough as might be hoped for the
interpretive position he advances.
34 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §70, p. 281.
35 Ibid., Chap. 29, §5, p. 351.
31
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
In Locke’s theory of volition, merely passive willing was normatively inadequate.
As we saw, only genuinely active will is independent and morally upright. I want to show
that Locke’s understanding of law moves from the passive motivations stimulated by
punishment and the threat of punishment to an evocation of active will and elevated
desires. 36 If I am right, this move is evinced by Locke’s notion that law provides the
framework by which men judge their actions. This view is not historically surprising. As
Richard Ashcraft has elaborated, in the flurry of responses to Samuel Parker’s bombastic
Discourse of Eccliasitical Polity 37 salient themes included the views that individuals are
autonomous agents with free will, that individuals are rational but not perfectly so, and that
an individual’s conscience is a self-reflective faculty that allows him to judge his actions
according to natural law. 38 Because of the historical precedent connecting legal selfreflection, reason and will, it is worth unpacking the way in which Locke espouses similar
elements of lawful dispositions. Twice when discussing the three types of law, divine, civil,
and of opinion, Locke mentions that men ‘refer’ to these Laws ‘by which they judge of the
Rectitude or Pravity of their Actions…’ or ‘to judge of their Rectitude or Obliquity…’.39
Similarly, ‘Divine Law’ is the rule God has given through both direct promulgation and the
‘light of nature’ or reason ‘whereby Men should govern themselves’.40 Furthermore, the
law of the commonwealth or the ‘Civil Law’ is not only the force of the commonwealth to
‘protect the Lives, Liberties, and Possessions’ of its members through punishments
involving ‘Life, Liberty, or Goods’ but is also a rule ‘to which Men refer their Actions, to
judge whether they be criminal, or no.’41 Thus, Locke seems to indicate that law plays an
important role in our cognition of and reflection upon our actions. This self-reflectivity is
quintessential to Lockean active volition, suggesting that law elicits man’s active capacities
and elevated desires.
Cf. Tully, Locke in Contexts, pp. 221, 224, 233. Tully thinks Locke’s juridical system elicits or cultivates
‘counter-passions’ that combat traditional habits and illicit desires. I think this perfectly right as far as it goes,
but for Tully these new passions are simply habits. They deploy Locke’s law of opinion (our desire for
reputation and esteem) to replace old habits with new ones conducive to Lockean reasoning and Lockean
religion. For a contrasting view, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 1996), pp. 148-151. Wolterstoff argues that Locke presents an ethical view for
all men under which reason ought to guide us and by which we are liberated from traditions, passions, and
mindfulness of the opinion of others. I think Wolterstorff quite right in judging Locke suspicious of opinion,
but I think the story on passion is more complex. Wolterstorff agrees with Tully in taking practice, or habit,
to be essential to the apt use of Lockean reasoning.
37 Samuel Parker’s book can be summarised as a comprehensive attempt to annihilate religious (and by
extension political) dissent, not by arguing against it, but by silencing it through invective and diatribe.
38 Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, pp. 51-53. Ashcraft claims that this response was decisive in the shift
in Locke’s views toward the politics, religion and philosophy of dissenters during the 1670s, in which case the
presence of a developed version of this view on law and self-reflective judgment in Locke’s Essay is perfectly
plausible.
39 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 29, §6, p.351, §7, p. 352,
40 Ibid., §8, p. 352.
41 Ibid., §9, pp. 352-353.
36
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Locke’s most thorough discussion of the referential and reflective role laws play in
the self-judgement and self-governance of our behaviour follows his discussion of the law
of opinion. He writes:
§13. These Three then, First, The Law of God. Secondly, The Law of politick Societies.
Thirdly, The Law of Fashion, or private Censure, are those to which Men variously compare
their Actions: And ‘tis by their Conformity to one of these Laws, that they take their measures,
when they would judge of their Moral Rectitude, and denominate their Actions good or bad.
§14. Whether the Rule, to which, as to a Touch-stone, we bring our voluntary Actions, to
examine by, and try their Good-ness, and accordingly to name them; which is, as it were, the
Mark of the value we set upon them: Whether, I say, we take that Rule from the Fashion of the
Country, or the Will of a Law-maker, the Mind is easily able to observe the Relation any
Action hath to it; and to judge, whether the Action agrees, or disagrees with the Rule: and so
hath a notion of Moral Goodness or Evil, which is either Conformity, or not Conformity of any
Action to that Rule: And therefore, is often called Moral Rectitude. This Rule being nothing
but a Collection of several simple Ideas, the conformity thereto is but so ordering the Action
[that is the will of the agent], that the simple Ideas belonging to it, may correspond to those,
which the Law requires.42
In all of this Locke is describing rather clearly, the way in which legal considerations form
part of the deliberative process which leads to our decisions. When we denominate our
own actions as moral or immoral, we realise they do or do not conform to a standard of
right. But this is not purely an ex post facto realisation. When our actions possess ‘Moral
Rectitude’ it is because we prescribe our voluntary actions according to the moral reference of
law. For Locke, that means the process of deliberation ends in such a way that we
determine, govern and order our actions according to the moral ideas incorporated in law.
This means nothing less than that we have cultivated our properly active volition.
If law sometimes motivates through this deliberative process, it is clear that Locke
does not believe that it is entirely a matter of pleasure and pain or rewards and
punishments. If the contrary were the case, law as such would take all men to be permanent
criminals perpetually in need of the coercive motivational control provided by reward and
punishment. Law would operate solely through passive means; it would not exist for free
men but for the regulation of slaves. But conversely, Locke thinks law allows men to
govern themselves and judge their actions rightly. Clearly then, the strict role of legal
sanctions, whilst integral to law, is not Locke’s complete view on the subject. As a means
of judging actions, law motivates according to the model of active will. Locke’s theory of
law seems to presuppose our capacity to suspend the execution of desires, elevate them,
and bring ourselves to will accordingly. Thus, it stands to reason that Locke thinks
punishment is sometimes necessary as an initial stimulus for the conceptual apparatus – the
array of simple and relational ideas – and for the lawfully elevated desires upon which this
active deliberation is based. Yet, when legal behaviour is a result of our ‘judgement’ of the
worthiness of our actions, when it involves the self-governance of behaviour, it can no
42
Ibid., §§13, 14, pp. 357-358.
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longer reasonably be described as the consequence of punishment. In other words, this
rational, active form of legal motivation is also independent moral behaviour
Put simply, Lockean law seems to make moral knowledge and behaviour
commensurable by utilising the psychology of will developed in ‘Of Power’. This is true in
both the passive motivation provided by punishment and the active motivation provided
by law as a relational standard to which we refer and determine our actions.
This
relationship between moral knowledge, passive and active will, and law, as shall become
clear, is of fundamental importance not only for Locke’s moral philosophy in the Essay but
for the origin, function, and purpose of law in political life.
Legal Motivations: Locke’s theory of agency and his manuscript ‘Morality’
If I am right, Locke formulated his views regarding the possibility and purpose of
legal punishment and on the consonance of legal restrictions and legal behaviour with
human freedom according to his active and passive understanding of volition. 43 By
focusing on these two ways in which law and volition relate in Locke’s thought, I am able
to advance the more general claim that Locke’s theory of volition is relevant not merely for
thinking about Lockean consent but for the systematic way in which Locke thinks political
organisation must be attuned to the mental characteristics of political agents. I clarify this
first by turning to one of Locke’s journal entries, written shortly before the composition of
the Two Treatises, and then to the Second Treatise itself.
In the manuscript entitled ‘Morality’, Locke ponders justice and legitimacy in
relation to psychological views like those he devises in the Essay. Locke comments that
‘morality is the rule of man’s action for the attaining of happiness.’ 44 Given that Locke’s
developed theory of active will stipulates the congruence of the greatest form of happiness
with the rational understanding of and compliance with moral law, his preliminary
movement in that direction here is not surprising.
Intriguingly, the conceptual
underpinnings of happiness in ‘Morality’ match those in his theory of action. Happiness
and misery consist in pleasure and pain. Clearly working out his mature views on the
motives behind decision making, Locke enumerates what he calls ‘Axiom 2’, which is the
Tully’s work, Locke in Contexts has been influential for this section. Although our differences in
interpretation are many, I think his exposition of the interrelationship between Lockean agency, rationality,
political law and the law of opinion splendid and largely convincing. Where I differ is in thinking Locke took
certain knowledge far more seriously in his political thought and in advancing my reading of Lockean will as
the conceptual core of Locke’s thought on law, deterrence and freedom of the law. Both Raymond Polin’s,
‘John Locke’s conception of freedom’ and Hans Aarsleff ’s ‘The state of nature and the nature of man’
explore the general relationship between Locke’s theory of agency and his political thought. Hans Aarsleff is
particularly splendid on the consistency between Locke’s thinking on law and his understanding of agency.
44 Locke, ‘Morality’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 267.
43
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
principle that ‘men act only for what they desire.’ 45 Given these relationships, Locke
presses two further propositions about the best understanding of happiness and about its
importance for practical life. I shall expand on the second of these.
Locke considers the implications of this theory of action for practical life and
human interaction. Starting with property holdings, use of the world in common, in
accordance with our equal natural rights is a possibility but suffers the disadvantages of want,
rapine and force.46 This is more or less equivalent to Locke’s position in the Second Treatise.
Because these disadvantages may result from the weaknesses of natural law and natural right,
legalistic resolution of them in the state of nature is not immediately viable. It is not then
surprising that Locke eschews juridical argumentation for the moment, instead considering
the psychological implications of these inconveniences. He concludes that happiness, the
attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, are only possible through the
establishment of plenty and security.47 As ‘Axiom 2’ clearly indicates, happiness and misery
bear inherent motivational force and it is clear that men will choose to pursue plenty and
security according to the uneasiness evoked by their absence.
By itself, this prudentialism shows that Locke had tied his understanding of original
political behaviour to his understanding of desires. But it is not clear that Locke had his
notion of active will in mind. Still, it is worth noting that Locke thinks these two goals are
concurrently principled conclusions of morality.
What might this mean? Normally, Locke
espouses universalist views about morality, and there is no reason to doubt his views are
dissimilar here. 48 If plenty and security are both preconditions of happiness and
conclusions of universal morality, then Locke is grappling with the same tension between
individual happiness and universal morality he addressed in the Essay. Regardless of how
philosophically compelling Locke’s views on this might be, it is through elevating desire
that Locke thought our sense of happiness could become morally upright.
Because
Locke’s account of norms in ‘Morality’ is a matter of agency and not simply moral
knowledge and because Locke normally thinks elevated, active desires are constitutive of
morality, then it makes sense to read Locke’s juridical position in ‘Morality’ as exploring
this understanding of moral agency. This reading has the advantage of reflecting the
relationship between agency and Locke’s understanding of law in the Essay while also
anticipating the way Locke, in the Second Treatise, makes the desiderata preservation and
improvement of life (security and plenty) pivotal legal obligations. Simply put, in ‘Morality’
Ibid., p. 268.
Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Cf. this thesis, Chap. 2, Part II, Chap. 3, Part III & IV.
45
46
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Locke conceptualises the defence of natural law by political means according to an
understanding of human agency similar to that he elaborated in ‘Of Power’.
In ‘Morality’, Locke also considers the way in which these normative goals might be
realised by calibrating political practice to human agency. Locke takes it to be the case that
peace and security, or ‘right’ must be further determined by ‘compact’. This is the first and
general rule of our happiness.49 This goal is clearly crucial, and Locke calls it justice, the
duty that regulates right. 50 Now whilst it is true that men agree to a compact like this
because it is the conclusion of their calculative, rational pursuit of plenty and security and it
seems this agreement follows logically from the conditions of natural, non-political life,
these facts do not fully capture the moral and phenomenal aspects of this compact and the
political behaviour Locke ponders. Rather, Locke’s understanding of justice is tied to his
theory of agency because, precisely speaking, justice is constitutive of our real happiness
and the morally upright pleasures and desires associated with that. In this sense justice
serves as both a normative principle and a motive power. When we understand the
dependence of happiness on justice, we can evaluate our desires, make justice an object of
them and include it in a deliberative process of rational and active volition. This lawful
disposition duplicates the general relationship between morality, law and human decision
making in the Essay. Returning to the problem of a disposition of obligation, this lawfulness
is suggestive of the how conventional society could become an object of enduring loyalty.
Remove the congruence of lawfulness and the disposition to seek happiness and not only
the motivation to compact, but the commitment to subsequent principles of political law, and,
consequently, the moral nature of justice are lost.
Ultimately, Locke explores legitimate political justice in ‘Morality’ as an aspect of a
broader consideration of will, motives, morality and law. It might be possible that in the
brief intervening time between working on these drafts and composing the Two Treatises,
Locke revised his views and significantly curtailed the importance of his theory of will in
his politics. However, two salient issues in the Second Treatise provide good reasons for
thinking otherwise. To these I now turn.
49
50
Locke, ‘Morality’, p. 268.
Ibid.
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Legal motivations: the purpose of punishment and freedom as ‘prescription’ by the law
In order to show that central aspects of Locke’s political thought presuppose and
deploy his theory of will, I shall consider two important issues pertaining to the role of law
in Locke’s Second Treatise. I shall first turn to Locke’s understanding of the purpose of legal
punishment. I shall then analyse the freedom that Locke attributes to our acceptance of
legal ‘prescription’ of our actions and the relation of this to our will.
As is well known, Lockean agents have the executive capacity to punish others for
infractions against their natural rights and for violations of natural law in the state of
nature. This is profoundly important because it makes natural law viable without political
institutions.
In Locke’s thought political punishment derives from our independent
capacity to execute the law, not from any original governmental right to punish. The
trouble is Locke’s justification of the right to punish is not straightforward. At times it
seems to be a matter of logical inference. Because the fundamental law of nature is the
preservation of human life, the danger entailed by violation justifies the ‘destruction’ of the
violator as something beast-like and ‘noxious’ to life. 51
This is certainly the most
recognised of Locke’s arguments justifying the right to punishment.
However, Locke also relies on a second argument because he does not think
punishment is solely intended to annihilate violators of natural law.52 Jeremy Waldron has
elucidated that Lockean criminals, while liable, are only punishable in accordance with
calculations for the good of all, in which they are still included.53 This means that while capital
punishment may be requisite in some extreme cases it can never be an immediate recourse.
For Locke, the destruction of criminals is justified when and only when they present
potential mortal danger. When capital punishment is not necessary, punishment should
‘deter’ rather than ‘destroy’ offenders. But for deterrence to make any sense at all, Locke
must be implicitly raising issues of motivation and decision making – matters of agency.
That is to say, if the prospect of punishment deters a potential criminal, this must evoke an
alternative uneasiness in him.
Two of Locke’s claims about criminals help cash out the relationship between
Lockean punishment and his theory of agency. First, Locke states that criminals live
outside the ‘Common Law of Reason’, which is the ‘measure God has set to the actions of
Men, for their mutual security’54 Second, Locke compares criminals with animals. These
Locke, Second Treatise, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1988), §§6, 8, 16, pp. 271, 272, 279.
The distinctions between different justifications of punishment are not always recognised. For a reading in
which Locke develops one justification of punishment, see Laslett, ‘Introduction’, p. 96.
53 Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality; Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 2002), pp. 143-144.
54 Locke, Second Treatise, §8, p. 272.
51
52
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
two claims are connected. Locke is relatively clear that what makes someone a beastlike
criminal is not merely the danger they pose;55 rather, it is their lack of the common law of
reason. There are two senses in which Locke might understand this lack. First, the
criminal might not be capable of knowing this law at all. This criminal is bestial in a strong
sense. However, Locke thinks most criminality can be rectified. In a commonplace entry
dated March 1679, Locke indicates that most wrong judgements, of which crime would be
a type, are a result of ‘faults of the will’ rather ‘than the understanding’.56 Similarly, we have
seen that Locke thinks in ‘Of Power’ that knowledge of duty or the good does not motivate on
its own. Instead, one must have an elevated desire for the active, rational, dutiful and
moral objectives. The right kinds of desire unite our moral knowledge with our decisions
and actions. As I have shown above, Locke thinks lawful behaviour requires that we
discover standards of law and act according to them via deliberation and active will. For
the law breaker, it is clear that this process has failed, and this is the second most common
way criminals abjure the common law of reason.
Obviously, if Locke think punishment deters a criminal, at the minimum it must
trigger his fear of punishment. That is to say, law makes use of our passive motivations.
As I adduced earlier, this is one of the reasons Locke had always thought the concept of
law entailed rewards and punishments. But I want to show, further, that Locke’s political
account of law also deploys an active understanding of will, commensurable with the role
law plays in self-reflection in the Essay. Specifically, I shall argue that Locke imagined that
political law helps rectify the common failure of agents to recognize or follow rational
moral imperatives. 57 Upon my interpretation, Lockean law plays a constructive role in
elevating and rectifying our desires.58
Ibid. §16, p. 279. The dissociation of the danger posed by criminals and their beastlike nature is
particularly clear here.
56 Locke, ‘Justitia’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 273.
57 I have analysed the problems which deliberative reason faces in the previous chapter, in which I focus
especially on a number of obstinate, vain and dominating dispositions. See further Wolterstorff, John Locke,
pp. 150-151. Wolterstorff shows that while reason ought to be our guide, short-sightedness, passion, falseeducation and tradition commonly lead us to eschew rationality. However, Wolterstorff does not think
rational assent related to Lockean will. See also Tully, Locke in Contexts, p. 200. Tully shows that sometime
between 1671 and 1677 Locke no longer felt that assent would be guaranteed in proportion to the evidence
adduced for a proposition, passions interfere with assent and ultimately only some kind of passion can lead
to rational assent.
58 See also Tully, Locke in Contexts, pp. 208-239. I again follow Tully’s lead in developing the idea that Lockean
law is part of a broad historical shift from the conceptualisation of law as an instrument of repression to law
as an instrument of re-education. Cf. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, p. 64. Ashcraft shows that this shift was
an important part of the common religious dissenting belief that government ought to govern according to
reason because man is a creature constituted so as to be reasoned with. In the view of these dissenters, this
mode of governance respects our freedom because our understanding, our reason and our behaviour are
inextricable from each other.
55
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
To justify these claims, I want to consider Locke’s view that punishment should be
able to promote repentance. Locke tells us, ‘Each Transgression may be punished to that
degree, and with so much Severity as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the Offender, give
him cause to repent, and terrifie others from doing the like’.59 Although much of what
Locke says here is perfectly consonant with the relationship between punishment and our
passive desires, Locke’s claim that punishment gives us reason to repent is somewhat
anomalous. Locke’s notion of repentance, which I consider further in the next section, is
crucial. Repentance, unlike deterrence, involves an awareness that one’s crimes were, are
and will be morally wrong. Hence, Locke’s believes punishment can serve an educative
purpose. Specifically, repentance appears to be part of a process of intellectual judgment
(assent). As I showed in the last chapter, judgment ought to be a matter of active agency
and elevated desiring. Punishment may not always lead to repentance, but when noncapital penalties are called for, Locke thinks it imperative that punishment be composed so
that it can lead to repentance. Clearly, Lockean punishment deters legally recalcitrant
citizens passively whilst also potentially engaging them to elevate their desires and actualise
their active will.
Locke’s understanding of active will also appears when he associates freedom with
lawful behaviour and lawful decision-making in the Second Treatise. Locke insists that
natural men are in ‘a State of Perfect Freedom to order their Actions and dispose of their
Possessions, and Persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature…’.60
Thus, it might look like Locke takes freedom to be constrained by natural law. But Locke is
not really satisfied with that view. In the Essay and ‘Morality’ Locke thought the real
purpose of law was the realisation of true happiness and freedom. This was thanks to a
lawful disposition, understood as an instance of active will.
Further elaborating the
boundaries of natural law in the Second Treatise, Locke explains that they are part of the
definition of freedom. It is not that the law of nature restricts freedom; liberty is not license
in the first place.61 Locke explains that this is because natural law is rational. In order to
hold these claims together, Locke must suppose that rationality and freedom are
commensurable. Thus, it makes sense to believe that choices made according to rational
normative principles are perfectly free, but why are irrational choices not also free? In
order to distinguish liberty from license, Locke must make the further claim that free
choices must be rational. As I have shown, this is exactly the view Locke elaborated in the
Essay.
Locke, Second Treatise, §13, p. 275.
Ibid., §4, p. 269.
61 Ibid., §6, p. 270-271.
59
60
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
The way in which Locke takes law to ‘prescribe’ human action relies upon just this
view. This term appears decisively in Locke’s discussion of paternal power. Locke finds
the Filmerian sense of paternal power, in part, objectionable because it ignores the role of
reason for self-regulation. When children grow into the use of reason, they are left at their
‘own free Disposal’ just as Adam was created with reason to govern his actions.62 This is
not so much a matter of right, but a matter of fact. Freedom is the rational governance of
our actions, as opposed to the merely desirous predication of action. Locke writes that
without the use of ‘Reason’ one cannot be under natural law, and one cannot then be
‘presently free.’63 This is crucial for the very reason that law does not proscribe action or
restrict freedom, it prescribes or directs what free action can be. Locke makes this
perfectly clear: ‘For Law in its true Notion, is not so much the Limitation as the direction
of a free and intelligent Agent to his proper Interest, and prescribes no farther than is for
the general Good of those under the Law. Could they be happier without it, the Law, as an
useless thing would of itself vanish.’64 Simply put, law directs human agency toward the
general good. This is instrumental for our greatest happiness. If and when this direction
by law accords with reason, then Locke thinks that the mode of willing is constitutive of
freedom. This passage shows us the way Locke thought a disposition of lawfulness
connects our norms to our happiness, results from elevated desires and is nothing else than
the self-governance of agents according to rational normative standards. Although Locke
is not clear how exactly this disposition will come about, 65 he clearly presupposes the
normative freedom he had attributed to active volition in the Essay.
This section has shown that Locke’s understanding of volition is important for his
legal thought in a number of ways. The exercise of juridical authority must protect natural
law and administer civil law in concert with both deterrence and repentance. Thus, the exercise
of legitimate juridical authority provides conditions under which these vices may subside,
and lawful dispositions thrive instead. This shows that will matters for Locke’s political
thought more generally – it is not merely a matter of consent. Specifically, Locke’s
political philosophy incorporates his understanding of passive and active modes of volition
and the elevation of desires in the deterrence the law provides, the happiness the political
instantiation of law affords, and the freedom the prescription of the law realises. It is
possible to tie down the importance of this active understanding of will is Locke’s politics
in two important ways.
Ibid., §§55, 56, pp. 304, 305.
Ibid., §57, p. 305.
64 Ibid., §57, p. 305.
65 The role of punishment in evoking repentance may provide stimulus for this active, lawful disposition, but
I do not think the further claim that punishment is sufficient to yield such a disposition can be sustained.
62
63
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
First, his theoretical opposition to Filmer utilises active will to distinguish between
paternal and political power. Locke grounds this distinction on the capacity of adults to
rationally understand true notions of happiness, deliberate and will accordingly. This, for
adults is both self-government and freedom. In children, irrationality is temporary, and
consequently, the guidance of adults is provisional.66 Furthermore, the parents’ will serves
as the child’s specifically so that he may eventually be able to ‘govern himself’ by reason
upon his majority. By contrast, political authority must take account of our fundamental
equality under natural law or, alternatively, under a regime of conventional law. 67 Thus,
Locke thinks Filmer does worse than conflate paternal and political authority; he
misunderstands them both and reduces children and subjects to a state worse than
perpetual minority. Ultimately, Locke thinks Filmer’s notion of legal authority is like that
appropriate for ‘Lunaticks’ and ‘Ideots’.68 Like beastlike criminals, these unfortunates lack
and will always lack the common rule of reason – they lack an understanding. And so, the
will of their guardians must stand in perpetual rule over them. Filmerian political authority
makes us all perpetual slaves and criminals whereas Locke thinks political law helps make us
free. Locke objects to Patriarcha in part because Filmerian political authority undermines
active will and moral decision making. Conversely, Lockean politics helps realise the
rational and moral potential of Lockean agents.
Lockean politics legitimises truly
voluntary associations because it respects fundamentally the human capacity for active
volition.
Second, the politicisation of law, in promoting this form of active, lawful volition
addresses a crucial difficulty in the state of nature. Specifically, the individual enforcement
of law in the state of nature seems to evoke the worst of our passions. Our ‘Self-love’
makes us partial to ourselves and our friends. 69 Furthermore, ‘Ill Nature, Passion and
Revenge will carry [natural men] too far in punishing others. And hence, nothing but
Confusion and Disorder will follow…’.70 Whereas punishment should be carefully and
rationally calibrated to protect us from mortal danger, deter criminals and potentially elicit
repentance, our passions, just like those of the criminal, obfuscate these rational aims
undermine the appropriate the role of punishment. This proves a most dangerous casus
belli. It is precisely because our ‘natural political virtues’,71 to borrow a term from Peter
Ibid., §§55, 58-61, 63, pp. 304-309. See further, this thesis, Chapter 3, Part II, in which I draw together
Locke’s understanding of agency in this part of the Two Treatises with his understanding of active and passive
modes of will in ‘Of Power’.
67 Ibid., §59, p. 307.
68 Ibid., §60, p. 308.
69 Ibid., §13, p. 275.
70 Ibid.
71 Laslett, ‘Introduction’, pp. 109-111. Italics mine. Laslett suggests that natural political virtues allow
66
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Laslett, are actually potential virtues, that this inconvenience is decisive. In order to protect
law itself and realise the moral freedom it entails, Locke advances a crucial expedient,
which is also authorised by God himself – ‘Civil Government’.72
Consequently, Lockean politics, as a matter of practical philosophy, does not take
for granted how knowledge of rights and duties is squared with normative behaviour. It
depends on the institutions of law and politics because they normally remove victims and
vengeful parties from the adjudicative process. This prevents our anti-social passions from
being stimulated.
But will free and lawful dispositions and other-regarding virtues
appropriate for political agents thrive because Lockean political order circumnavigates
occasions that instigated their ill-natured passions? For the criminal the answer is no, but
perhaps this institutional structure proves sufficient for some men. Nonetheless, it is
important to remember that legitimate political life is rather dependent on the lawfulness
of political agents. In legitimate majoritarian civil society, which Locke thinks the social
compact entails, the majority must will in the common interest and in accordance with
rational, natural law while the minority must feel themselves obliged to the majority’s
decisions as lawful decisions. The question is whether these political virtues are a given in
civil society.
For Laslett, the answer would seem to be yes, because our natural virtues are a
function of our reason, we simply are other-regarding,73 unless some circumstance evokes
our anti-social passions. Thus, there is no need in his account for us to cultivate ‘love and
sociability’, because, Laslett tells us, these play no serious part in Locke’s account of social
life.74 But both of these claims seem uncertain because Locke’s account of lawfulness is
tied to his understanding of lawful and upright dispositions, which are matters of both love
and reason. Legal self-reflection and the freedom of the proscription of the law are, as I
have argued, contingent upon the elevation of desire. If what Laslett calls a set of political
virtues actually require conditional, active political dispositions, then the desires of agents
must actually be elevated in a manner appropriate for political reasoning and political
behaviour. This is worth further investigation.
political agents to respect and to trust others.
72 Locke, Second Treatise, §13, pp. 275-276.
73 Laslett, ‘Introduction’, p. 111.
74 Ibid.
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Part III: Charity – the epitome of Lockean dispositional obligations
In this section, 75 I contend that the various dispositions I have explored in this
thesis are epitomised in Locke’s understanding of charity. I want to suggest that charity, as
a disposition of active, moral will, is the most important universal normative obligation to
Locke and that it plays an architectonic role in his understanding of legitimate political
authority and his beliefs about the remit of governmental activity. Further, I am to show
that charity, qua political disposition, is not automatic. Rather, it is made more likely by the
complex and often indirect relationship between legitimate, limited government, the
disposition of political authorities, and the citizens’ experience of this form of legitimate
government. In order to elucidate this, it is necessary to tease out what Locke means by
charity and whether he holds a consistent view. Further, I will show that political life and
governmental activity have a pivotal role in eliciting charity, but that this role cannot be
immediately juridical or coercive. Instead, Locke focuses on the importance of a protected
extra-juridical space in which agents can be and become charitable. Consequently, I also
aim to show that this position requires the exercise of political authority be institutionally
limited and undertaken charitably.
Charity in Locke’s philosophical and theological writings
Turning first to Locke’s discussion of charity in his mature philosophical and
theological writings, I aim to show that his most concerted elaborations of the concept
define charity as a benevolent disposition. This dispositional sense of charity elicits altruistic
acts but is not understood in terms of them.
A crucial section in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which Locke entitles
‘The right use of it [what it is] is mutual Charity and Forbearance’, sheds light on his
understanding of charity. This section confronts deep seated opinion and sectarian zeal,
which ignore standards of rationality and can create dangerous social divisions. 76 The
magnitude of seventeenth century religious intolerance shows this is no idle concern. 77
Neal Wood has elucidated Locke’s efforts in this part of the Essay to rescue rationality
This section appears in an earlier form in Parts IV, V and 6 of Lamb and Thompson, ‘The Meaning of
Charity in Locke’s Political Thought’, in European Journal of Political Theory, (Forthcoming 2009).
76 Locke, Essay, Bk IV, Chap 16, §4, pp. 659-661. See Locke’s discussion of short-sighted willing in, Bk. II,
Chap. 3, § 69; his explanation of the Law of Opinion in Bk. II, Chap. 28, §§ 10, 12; his discourse on the
barriers against expanding human knowledge Bk. IV, Chap. 3 §§ 6, 20; and finally Locke’s attack against
received opinion in Bk. IV, Chap. 20, §§ 17 – 18.
77 John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
2006). Marshall presents a meticulous and illuminating account of both intolerant practices and the theories
of intolerance in the seventeenth century. See particularly chapters 1-15.
75
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
from sectarian ignorance, corroborating the significance of this topic.78 Intriguingly, Locke
proposes an apparent form of toleration as a remedy to religious zeal. He writes:
It would, methinks, become all Men to maintain Peace, and the common Offices of Humanity,
and Friendship, in the diversity of Opinions, since we cannot reasonably expect, that anyone should
readily and obsequiously quit his own Opinion, and embrace ours with a blind resignation to
an Authority, which the Understanding of Man acknowledges not. 79
G. A. J. Rogers illuminates Locke’s underpinning of this kind of toleration through what
he calls the ‘Argument from Ignorance’.80 The argument proceeds roughly as follows: if
you cannot be absolutely certain of a proposition, you have no business in forcing others
to accept what amounts to your opinion. This line of argument is clearly present in
Locke’s passage above. Since it is ‘opinions’ that are in conflict here, which I have shown
are quite different than ‘knowledge’ in Locke’s lexicon, we cannot force our opinions on
others. Yet does Locke’s argument conclude there?
If toleration in some way addresses the zeal of sects which are keenly intolerant,
how would the argument from ignorance prove an efficacious remedy? As it happens,
Locke recommends what looks like positive affection in overcoming fanaticism and schism
– positive toleration through peace, humanity and friendship. Such mutual affability, is not
merely overlooking differing opinions, but a positive duty, much like that Anthony
Wilhelm has drawn out in his recent study on Lockean toleration. 81 Toleration as a
disposition of affability must have been what Locke had in mind when he titled the section
‘The right use of it is mutual Charity and Forbearance’. Although Locke is not telling us
what charity means precisely, a reliable inference can be made. Consider how Locke
deploys the copular ‘is’ in this passage; he equates charity with this disposition of positive
toleration.
Neal Wood, The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy, A Social Study of ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’
(Berkley, 1983). One of Wood’s central claims is that Locke’s promotion of rationality through education is
part of his bourgeois identity. Though this claim is not thoroughly convincing when taking Locke as a
philosopher, Wood is completely correct in identifying this trend and the danger of ignorance in Locke’s
Essay.
79 Locke, Essay, Bk. IV, Chap. 16, § 4.
80 G. A. J. Rogers, ‘Locke and the latitude-men: ignorance as a ground for toleration,’ in R. Kroll, R. Ashcraft,
and P. Zagorin (eds.), Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England; 1640 – 1700, (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press: 1992), pp. 242 – 247. As it happens, this is also the grounds of the dominant interpretation
of Locke’s argument in his Third Letter on Toleration.
81 Anthony Wilhelm, ‘Good Fences and Good Neighbors: John Locke’s Positive Doctrine of Toleration,’
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 1, (Mar., 1999), pp. 146 – 148, 152 – 158. Most of Wilhelm’s argument
is acceptable with the caveat that he overstates the extent of this positivity in so far as the acceptance of
differing beliefs is concerned. He seems to believe that Lockean toleration, to put it in contemporary terms,
celebrates difference. The discussion of toleration in Locke does not seem indicative of this claim. I would
submit that Locke is advancing civil friendship and benevolence in common humanity despite differences.
This is a distinction between opinion and opinion bearer that Wilhelm does not seem to develop. This allows
the robust positive duty toward toleration and affability, which Wilhelm convincingly argues not to require the
further claim that the different opinions are themselves embraced.
78
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Locke’s identification of charity with toleration is restated even more forcefully in A
letter Concerning Toleration. 82 Locke deploys both charity and toleration in succession as
equivalent tests of true Christianity. Locke writes that toleration is, ‘the chief distinguishing
mark of the true church’.83 And on charity:
For however some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the splendor of
their ritual; others of the reformation of their teaching, and all of the orthodoxy of their faith
(for everyone is orthodox to himself): these claims, and others of this kind, are more likely to
be signs of men striving for power and empire than signs of the church of Christ. If a man
possesses all of these things, but lacks charity, meekness, and good will in general towards all
mankind, even towards those who do not profess the Christian faith, he falls short of being a
Christian himself.84
The upshot is that charity and benevolence with humility, like toleration, are the decisive
qualities of the true Christian. Locke entwines charity and toleration, but in so doing the
role of this concept becomes more than an expedient against fanaticism or one justification
of toleration. 85 Specifically, charity entails the love of others even when they are in
grievous error. Clearly, charity is the definitive Christian virtue for Locke.
This estimation of charity is not unique to the Letter on Toleration. Locke also thinks
charity the ultimate Christian virtue in The Reasonableness of Christianity. In the ‘Preface’,
Locke observes that charity itself is the spirit of the entire Gospel.86 Although a prefatory
remark, the substance of Reasonableness seems to confirm this crucial, spiritual sense of
charity.
Later, Locke explains how Christ will pronounce judgment according to a
distinction between the condemnable workers of iniquity and the redeemable who ‘fulfil
the Law in acts of charity.’ 87 This depiction seems peculiar at first because it is lodged
within Locke’s discussion of justification by faith. If Christians are justified by faith, not
works, why would Christ judge according to acts of charity? As Richard Ashcraft has
elucidated, Locke had long believed belief and action, or more specifically faith and works,
This reference is to the Oxford Clarendon edition of the Letter: John Locke, Epistola de Tolerantia – A Letter
on Toleration, Raymond Klibansky (ed.) and J. W. Gough (trans.), (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1968).
This version is translated directly from Locke’s original Latin text. Although Locke stood by the more
common William Popple translation, it colours Locke’s original language. The Popple translation also
introduces redundancies into the English absent from the Latin. Critically, there is serious doubt that Locke
supervised the Popple translation. For students of the acceptance and interpretation of Locke, the Popple
edition remains crucial source material. See note on William Popple’s translation in the Clarendon Letter on
Toleration, pp. 43 – 51.
83 Locke, A Letter on Toleration, p. 59.
84 Ibid. This view pervades the entire first section of the letter. Locke comes back to this same basic point
repeatedly. See especially pp. 59 – 65.
85 For an alternative reading see John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 2006), pp. 656-657. Marshall describes charity as one argument, if the most
important for a Christian, among many Locke deploys in his espousal of religious toleration. Marshall does
not investigate whether charity plays a systematic role in Locke’s thought.
86 Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, “Preface,” Victor Nuovo (ed.), John Locke; Writings on Religion,
(Oxford: 2002), p. 89 [A2]. Original pagination of the original edition (London, Awnsham and Churchill:
1695) is in brackets.
87 Ibid, p. 94 [9]. Italics mine.
82
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
could not be legitimately disentangled – faith always entailed works. 88 This, Ashcraft
informs us, is part of Locke’s debt to the milieu of dissenting thinkers who developed a
theory of agency focusing on the connection of belief and action against the views of
Hobbes and Samuel Parker, who thought action detachable from belief and consequently
subject to the coercive power of the magistrate. In the Reasonableness, Locke’s doctrine of
repentance develops this position at the very core of Christian justification. Much like the
repentance Locke thought legal punishment might encourage, true belief in Christ
necessitates a disposition of repentance that involves knowing one’s past sins abhorring
them, feeling ‘hearty sorrow’ over having committed them and forsaking future sins. 89
Together with this negative disposition against sinning repentance entails a positive disposition
toward moral behaviour. Locke presumes that Christians, as true believers in Christ, will
endeavour to enter His kingdom and, thusly, ‘working by love’ shall obey his ‘law and will’.90
It is, then, the moral law which Christ reconfirms and formulates negatively against vainglory,
violence, impropriety and the love of dominion and positively for ‘Loving our Enemies;
Doing good to those that hate us; Blessing those that Curse us; Praying for those that
despightfully use us; Patience, and Meekness under Injuries; Forgiveness; Liberality;
Compassion’, and ultimately the ‘Golden Rule’ in Matthew VII. 12.91 The majority of these
traits are, or entail, some emotional standpoint. It seems strange to imagine patience, love,
compassion, and forgiveness otherwise.
Thus, within repentance Locke combines a
disposition of benevolence and tolerance that matches a spiritual dread of sin. And, it is
under this sense of repentance that the Christian is obligated to perform the moral law by
which Christ judges acts of charity. Charity then, anterior to the works it produces, must be
this benevolent Christian disposition. For Locke, charity is, indeed, the spirit of the Gospel
In sum, Locke, in both his philosophical and theological corpus, seems to
consistently define charity as a disposition of positive toleration and affability, placing this
at the centre of Christianity, coequal even with justification by faith. That Locke thought
this is not surprising, especially when his views on charity are juxtaposed with some of his
contemporaries and predecessors. It is to this contextualisation I now turn.
Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, (Princeton, Princeton University
Press: 1986), pp. 93-97. Ashcraft traces this view back to one of Locke’s manuscripts probably from 1666.
Although this manuscript does not conclusively indicate that this is yet Locke’s view (Locke may merely be
recounting the position of the dissenter John Owen, it certainly was Locke’s view by the time he wrote the
Essay on Toleration in 1667.
89 Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, p. 169 [198].
90 Ibid, pp. 173-174 [210-211].
91 Ibid, p. 177 [219].
88
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Charity in Context
In order to help tease out the meaning of Lockean charity as a disposition and its
ramifications in regard to political activity and justice, it is helpful to explore the way a
number of philosophers, moralists and theologians Locke knew, read or esteemed
conceptualised charity.92 These thinkers tended to be either the Cambridge-Platonists, or
‘latitudinarians’.93
Locke had many connections with Cambridge-Platonists and ‘latitudinarians’. 94
This is confirmed by his library. By the time of his death, more than one hundred works
by contemporary Latitudinarians and ‘many more’ by Cambridge Platonists, including More
and Cudworth, were shelved in Locke’s collection.95 His friendship with the CambridgePlatonist Ralph Cudworth’s daughter Damaris (Cudworth) Masham is particularly
noteworthy. Masham herself was active in promoting her father’s views and defended
them in correspondence with Leibniz. 96 Although speculative, it is no stretch of the
imagination to presume she could have discussed her father’s work with Locke. Locke
both corresponded with Cudworth’s son Thomas and also seems to have known the
Cudworth family before he fled to Holland.97 All of this certainly shows the likelihood of
Locke’s intellectual familiarity with Cudworth’s positions. As for Cudworth’s published
works, Locke started reading the True Intellectual System of the Universe by 1682.98 Moreover,
Locke corresponded with Masham on the Select Discourses of John Smith. The letters focus
on Locke’s objections to Smith’s Neoplatonic epistemology and on Masham’s attempts to
John Marshall, John Locke, pp. 77-81, 94, 101-102, 118-122, 128-130. Marshall presents a convincing
argument, often contra-Ashcraft, for situating Locke’s intellectual development in the 1660s and 1670s within
a latitudinarian context. Of particular note is the sense of charity that Locke and the latitudinarians share,
which Marshall depicts as a spirit of friendship.
93 I do not make any claims about the group identity of latitudinarians or Cambridge Platonists or Locke’s
relation to either of these groups. My analysis shall focus on individuals who articulated conceptions of
charity, love and the Christian spirit which might have been thought provoking for Locke. On the
problematic historical grounding for the appellation latitudinarian either as a contemporary term or as some
identifiable grouping intellectually distinct thinkers and theologians, see John Spurr, ‘‘Latitudinarianism’ and
the Restoration Church’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, (Mar., 1988), pp. 61-82. Spurr concludes that the
only really consistent belief amongst thinkers taken to be latitudinarians was their opposition to Calvinist
theology and their commitment to charitable and tolerant behaviour toward disagreement.
94 On the correspondence and friendship between Locke and many of the latitudinarians, see Marshall, John
Locke, pp. 78-81. It is Marshall’s view that Locke and the latitudinarians shared a sense of charity as a spirit
of friendship and Christian love.
95 Marshall, ‘Locke and Latitudinarianism,’ p. 253. J. Harrison and P. Laslett (eds.) The Library of John Locke,
(Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1965), pp. 119, 192. The books by Cudworth and More feature on these
two pages respectively.
96 Sarah Hutton (ed.) ‘Intoduction’ in Ralph Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality,
(Cambridge: 1996), p. xi.
97 Richard I. Aaron, John Locke, (Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press: 1955), p. 26. Aaron cites convincingly the
Letters with Thomas and Damaris Cudworth and the Clarke correspondence as evidence for this connection.
98 Marshall, John Locke; Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994), pp.
150-151, Marshall argues that Locke’s reading of Cudworth is evinced in MS Locke f6 19-20 and 25-32.
92
111
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
convince Locke their positions were not as divergent as he imagined.99 In 1688, Masham
corresponded with Locke again concerning the epistemology of the Cambridge Platonists
and the question of innate ideas.100 Locke’s letters tell a similar story. Locke, to Richard
King in August 1703, hailed the sermons of Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote as a
‘masterpiece’ on the ‘larger View of the Parts of Morality.’ 101 Furthermore, Locke had
known Whichcote for thirty-five years, having been a member of his congregation in
London from 1668. 102 Also in Locke’s letter to King, he recommends, for the same
purposes as Whichcote, the Latitudinarians Isaac Barrow and John Tillotson.
103
Interestingly, John Tillotson was a personal friend of Locke’s. 104 In ‘Some Thoughts
Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentlemen’, which resembles the letter to King and
was also published in 1703, Locke applauds the liberal member of the Great Tew circle
William Chillingworth for the right reasoning behind his speaking, not to mention
‘anything of his argument.’105 Suffice it to say that the evidence shows Locke’s sustained
interest in this dimension of contemporaneous English thought.
These professors and divines advocate a notion of charity much like Locke’s. Most
importantly, I want to draw attention to several key concepts integral to their
understanding of charity as a disposition which they develop, more or less consistently:
first, that charity plays a central role in their understanding of Christianity and justification;
second, that charity is morally obligatory; finally, that charity entails a socially important
form of toleration.
In their discussion of charity these Cambridge Platonists and liberal Anglicans
consistently think it the epitome of Christianity and central to the question of justification.
One of Smith’s major claims is that righteousness by faith is not about external
performances in accordance with law, but concerns internal life, spiritual Godliness of the
soul and the quickening spirit of the Gospel. 106 Ultimately, ‘the righteousness of God’
amounts to ‘a Christ-like Nature in a man’s Soul, or Christ appearing in the Minds of men
by the mighty power of his Divine Spirit...’. 107 Righteousness by faith is not a type of
knowledge, a promise, or an outward behaviour; rather, it is a disposition. For Cudworth,
John Locke, Selected Correspondence, Mark Goldie (ed.), (Oxford: 2002), Letters 687, 696, 699.
Ibid, Letter 1040, p 122.
101 Ibid, Letter 3328, p. 314.
102 Maurice Cranston, John Locke, A Biography, (London, Longmans, Greeen: 1957), p. 124.
103 Locke, Selected Correspondence, Letter 3328, p. 314.
104 Cranston, John Locke, p. 126.
105 Locke, ‘Some Thoughts Concerning Reading for a Gentleman’, BL, MS Sloane 4290, ff. 11 -14, in M.
Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997).
106 John Smith, Select Discourses, (Cambridge, W. Morden Booksellers: 1672), Discourse 7, Chap. IV, pp. 300304.
107 Ibid, p. 311.
99
100
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Christianity, while confluent with reason, cannot be coldly cognitive; it must contain a
‘quickening spirit’ or vital life, for the New Law of the Gospel is itself vital.108 This vital
spirit is a kind of laudatory passion or higher love, which Cudworth defines as charity, the
‘true intellectual instinct’, superior love, and the love of honesty.109 Conceptually, Smith
and Cudworth’s positions regarding charity and the essence of Christianity, resemble the
array of claims Locke advanced about the dispositional nature of charity, the relationship
between moral knowledge and the love of truth, and the importance these for those moral
and theological duties Locke often calls our ‘great concernments’.
Precisely because this type of charity, qua disposition, is central to these thinkers’
Christianity, it is cashed out in terms of moral and social obligations. Whichcote elaborates
the Christian disposition in terms of moral duties. Whoever ‘professeth faith in the Gospel
should live in universal Love and Good-will’ – this is ‘absolutely’ necessary in Whichcote’s
view.110 Whichcote holds that this attitude is called for by the New Testament more than
anything else, remarking that ‘this cannot be said of very many Points of Divinity’. 111
Crucially, this kind of duty cannot be satisfied by outward performances, such as
almsgiving. Whichcote tells us that ‘it is the choicest Piece of Charity; to make fair
Interpretations, and to give Allowance; to make candid Constructions of Mens Actions; to
afford civil and courteous Behavior; to be Conversant and Complacent. These Things tend
to Love and Good-will among Men…’.112 Charity, Christian Love, is played out in these civil
behaviours and attitudes. They represent duties both to think well of others and to interact
with them beneficently. At the same time, these duties evince the social importance of
charity, for all of them are conducive to civic peace. Indeed, they are the kind of virtues by
which governments might earn loyalty and by which individuals might accept political
authority. Crucially, these duties can only be met through a charitable disposition.113
A number of these thinkers clearly elucidate the role of this understanding of
charity, like Locke, in terms of toleration. Henry More, Whichcote, and Chillingworth
repudiate religious intolerance, worrying that it embodies a deeper problem of egotistical
love.
For More, excessive, singular concern for religious doctrine destroys inward
Alan Gabbey, ‘Cudworth, More and the mechanical analogy’, in Kroll, Ashcraft, and Zagorin (eds.),
Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England, pp. 116 – 117.
109 J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1951), pp. 55 –
56.
110 Benjamin Whichcote, Select Sermons, (London, Awnsham and John Churchill, 1698), Part II, Sermon IV, p.
387.
111 Ibid, p. 362.
112 Ibid, p. 380.
113 The similarity between this ‘choicest Piece of Charity’ with the dispositions required for peaceful and
constructive in Locke’s discussion of language is striking.
108
113
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
godliness because ‘Knowledge puffeth up…’ unlike charity, which ‘edifieth’.114 Benjamin
Whichcote makes a similar appeal. He worries that zeal for religious truth is really just selflove in disguise, love of ‘our Fancy’, ‘our Religion’, ‘our own Creatures’, and ‘our own
Notions’.115 Chillingworth worries that the Catholic Church’s dogma of infallibility and its
tendency to condemn differing believers has the actual effect of encouraging clerical
authorities to substitute self-will for honest biblical interpretation.116
On the other hand, true Christians are exemplars of tolerance. Whichcote declares,
‘This I dare undertake is really true of all that are sincere and hearty in their Profession of
Religion. And therefore to these there is due, Patience, and Charity’.117 Dogmatism is
ultimately harmful to the piety of others. For Whichcote, serious religious belief entails a
tolerant attitude toward differing opinion. This tolerance results from Christian love and is
synonymous with ‘Charity’. Chillingworth stresses the importance of tolerant charity in
Protestant Christianity. He writes:
And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former
Doctrine doth very well qualifie their perswasion of the later; and that the former … are more
effectual to temper their hope, and to keep it a stay of a filial and modest assurance of Gods
favour, built upon the conscience of his love and fear, than later can be to swell and pff them
up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption. This reason joyn’d with our experience
of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion, is a sufficient ground
for Charity, to hope well of their Hope: and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive,
but rather most acceptable to God, if, notwithstanding this diversity of opinion, we embrace
each other with the strict embraces of love and communion. To you and your Church we
leave it, to separate Christians from the Church, and to proscribe them from heaven upon
trivial and trifling causes.118
By classifying faith with moral probability, 119 Christians with differing views can still be
united within the Christian community, not by unanimity of doctrine, but by the embrace
of tolerant charity. In sum, these thinkers all insist that the disposition of charity, while an
end in itself, is instrumental in maintaining religious peace and inclusivity. This also
suggests that charity is conducive to stable, civic order, whilst the alternative is religious
strife. The history of seventeenth century conflict shows that any boundaries between
religious animosity and social discord are fragile and porous.
Henry More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, (London: 1660), Bk. X, pp. 493 – 494, cited
in Rogers, “Locke and the latitude-men,” p. 239.
115 Whichcote, Select Sermons, Part II, Sermon IV, p. 368.
116 William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants A Safeway to Salvation or, An Answer to a Book Entitled Mercy
and Truth, or Charity Maintain’d by Catholiques: Which Pretends to Prove the Contrary, (London: 1674), Chap. II, Par.
3, 28, 130. Robert R. Orr, Reason and Authority, The Thought of William Chillingworth, (Oxford, Oxford
University Press: 1967), pp. 59-60.
117 Whichcote, Select Sermons, Part II, Sermon IV, p. 367.
118 William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants, Chap. VII, Par. 33
119 Locke probably agrees that most religious propositions are morally probable, but he thinks important
elements of our moral and theological knowledge, like our knowledge of God himself, are certain. See
further this thesis, Chap. 2, Part II; Chap. 3, Part III & IV.
114
114
Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Ultimately, Locke read or recommended Cambridge-Platonists and the tolerant
Anglican divines with clear enthusiasm. Add to that the evident similarities between their
thoughts on charity, and it seems entirely plausible that Locke developed his views on
charity in this social direction.
I turn, then, to examine the social and political role of
Lockean charity.
Law and charity as a political virtue
Keeping in mind the conceptual closeness of Locke’s thought on charity with that
of the latitudinarian and Cambridge-Platonist authors examined above, it is evident that he
conceives of charity as a disposition equivalent to toleration and fundamental to
Christianity. Locke thinks charity requisite under natural or divine law broadly conceived.
Importantly, the upright, rational, and moral form of disposition or will that charity
encapsulates seems to solve the problem of political virtue I identified earlier. I shall argue
that because Locke conceives of charity as a disposition prior to human behaviour, it is not
within the immediate remit of political authority to enforce charity or charitable behaviour.
But this does not mean Locke excludes charity from his political thought. On the contrary, I
will show that because charity is only enforced negatively when failure to be charitable is
injurious, charity, as a virtuous political disposition or a political virtue, can be expedited by
the practice of limited government. Ultimately, Locke thinks charity should be excluded
from the remit of political authority precisely so that politics might preserve a space in
which individuals can be and become charitable.
To substantiate these claims about the mediated place of charity in Locke’s politics,
further analysis of it in relation to his thought on justice and law is instructive. In a crucial
passage from Of the Conduct of the Understanding, Locke remarks that the study and practice of
theology are the most important, universal duties. He asserts:
There is indeed, one Science (as they are now distinguished) incomparably above all the rest
where it is not corruption narrowed into a trade or faction for meane or ill ends and secular
interests, I meane Theolgie, which conteining the knowledge of God and his creatures, our
duty to him and our fellow creatures and a view of our present state is the comprehension of
all other knowledge directed to its true end i.e. the honour and veneration of the Creator and
the happynesse of man kinde. This is that noble study which is every man's duty and one that
everyone that can be called a rational creature is capable of. 120
For Locke, human beings have a normative duty to understand and practice theology.
Furthermore, this duty entails knowledge of our further duties toward ‘our fellow creatures’
and toward the ‘happynesse of man kinde’. As we know, Locke advances a similar view in
120
Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, in Victor Nuovo (ed.), Writings on Religion, (Oxford: 2002), § 23, p.
3.
115
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
the Essay concerning moral knowledge, reason and normative obligations. In both of these
cases, it makes sense to read these duties as part of divine or natural law. As I showed in
the previous chapter, Locke argued in the Essay that the love of truth, a disposition, was
integral to the pursuit of moral knowledge and was the core of our corresponding moral
duties. Similarly, Locke thought upright dispositions, open and committed to legitimate
philosophical usage of language, mandatory. These obligations are crystallised in Locke’s
‘Science’ of theology. It stands to reason that the interpersonal duties owed therein also
entail an obligatory disposition.
Indeed, these same duties are closely aligned with what
Locke wrote about charity elsewhere. And because we already know Locke thinks charity
as a disposition is the epitome of our theological obligations,121 it makes sense to interpret
these interpersonal duties as charity. Moreover, this passage indicates that these theological
obligations apply to all ‘rational creatures’. 122 Thus, charity is a universal moral imperative.
This sense in which charity is central to Locke’s understanding of our universal
moral obligations, also seems to make it an apt disposition to support political virtues.
Because charity, like lawfulness, is a disposition or form of will by which agents are patient,
civil, giving and forgiving toward others, it is precisely the kind of disposition by which
majoritarian politics might prove possible. As I have hitherto indicated, majorities, and all
subsequent forms of legislative and executive power, must will according to the common
good – the lawful happiness of the entire polity. Charity provides both the psychological
motive force and the dutifulness required for such broad minded behaviour. Likewise, the
minority should be able to recognise the lawfulness of majority decisions and oblige
themselves accordingly.
Locke thinks this is a logical entailment of conventional
government as such, but in order to actualise this rationality, a patient and calm disposition like charity - would seem important. It would be sensible that a) the exercise of political
authority should help evoke this charitable disposition, and b) this disposition should
inform the exercise of political authority. I want to show that there is good reason to
support both claims and to take them as interdependent. I shall begin with the first.
Considering the relationship between natural law and political authority elucidates
the way political authority might advance charity within the polity.
Locke famously
maintains that just politics upholds and maintains the standards of natural law.123 This is
one important reason why a sense of political obligation is rational. Now, if we accept that
Cf. Locke, Reasonableness, pp. 181-183 [231-233]. When Locke conceptualises divine law, he follows the
Gospel of John, 13-15 in which Christ completed and transcended Mosaic Law by promulgating the duty of
charitable love to all Christians. For Locke, Christ’s new commandment confirms and purifies the divine law.
122 It is worth reiterating that Locke also thinks our obligations to love truth and discover moral knowledge
universal. Cf. this thesis, Chap. 2, Part II, Chap. 3, Part III & IV.
123 John Locke, Second Treatise, §135, pp. 357-58. Locke writes, ‘…the Law of Nature stands as an Eternal Rule
to all Men’.
121
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
charity is the essence of the Gospel, Gospel doctrine is the fullness of God’s law, divine
law equals natural law, and that natural law is preserved in government (all of which Locke
maintains), then the theological concept of charity would seem to be integral to Locke’s
political thought. But the further claim that charity would be jurally mandated under
Lockean political regimes, and that anyone failing to be charitable would be punished runs
against many of Locke’s utterances regarding the dichotomy between political justice and
charity.124 There is some perplexity here about the specific relationship between political
justice and charity that requires further elaboration.
Taking the dispositional quality of Lockean charity seriously shows the difficulties
concerning legally mandatory performances of charitable acts. The point of contradiction
emerges when considering what magistrates might legally enforce in regard to charity.
Because Locke’s charity is a disposition of higher love, one wonders how such a disposition
could be the subject of legal action at all. Certainly a legislature might command, de jure, that
all citizens must bear a charitable disposition in strict accordance with natural law, but it
does not require much imagination to see the hollowness of such legislation. Governments
can coerce outward behaviour, they can even impute reasons for actions, and the role of
punishment in eliciting repentance may help stimulate an active moral disposition, but it is
hard to see how these coercive means might make charity immediately compulsory. At best
a government might settle for mandating charitable acts.
However, enforcing charitable acts creates another problem by decisively driving
citizens away from charitable dispositions. Specifically, coercion of charity or acts thereof
runs counter to the necessarily non-coercive charity that Locke recommends when dealing with
differences of opinion in the Essay.125 When political authority is exercised uncharitably, or
at least coercively, to convince individuals to be charitable, then forcing them to perform
what they should do voluntarily might produce the unintended consequences of contention
and spite. Because Locke believes charity is an important universal duty with important
civic ramifications, such unnecessary threats to it should presumably be avoided. Upon
this view, Locke’s reluctance to make charity an object of juridical enforcement shows his
recognition that legal compulsion cannot command the disposition of charity and might
militate against it flourishing.
Thus, if charity is to become meaningful for civic life, then it, and its acts, must
usually lie outside the remit of Lockean government. Nevertheless, all individuals still hold
the natural duty to be charitable.
And even though this duty is not the subject of
R. Lamb and B. Thompson, ‘The Meaning of Charity in Locke’s Political Thought’, European Journal of
Political Theory, Forthcoming 2009, Parts I-III.
125 I shall return to the importance of charity as a solution to uncharitable dispositions in the conclusion.
124
117
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
immediate government action, there are certain cases in which the remit of politics includes
charity in a very specific way. The identification of such cases relies upon the distinction
between negative and positive obligations under natural law, i.e. the difference between not
harming others and contributing to their happiness. While requiring positive acts of charity
is normally illegitimate, governments have legitimate coercive authority over anti-charitable
behaviour. People who are acting in harmful ways should be restrained. Although it is not
clear exactly where the threshold between legally permissible and harmfully uncharitable
behaviour lies, when it is crossed the uncharitable act is a criminal infraction of our
negative obligations not to harm. Thus, violations like this are the subject of legitimate
juridical coercion according to the conditions of prevention and repentance depicted above.
The interpretive power of the threshold I suggested above is that it helps explain
juridical action in certain specific cases where a violation of the positive duty to be
charitable is at issue. Consider an example from Locke’s manuscript ‘Venditio’ on just
trade:
…he that sells his corn in a town pressed with famine at the utmost rate he can get for it does no
injustice against the common rule of traffic, yet if he carry it away unless they will give him more than
they are able, or extorts so much from their present necessity as not to leave them the means of
subsistence afterwards, he offends against the common rule of charity as a man and if they perish any
of them by reason of his extortion is no doubt guilty of murder. 126
Because the seller, unlike typical criminals, merely charges extortionate prices, he does not
attempt to harm others. He is only refusing his positive moral obligations toward their
survival and happiness. However, Locke believes this case of extortion is murder. This is
because this intentional failure to help cannot really be distinguished from causing harm. In
this case, the violation of the positive and negative obligation is one and the same. In such
cases, the normal distinction between negative and positive obligations dissolves. In these
circumstances, charity as an act is perfectly obligatory.
Thus, Locke excludes charity as a disposition from the remit of legitimate political
authority. By bringing together his philosophical understanding of upright, active
dispositions and his theological concern for charity, Locke realised that political coercion
contravenes the disposition of charity. It is for this reason that charity, and only as an act,
can only ever be an immediate matter of political justice in certain tightly defined
circumstances. But this does not mean charity has dropped out of the political picture. By
controlling anti-charitable behaviour according to the norms of political punishment, which
I examined in the previous section, Lockean government creates a protected space, absent in
the state of nature, in which charity can flourish. Specifically, government prevents the
entrenchment of a number of criminal acts and dispositions (including our self-preference,
126
Locke, ‘Venditio’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Political Essays, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 342.
118
Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
our enthusiasm, our love of vengeance and our love of dominion) that make charity less
likely.
As we saw earlier, when people are given the opportunity to be legitimately
charitable, the likelihood that charitable dispositions will become more prevalent increases.
And as this rational, moral and dutiful disposition becomes more common, it becomes
increasingly likely that citizens will recognise and accept the moral obligations they have
both toward legitimate government and toward each other. This is crucial for Locke’s
understanding of the vitality of political legitimacy, for, as we have seen, charity
encapsulates such moral reasoning, moral will and moral pathos that allow the people to feel
obliged and to see their obligations as rational.
Charity and the magistrate
There is a sense in which the relationship between the exercise of political authority
and charity hitherto described is contingent on the active, lawful and, indeed, charitable
behaviour of political authorities, particularly those who execute the law. Returning to this
point, I shall investigate whether Locke thought upright, active dispositions, like charity,
ought to inform the exercise of political authority. By doing so I think I can reconstruct a
little more systematically the different ways in which the political virtues of members of
‘body politicks’ and magistrates might be realised.
The most interesting locus of Locke’s thought on the mentality of magistrates,
particularly the monarch, can be found, I think, in his notion of prerogative power.127 This
is the power of the monarch to act authoritatively on matters for which there are no laws
or to make exceptions to the law in certain extraordinary cases.
Most of the time,
monarchs use prerogative to prevent accidents which the silence of the laws or strict
conformity to them would cause.128 For prerogative to be distinct from Filmer’s absolute
authority, Locke thinks it can be limited by the ‘People’, yet this is not an encroachment on
the King’s prerogative. 129 Furthermore, Locke insists that it is erroneous to ‘speak as if the
Prince had a distinct and separate Interest from the good of the Community…’.130 In one
sense, this claim derives from the precise constitutional definition of the Monarch’s
For interpretation of the political importance of Locke’s theory of prerogative, see John Dunn, The
Political Thought of John Locke, pp. 148-156; Pasquale Pasquino, ‘Locke on King’s Prerogative’, in Political Theory
Vol. 26, No. 2, (Apr., 1998), pp. 198-208. Pasquino argues for the political centrality of prerogative in Locke’s
view, including an important overview of its neglect in Locke studies. Both Pasquino and Dunn conceive of
prerogative in legalistic terms, overlooking, as I will go on to argue, the important role the king’s disposition
plays in the legitimacy of his extra-legal prerogative. Pasquino discusses the origin of prerogative, suggesting
that it is not deduced rationally from the powers and rights each and every Lockean individual bears in the
state of nature. Instead because prerogative is a historical accretion (a natural extension of the power fathers
have over their children) it is not derived from the divine order of God’s creation.
128 Ibid., §§159-160, p. 375.
129 Ibid., §163, p. 376. Cf. Pasquino, ‘Locke on King’s Prerogative’, p. 205.
130 Ibid., §163, p. 376.
127
119
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
authority. For Locke, the king would not be exercising prerogative as a monarch at all if he
had other interests. But in terms of actual political phenomena, it is quite apparent that
actual monarchs frequently do not have the common interest that they ought.
If the public interestedness of the monarch is actually conditional, then Locke’s
depiction of prerogative in such a way that it seems like a form of magisterial benevolence
becomes more interesting. To elucidate this, it is helpful to juxtapose prerogative with the
arbitrary juridical institutions administered by absolute monarchies. For all his invective
against absolute monarchs, Locke thinks even they administer a juridical system for the
redress of grievances amongst citizens.131 Only a ‘declared Enemy to Society and Mankind’
would rule otherwise.132 Problematically, the absolute monarch’s legal system provides no
legal recourse for grievances between him and his subjects. 133 What happens if the
Monarch’s intentions are dissolute? Locke answers:
But whether this [the juridical institutions provided by absolute monarchs] be from a true Love
of Mankind and Society, and such a Charity as we owe all one to another, there is reason to
doubt. For this is no more, than what every Man who loves his own Power, Profit, or
Greatness, may, and naturally, must do, keep those Animals from hurting or destroying one
another who labour and drudge only for his Pleasure and Advantage, and so are taken care of ,
not out of any Love the Master has for them, but Love of himself, and the Profit they bring
him.134
The absolute monarch’s provision of law is worse than the corralling of livestock because
humans are not animals. The absolute monarch’s arbitrariness is part of this difficulty.
Arbitrary rule might just be sufficient to show that subjects never would have rationally
consented to an absolute monarch’s authority.135 Indeed, Locke rehearses objections to the
arbitrariness of absolutism several times in the Second Treatise. But in this case, Locke finds
the acute difference between the benevolent love of mankind – charity – and the libido
dominandi of the absolute prince most objectionable. In other words, Locke deplores the
persona of the absolute monarch as much or more than the arbitrary scope of his powers.
These two claims are connected. Locke advances the thesis that the institution of
absolute monarchy corrupts the monarch. Locke wants to contest the view that ‘absolute
Power purifies Mens Bloods, and corrects the baseness of Humane Nature’.136 On the contrary,
the history of mankind shows us exactly ‘what kind of Fathers of their Countries it makes
Locke, Second Treatise, §93, p. 328.
Ibid. Italics mine. At this point, Locke leaves unanswered the question whether someone a ruler can
provide institutions of law and still be an undeclared enemy of society and/or mankind.
133 Ibid.
134 Ibid.
135 If this was the sharp end of Locke’s argument, and I think it isn’t, then it might make sense to closely
associate Locke’s understanding of legitimate politics and the protection of the people’s freedom with neoclassical, republican, or neo-Roman theories of liberty current in seventeenth century England. Cf. Quentin
Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1998).
136 Locke, Second Treatise, §92, p. 237.
131
132
120
Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
Princes to be’137 – libidinous despots who treat their subjects as beasts. Locke believes that
the absolute monarch is or must become an enemy of society. Locke asks why anyone would
leave the state of nature in order to agree ‘that all of them but one, should be under the
restraint of Laws, but that he should still retain all the Liberty of the State of Nature,
increased with Power, and made licentious by Impunity’; which is no different than
avoiding ‘what Mischiefs may be done them by Pole-Cats, or Foxes’ whilst thinking ‘it Safety,
to be devoured by Lions’. 138
Repeating the metaphorical depiction of criminals as
carnivores, Locke’s point is that absolute monarchies – institutions of unrestrained political
power - engender licentious, criminal dispositions within the monarch himself. For this
reason, amongst others, absolute monarchy must be rejected.
Because the monarch’s disposition, specifically whether it is charitable or anticharitable, is important for Locke’s refutation of absolutism; it makes sense to rethink the
connection between Lockean prerogative and the disposition of the monarch who
exercises it. For instance, Locke insists that exceptionally wise and just monarchs are
frequently allowed to govern almost solely by prerogative and with little or no institutional
constraint. This is perfectly legitimate; Locke explains, ‘Such God-like Princes indeed had
some Title to Arbitrary Power, by that Argument, that would prove Absolute Monarchy
the best Government, as that which God himself governs the Universe by: because such
Kings partake of his Wisdom and Goodness.’139 Divine intelligence and beneficence are, as we
have seen, explained by Locke’s understanding of active will. As Locke expresses in ‘Of
Power’, God always wills according to rational, upright moral standards.140 Unlike us, his
desires are perfectly elevated and he always wills the greatest and most perfect good. 141
This can be neatly encapsulated by one Lockean concept – charity. Furthermore, Locke
thinks the quasi-divine prince’s actions always conform ‘to the Foundation and End of all
Ibid.
Ibid. §93, p. 328;
139 Ibid., §166, p. 378. Italics mine. This argument is only true for a wise and just prince; it provides no
justification for an institution of absolute monarchy precisely because the successors of a benevolent prince
like this are unlikely to use his extra-legal prerogative for anything other than their own self aggrandisement.
140 Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21, §49. Locke writes, ‘If we look upon those superior Beings above us, who
enjoy perfect Happiness, we shall have reason to judge that they are more steadily determined in their choice of the
Good than we; and yet we have no reason to think they are less happy or less free, than we are. And if it were
fit for such poor finite Creatures as we are, to pronounce what infinite Wisdom and Goodness could do, I
think, we might say That God himself cannot choose what is not good; the Freedom of the Almighty hinders
not his being determined by what is best.’
141 Cf. this thesis, Chap. 2, Part I. The dispute between Burnett and Locke focused on issues of God’s
benevolence. Burnett thought the Locke’s conception of God voluntaristic – God’s arbitrary will, or his
power, is responsible for standards of right. Indeed, this view is frequently attributed to Locke by
contemporary scholars, but as I showed, this is not Locke’s view at all. Rather, because God’s powers are
perfect (including his will) he cannot fail to will what his perfect knowledge indicates to be right. Because
knowledge includes normative truths, it would follow that God cannot fail to be benevolent.
137
138
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Laws, the publick good’.142 Because we know that Locke thinks our greatest happiness is
found in our conformity with divine/natural law, because divine/natural law is the
foundation of all political law, because Locke thinks natural law entails important
interpersonal obligations which are aspects of charity, and because the exceptional prince
always acts to realise that normative standard, it stands to reason that Locke thinks these
God-like kings are exemplars of charity.
Rule by prerogative is acceptable for these princes because they are wise enough to
recognise the public good and benevolent enough to pursue it instead of their own private
interests.
But as we have seen, this is not the case with lesser kings whose public
interestedness and wisdom are fragile and who stand to be corrupted by institutions of
absolute monarchy. Is charity only expected of the God-like monarch? Isn’t it equally
plausible that because institutional limits focus the monarch’s activity on objects which are
more likely to advance the common good, which in turn helps promote his own active,
upright will? As we have seen, Locke claims that the interests of institutionally constrained
monarchs are unified with those of the people. Because this identification of interests is
actually conditional, this statement might presuppose the nature of a legitimate monarch’s
agency. I think one of Locke’s passages on prerogative is indicative of the monarch’s will:
a Man may come sometimes within the reach of the Law, which makes no distinction of
Persons, by an action, that may deserve reward and pardon; ‘tis fit, the Ruler should have a
Power, in many Cases, to mitigate the severity of the Law, and pardon some Offenders; For
the end of Government being the preservation of all, as much as may be, even the guilty are to be
spared, where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent. 143
If the monarch adjudicated this case strictly according to the law, then a worthy man who
has behaved in a morally upright way would be liable for a crime. Instead, this man deserves
forgiveness and even reward. This is an appropriate case for the exercise of prerogative
power. Locke also considers the general conditions for the use of prerogative power when
less deserving criminals are to be forgiven. In the administration of criminal justice crimes
are only to be punished when forgiving them would be prejudicial to the innocent. Locke
thinks this perfectly consonant with the end of law. Indeed, assuming that the criminal no
longer poses a danger to others and assuming that punishment is not necessary to deter
him from future crimes or to lead him to repentance,144 then there is no longer any reason
to punish him at all. This is another instance in which prerogative should be deployed.
Identifying worthy cases for prerogative is one thing, actually administering it is another.
Prerogative is extra-juridical; hence, there is no set of rules, procedures or institutional
Locke, Second Treatise, §165.
Ibid., §159, p. 375.
144 There are many cases in which these conditions might apply, including that of ‘criminals’ who are actually
deserving of reward.
142
143
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
practices that can guarantee its appropriate use. The monarch must decide to use prerogative
in a case-by-case basis. The prince must be able to discern the worthiness of a man’s action
or the uselessness of punishment in order to rightly exercise prerogative. The prince must
also be willing to use his prerogative accordingly. All of this shows that prerogative
presupposes the rationality and the benevolence which are quintessential to Locke’s
understanding of active volition and to the disposition of charity.
Although Locke’s understanding of prerogative is not obviously proposed in terms
of his theory of will, it seems that his understanding of the legitimate exercise of this power
presuppose a version of the active, charitable will he recommends elsewhere. And if this is
granted, it also makes sense to think about Locke’s understanding of legal administration,
just like its aims, as a part of the conceptual apparatus he develops upon his understanding
of agency. I want to conclude by teasing out the interpenetration between the objects of
legal administration and the attitude with which the monarch undertakes this.
Because Lockean juridical administration must be carried out by monarchs (and
their magisterial subordinates) via their active, moral will, Locke signals just how
challenging and remarkable this part of politics is. The immediate purpose of law is to
protect life, liberty and property, yet this promotes, in a mediated way, dispositions of
legality, rationality, and morality. Given the complexity of this task (even if only some of
the time), rule by law can never be merely formulaic. However heavy-handed we might now
think Locke’s understanding of punishment, it is clear that by the time he wrote the Two
Treatises he did not and could not plausibly have advanced a theory of jus strictum.
If juridical decision-making cannot be rigid and mechanical, then the monarch
faces a number of particular challenges if the execution of law is to meet the immediate and
mediated goals I have discussed above. By and large, these difficulties correspond with the
different goals the law advances. Hence, legal decisions must correlate with the kinds of
dispositions people have and stimulate the kind of active dispositions people might come
to have.
Punishment must be correctly gauged to elicit deterrence and, potentially,
repentance. Legal decisions must not merely coerce; they must be devised so that law can
become the guiding framework of our free and genuinely moral decision making. Some
goals must not be the subject of coercion at all, and the magistrate must take care never to
try to coerce charitable acts except in circumstances where their absence poses grave
danger. The monarch must also know when it is right to set law aside, and use prerogative
to reward right doing or to avoid watering down the real purpose and meaningfulness of
law. And most importantly, legal administration must address all of these challenges in a
systematic way so that all of these goals remain compossible.
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As Locke acknowledges by admitting prerogative, codified law of its own accord
cannot meet any of these challenges. Consequently, the specific difficulties monarchs face
will always require some case-by-case responses. In this sense, prerogative exemplifies the
limitations of law in Locke’s view while at the same time shoring up its weaknesses.
Specifically, prerogative is crucial to the maintenance of law in general because it militates
against the oversights and grievances inevitably produced by the application of an
imperfect, incomplete and general legal system to dynamic and irregular cases. Although
this power may normally be rather marginal, if and when the potential for inadvertent
injustice is widespread or when the silence of the laws presents a clear and present danger
to the state, codified law and strictly delimited legal and political institutions cannot offer a
viable response.
In extraordinary circumstances like this, the judicious exercise of
prerogative power might just be the only expedient available to preserve the political
enterprise as a whole.
What all of this makes clear is Locke’s full awareness that any political and legal
system can only work if individual agency is handled astutely. The wilfulness of all parties
involved, whether monarchs or subjects, must be constrained.
Locke elaborates
overlapping juridical, institutional and political controls to ensure that monarchs and
subjects cannot be criminals. At the same time, restraint of our self-love, caprice, and
domineering tendencies is not enough. These dispositions must be replaced by others that
are conducive to civil and political life. Cultivating these is of the utmost importance. If I
am right, the institutional delimitation of monarchy is crucial in focusing the monarch’s
decisions on matters of the public interest (and not his private benefit). Without the
manifold temptations of undirected yet absolute political power to misdirect his juridical
decision-making, it is more likely he shall be discerning, benevolent and publicly interested.
Concomitantly, the same juridical, institutional and political controls that restrain criminal
tendencies also help subjects set aside their passive dispositions by reducing occasions for
them to pursue domination, deception and revenge. Furthermore, Locke seems to think
secure civic life, not to mention morality, is best realised when the people have developed a
disposition of law-abidingness. But when our willing and behaviour is truly upright, we
must sometimes act outside the letter of the law to do the right thing. In order for law to
bring about this moral agency, law must really be a convincingly rational framework. Useless
and misguided punishments will obviate that underlying rationality regardless of how
morally upright the legal code as such might be. Consequently, the administration of law
must be rational and public spirited in a way that avoids legal rigorism. Prerogative
provides for this. Thus, the discernment and benevolent agency of the executive power
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Dispositions and Will in Locke’s Social and Political Thought
makes the moral political disposition of citizens more likely and, in turn, helps secure for
government the loyalty of the people.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have shown several important ways in which Locke’s normative
understanding of active and passive will is pertinent to his social and political thought.
First, Locke’s beliefs about linguistic abuse, its capacity to inflame and corrupt our
dispositions, and the domineering motivations for such linguistic impropriety are crucial in
his refutation of Filmer’s Patriarcha. Second, in both Locke’s political thought and his
philosophical writings, his understanding of law is tied to his views about our active and
passive powers. Punishment deters by triggering our passive motives, but it also leads to
repentance by evoking our active revaluation of our past behaviour and future plans.
Furthermore, when we prescribe our own actions according to the direction of the law we
are free because law helps us direct our decision making and our behaviour according to
the same moral norms which Locke thinks rational, truly active and constitutive of our
happiness. Finally, Locke’s account of charity shows us that it is a disposition of love and
benevolence which is simultaneously the most important Christian virtue, a cognate of
toleration and the most important universal moral obligation. This disposition plays an
important but indirect role in Locke’s political thought – citizens should be charitable, but
governments cannot coerce charity out of them.
Broadly speaking, Locke’s account of active volition provides a theoretical
framework that he uses in his political thought in two ways. In one sense, Locke utilises
his theory of agency to dispatch a variety of Filmer’s positions. But, Upon Locke’s own
criteria, it is only by providing a compelling account of the relationship between the agency
of both subjects and rulers that a theory of political obligation and political practice can be
at all compelling. Recall that the central ‘inconveniences’ which confronted individuals in
the state of nature were almost all the consequences of our un-elevated desires: selfpreference, enthusiasm and desire for revenge.
Indeed, political life would be little
different from pre-political life if the excessiveness of our natural dispositions were not
attenuated. Thus, Locke’s theory of politics utilises his understanding of active will and
moral dispositions to explain how man’s active capacities, including the voluntary pursuit
of moral knowledge and lawful behaviour and charitable regard for others, might come to
be realised within a legitimate political organisation. The political preservation of natural
law, the purposes and scope of legal punishment, and the intriguing political place of
charity are entwined because they are all instrumental in realising this normative potential.
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Indeed, the limitations of government and the charitable exercise of political authority are
crucial for government to be morally legitimate, and so that individuals might recognise and
abide by that legitimacy. As I have shown, this systematic and simultaneous cultivation of
and respect for dispositions by the Lockean political apparatus reflects Locke’s
longstanding intuitions about the relationship between will, reason, morality, happiness, law
and politics. Many of these moral and epistemological concerns exceed the remit of
politics, but as a central pivot for the stable social lives of Lockean individuals, politics is
never excluded from these concerns.
Ultimately, I hope I have made clear how important it is for Locke that the
administration of law, legal punishment the dispositions of subjects and the disposition of
the monarch all interconnect. The relationships between legal administration and the
monarch and the subjects’ respective agency are not tidy. But this is hardly unexpected;
lose ends are a condition of the necessary and systemic exercise of independent agency within
Lockean politics. Government and law cannot and should not seek to eliminate the
vicissitudes inherent in human agency. They cannot make political agents active; that would
be a contradiction in terms.
Thus, there are no guarantees.
But the institutional
delimitation of executive power and the limited remit of juridical authority, and the
encouragement of a lawful and charitable ethos, can provides fertile ground in which the
phenomena of legitimate political life might flourish.
126
Chapter 5
Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
Before moving to Rousseau’s sustained work on the will, reason, passion and
politics, it is important to explore the intellectual resources with which he was equipped for
these investigations. Rousseau’s exposure to and use of materialist and sensationalist
conceptions and argumentation needs little introduction.
It has been the subject of
sustained analysis, and his debts and quarrels with the French Philosophes, the doux commerce
theorists, and the British empiricists from Hobbes to Hume, will not be the focus of this
chapter. Although Rousseau’s understanding of the mind and human sociability draws on
materialist and sensationalist thought, he engaged other intellectual traditions.
These
should be brought to the fore if we are to understand more fully the important role of will
and passion in his moral and political thought.
The tradition I have in mind has a distinctly Platonic provenance, and consists of
contemporary neo-Platonic moralists, including Port-Royale Jansenists, Oratorians, such as
Malebranche, the Archbishop Francois Fénelon and Leibniz. In addition to these thinkers,
Rousseau’s engagement with Plato’s works themselves is crucial for elucidating his
psychological concerns. This is not completely uncharted territory. Rousseau’s debts to all
of these figures (individually and collectively) have been the subject of important studies
from David Williams, Lawrence Cooper, Patrick Riley, Judith Shklar, Christopher Brooke,
Nannerl Keohane and Mark Cladis, among others.
They have established, quite
convincingly, the historicity of Rousseau’s engagement with and debts to these neoPlatonic philosophers and to Plato himself on matters including amour de soi and amour
propre, the General Will and metaphysics.1 This chapter is indebted to this historical labour.
The following authors explore different aspects of Rousseau’s connection to neo-Platonism and French
moralism. Christopher Brooke, ‘Rousseau’s Political Philosophy: Stoic and Augustinian Origins’, in P. Riley
(ed.), Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, (Cambridge: 2001). Brooke submits that a number of Rousseauian
themes, including his work on the state of nature and man’s initial sociability are drawn from a complex of
neo-Augustinian and neo-Stoic views. Mark Cladis, “Redeeming Love; Rousseau and Eighteenth-Century
Moral Philosophy,” in Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 28, No. 2. (2000). Cladis explores the development of
neo-Augustinian psychology in order to understand amour de soi, amour propre, and charity in Rousseau’s
political thought. Lawrence Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche; the Politics of Infinity, (University Park,
PA, Penn State Press: 2008), chaps. 5-6. These chapters contain material previously published as Cooper,
‘Human Nature and the Love of Wisdom: Rousseau’s Hidden (and Modified) Platonism’, in The Journal of
Politics, Vol. 64, No. 1, (February 2002), pp. 108-125 and as Cooper, ‘Between Eros and Will to Power:
Rousseau and “The Desire to Extend Our Being”’, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 1, (February
2004), pp. 105-119. Cooper’s main aim is to show that Rousseau, like Plato, has a notion of Eros which is
central to philosophical endeavor and which entails a desire to extend and perfect our being. Nannerl
Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1980). Keohane’s nuanced
1
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
The focus of this historical reconstruction is consequently narrower than the
studies mentioned above. I hope to show that Rousseau’s engagement with neo-Platonism
frequently, if not exclusively, focuses on Platonic psychological views, particularly regarding
Eros. Firstly, I will exhume the prevalence of neo-Platonic thought in Rousseau’s time.
Following this, I examine Rousseau’s own account of his moralist readings and the
interesting fusion between sensationalist and materialist doctrines this autobiographical
account suggests. I then turn to the psychological concerns of French neo-Platonists,
focusing on disinterested and sublimated Eros, which Rousseau found in the works of
Fénelon. I finally consider the dating and nature of Rousseau’s engagement with Plato.
Crucially, Rousseau’s reading of Plato was likely to have depended on his prior knowledge
of contemporary neo-Platonism.
Ultimately, it is this neo-Platonism that frames
Rousseau’s keen interest in Plato’s psychology. Interestingly, Rousseau’s notes on these
subjects anticipate some of his most important theoretical works, indicating the substantive
importance of this context for interpretation of his psychological and political thought.
Part I: Neo-Platonic traditions in Rousseau’s Context
Neo-Platonism in seventeenth and eighteenth century French thought
Before turning to Rousseau’s reading of Platonic philosophers, it is helpful to
emphasize that he was hardly alone in having done so. In Rousseau’s formative intellectual
years and even later in the eighteenth century, sensationalism and materialism, whilst
prominent, especially, among contributors to the Encyclopédie and in d’Hollbach’s coterie,
were not exclusive. Given the censorship that many of their views faced in France, even
with Malesherbes’ 2 support, neo-Lockean much less neo-Hobbesian materialism never
account of French political thought, moral philosophy, and theology shows quite clearly the Platonism of
much discourse on the passions. She explores the way Rousseau adopts some of his predecessors’ moral and
psychological views and begins to tease out the relevance of these for his political thought. Patrick Riley, The
General Will Before Rousseau; Patrick Riley, “Rousseau, Fénelon, and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the
Moderns,” in P Riley (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
2001). Riley considers the neo-Platonic, neo-Augustinian, and neo-Pauline conceptualization of the General
Will in the late seventeenth century. He traces its development, and considers Rousseau’s political
redeployment of the concept in light of its theological origins. Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens; A Study of
Rousseau’s Social Thought, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1969). Judith Shklar traces Rousseau’s
Spartan and pre-political utopias back to the thought of Francois Fénelon. However, Shklar doubts that
Rousseau owes much to Platonism or Plato. David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, (University
Park, PA, Penn State Press: 2007). Williams offers the most thoroughgoing reconstruction of Rousseau’s
debt to Plato and early modern neo-Platonism. Williams focuses on ideas rather than passion and love.
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes. Malesherbes controlled the French press at the time
and was sympathetic to many enlightenment views; nevertheless, he hardly had a free hand.
2
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
commanded anything close to a majority view. The reality of the high enlightenment was
the coexistence and competition of a variety of beliefs, systems, arguments and enmities.
One discernable set of traditions in this intellectual milieu is neo-Platonic.3 The
roots of what might best be described as an array of neo-Platonisms have been the subject
of careful scholarship. Anthony Levi’s influential study traces carefully the enthusiastic
reacceptance of Platonism in France between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.4 This
early modern tradition of Christian-Platonism developed in the Italian Renaissance. As
Levi elucidates, it was Marsiglio Ficino’s particular neo-Platonism that most influenced
subsequent French thinking, particularly on the relationship between morality and the
passions.5 From Ficino forward, Christian-Platonism was not a systematic representation
of Plato’s views but rather a body of varying, syncretic yet substantively Platonic thought.6
Jansenists such as Blaise Pascal, Antoine Arnauld, and Pierre Nicole, Oratorians including
Malebranche, and the quietist Archbishop Francois Fénelon were all deeply influenced by
this Florentine tradition.7
These thinkers were pre-eminently influential in seventeenth – and eighteenth –
century French thought. The Port Royal Logic and Pierre Nicole’s Essais de Morale achieved
international standing. Malebranche was ranked by his contemporaries and successors as a
philosopher of the very first rank; some of the most influential intellectuals of his day
opposed him, including John Locke, Pierre Jurieu, and Arnauld, whilst Pierre Bayle and
Leibniz considered, with reservation, Malebranche’s Treatise on Nature and Grace to be a
‘work of genius’.8
The fame of Archbishop Francois Fénelon eclipsed them all. Today Fénelon is
infrequently read, but the esteem his work received in the eighteenth century must not be
understated. Fénelon’s Letter to the French Academy was well received by them. It was first
printed in 1716, printed 3 times by 1718 and later reprinted in 1740, 1753, 1774 and 1787.9
What I mean here, precisely, is a group of thinkers who borrow from Plato, and from various earlier
platonic and neo-Platonic traditions in some substantive but not necessarily exclusive ways. As will be clear,
synthesis with Augustinian, Stoic, and Cartesian views (each already Platonic in some sense) but also
Aristotelian, Scholastic and, I shall claim, materialist, philosophy was not unheard of.
4 Anthony Levi, French Moralists; Theory of the Passions 1585 to 1649, (Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press: 1964).
5 Ibid., pp. 41 – 51. Cf Ibid., pp. 52, 54, 114 – 115, 125, and 137. The reoccurring impact of Ficino and
Florentine neo-Platonism is a central theme of this study.
6 Ibid., pp. 44, 56, 68-69, and 125 - 126.
7 I do not suggest that these thinkers formed anything like a coordinated school. Some of Fénelon’s earliest
work, on behalf of Archbishop Bousset, opposed Malebranchian general providence. When Fénelon turned
to the quietist form of pur amour it was attacked not only by Bousset but also Malebranche. Late in life
Fénelon concertedly opposed the Jansenists. The Jansenist Antoine Arnauld, for his part, was involved in a
series of theological controversies with Malebranche. What is interesting is that these heated disputes do not
efface similar Platonic psychological views.
8 Patrick Riley, ‘Biographical Note’, in Malebranche, Treatise on Nature and Grace, (Oxford, Oxford University
Press: 1992), p. xii.
9 Barbara Warnic (ed.), ‘Introduction’, in Fénelon, Letter to the French Academy, (University Press of America:
3
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Voltaire and D’Alembert praise the Fénelonian aesthetic from the Letter. 10 Even more
successful was Telemachus Son of Ulysses, which was perhaps the best selling book in France
during the eighteenth century, going through at least 200 editions.11 It was translated into
English for the first time in 1699 and would be later translated by the novelist Tobias
Smollet. As late as 1793, when William Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice, the British radical was so impressed by Fénelon’s enlightening, intellectual legacy
that if Godwin could only rescue either his valet (or brother, or father) or Fénelon from a
burning building, there would be only one choice – Fénelon. 12 Fenelon’s legacy is
staggering, and eighteenth century moral discourse would almost invariably invoke, oppose
or refer to his thought on Eros, disinterestedness and justice.
Disinterestedness and Sublimated Eros
Given the widespread influence and esteem that various forms of neo-Platonism
were accorded in seventeenth and eighteenth century France, it is helpful to draw attention
to some of the prominent topoi in this literature. I concentrate on two: disinterestedness
and the sublimation of Eros. Ficino’s popular commentary on Plato’s Symposium gave Eros
a central place in neo-Platonic discourse. 13 Sublimated Eros in the speech of Diotima
became the nucleus of a reinvigorated neo-Platonic tradition.
Ficino’s interpretation
centres on Platonic themes of ascending love. Love originates as a flawed appetite for
objects presented by the senses; it rises to love of the form of beauty within the self, and it
ultimately transcends this purely particular form of beauty and embraces the beauty and
love of God.14 In this fusion of Plato’s thought in the Symposium with Christian love of
God, true beatitude is reached in the same move by which the lover grasps beauty and
knowledge. Many of Rousseau’s predecessors adopted this understanding of Eros made
sublime.15
Reiterating this understanding of love is useful because it allows me to draw
attention to the theoretical interplay of virtue, passion and the understanding in Rousseau’s
context. This helps shed light on his engagement with these authors and also with Plato
1984) p. 39.
10 Ibid., p. 41. She references D’Alembert, ‘Elocution’ in Tome V of the Encyclopédie, on Dictionnaire
raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des metiers, Paris: chez Braisson, David, le Bréton, Durand, 1757, p. 530.
11 Patrick Riley (ed.), ‘Introduction’ and ‘Critical bibliography’ in Fénelon, Telemachus, Son of Ulysses,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994), pp. xvi, xxxii. In French, Telemachus was printed in ‘at least
200 editions’ between 1699 and the French Revolution.
12 William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Happiness, Isaac
Kramnick (ed.), (Harmondsworth: 1976), p. 169.
13 Anthony Levi, French Moralists, p. 46.
14 Ibid., p. 48.
15 Ibid., p. 45.
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himself. This section focuses on the thought of Fénelon because Rousseau held him in
especially high regard and because Fénelon both radicalises and politicises disinterestedness
and Eros to a greater extent than his neo-Platonic contemporaries.16
The nature of Fénelon’s conception of disinterestedness is made clearer by
examining his theoretical opposition to religious and political particularity and selfinterestedness. Self-interest is a crucial theological problem because Fénelon believes it
prevents men from drawing near to God. The selfish believer ‘will not love but for their
own interest.’ 17 This is of course only if their self-preference does not prevent them
conceiving of God altogether. In Maxims of the Saints on the Inner Life, Fénelon identifies a
hierarchy of different types of love for God. These are servile love, concupiscent love,
hopeful love, interested love which prefers God, and pur amour or perfect charity.18 He
condemns the lower forms which are alloyed with self-love and in which God is, at best,
loved as a means to a purely selfish end - salvation.19 Importantly, the lower forms of
religion cannot pull men up into the higher.20 Religiosity motivated by fear and self-interest
will lead to neither; for Fénelon, disinterestedness is a prerequisite for salvation.
The prevalence of interestedness also entails far-reaching political problems. In the
case of princes, the result is the precipitous political decline of their principalities. The
novel Telemachus, originally composed for the private education of the Duc du Bourgogne,
Fénelon’s pupil and Louis XIV’s heir apparent, depicts the education of another prince,
Ulysses’ son Telemachus. Telemachus is guided by the character Mentor, who is really the
goddess of wisdom, Minerva, incognito. In the text, Fénelon elaborates the doom suffered
by self-interested princes and their countries.
In one illustration, Pygmalion, the
inordinately covetous ruler of Tyre, obtains his power through selfish cruelty, but in so
doing he alienates his subjects and lives in misery and constant fear, even of his own
children.21 Because of Pygmalion’s kleptomaniacal regime, Tyre’s commerce and prosperity
are in terminal decline.22 In another example, King Idomeneus, formerly of Crete and now
founder of Salente suffers from self-important pride. This vainglory leads to his expulsion
Malebranche joined Bossuet in condemning Fenelon’s disinterested love. For Malebranche, God might be
perfectly general in his providence (a claim which Fenelon and Bossuet had formerly polemicised against),
but he agreed with Bossuet that human individuals need some kind of personal incentive to love God and
virtue. Contra-Fénelon, forgetting the self would seem to preclude this. Cf. Keohane, Philosophy and the State
in France, pp. 308-310. Keohane describes Malebranche’s understanding of rightly and wrongly ordered selflove. Rightly ordered self-love motivates us, through the desire for happiness, and leads us to charity or the
love of God. This is in clear contrast with the utterly self-abnegating pur amour espoused by Fénelon.
17 Fénelon, Dissertation on Pure Love, No known translator, believed to be translated approximately 1720, p. 8.
18 Fénelon, Maxims of the Saints Explained Concerning the Interior life, (London, P. H. Rhodes: 1698), p. 8.
19 Ibid., pp. 1-8.
20 Ibid., p. 12.
21 Fénelon, Telemachus, Son of Ulysses, Patrick Riley (ed.), (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994), pp.
32-34. Pygmalion replicates the disposition and the rule of Plato’s tyrant with remarkable accuracy.
22 Ibid., p. 38.
16
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
from Crete, and again makes him immoderate toward and uncompromising with his
neighbours. 23 Catastrophe looms because his actions instigate an alliance of locals and
other Greeks colonies against him.
Concurrently, Salente, which appears outwardly
magnificent, is being internally impoverished by Idomeneus’ adventurism.24 The paradigm
Fénelon intended to impress upon the Duc de Bourgogne is that self-interested rule,
whether in the guise of tyrannical greed, exploitation or fear, or in the form of haughty
pride, is ultimately ruinous of both king and country.
Given Fénelon’s theological and political worries about various types of selfinterested love, it is no surprise that he takes the higher standards of political and religious
right to be inextricable from pur amour. So in Maxims of the Saints he insists that men are
most just when they have pur amour.25 The pinnacle of disinterestedness is a form of love,
charity, or the pure love of God. Fénelon describes this in Pure Love, in which he argues
higher love leaves behind the self and all its interests:
…he that loveth, without thinking of being lov’d, has in him what is moſt divine in love,
namely, ‘tranſport, forgetfulneſs, of ſelf, and diſintereſtedneſs.’ 26
Fénelon’s stance is exactly the same in Maxims of the Saints. In his view, only pure charity
can epitomise untainted ardour because only it is a love of God in which the status of the
self is utterly disregarded and in which God becomes happiness. 27
Thus, Fénelon
recommends a kind of love which is in no way motivated by any benefit to the self. Indeed,
this love must transcend and abnegate the self altogether.28 Further, the self must be reidentified elsewhere. It is this motivation and re-identification of the self beyond the
confines of its initial particularity which is quintessential to Fénelonian disinterestedness.
One might wonder how, given the re-identification of the self with something transcending
it in Fénelon’s understanding of pur amour, he is able to hold this together with a
commitment to justice. In other words, how does this love avoid social disengagement?
To be clear, it is not Fénelon’s view that pure charity leaves human beings in a detached
state of rapturous communion with the beyond.29 Instead, Fénelon submits that pure love
is engaged and active because acts of virtue, virtuousness and pure love are intimately
connected. This is clarified when Fénelon elaborates the passive state of pure love. When
the self is abnegated it enters a simple, passive state, but only in regard to appetitive
Ibid., pp. 133-134. Idomeneus is not unlike the psychology of the timarchic man in Plato’s Republic.
Ibid., pp. 135-137. It requires little imagination to see why, when Telemachus was published without
Fénelon’s permission, Louis XIV could read passages like this as a cipher for criticism of his own
magnificence and bellicosity.
25 Fenelon, Maxims of the Saints, p. 12.
26 Fénelon, Pure Love, p. 18.
27 Fénelon, Maxims of the Saints, pp. 5-6
28 Fénelon, Pure Love, p. 31.
29 Cf. Riley, ‘Introduction’, in Fénelon, Telemachus, p. xxiv.
23
24
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
passions and selfish desires, which would otherwise warp the objects of human striving.
The Platonic and neo-Platonic resonances of this claim are fairly clear.
There are also similarities between this passive mental state and the changeless
simplicity and wonder that are part of Fénelon’s conception of the sublime. Fénelon’s
understanding of the sublime is best elaborated in his Letter to the French Academy. In this
text the complexity and artifice of human vanity plays no role in the appreciation of the
sublime. 30 Such complexity in rhetoric and art cannot manifest the sublime because
elaborateness has become a matter of discernable and predictable technique. On the
contrary, the sublime occupies an epistemological and ontological position which exceeds
perfect comprehensibility precisely because it is transcendent. But like Plato’s form of the
good, the sublime can still be felt and appreciated. As good rhetoric shows us, the sublime
can still be channelled and deployed for virtuous public service. In this way the sublime
can be presented to an audience, and inspire public virtue in them. Similarly, pure love is
passive or unmoved by physical and concupiscent passions, but as a sublime love it can be
connected to ethical and political action.
So if Fénelonian pur amour is not necessarily disengaged when it is disinterested, what
does it engage with and in what way? For Fénelon pure love unites knowledge of all
virtues and makes them perfectly practicable. He avows:
There is in the passive state, a Re-union of all the Vertues in Love: ‘Tis Charity, as saith S.
Thomas, after S. Augustine, which is the Form and Principle of all Vertues: That which
distinguisheth or specifieth them, is the particular Object which Love does embrace. The Love
which abstains from impure Pleasures is Chastity, and this very same Love, when it bears Evils,
takes the Name of Patience: This Love without going out of its Simplicity, becometh by Turns,
all different Vertues.31
Charity is the essence of virtue and, as it regards different objects, it is instantiated as
different conventional virtues. None of this prevents it from maintaining its simplicity – a
mark of the sublime.
understanding.
The practice of virtue cannot be disentangled from this
Upon this view, true virtuousness is always nothing other than
disinterested love.
Fénelon, Letter to the French Academy. The identification of the simple, as opposed to the elaborateness of
the artificial, with the sublime is a commonplace of this text. Fénelon argues that the complex elaborations
of human artifice fall flat because they make the artificer and his vanity obvious. The beauty of simplicity
can never be deflated in this way because it is beyond the scope of human construction. However, Fénelon
contends, the simple can be harnessed by those who are earnest in their public spiritedness and unconcerned
with their own self-interest. See pp. 62-63 where Fénelon praises the simple style of Demosthenes and
Augustine and attacks florid rhetoric; p. 66 where Fénelon indicates florid style and dazzling discourse only
reveals the vanity of the speaker; p 68 where those using elaborate but vain and formulaic rhetoric are no
different from the captives of Plato’s cave; pp. 72-73 where overuse of rhyme is tortured – artifice is too
easily exposed, but where rhyme is less dogmatically imposed poetry can ascend and “perfect reason and
more easily achieve beauty, greatness, simplicity, and fluency”; and pp. 74-76 where he distinguishes between
technical complexity, beloved by those infatuated with themselves, and the simple sublime stripped of artifice
and pursued by the disinterested.
31 Fénelon, Maxims of the Saints, pp. 122-123.
30
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
This understanding of virtue as disinterested love is also at play in Fénelon’s politics.
Even though Fénelon ranks political life below pure Christian charity, Fénelonian politics
still enthusiastically endorses a political form of disinterestedness.32 In his encomium of
classical legislators in Pure Love, the single most important facet of ancient polities is
disinterested love. For Fénelon, the goal of ancient legislators and philosophers was to
lead men to prefer the public good through a ‘disinterested love of order, which is beauty,
justice, and virtue itself’. 33 The aim establishes a polity that is not based on egoism but on a
re-identification of the self with the common weal. Again, political disinterest appears to be
nearly identical with virtue. The aim of Mentor’s lessons for Telemachus is the same.
Telemachus changes from an affected and sometimes haughty young man into a model of
disinterested love. He is to be a king solely to help his people. He is to lead them beyond
the politics of power, wealth and pleasure. Mentor divulges this purpose:
But exert your utmost endeavors to reform their [Telemachus’ subjects] morals, and to inspire
them with the love of justice, with sincerity, the fear of the gods, humanity, fidelity, moderation,
and disinterestedness: by making them virtuous you will prevent their being ungrateful, and will
procure them the most substantial of all blessings, namely virtue… 34
Hence Telemachus is not only expected to learn disinterested virtue but to instil the same
in the people of Ithaca. Whilst Riley is quite right in describing Mentor as the true hero of
Telemachus,35 the eponymous pupil’s psychological transformation is equally noteworthy.
Just as Minerva teaches Telemachus this lesson, Fénelon hoped to instil a
disinterested love of virtue in the Duc de Bourgogne. Because Telemachus was written to be
an educational instrument for a prospective prince, the aims of the text are eminently political.
By providing de Bourgogne with examples of virtue and vice, and showing him the calibre
of the disinterested love essential to the former, Fénelon would have hoped to instil that
very same love in him. Disinterested love, then, is not only a goal of Fénelon’s educational
plan but also the means of it. As I investigate next, Rousseau comes to appreciate this
Fénelonian theme.
For interpretation of Fénelon’s comparative estimation of the objects and motivations of classical and
modern loves, see Patrick Riley, “Rousseau, Fénelon, and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the
Moderns,” in Patrick Riley (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
2001), p. 87
33 Fénelon, Pure Love, p. 23.
34 Fénelon, Telemachus, p. 325.
35 Riley, ‘Introduction’, in Fenelon, Telemachus, p. xx.
32
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
Part II: Rousseau’s neo-Platonic Studies
Les Charmettes
Rousseau’s particular engagement with this tradition was longstanding, beginning
with his formative studies in the 1730s. Rousseau’s debts to Fénelon, Malebranche, Pascal,
the Jansenists and to Leibniz have been discussed by Rousseau scholars, but it is worth
looking briefly at his discussion of these studies in Confessions. It is important to emphasise
that Rousseau’s engagement with neo-Platonism was not to the exclusion of other
philosophical positions. Indeed, he had already read Bossuet, Fontenelle, Ovid, and had
studied Plutarch and, perhaps ironically, much of Voltaire’s early work with enthusiasm
before his metaphysical research at Les Charmettes.36
Rousseau dates the metaphysical turn in his reading to a friendship he formed in
the winter of 1736-37 with Mme Warens’ doctor M. Salomon. He describes Salomon as ‘a
great Cartesian, who talked interestingly about the system of the universe’; Rousseau valued
this conversation more than Salomon’s ‘prescriptions’. 37
Certainly then, Rousseau’s
knowledge of Cartesian philosophy was long standing. But it would be a mistake to think
that Rousseau’s discourse with Salomon was exclusively Cartesian. Indeed, there is good
reason to believe that Salomon, like the Oratorians and the Jansenists, combined Cartesian
metaphysics with neo-Platonism and neo-Augustinianism.
For instance, Rousseau
recollects the value of their conversation in transcendent terms, claiming that he ‘felt as
though [he] was receiving from [Salomon] some foretaste of that high knowledge which
[his] soul would acquire when it had slipped its earthly bonds’, 38 his portrayal of
transcendent knowledge and the ascent of the soul is an invocation of Plato’s Symposium and
Phaedrus, Florentine neo-Platonism and its French successors.
Rousseau recollects reading such French thinkers in Les Charmettes shortly after
his interaction with Salomon. He describes his studies in a remarkable passage:
I found those that combined a devotional with a scientific interest particularly congenial, and
especially those produced by the Oratory and by Port-Royal. I began to read or rather to
devour them. One such work that found its way into my hands was Father Lamy’s
Conversations on the Sciences. It was a sort of introduction to the other books that deal with
this branch of knowledge. I read and reread it a hundred times; I decided to make it my guide.
In other words, in spite of my condition, or rather because of it, I felt myself irresistibly drawn
toward studying and, while looking on each day as my last, I studied with as much ardour as if
I were going to live for ever. I was told that this would harm me; for my part I think it did me
good, and good not only to my soul but to my body too; for the study that was my passion
afforded me such delight that I stopped thinking about my woes, and was in consequence
much less affected by them.39
Rousseau, Confessions, Angela Scholar (trans.), (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2000), Book V, p. 209.
Rousseau, Confessions, Book VI, p. 226.
38 Ibid.
39 Rousseau, Confessions, Book VI, pp. 226-227. Bernard Lamy (1640-1715) was an Oratorian priest. He
worked in mathematics, rhetoric, and his Entretiens sur les sciences (1683), which Rousseau notes in this passage,
36
37
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Given that Salomon probably introduced Rousseau to these texts, it is reasonable to
conclude that Rousseau’s first metaphysical studies were embedded within the French
moralist traditions I outlined above.
It is also interesting that Rousseau applauds combinations of devotion with science
– religious exstasis with knowledge. As David Williams has so clearly shown, transcendent
idealism is precisely what Rousseau finds in the neo-Platonic doctrines of the Oratorians,
the Jansenists and Leibniz. But it is worth remembering that knowledge like this is not
narrowly conceptualised. It involves, as Rousseau himself experiences, a transcendence of
‘all the vainer concerns of life’.40 It is quite clear that the knowledge Rousseau describes here
is in opposition to vanity, which is not ignorance as such, but a misplaced passion. On the
contrary, Rousseau is emotionally and ‘irresistibly drawn’ to intellectual activity. It becomes
his ‘passion’ and the object of an ‘ardour’ unexpected of one in Rousseau’s sickly physical
condition. Just as Rousseau grasps some form of epistemological idealism he also endorses
what looks like a form of sublimated Eros. The ascent of the soul clearly matters in
Rousseau’s recollection of events. In Confessions, Rousseau might have dramatised his
earlier experience, but nevertheless, his depiction of it signals the enduring importance of
neo-Platonic Eros for his thought.
When Rousseau returned to Les Charmettes, he redoubled his intellectual efforts
along the same lines. Over the spring and summer of 1737 Rousseau’s daily routine
consisted of vigorous morning walks, extended conversation over breakfast with Mme
Warens, and then philosophical study until the evening.41 His education was informal, and
primarily self-guided. He provides a brief list of his usual reading: ‘the Logic of Port-Royal,
Locke’s Essay, Malebranche, Leibniz, or perhaps Descartes’.42 Given this wide variety of
philosophical systems, Rousseau’s first instinct was not to pick sides but to find a way of
reconciling their contradictions.43 Although Rousseau eventually took this systematising task
to be a ‘waste of time’ it reveals a syncretic tendency, which he never abandoned. Indeed, I
argue in the next chapter that it is precisely a synthesis of dualism, Lockean empiricism and
neo-Platonic thought on the passions that provides important resources for Rousseau’s
were intended as a guide for future Oratorian teachers. Like Malebranche, his thought was sympathetic to
neo-Augustinianism and Cartesianism. He was accused both of being a Jansenist and of being too Cartesian.
See further, Maurizio Viroli, Jean Jacques Rousseau and the ‘Well-Ordered Society’, (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press: 1988), pp. 29-30. Viroli discusses the connection between order and happiness and between
disorder and unhappiness that Rousseau would have discovered in Lamy’s text.
40 Rousseau Confessions, p. 227.
41 Ibid., pp. 230-231.
42 Ibid., p. 231.
43 Ibid.
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
understanding of will, reason and morality. Rousseau’s reading at Les Charmettes provided
him with all the philosophical resources to produce just such a synthesis.
Hybridizing tastes aside, Rousseau still makes perfectly clear which authors
appealed to him the most. He writes: ‘Since what I read most frequently were the writings
of Port-Royal and the Oratory, I was well on the way to becoming a Jansenist…’. 44 The
elision between the Port Royal and the Oratory is interesting; Rousseau must have felt
relatively similar principles informed both philosophical schools. Regardless, Rousseau was
well versed in French moral philosophy prior to his entry to the Parisian intellectual scene.
But Rousseau himself emphasizes that his Jansenism was not comprehensive. He
was particularly uncomfortable with their understanding of sin, damnation and grace.
Rousseau took consolation in the friendship of Mme Warens’ Confessor Father Hemet and
his colleague Father Couppier; he also studied in their library in Chambéry.45 That said,
Rousseau denounced the ‘dangerous’ doctrines of the Jesuits.46 So if Rousseau entertained
Jansenist views, those he accepted did not encompass their darker Augustinian tendencies.
One might imagine that while Rousseau had abandoned, or at least claims to have
abandoned, any concerted effort to systematise the different theological and metaphysical
works he read at Les Charmettes, his instincts were still syncretic. Remove the Jansenists’
dark, quasi-Calvinistic understanding of the requirement of unmerited grace for both
justification and charitable love and Rousseau would still find a captivating discussion of
amour sui and pur amour or charity,47 which could be applied in part elsewhere. It should not
be surprising that not only the terminology but the psychological terrain these thinkers
chart appears prominently in Rousseau’s works.
Neo-Platonic disinterested Eros in Rousseau’s thought
Commonplaces from Rousseau’s neo-Platonic readings appear regularly in his
mature educational, political and sociological work.
Patrick Riley has shown how
Rousseau’s conceptualisation of the General Will derives from this body of literature, from
Pascal and, especially, Malebranche. For Pascal, Malebranche and Rousseau, St. Paul’s
metaphor of the body of Christ in I Corinthians is pivotal:
And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I
have no need of you … That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members
should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, all the
members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. 48
Ibid., p. 236.
Ibid., pp. 236-237.
46 Ibid., p. 237.
47 Keohane, Philosophy and the State, pp. 21, 184-185, 266-267.
48 I Corinthians 12:21, 25-26.
44
45
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
For Pascal and Malebranche the result of such disunion is disorder and injustice. 49
Moreover, Malebranche extends St. Paul’s metaphor in a direction Rousseau clearly
followed in thinking about particular wills and amour propre. Malebranche argues that the
parts of the body prefer to will that which allows them to command and dominate (libido
dominandi, or the love of dominion).
This is not surprising given the penchant of
seventeenth century thinkers to conceive of contrasting dichotomies between reason, order
and justice on the one hand and passion, discord and injustice on the other.50 Generality,
disinterestedness and the right ordering of the passions are integral to these thinkers, and it
is interesting that Rousseau, as Mark Cladis explicates, draws the terminology of amour de soi
and amour propre from these same French neo-Platonic and neo-Augustinian authors. 51
Clearly then in terms of the General Will, the understanding of disinterestedness is crucial
for many of the works Rousseau studied at Les Charmettes.
A similar conception of charity appears in all of these figures, but not always in the
same way. For example, Patrick Riley notes that Rousseau, while committed to principles
of Malebranchian general or disinterested order, particularly in the theological letters of
Julie, wants the political community to ‘feel the common good together.’52 Meanwhile, the
Jansenists, following Augustine closely, took the earthly city as either an affair of damnable
human concupiscence or questionable self-love channelled into socially appropriate
behaviour by refined self-interest.53
What I want to explore is whether Rousseau employs disinterested love in politics
in the manner of Fénelon or reserves it for the communion of saints, or perhaps prepolitical men, or a-political solitaires. Again, Fénelon’s influence on Rousseau proves
interesting for answering this particular question. Judith Shklar has identified Rousseau’s
political deployment of utopian communities like Fenelon’s Salente and Betique from
Telemachus. 54 Riley has attended to the similarity between the disinterested love of the
Fénelonian community and the outlook of citizens the Legislator must cultivate in Political
Economy.55 If Rousseau appreciates Fénelon’s thought on disinterested love and politics, the
extent of Rousseau’s debt to his predecessor may become clearer upon examining
disinterestedness in his thought.
Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau, pp. 17-21, 26-27.
Susan James, ‘Reason, The Passions, and the Good Life’, in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (eds.), The
Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, Vol. II, (Cambridge: 1998), pp. 1358-1359.
51 Mark Cladis, ‘Rousseau and Eighteenth Century Moral Philosophy’ pp. 225-228.
52 Riley, The General Will, p. 202.
53 For example, Pierre Nicole, Third Essais de Morale or Treatise Concerning the Way of Preserving peace, in Jean
Yolton (ed.), John Locke as Translator; Three of the Essais of Pierre Nicole in French and English, in Studies on Voltaire
and the Eighteenth Century, (2000: 7), Pars. 39, 72. Cf. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, pp. 294-295.
54 Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, pp. 4 – 6.
55 Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau, Fenelon’, p. 85.
49
50
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
Rousseau’s most celebrated acknowledgement of Fénelon is in Emile. As Rousseau
makes perfectly clear, Emile’s education is not technical but moral.
Emile is being
educated to be free, virtuous and philosophical.56 This depends explicitly on the kind of
love Emile bears:
I would show that justice and kindness are no mere abstract terms, no mere conceptions
framed by the understanding, but true affections of the heart enlightened by reason … that by
reason alone, unaided by conscience, we cannot establish any natural law, and that all natural
right is a vain dream if it does not rest on some instinctive need of the human heart. 57
Later Rousseau makes the same connection between generalised, or disinterested norms
and Eros:
the more general this interest becomes, the juster it is; the love of the human race is nothing
but the love of justice within us. If therefore we desire Emile to be a lover of truth, if we
desire that he should indeed perceive it, let us keep him from self-interest in all his business.
The more care he bestows upon the happiness of others the wiser and better he is, and the
fewer mistakes he will make between good and evil… Apart from self-interest this care for the
general well-being is the first concern of the wise man, for each of us forms part of the human
race and not part of any individual member of that race.58
Because Telemachus appears as an educational tool in Emile, it is most likely that Rousseau
would have taken the moral and political aspects of Telemachus’s training to be essential for
Emile’s own education. The tutor clearly leads Emile out of himself and toward a love of
truth and moral virtue.
If Rousseau thought his hypothetical student should read
Telemachus, it is illuminating that both he and Fénelon employed the text in exactly the same
way – instruction in disinterestedness.
Similarly, the Fénelonian themes Rousseau explores in the Discourse on the Arts and
Sciences were for him, as they were for Fénelon, matters of virtue and morality and the
problems of interestedness. Riley has drawn attention to the similar contributions both
authors made to the then longstanding debate in Europe about the comparative value of
ancient and modern western civilization.59 But it is also worth highlighting the cognitive
and mental aspects of their shared concerns. Particularly, Rousseau shares with Fénelon an
aversion to interestedness and a love of disinterestedness. The dangers of interestedness
are perfectly clear in The Arts and Sciences. He returns to them again in Inequality and in Julie
or the New Heloise, adding new psychological depth through his account of amour propre. In
Julie, St. Preux notes that most eloquence is motivated by disingenuous concerns about
one’s status and appearance, this lack of conviction leads him to speculate that these
Rousseau, Emile, P. D. Jimack (ed.), (London, J. M. Dent: 1993), pp. 216-220 [500-506], 221 [506-507], 225226 [511-512]. Cf. Cooper, ‘Human Nature and the Love of Wisdom: Rousseau’s Hidden (and Modified) Pla
tonism’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 64, No. 1, (Feb., 2002).
57 Rousseau, Emile, pp. 235-236 [522-523].
58 Ibid, pp. 257-258 [547-548].
59 Riley, ‘Rousseau, Fénelon’, pp. 86.
56
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
urbane interlocutors really have souls which have ‘sunken in upon themselves’.60 The most
striking example of Rousseau’s acceptance of a Fénelonian framework on interest and
disinterest is his ‘Letter to D’Offreville’. Rousseau addresses the precise moral question at
stake in the controversy that raged at the close of the seventeenth century between Fénelon
on the one hand and Bossuet and Malebranche on the other.61 The question is whether
morality results from self-interest or must result from a pure love of the good.62 Although
Rousseau tries to rethink what an interest of the self might be, as I discuss in the next
chapter, he only does so by stripping that interest of anything like self-interest (even
regarding salvation). Further, he describes this moral interest as a metaphysical love of the
beautiful, the ordered and the sublime. Rousseau adapted much of Fenelon’s framework
of interested and disinterested Eros as his own.
Rousseau makes perfectly clear that difference between interestedness and
disinterestedness matters for political right. I will explore this in greater depth in Chapter 8,
but it is worth drawing attention to the way in which Rousseau diametrically opposes the
normative status of self-interestedness and disinterestedness. He declares:
Indeed each individual may, as a man, have a particular will contrary to or different from the
General Will he has as a Citizen, His particular interest may speak to him quite differently from
the common interest; his absolute and naturally independent existence may lead him to look
upon what he owes to the common case as a gratuitous contribution … he would enjoy the
rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfil the duties of a subject; an injustice, the
progress of which would cause the ruin of the body politic. 63
Bracketing out enforcement of the General Will and being forced to be free, to which his
passage is famously directed, it seems clear that Rousseau is opposed as a matter of
principle to the presence of interestedness within a polity. When self-interest and particular
will are opposed to the common interest and the General Will, political life precipitously
declines.
Without aiming to transcend self-interestedness, Rousseau’s Sovereign, the
disinterested General Will and political right would seem impossible.
If interestedness poses such a challenge, how might Rousseau promote
disinterestedness? This is a matter I shall return to in Chapter 8. For the moment, it is
worth identifying Rousseau’s evident debts to Fénelon. For both thinkers, the transport of
Jean Jacques Rousseau, Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters Of Two Lovers Who Live In A Small Town
At The Foot of The Alps, (Hanover, NH, University Press of New England: 1997), Part II, Letter XVII, pp.
202-210, [OC, II, 245-256].
61 Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau, Fénelon, and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns’, p. 80. The
controversy is occasioned by the publication of Fénelon’s Maxims of the Saints. Bossuet opposed it and
thanks to his condemnation, the book was placed on the index in 1699. Malebranche also published his
Traité de l’amour de Dieu, which argued that Fénelon’s notion of disinterestedness annihilated the hope of
salvation, diminished the fear of punishment and undermined Christianity.
62 Rousseau’s ‘Letter to D’Offreville’ is the subject of sustained analysis in the next chapter of this thesis.
63 Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.) Rousseau, The Social Contract and other later political
writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997, pp. 52-53 [OC, III, 363].
60
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
the self out of its narrow personal confines is essential to political right. Rousseau had
already advocated the importance of this transport beyond the self, and the evidence is
equally prominent in The Social Contract.64 Concerning the Legislator’s mission, Rousseau
writes:
Anyone who dares to institute a people must feel capable of, so to speak, changing human
nature; of transforming each individual who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole into part
of a larger whole from which that individual would as it were receive his life and his being; of
weakening man’s constitution in order to strengthen it, of substituting a partial and moral
existence for the independent and physical existence we have all received from nature. 65
Successful politics presupposes that men have been transported beyond the narrowness of
their particular selves and into a communal disposition appropriate for citizens. Both amour
and knowledge – the way we love and our conception of the self – change in this
transformation. This disinterestedness is tied to virtue, for Rousseau makes clear that the
re-identification of man as citizen ‘produces a most remarkable change in man by
substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and endowing his actions with the morality
they previously lacked’, and then ‘the voice of duty succeeds physical impulsion and right
succeeds appetite’.66 In the triumph of duty, passion is not destroyed but ‘ennobled’; the
soul is ‘elevated’, and citizens gain actual ‘moral freedom’ because of their ‘obedience to the
law’ they have ‘prescribed’ themselves.67 In this move, Rousseau follows his seventeenth
century forbearers in opposing passion, particularity and bad politics, to reason, noble
disinterested love, just order and freedom.
Precisely because Rousseau’s disinterestedness is in some ways inspired by
Fénelon’s, it is important to delineate points of departure. One important difference lies in
the heightened importance of political life for Rousseau. Whereas Fénelon approved
political disinterestedness but thought spiritual, Christian pur amour of another order,
Rousseau makes political disinterestedness his focus.
A second distinction between
Rousseau and his predecessor lies in self-abnegation. For Fénelon pure love requires the
agent to abnegate his self. For Rousseau, as I show in the next chapter, the self must be
reconceptualised, so that it can be truly satisfied. Rousseau makes this clear in his ‘Letter to
D’Offreville’. Other passions are transcended by love of virtue, but the self still takes
profound, personal satisfaction in virtue. 68 Perhaps this is why, as Patrick Riley shows,
Rousseau’s General Will is not a universal will; upon his interpretation, the limit of the
Cf. Patrick Riley, The General Will, pp. 209-213. Riley has stressed Rousseau’s denaturing of human passions
and their redirection toward civic generality and virtue in his General Will Before Rousseau.
65 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap. 7, p. 69 [381].
66 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 8, p. 53 [364].
67 Ibid., pp. 53-54 [364-365].
68 Rousseau, ‘Letter to D’Offreville’, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), The Social Contract and other Later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), pp. 264-265. The standard French text of ‘to D’Offreville’ is
found in Rousseau, Correspondence Complète, R. A. Leigh (ed.), Vol. IX, pp. 143-148.
64
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
polity lies in it being a form of collective self.69 A third bone of contention concerns the
prerequisites of pur amour. For Fénelon, the agent can never cultivate pur amour, it requires
God’s unmerited grace. Rousseau thinks this requirement unpalatable; he would reject it
for the same reasons he opposed unmerited grace in the Jansenist account of charity.70
Despite all these differences, both Rousseau and Fénelon fear and condemn
selfishness, vanity, pride and exploitation in the polity and they both recommend
disinterested loves of a very similar kind. For both of them, disinterestedness involves the
transcendence of the particular self. This disinterestedness, unlike selfishness, is capable of
producing truly virtuous behaviour, for disinterestedness is entwined by definition with
virtuousness. Given Rousseau’s admiration of Fénelon, these similarities are more than
coincidental.
Part III: Rousseau and Plato
Current Interpretations
Since Charles Hendel’s magisterial treatment of Rousseau’s life and thought in Jean
Jacques Rousseau; Moralist, treatments of Rousseau’s Platonism have been rare. Rarer still has
been investigation of Rousseau’s actual reading of Plato. 71 Lawrence Cooper’s recent
studies of Eros in Rousseau’s thought 72 assert the importance of Plato’s works for
Rousseau, but engage in little historical investigation. The most prominent exceptions are
M. J. Silverthorne’s article ‘Rousseau’s Plato’ and David Lay Williams’ Rousseau’s Platonic
Enlightenment.73
Silverthorne, Williams, and Cooper have contributed much to the current
understanding of Rousseau’s engagement with Plato, but there are several oversights in this
body of literature which are worth addressing. Silverthorne analyses the hermeneutic
significance of the location of Rousseau’s marginalia in his copy of Plato’s Dialogues. While
Silverthorne admits his research is preliminary and speculative (and it is hard to be
Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, pp. 134-135, 141-144. The ego is identified with the collective
rather than the self, but the nature of egoistic striving is unchanged.
70 Ibid., pp. 185-187.
71 Rousseau’s copy can be accessed in the Rare Books room of the British Library. It is: Divini Platonis operum
a M. Ficino tralatorum tomus primus <quintus>. . . . Omnia emendatione et ad Graecum codicuem collatione S. Grynaei . . .
repurgata, Lugduni, Ioan Tornaesium: 1550. (British Library, G. 16721-5). Riley explores the scholarly lacuna
regarding these notes in his ‘Preface’ to David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment.
72 Lawrence Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche; the Politics of Infinity, (University Park, PA, Penn State
Press: 2008), chaps. 5-6. These chapters contain material previously published as Cooper, ‘Human Nature
and the Love of Wisdom: Rousseau’s Hidden (and Modified) Platonism’, in The Journal of Politics, Vol. 64, No.
1, (February 2002), pp. 108-125 and as Cooper, ‘Between Eros and Will to Power: Rousseau and “The Desire
to Extend Our Being”’, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 1, (February 2004), pp. 105-119.
73 M. J. Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, in Studies in Voltaire and the 18th Century, Vol. 116, (1973), pp. 235-249.
David Lay Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment.
69
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
otherwise given that the meaning of Rousseau’s mostly symbolic marking is obscure), he
quite correctly notes that Republic and Laws have the highest number of annotations.
Silverthorne suggests that Rousseau’s interest or approbation might have been piqued by
the dialogues concerning the death of Socrates,74 ‘the immortality of the soul and political
and educational questions’.75 Although Silverthorne does not ascribe exclusive importance
to any interest, he focuses on Rousseau’s ‘particular attention’ to the Laws in part because
of the frequency of Rousseau’s marking therein. Following this, Silverthorne expounds
Rousseau’s engagement with categories of Plato’s political thought.
Silverthorne’s
comparison between major elements of Plato’s politics and Rousseau’s politics shows
where Plato could possibly have influenced Rousseau substantively or at least where
Rousseau agreed with his predecessor.76 One disadvantage of this comparative analysis is
that it assumes the categories of Plato’s influence over Rousseau. It does not derive these
categories from careful analysis of Rousseau’s marginalia. This directs Silverthorne away
from Rousseau’s interest in Plato’s psychological thought.
Cooper explores Rousseau’s suggestion that the psychological dissonance of
modern man might be resolved in some way that makes the agent ‘truly’ and not just
biologically alive. 77 For Emile, this involves the exercise of every human faculty which
produces the sentiment of being.78 Cooper’s treatment of the ‘desire for extended being’
illuminates psychological terrain in Rousseau in such a way that engages substantively with
his philosophy of desire. Cooper highlights the role of philosophical love in Emile for the
culmination of rightly developed desires, and he claims Rousseau’s views on this matter
resonate deeply with Plato’s philosophy of Eros. 79
It is important to note that this
ontological desire, for Cooper, is the feature of Rousseauian psychology which underlies
amour de soi, amour propre, and the solutions Rousseau propounds for the psychological
crookedness of humanity.80 But as an investigation of Rousseau’s debts to Plato, Cooper’s
position is fundamentally inadequate.
His position relies on similarities between
Rousseau’s Emile and Plato’s Republic, some of which are vague, are not exclusively
similarities with the Republic or Plato, or rely on interpretive claims that presuppose the
congruence they propose to evince.
Most negligently, Cooper makes no effort to
investigate the content or context of Rousseau’s reading of Plato.
Rousseau evaluates the death of Socrates in the Discourse on Heroic Virtue and Political Economy. See Chapters
7 and 8 of this thesis.
75 Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, p. 241.
76 Ibid., pp. 241-249.
77 Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, pp. 134-135, 141-149.
78 Rousseau, Emile, P. D. Jimack (ed.), (London, J. M. Dent: 1993), p. 11 [OC, IV, 253].
79 Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, pp. 189-195.
80 Ibid., pp. 142-146.
74
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Williams’ monograph is now clearly the authority on Rousseau’s Platonism,
superseding Silverthorne’s work on the subject. Williams reconstructs the continuing and
often commanding prevalence of neo-Platonic philosophy in seventeenth and eighteenth
century European thought, showing that Rousseau’s studies included such Platonic
intellectual resources. Williams undertakes the first thorough investigation of Rousseau’s
copy of Plato’s Dialogues. For Williams, Plato’s influence on Rousseau is largely felt in
epistemology, but also in metaphysics and ontology.
Williams takes what Rousseau
sometimes calls the ‘inner light’, ‘conscience’ or an inner sentiment to be an intuitive
conduit for Platonic ideas. 81 Williams argues that Rousseau adopts the ‘indeterminate’
(formal and general) verities of the Laws.82
Despite the importance of Williams’ work, there remains some uncertainty about
the type of Platonism he wants to attribute to Rousseau. At times, especially in his
exposition of the ‘Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’, it is pretty clear that Williams’
Rousseau is an intentional Platonist. At others, comparison with Plato seems to serve as an
interpretive heuristic, which helps us understand the scope and nature of metaphysics,
ontology and deontology in Rousseau’s thought without necessarily ascribing Platonic
sources to these.
When Williams seems to assert Rousseau’s intentional Platonism, his case for the
exclusive provenance of Rousseau’s moral ontology in Plato’s idealism is less convincing. It
depends on Williams successfully discrediting other ideational paradigms for Rousseau’s
thought. The most likely alternative is Lockean, which Williams rejects because, he argues,
Lockean natural law is too determinate (framed in terms of specific definite laws rather
than a generalised moral principle) and Lockean epistemology too sensationalist to match
Rousseau’s transcendent ideas and conscience. However, this reading is justified by an
interpretative approach to Locke which Rousseau could not have shared.
Unfortunately, Williams’ relies heavily on Locke’s early Essays on the Law of Nature to
interpret Lockean ontology and natural law. 83 This is perplexing particularly because
Williams is aware that Locke never published these, and that Rousseau could not have read
them. Upon Williams account the Essays, with Yolton’s important study of them,84 indicate
that Locke’s law of nature is determinate, i.e. a list of rather specific moral obligations.
Further, Williams argues that because Locke rejects innate ideas, determinate natural law
David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, pp. 73-76.
Ibid., pp. 117-127.
83 Ibid., pp. 21-22.
84 Ibid., pp. 18-19. Cf. John Yolton, ‘Locke on the Law of Nature’, in Philosophical Review, Vol. 67 (1958), pp.
477-498.
81
82
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
can only be grounded in a sensationalist understanding of reason.85 Meanwhile, Williams
suggests that Locke reverted to innate ideas in The Second Treatise and deployed an
alternative epistemology therein to support them.86 Williams admits that The Second Treatise
is not too clear about this alleged innatism. 87 Pivotally, his account elides serious
consideration of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
In the Essay Lockean natural law is never enumerated as a list of principles, and
Locke utilises an account of reason which is not like the one Williams ascribes to him.
Indeed, Locke’s mature epistemology dismisses innate ideas, yet Lockean knowledge also
depends on a sense of reason which is intuitive and felt – reasoning does not precede but
follows self-evident propositions.88 Lockean reasoning is thus frequently a matter of emotional
clarity even though it rejects innatism. Although there is plenty of evidence confirming
Rousseau’s familiarity with Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, we have seen above that he
read Locke’s Essay first and associated it with his formative philosophical study at Les
Charmettes. Regarding the epistemological issues at stake, William’s provides insufficient
reason to conclude that Rousseau would have rejected the Essay’s position. As I will show
in the next chapter, there is good reason to suppose a Lockean genealogy for the objects of
the understanding that Rousseau calls ideas. But this does not mean Rousseau did not also
celebrate Plato’s thought – his instincts were syncretic.
Thus, Williams overstates
Rousseau’s epistemological and ontological debts to Platonism, precisely because there is
no reason why a blanket choice between Locke and Plato must be made.
Furthermore, the details of Rousseau’s ‘inner light’ suggest a Platonic provenance,
but not necessarily one immediately from Plato’s Dialogues. In Plato’s idealism, ideas are the
objects of intellection, or reasoning. Furthermore, they have real ontological status which is
not only prior to human cognition, it is both prior to and cause of the world of becoming,
the world of human experience and activity, in general.89 As Williams’ is perfectly aware,
Rousseauian knowledge is frequently described in intuitive terms which are sentimental.
The sentimentality of Rousseauian conscience is suggestive of a number of difficulties if it
is to be read like Platonic idealism, but the most pressing of these is the emotionalism of
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 22.
87 Ibid.
88 Cf., this thesis, Chapter 4, Part IV.
89 Plato, Republic, P. Shorey (trans.), (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1961), 472c-d, 477e-478b, 479d,
508e-509a. Ideas and knowledge, for Plato are more real or exist in a more perfect way than the things we see
and about which we opine. That is to say, the closer the ontological proximity of ideas to things (say
geometry) the more ideas lack real being. Furthermore, the form of the good is the cause of all other forms
and all non-formal things.
85
86
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
sentiment. In the ‘Letter to Franquières’, where Rousseau is often at his most Platonic, he
describes it as follows:
This internal sentiment is the sentiment of nature itself, it is a call by it against all the sophisms
of reason, and the proof of it is that it never speaks more forcefully than when our will yields
most readily to the judgments which the internal sentiment persists in rejecting. Far from
believing that whoever judges by it is liable to err, I believe that it never misleads us and that it
is the light of our feeble understanding, when we try to go beyond what we are capable of
understanding.90
So far this sounds, at least superficially more or less like an intuitive source of knowledge, but
on closer scrutiny the link is tenuous. The inner light is not an intuitive form of knowledge
but rather a sense of alarm that our acts of reasoning, judgment and will have become
wayward and vulnerable to the domination of our passions. In fact, a few lines earlier
Rousseau wrote that the internal sentiment ‘grumbles’ against ‘interested decisions’ as a
‘secret inclination’ or ‘internal dictamen’ ‘of our own heart’.91 Whereas Plato believes that
the love of wisdom is indispensable for true philosophy but that this is not itself knowledge,
Rousseau merges intuitional ideas, passions and the will in his understanding of the inner
sentiment. As we saw above, this emotional and ideational fusion does, however, resemble
seventeenth century French moral thought. Thus, Williams is right to see that Rousseau
and Plato are engaging the same epistemological terrain, but it is not at all clear how
immediately Platonic Rousseau’s idealism is.
Cooper, Silverthorne, and Williams all insufficiently address the intellectual
resources Rousseau might have had available when studying Plato’s Dialogues. In different
ways they presuppose the kind of Platonic interests Rousseau would have had without
exhuming these from his other studies or careful examination of his notes on Plato. I
move, then, to reassess Rousseau’s engagement with Plato in the context of his reading of
French moralism.
Psychological and Platonic foci in Rousseau’s reading of Plato
Rousseau’s copy of Plato is the Marsilius Ficino Latin translation.92 The fact that
Rousseau had a Ficino edition, in which Ficino includes a number of glosses, is of
considerable importance, given Rousseau’s concurrent neo-Platonic readings and Ficino’s
pervasive influence in French moral thought. At the earliest, Rousseau acquired his copy
of Plato’s works by the time he was at Les Charmettes where it may have formed part of
Rousseau, ‘Letter to Franquières’, in V. Gourevitch (ed), The Social Contract and other later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 277. The standard French version is found in Rousseau,
Correspondence Complète, R. A. Leigh (ed.), Vol. XXXVII, pp. 13-24.
91 Ibid.
92 MS Notes, in Divini Platonis operum a M. Ficino tralatorum tomus primus
<quintus>. . . . Omnia emendatione et ad Graecum codicuem collatione S. Grynaei . . . repurgata, (Lugduni, Ioan Tornaesi
um: 1550), (British Library, G. 16721-5).
90
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
his studies. 93 Rousseau did not sell the books until 1767 during his unhappy exile in
Britain. 94 In between these points, there is solid evidence of his use of this edition,
particularly during his most active intellectual period, for references and extended
quotations from the Ficino edition figure in several of his works in the 1750s. 95 Thus,
Rousseau used and most probably had regular access to Plato’s work over the interval in
which he developed his most concerted theoretical views.
Indeed, given the
correspondence between several of Rousseau’s notes and his thought in Inequality, Political
Economy, and the Essay on the Origin of Languages, as I discuss below, it is probable that
Rousseau used Plato’s Dialogues with particular care in the 1750s and early 1760s, which
indicates the potential hermeneutical significance of this reading for his mature works.
To gain some sense of how Rousseau apprehended Plato’s works, it is worth
considering when he could have read them. Because Rousseau had a Latin edition, he
could not have read Plato until he had made sufficient progress teaching himself Latin.
This squares with Rousseau’s reference to Plato and the ‘Divine Socrates’ in a poem he
wrote to Mme Warrens while he was at Les Charmettes.96 To analyse whether his other
studies could possibly have influenced his reading of Plato, it is important to determine
how soon at Les Charmettes he could have begun studying the Dialogues. In Confessions he
introduces his reading of the Jansenists and the Oratorians in the winter before his period
of intensive study during his second year at Les Charmettes. Once he returned to Les
Charmettes, he commenced that deeper metaphysical research and also began to teach
himself Latin. Consequently, Rousseau could not yet have read Plato until his Latin was
sufficiently proficient, which would have been some time after his metaphysical studies
began.
Rousseau’s knowledge of contemporary metaphysics, including neo-Platonism is
confirmed in one of his marginal notes. Take for example the only note in the entire 5
volumes which makes a direct reference to a modern thinker. In the margin to Republic,
Book VII, Rousseau notes, the ‘consonance’ of Leibniz’s monadology with Plato’s
understanding of arithmetic and essences.97 Because Rousseau dates his reading of Leibniz
See Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, p. 237.
Much could be made of why Rousseau sold the books – he might have disliked Plato, his interests could
have shifted, he might have had too many books, perhaps he needed the money, maybe he remembered
Plato’s ideas well enough and no longer needed a text for reference. However, all of this is purely speculative
and of little help to Rousseau scholarship.
95 Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, pp. 238-239.
I am convinced by Silverthorne’s case that Rousseau
reference are from this edition of Plato.
96 See Rousseau, Le Verger de Madame de Warens (1738), [OC, II, 1124]. Cf. Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, p.
237.
97 Rousseau, MS Notes, in Divini Platonis operum, Marsilius Ficino (trans.), Lyon, 1550. Tome V, p. 400. See
further, Plato, Republic, 524b-526b. In these passages Plato discusses how mathematical calculation helps train
93
94
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
to the same period in which he read Descartes, Locke, the Oratorians and the Jansenists,
this note clarifies that he had made substantial progress on those metaphysical studies
before he read Republic. Thus Williams is right to emphasize that metaphysics mattered in
Rousseau’s reading of Plato, but the earlier framework of Rousseau’s neo-Platonic studies
would most likely have suggested the categories and terms of and provided the intellectual
resources for this engagement. And because Rousseau’s metaphysical reading was broad, it
would certainly have allowed him to amalgamate Platonic views with a variety of
contemporaneous philosophical positions. Grasping this might help pin down Rousseau’s
broader priorities in his interpretation of Plato.
At this point it is worth turning to the details of Rousseau’s notes. Rousseau’s copy
of Plato’s Dialogues is annotated in several different ways. There are three pages of notes in
pencil before the title page of Tome I. At the end of Tome I, there are five pages of notes
in pencil. Tome II has two pages of notes in pencil before the title. At the very end of
Tome II there is one short note. Some of these notes appear to be ruminations, but others
cite specific pages in the text. Phaedo and Symposium are cited in this way, and some of these
notes are translations from Phaedo.98 Rousseau’s annotations also include several forms of
marginalia. There are vertical lines and sometimes brackets running along the margins
demarcating sections of the text, perhaps to show importance. Sometimes with these
vertical lines and sometimes separately from them Rousseau includes ‘+’ signs. However,
Rousseau’s marginalia is not purely symbolic. While most of his annotations consist of
lines and plus signs as above, he sometimes makes marginal notes.
Again, perhaps
signifying sections of importance or perhaps how certain passages in Plato’s work raised his
interest. Occasionally, Rousseau underlines passages. The only other marking of the text is
in Tome I. On the reverse of the title page there is a table of contents listing the dialogues
appearing in that Tome, separated into the first and second quaternitatem. Similar tables are
found in all five of the Tomes, but only the first one is annotated. The dialogues Euthyphro,
Apology, Crito and Phaedo in the first quaternitatem are marked with a ‘+’ sign. The dialogues
Cratylus and Civilis out of the second quaternitatem are marked ‘++’. Attempts to interpret
these markings in the table of contents are likely to be scuttled by over-speculation. Indeed
there is no ‘+’ symbol by Theaetetus on the reverse of the title page; nonetheless, Rousseau
gave that dialogue careful attention.
What is important is that Rousseau’s various
annotations in the dialogues themselves confirm explicitly sections he must have studied,
the soul to think about the ‘nature of number, by pure thought’, which guides the soul to an understanding
of formal knowledge and a ‘contemplation of true being’.
98 Cf. Silverthorne, ‘Rousseau’s Plato’, p. 240.
148
Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
and, where we have access to his own words, perhaps something of his attitude toward the
relevant works.
From Rousseau’s marginal glosses, it is possible to identify what sections of these
texts he had definitely read or at least dipped into. Rousseau’s marking is present in several
places in the Apology, including a note. Phaedo is marked and also referred to in the more
extensive comments before the Tome I title page. Cratylus is marked briefly. Theaetetus
bears the most concerted marking in the first tome. Sophista and Civilis are also marked.
Tome II bears no marking in the text but Symposium is referred to in a note in ink on one of
the blank pages at the rear of the volume. Nothing is marked in Tome III. Tome IV is
heavily marked, with Republic being carefully annotated. Books I, IV, V, VI, VII are all
marked, but the concentration is highest in books V and VII. It might be of some
significance that Rousseau made his notes on Republic in ink.
Furthermore, the
concentration of the written word in these notes is particularly high. The Laws is frequently
marked, especially Books II, III, V, XI and XII; however there are few written comments
on these sections, making it hard to apprehend Rousseau’s estimation of these passages.
Ultimately, it is very clear that Rousseau had read his Plato concertedly, carefully and
broadly. The question remains, what in particular did he latch onto in Plato’s Dialogues and
what intellectual resources might have informed that reading?
Rousseau’s annotations frequently concern the Platonic psyche. His marking of
Book V, VI, and VII of Republic suggests his familiarity with Plato’s philosopher. Plato
distinguishes the true philosopher from opiners because of his love of knowledge, his
capacity to channel all his desires toward learning and the elevation of his soul toward an
appreciation of pure ideas.99 Given Rousseau’s familiarity with similar beliefs in French
moralist thought, these details might have appeared particularly salient.
Furthermore, the fact that Rousseau read Plato’s Symposium has been largely ignored.
It is true that Rousseau never marks the text itself, but an obscure note at the rear of Tome
II references a spot in the middle of the speech of Diotima. Rousseau writes, ‘amour
platonique explique’ or platonic love explained. It is not clear whether he thought well or
ill of this platonic love, but it is clear he knew it and that it proved interesting to him.
Following Ficino, it is precisely the notion of sublime love Diotima recommends that is
taken up in much subsequent French thought on the passions.100 Thus, it is not unlikely
that Rousseau found the speech of Diotima similar to conceptualisations of Eros amongst
Plato, Republic, 474c-475b, 480, 484a-485d, 526e-527b. In this protracted exposition on the nature of the
philosopher, his psyche and his knowledge, it is remarkable that Plato starts with the philosopher’s love and
never abandons that disposition in his account.
100 For instance, Fenelon refers to Symposium in Pure Love, pp. 17-20.
99
149
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
his 17th and early 18th century predecessors. At the very least, having read Plato on Eros
and having identified Platonic love precisely with Diotima’s speech, the possibility that
Rousseau might have adopted that venerable understanding is evident.
On the topic of the Symposium, it is worth turning to Ficino’s introductory essay.
Because so many of the pages in his edition of Plato’s works are interpretive essays,
someone who reads each tome, cover to cover, is reading a great deal of Ficino.
Specifically, the introductory essay to Symposium, running to nearly three hundred pages, is
nothing other than Ficino’s De Amore. This is the famous commentary on Symposium which
had proved so influential among sixteenth and seventeenth century French moral
philosophers. Rousseau held De Amore in his hand, read authors influenced by it and read
the speech of Diotima which inspired it. That being said, there is no evidence that
Rousseau read De Amore or any of Ficino’s introductory essays – all are unmarked.
Nevertheless, he marked Ficino’s biography of Plato, and in this there is a section on
magnanimous charity (charity being the highest form of love in Ficino’s interpretation of
Platonic Eros) running for three pages. Thus, Rousseau had, at the very least, a brief taste
of Ficino’s understanding of Plato and Platonic love. Rousseau would have known that
Ficino took Platonic love to consist of a sublimation of Eros upon the completion of
which the soul apprehends the form of beauty, basks in the form of the good, and is
deified in communion with the One - God.
Surveying his more prominent notes it appears that a range of psychological, moral
and political concerns attract Rousseau’s attention. The very first clean note in Tome I
seems to read:
Lie par mille chaines
Aux choses inanimee
Tu regretteras en vain
l’heureux term ou tu ne teois qu’a’toi meme
es ou ta riche Sse etat
toute en tor ame101
What is clear in this note is that Rousseau’s interests are psychological. They predicate
Rousseau’s concerns in The Second Discourse, but also, apparently, in some way pertain to
Plato’s thought. The themes of individual dependence and socialization which penetrate to
the very soul in Rousseau’s thought are the very categories he appears to be analysing. It is
‘vain’ to ‘regret’ the happiness of immediate independence. The implication is that it
cannot and should not be regained. Certainly Rousseau would have found arguments in
favour of healthy social interdependence replete in Plato’s works. If this is the Platonic
Rousseau, MS Notes, in Plato’s Works, Marsilius Ficino (trans.), (Lyon: 1550). Tome I, front of volume,
note page 1, note 2. Few of Rousseau’s notes are perfectly clear; the writing in pencil is faint, smudged and
unclear. Consequently, my transcriptions are at best indicative.
101
150
Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
theme Rousseau had in mind, then his reading of Plato is concerned with the psyche and
the soul, which for Plato are inextricable from institutions of government or Platonic ideas.
Other notes show the broadness of Rousseau’s reading of Plato. In the first note on
page two Rousseau references Pheado and seems to note Plato’s use of argument by analogy
and his understanding of the good as something like geometry.102 In another remarkable
note at the back of the Tome 1, Rousseau writes:
Il y a n’eu doulons pas dans les
[smudge] div eus une fin generale et
commune a la quelle se divigie (t)
L’esprit humaine cam une il y
En a une beucoup plus103
The implication is that when there is one general end (fin generale) in a community, the
human spirit is magnified. This is thematically linked to the arguments Rousseau would
advance in Political Economy and The Social Contract in which, as we saw above, man’s natural
and partial existence is replaced by a fuller civic and moral existence, which exercises all his
faculties. Again, Rousseau’s apparent reflection on Plato’s works is nothing short of a
convergence of psychology and politics. It is no stretch to imagine that it is precisely this
kind of mental and political fusion which Rousseau finds so important in Plato. 104 And for
Plato, the success of this fusion requires nothing short of a sublimation of Eros, like that
detailed in Part I.
In another note Rousseau writes about the transport of the passions, exclamations
and inarticulate language, tranquil situations and the tragic sentiments connected to
‘situations violentes’. 105 Here the categories of ideas connected to language, passion,
sentiment, and social conditions, hallmarks of Rousseau’s thinking in Inequality, appear to
be considered in regard to Plato’s work. This note also anticipates the work Rousseau
would later undertake in his Essay on the Origin of Languages. Again, it is the broader
psychological implications of socialisation that appear to preoccupy Rousseau.
Psychology is never far from Rousseau’s mind. Passions and sentiments and the
spirit of men seem to inform Rousseau’s reading of Plato. Rousseau’s interests include
ideas and the structures of Platonic politics but also reach toward the essence of the
Platonic soul. Whether this reading earned Rousseau’s esteem is another question, but if
the Platonic influence on Rousseau’s work is to be explicated, it will most probably be
found at the junction of mind and society.
Ibid., note page 2, note 1
Ibid., back of Tome 1, note page 5, note 3.
104 See Republic, Book II. Socrates turns to the nature of the polis in order to explicate justice in the individual
psyche. Justice in the state is like justice in the psyche, only writ large. This theme remains important
throughout Republic, but particularly in his discussion of Timarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny.
105 Rousseau, MS Notes, in Plato’s Works, note page 3, note 2
102
103
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Conclusion
It seems perfectly clear that Rousseau’s reading of Plato took politics, epistemology,
metaphysics, and psychology seriously. For Rousseau, these topics do not exclude but
interpenetrate each other. The importance of the soul and its passions to Rousseau in his
reading of Plato is not surprising. Indeed, these topics were clearly accorded a prominent
place in much of the neo-Platonic literature Rousseau had familiarised himself with before
grappling with Plato. It is no exaggeration that disinterested Eros, sublimated Eros, and
other questions of the passions are sustained themes in Rousseau’s investigation of neoPlatonic and Platonic literature. At one point in the ‘Letter to Franquières’ Rousseau uses
Plato as a dramatis persona. He appropriates the ascent from the cave, and the illuminating
metaphor of the sun. Knowledge matters in this homage but love and disposition matter
more. Rousseau writes:
Let us finally put an end to these assumptions with the assumption of a Plato, a Clarke
suddenly arising among them [contemporary materialists] and telling them: my friends, if you
had begun the analysis of this universe with the analysis of yourselves, you would have found
in the nature of your being the key to the constitution of this very universe, which otherwise
you seek in vain. That thereupon explaining the distinction between the two substances to
them, he would have proven them by the very properties of matter that, regardless of what
Locke may say on the subject, the assumption of thinking matter is a genuine absurdity. That
he would have shown them the nature of the truly active and thinking being, and that once this
judging being had been established, he would finally have risen from it to the confused but
certain notions of the supreme being: who can doubt that, struck by the brilliance, the
simplicity, the truth, the beauty of this ravishing idea, mortals, who had been blind up to then,
illumined by the first rays of the divinity, would have offered it their first homage by
acclamation, and that above all thinkers and philosophers would have blushed at having
contemplated the outside of this immense machine for such a long time, without finding,
without even suspecting the key to its constitution and, forever crudely limited to their senses,
at never having been able to see anything but matter where everything showed them that
another substance gave the universe life and intelligence to man. Under these circumstances,
Sir, it is this new philosophy that would have been fashionable; young people and the wise
would have found themselves in agreement; a doctrine so beautiful, so sublime, so sweet and
so consoling to any just man [it] would really have aroused all men to virtue, and this fair word
humanity, … would have been stamped in all men’s hearts better than in books. 106
Part of Rousseau’s claim suggests the capacity of one like Plato to disprove the
fundamental assumptions of materialists, but the implications seem even more important.
It is the erotic ascent from the cave that seems to matter most. The result of this is the
disposition of virtuous love, which Rousseau contrasts with normative hollowness of
materialist system building.
This reveals Rousseau’s particular debts to the Platonic
tradition. Here his dispute with materialists turns on their rejection of dualism and the
spiritual nature of the soul, rather than their understanding of ideas. Construing this as a
debate over epistemology, as does Williams, is revealing in some ways, but Rousseau’s main
battle lines were elsewhere.
106
Rousseau, ‘Letter to Franquières’, pp. 274-275.
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Rousseau’s Platonic and Neo-Platonic Inheritance
Rousseau clearly apprehended the views of his French predecessors concerning the
sublimation of Eros, the conceptualisation of disinterested love as the pinnacle of that
ascent and that disinterested, sublime love as the only motive for moral virtue. The
evidence we have indicates that Rousseau identified the rapport between seventeenth
century neo-Platonic authors (such as Leibniz) and Plato, and his instincts were syncretic
even in the face of paradox and contradiction. Thus, the themes Rousseau develops in
reflection on Plato are in many ways ones which neo-Platonic moralists, post-Ficino, would
find familiar.
It is important to remember that Rousseau’s affinity for Platonism and Plato’s own
work is not exclusive; it is hard to imagine that Rousseau would have been a systematic
Platonist. It is much more likely that his moral psychology drew on Platonic thought while
at the same time he felt free to borrow from Cartesians, Lockean sensationalists and
materialists. In order to draw out how Rousseau adapts Platonic conceptions of Eros it is
necessary to address his understanding of human moral psychology. This involves a
complex set of views espoused and developed over Rousseau’s intellectual career. This
understanding makes use of Rousseau’s commitment to dualism, his understanding of
sublimated Eros, and a rather technically Lockean understanding of ideas and ideaformation. All of this comes to crystallise, especially in terms of its normative significance,
around Rousseau’s conceptualisation of the will. This is the subject of the next chapter.
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Chapter 6
Knowledge, Reason, Will and the problem of Passion in Rousseau’s
Moral Thought
Volition features prominently in almost all of Rousseau’s major works. In The
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Rousseau places will at the centre of his understanding of
the human being. He writes:
I see in any animal nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature has given sense in order
to wind itself up and, to a point, protect itself against everything that tends to destroy or
disturb it. I perceive precisely the same thing in the human machine, with this difference that
Nature alone does everything in the operations of the Beast, whereas man contributes to his
operations in his capacity as a free agent. The one chooses or rejects by instinct, the other by
an act of freedom.1
In The Social Contract, man’s capacity for free choice is central to his nature, which is
explicitly a matter of his moral status. Rousseau declares:
To renounce one’s freedom is to renounce one’s quality as man, the rights of humanity, and
even its duties. There can be no possible compensation for someone who renounces
everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man, and to deprive one’s
will of all freedom is to deprive one’s actions of all morality. 2
Rousseau uses the concept of agency in several ways. Free agency is integral to morality.
Free agency is a descriptive fact concerning the human psyche, and man’s behaviour can
only be understood accordingly. In this chapter, I shall explore the different ways in which
Rousseau uses will and shall consider whether they involve a consistent and coherent
understanding of human agency.
For a topic which plays such a large role in his corpus, Rousseau never produced a
definitive theory of human will. Coming to grips with volition in Rousseau’s thought is an
interpretive challenge.
A number of studies have already addressed the issue of
Rousseauian volition.3 However, I aim to show that they have overlooked the central and
Rousseau, The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), The Discourses and other Early Political
Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Part I, p. 140 [OC, III, 141]
2 Rousseau, The Social Contract, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau; The Social Contract and other Later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Bk I, Chap. 4, p. 45 [OC, III, 356].
3 The prominence of will in secondary literature on Rousseau is striking. Patrick Riley’s work on Rousseau
has been dedicated to the analysis of contextualization of this very issue, see Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy;
A Critical Exposition of Social Contract Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel, (Cambridge Mass,
Harvard University Press: 1982), Chap. 4; Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau, The Transformation of the Divine
in to the Civic, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1986); Riley, ‘Freedom of a particular kind’ in R. Wokler
(ed.), Rousseau and Liberty, (Manchester: Manchester University Press: 1995), Chap. 1; Riley, ‘Rousseau’s
General Will’, in Riley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
2001), Chap. 6. The will also figures prominently in discussions of autonomy and freedom in Rousseau,
including: John Plamenatz, ‘On le Forcera d’Etre Libre’ in M. Cranston and R. S. Peters (eds.), Hobbes and
Rousseau; A Collection of Critical Essays, (New York, Anchor Books, 1972); Richard Dagger, ‘Understanding the
General Will’ in The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1981); Joshua Cohen, ‘Reflections on
Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy’, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer, 1986);
1
Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
complex role played by active and passive powers in Rousseau’s understanding of human
agency.
I advance a number of points in regard to the active/passive dichotomy which
Rousseau deploys. By active powers I mean those capabilities the human agent possesses
on account of his own abilities and not as a result of some extrinsic cause. Passive powers
are the opposite; they are the effects extrinsic causes have on human agents. Rousseau’s
thought on man’s active and passive powers is, I argue, a coherent analytical psychology.
The interesting point for Rousseau is that this analytical distinction is not hard and fast.
As human agents experience their world, socialise and develop language and technology,
their active and passive powers interact with each other in increasingly complex ways.
Indeed, he suggests that some complex passions are actually constituted by both active and
passive powers.
The interaction of active and passive powers is, I argue, a result of
Rousseau’s understanding of ideas. Ideas are essentially the product of human judgment
and reason (active powers) yet at the same time different kinds of idea cause or occasion
different types of passion.
According to the interpretation I advance in this chapter,
Rousseau presents the analytical relationship between active and passive powers as
Frederick Neuhouser, ‘Freedom, Dependence, and the General Will’, in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 102, No.
3, (July 1993); Geraint Parry, ‘Thinking One’s Own Thoughts; Autonomy and the Citizen’, in R. Wokler (ed.),
Rousseau and Liberty, Chap. 5; John Hope Mason, ‘Forced to be Free’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty,
Chap. 6; Steven G. Affeldt, ‘The Force of Freedom; Rousseau on Forcing to be Free’, in Political Theory, Vol.
27, No. 3, (Jun., 1999). With the significant exception of Affeldt, Plamenatz, and Parry, most of this
literature does not seek to unpack the concept of will itself in Rousseau’s thought, and Dagger’s article
ostensibly avoids any metaphysical discussion of the issue at all. Affeldt and Parry both take seriously the
notion of the General Will as an actual will. Plamenatz, especially on pp. 323-332 presents a splendid
discussion of moral freedom, passions, freedom from the passions, and the restraint of law against the
enslavement of the passions.
Volition figures prominently in the influential proto-Kantian interpretation of Rousseau, this is first
expounded in Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau, P. Gay (trans.), (Bloomington, Indiana
University Press: 1963), pp. 55-58, 62-63. But the most systematic interpretation of the Kantian character of
Rousseau’s understanding of freedom, free will, and the political role of these is Andrew Levine, The Politics of
Autonomy; a Kantian Reading of Rousseau’s Social Contract, (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press: 1976).
Without any pretension to producing an exhaustive list, some major studies which grapple with will and the
General Will are Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, (Princeton,
Princeton University Press: 1968), Arthur Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, (Chicago, University of
Chicago Press: 1990); Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, (London, Routledge: 1999), Chaps. 1, 4, 5; and Mathew
Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, (London, Continuum: 2006), Chap. 5. There are also innumerable
shorter works in addition to those mentioned above, including the following. George Armstrong Kelly, ‘A
General Overview’ in P. Riley (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, p. 24, in which Kelly discusses three
systems of human agency which correspond to Rousseau’s three remeidies to the despair facing human
agents in the Second Discourse. Robert Wokler, ‘The Fanciful Liberties We Have Lost’, in R. Wokler (ed.),
Rousseau and Liberty, pp. 195-197, 203, Wokler discusses will and moral liberty first and later, the fundamental
liberty of free will in the Second Discourse. It is perhaps somewhat odd that Wokler invokes will almost
exclusively in terms of liberty and not also as a mental and behavioral capacity. Maurice Cranston,
‘Rousseau’s Theory of Liberty’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty, pp. 231, 239-240. Cranston, like
Wokler, reads free will as a type of liberty, but also as a matter of overcoming passions. Eve Grace, ‘The
Restlessness of “being:” Rousseau’s protean sentiment of existence’, in History of European Ideas, No. 27,
(2001). Grace offers a convincing corrective of the Derrida’s reading of the sentiment of existence, which
presents this supreme satisfaction and state of health not as a immediate metaphysics of presence, but a more
interesting equilibrium between power and will or faculties and desires. Will is crucial here, but surprisingly
un-investigated.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
fundamentally dynamic. Not only can these powers interact, but the way they do so
develops and changes. In Inequality, Rousseau calls this dynamic relationship perfectibility,
and it is played out anthropologically and historically. However, I suggest that the mental
sates, relations, and processes which constitute perfectibility, are indeterminate – man’s
capacity to perfect himself can be instantiated in manifold ways.
Crucially, this
indeterminacy allows Rousseau to apply his analytical psychology to both social criticism, as
in Inequality, and toward positive political thinking, as in Political Economy.
This chapter establishes this interpretation of Rousseau’s analytical psychology
through two simultaneous interpretive moves.
analytically focused.
The first approach of this chapter is
I seek to show that Rousseau’s analytical psychology can be
disentangled from the anthropological story of Inequality in which it first appears. Such an
analytical psychology appears in part one of Inequality, in Rousseau’s ‘Letter to D’Offreville’
and, most importantly, in the ‘Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’ in Emile. By
analysing this analytical psychology, I want to show that Rousseau uses it as an explanatory
tool for both his anthropological criticism and his consideration of political right.
Specifically in regard to political right, I argue that Rousseau develops the conditions of
political right in Political Economy with his analytic psychology in mind, precisely so that the
psychic experience of citizens can be directed toward meritorious passions and the
empowerment of an active, rational will.
Second, the chapter investigates the history of volition in Rousseau’s thought from
Inequality to Emile. This account shows how Rousseau’s understanding of will, from an
early point, seeks to explain human behaviour in terms of the distinction between passions
and actions. This understanding of will is linked to a neo-Lockean understanding of
epistemology.
Initially, Rousseau believes active and passive powers interact through
essentially Lockean ideas, particularly relations. I shall draw attention to Rousseau’s early,
declamatory views on the relationship amongst actions, passions and ideas. By the time
Rousseau writes Emile, he has revisited and revised this claim, providing a more satisfying
account. I argue that Rousseau finally explains the essential role of ideas in the relationship
between actions and passions by stipulating the identity between ideas and feelings. The
potential of this historical dénouement is crucial, for if Rousseau’s earlier analytical
psychology explained many of the political imperatives he elaborated in Political Economy,
then his mature psychology might also underlie his development of political right in The
Social Contract.
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
Part I: Epistemology, Judgment and Passion in the Second Discourse
As we saw in the previous chapter, psychology had occupied a central role in
Rousseau’s intellectual life since his time at Les Charmettes. In this section I want to show
how Rousseau, in The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, develops a complex distinction
between man’s active and passive powers. I also want to show that Rousseau’s views are
not yet fully satisfactory, which will help show why he continued to develop his analytical
psychology over the next seven years.
Prior to writing Inequality, Rousseau had speculated in the ‘Last Reply’, against the
critics of The Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, that vice has a history and that primitive men
must have been innocent because ‘the sources of corruption were not yet open’.4 Rousseau
had never really addressed this historical and anthropological intuition. He found the
opportunity when he wrote Inequality in response to a new question posed by the Dijon
Academy. Inequality was Rousseau’s first sustained effort to discuss the conditionality of vice
in society and in the individual. This discussion integrates epistemological developments,
social relations, the status of nature and changes of the individual psyche. Within this
narrative, Rousseau’s position on will is particularly important. Early in Inequality Rousseau
portrays man’s primitive natural lifestyle, and he subsequently proposes to look at man
‘from the Metaphysical and Moral side’.5 Rousseau uses this metaphysical dimension to
distinguish man from animals.
Rousseau enumerates two essential parts of man’s
metaphysical aspect – volition and perfectibility.
Rousseau’s account of will highlights the fundamental duality of human agency. 6 In
a well known passage Rousseau compares animals to wind-up machines, borrowing a
metaphor from Diderot. 7 Some of Rousseau’s contemporaries argue that men differed
from animals only in terms of organisational complexity,8 but, as noted above, Rousseau
perceives that men, unlike animals, contribute to their own action.9 This makes it clear that
Rousseau, ‘Last Reply’, in V. Gourevitch, Rousseau; The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 1997), pp. 65-66 [OC, III, 74]. The so-called ‘Last Reply’ is particularly
interesting in establishing Rousseau’s changing approach to the question of vice. Certainly, Rousseau
continues to declare the proportionality between internal vice and external politeness, the unlikelihood of
these corresponding with virtue and the causal relation from vanity and idleness to science and luxury. But
Rousseau’s claim about the history of vice looks like the one he would develop and defend in The Second
Discourse. At this point he does not take it farther. Nonetheless, this was a significant position in the context
of the ‘Last Reply’. Rousseau must have realised its importance for his argument against his Philosophe critics,
and that it was in need of further bolstering.
5 Rousseau, Inequality, p. 140 [141].
6 Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, (London, Routledge: 1999), Chap. 1. Rousseau’s on-and-off adherence to a
metaphysically dualistic conception of human nature, like Descartes’ (but also, I would add, not unlike the
dualism of many Christian thinkers since St. Augustine and neo-Platonist thinkers since Plotinus), is the
subject of O’Hagan’s first chapter and a recurring theme of the book.
7 Denis Diderot, D’Alembert’s Dream, (London, Penguin: 1966), pp. 158-159.
8 Ibid., p. 159.
9 See this chapter, fn. 1.
4
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Rousseau’s thought on will cannot be fundamentally deterministic or perfectly
unconditional because he thinks human behaviour inexplicable without both physical
impulsion and independent action. But in order to say more about the way in which man is
both self-moving and moved, the nature of his contribution to his own action must be
explored in more detail.
The human will provides man with a form of freedom quite alien to mere animal
life; nevertheless, the story of will in contradistinction to animal behaviour does not end
here. 10 Rousseau also thinks it important to explain epistemology in terms of our
independent agency. Physics, Rousseau admits, explains our ‘senses and the formation of
ideas’. 11 Thus far, Rousseau is in perfect agreement with his neo-Lockean materialist
contemporaries Voltaire, Helvetius, D’Holbach and Condillac and with Diderot’s story in
D’Alembert’s Dream.12 But juxtaposed with this admission is the notion that in ‘the power of
willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power, are found purely spiritual
acts about which nothing is explained by the laws of Mechanics.’13 This invocation of the
venerable active/passive dualism contrasts sharply with Diderot’s understanding of action.
Diderot takes motion to be an essential quality of material things. 14 Further, Diderot
rejects any fundamental difference between active and passive powers by reading them as
perfectly commensurable states of active sensitivity or latent sensitivity.15 In other words, being
moved and causing motion are not fundamentally different in Diderot’s view.
In
opposition to this position, Rousseau insists that physics can only explain idea-formation ‘in
a way’. 16 Indeed, a few paragraphs later Rousseau emphasizes the gap between ‘pure
sensations and the simplest knowledge’. If physics, mechanics and sensations – passive
powers – cannot account for knowledge, then some other power must. The only other
relevant powers must be those active powers of the agent, such as free will. Hence,
Rousseau’s epistemological distinction between mere sensation and knowledge
presupposes the active powers of the human agent. Simply put, Rousseau’s active/passive
psychological dualism is fundamental to his understanding of epistemology.
When Rousseau considers the consequences of our independent agency, they are
almost always to our detriment. Earlier, Rousseau had noted that ‘the innumerable sorrows
For a contrasting view see Wokler, ‘Rousseau and his Critics on the Fanciful Liberties we have Lost’, p. 203.
Wokler reads this freedom as a ‘faint’ distinction from animals. It is a purely negative trait, which allows
humans, qua undetermined agents, to exit the state of nature in due course.
11 Rousseau, Inequality, p. 141 [142].
12 Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, p. 14. Diderot, D’Alembert’s Dream, p. 161. Diderot attributes the
development of language to an ideational process which is both sensationalist and materialist.
13 Rousseau, Inequality, p. 141 [142].
14 Diderot, D’Alembert’s Dream, pp. 149-150
15 Ibid., p. 150.
16 Rousseau, Inequality, p. 141 [142].
10
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
and pains that are experienced in every station of life and that constantly gnaw away at
men’s souls’ provide ‘the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making’ and
would have been avoided had we retained our primitive natural life.17 As soon as Rousseau
introduces will and freedom, he associates this sad fate with them. Our vulnerability to
excessive and wanton passions is utterly unlike the limited passions of animals, and
Rousseau attributes this to our freedom.18 Evidently, the first cause in the history of vice is
human activity.
At this point, Rousseau introduces a second reason why humans differ from
animals, and this is perfectibility. Perfectibility is at once a trait of the human species as a
whole and also a quality which ‘resides’ ‘in the individual’.19 This faculty ‘with the aid of
circumstances, successively develops all the others’. 20 Perfectibility is the motor force
behind the speculative anthropological history Rousseau details later in Inequality.
Different circumstances lead to different sequences of perfectibility. In the Essay on the
Origin of Languages, Rousseau illustrates the connection between environmental and social
circumstances and the differences between northern and southern languages.21 The play of
perfectibility is contingent and indeterminate; 22 nevertheless, Rousseau decries it as ‘the
source of all man’s miseries’, which ‘by dint of time, draws him out of that original
condition’. 23 Maybe Rousseau failed to make up his mind, for apparently will and
perfectibility offer alternative explanations of the same thing – mankind’s moral decline
and suffering.
In regard to this tension, one line of interpretation, initiated by Leo Strauss, and
developed by Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly,24 suggests Rousseau thought the
doctrine of free will unimportant, focusing, rather, on perfectibility. I want to show that
perfectibility is not an alternative to free will but presupposes it, submitting that that
perfectibility is best understood as the interplay and development of man’s active and
passive powers within an account of anthropological history.
Rousseau hints at the relationship between active/passive dualism and perfectibility
when he suggests that perfectibility supplements his account of free will. Interestingly,
Ibid., pp. 137-138 [138].
Ibid., pp. 140-141, [141-142].
19 Ibid., p. 141, [142].
20 Ibid.
21 Rousseau, Essay on the Origin of Languages, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau; The Discourses and Other Early
Political Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997), chaps. 9-11, [OC, V, 395-410].
22 Again, comparison with the Essay on the Origin of Languages is interesting. See chap. 9, where Rousseau
carefully notes the role of perfectibility in such appropriate pleasures as communication for romantic
attraction, and in drawing individuals out of themselves in the family.
23 Rousseau, Inequality, p. 141, [142]. Cf. Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, p. 19.
24 Kelly and Masters, ‘Human Nature, Liberty and Progress’, p. 65.
17
18
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Rousseau remarks that man is responsible for ‘perfecting’ himself;25 this is a clear indication
that human activity is in some way constitutive of the process of perfectibility. As we saw
above, Rousseau believed that human beings, unlike animals, are liable to artificial passions
caused, ironically, by our active capacities. A static distinction between activity and passivity
would be unable to account for this subversion, but Rousseau’s dynamic understanding of
perfectibility can. Attending to Rousseau’s position carefully, he elaborates perfectibility,
writing the following concerning reason and passion:
the human understanding owes much to the Passions which, as is commonly admitted, also
owe much to it: It is by this activity that our reason perfects itself; We seek to know only
because we desire to enjoy, and it is not possible to conceive why someone who had neither
desires nor fears would take the trouble to reason. The Passions in turn owe their origin to our
needs and their progress to our knowledge, for one can only desire or fear things in terms of
the ideas one can have of them, or by the simple impulsion of Nature.26
It is quite clear that neither passion, nor reason nor knowledge can be the first cause in the
play of perfectibility. 27 Sometimes passion is the cause of reason (the debt of the
understanding to passion) and sometimes it is caused by reason (the origin of passion in
that which we know, which depends on our reasoning and judgment). Congruently, the
passions Rousseau discusses here are not simply passive, that is they cannot be portrayed as
consequences of sensational impulsion. Instead, there is an array of passions, which
includes some that are purely passive and others that are the complex consequences of our
metaphysical, active powers.
This multifarious account of passion unites Rousseau’s
conditional acceptance of sensationalism with his defence of independent cognitive
activity.28 For Rousseau, perfectibility is the phenomenological interaction, interpenetration
and transfiguration of human active and passive powers.
The way in which human active and passive powers interact through perfectibility is
unclear, but it cannot be one of efficient causality. This requires some explanation, for in
Inequality Rousseau does not detail precisely how reason, passion, and knowledge
interrelate.29 If I am right, the passions provide an occasion for reason but do not dictate
the operation of it. The particular way in which passions occasion reason lies in the objects
Rousseau, Inequality, p. 141 [142].
Ibid, p. 142 [143].
27 For contrasting, unidirectional readings of perfectibility see Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, p. 16, and Grace,
‘The Restlessness of “being”’, p. 142.
28 Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau. O’Hagan’s account stresses the incompatibility of Rousseau’s naturalism and
his metaphysical dualism. O’Hagan claims that Rousseau’s dualism is largely and extraneous addition to his
moral thought. It is certainly right that Rousseau faces considerable philosophical difficulties in holding both
views. Nevertheless, it appears here that Rousseau’s sometimes moral naturalism is being structured within
his dualism.
29 Indeed, some studies of the relationship between knowledge and passion do little more than present the
correlation between the two. For example, Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, p. 11. Kelly mentions this
correspondence in the individual psyche tentatively before shifting to discussion of Rousseau’s objection to
the Philosophes on grounds of their pride.
25
26
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
of desire. Thus, upon the simplest, appetitive model, Rousseau thinks food is one of man’s
most basic concerns and hunger one of the most elemental desires.30 When I feel this
appetite, I am provided with the opportunity to reason out how to obtain this object.
Thus, passion provides the occasion and the aim of my reasoning – but hunger does not
tell me how to eat or where to find food. Thus, this conception of reason requires an act of
independent human agency. The relationship between reason and passion cannot be one
of efficient causality. Because of the independent activity, reasoning and judging within –
perfectibility, Rousseau’s claim that human’s perfect themselves makes some sense. It also
shows that perfectibility unfolds the dynamic nature of Rousseau’s active/passive dualism
across the moments of human psychological development.
Hence, perfectibility allows Rousseau to portray the psychological components of
vice as the outcome of a historical process. He finally answers the challenge he set for
himself in the ‘Last reply’ – human viciousness is historical.31 The history of vice seems
unavoidable, yet it is a history of mistakes. But the history of perfectibility is not a
descriptive or inevitable fact.
Precisely because Rousseau’s analysis of perfectibility
attributes man’s tragic fate to his moral, metaphysical and active powers, his criticism of
vice carries normative weight. Man is only accidentally culpability, but this entails potential
alternatives.
Rousseau’s hypothetical history of human socialisation and human morality is
clarified by this understanding of perfectibility as the interaction of man’s active and
passive powers over time. This is because the apparently sociological or anthropological
scope of the final part of Inequality is also a phenomenology of the human faculties. 32
Perfectibility is the clear engine of change in Inequality. This can be observed in the way
man compares himself to animals and feels pride for the first time, when early permanent
settlement as a result of the hut leads to conjugal love and amorous jealousy, when more
extensive social living results in amour propre, when property owning inflates amour propre
beyond recognition, and in the subsequent history of oligarchic democracy, magistracy,
monarchy, and despotism. This speculative social history is well known. In a certain sense
Rousseau, Inequality, Part II, p. 161 [164].
For an alternative reading see Kelly and Masters, ‘Human Nature, Liberty and Progress’, pp. 64-66. Rather
than tracing perfectibility back to Rousseau’s earlier insistence that vice has a history, they make the claim that
perfectibility is one of Rousseau’s controversialist tools which allow him to combine aspects of materialism
and secularized optimism immunizing him from criticism from either of those directions. But this
controversialist reading puts the cart before the horse, because it suggests that Rousseau would have devised
perfectibility to meet quite particular criticisms which had not yet been written.
32 In addition to Rousseau’s theoretical insistence that perfectibility is a trait of both individual and species,
see Kelly, ‘A General Overview’ p. 10. See also Geoffrey Gershenson, ‘The Rise and Fall of Species-Life:
Rousseau’s Critique of Liberalism’, in European Journal of Political Theory, No. 5, (2006). Gershenson unpacks
Rousseau’s metaphor in the second part of the Inequality as one of the stages of individual life.
30
31
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Rousseau makes no claims about the actuality of any of these events; rather, he claims that
the problems and implications of vice, luxury, and inequality in current society might be
explained by this speculative history.
Mathew Simpson’s recent work on Rousseau
examines the different ways Rousseau thought causes might be explained, concluding that
something like an Aristotelean formal cause lies at the heart of Rousseau’s position in
Inequality.33 And if Simpson is right, attention to Rousseau qua individual psychologist may
further explicate the underlying relationship between man’s misdirected psychological
capacities and his immorality.
There is reason to believe that the historical play of perfectibility cannot be
understood without unpacking the individual mental phenomena that, in part, constitute it.
Most importantly, perfectibility seems to rely on what looks like a neo-Lockean conception
of relational ideas. 34 Rousseau seems to think these ideas are objects of the human
understanding.
Relations are complex, comparative ideas.
Important relations are
conceived between men and animals and between men and other men in the final part of
Inequality. Rousseau depicts systematically a relationship between such ideas and many of
the human passions. In the first case, man’s interaction with or experience of ‘various
beings’ and of those with one another allows him to perceive relations which had
previously been unknown. 35 Accordingly, a new enlightenment results both in new
technical knowledge (to be deployed in man’s encounters with animals) and in ‘the first
movement of pride’.36
Relational ideas are also crucial in man’s identification of and with other men. The
relation between the individual and other men is only perceived, according to a typical
empiricist account of experience, over time.
Then, and upon this ground, more
comprehensive judgments generalising the unity of the species become possible. 37 For
Rousseau, this new understanding allows man to interact in a stable way and eventually
makes possible new techne: ‘the more the mind became enlightened, the more industry was
perfected’. 38 This idea/skill relationship allows both the value of hut building to be
immediately perceived and the process replicated. True to form, the individual mind gains
a new passion, conjugal love.39 Thus, it is relatively clear that the individual psychology and
the social anthropology Rousseau explores are inextricable.
Mathew Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, p. 23-25.
Cf. Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, pp. 14-16.
35 Rousseau, Inequality, Part II, p. 162 [165].
36 Ibid., [166].
37 Ibid., pp. 162-163 [166]. Locke suggests that simple and individual ideas are developed. Only later are
general, abstract, and categorical ideas devised by the understanding.
38 Ibid., p. 164 [167].
39 Ibid. [168].
33
34
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
At this point, it is not the fact that human desires become multiple but that the
nature of human desires changes, thanks to shifts in the relationship between passion and
reason, 40 which explains the new troubles natural men face. 41 Thus far, the process of
perfectibility has not produced passions which occasion reason in the human mind. One
type of passion connected to a set of relational ideas destabilises the previous harmony
between knowledge, reason and passion. Experience of stable and extended familial and
village life, following permanent settlement, provides the epistemological conditions for
new relational ideas of beauty and merit. These ideas depend on comparisons. Equipped
for the first time with a conception of beauty we now desire to abide with and possess its
source and feel jealousy over the frustration of that desire.42 These new passion will make
more insidious ones possible, by stimulating new and categorically different relational ideas.
Once we are able to conceptualise beauty and esteem others, we can readily imagine how
they might estimate us. This combines the understanding of the similarity of human minds
and human judgments, which had already occurred to natural men, with the relations of
beauty and merit. Once we conceptualise this complex relation regarding how others
estimate us, the estimations of others can be an object of our understanding and,
concomitantly, our desire – amour propre is born.43 Amour propre seems to borrow from or
reconstruct our amour de soi in some way; however, its origin is decidedly unnatural for it
depends on the relational ideas which give rise to it. Because these ideas depend on judgments
and comparisons, they depend on our active capacities. The artificial nature of amour propre
seems to be connected to its excessive force in the human psyche.
Although some commentators think Rousseau makes constructive use of certain
forms of amour propre in his political thinking, it is interesting that in Inequality this desire is
immediately troublesome. 44 From the beginning, esteem is demanded as a right because
amour propre is (seemingly by definition) thwarted if we are thought ill of; we interpret all
wrongs to signify affronts to our esteem that are more intolerable than the wrong as such.
Men seek retributive punishment in response to such breeches of respect, but there is an
Skillen, ‘Rousseau and the Fall of Social Man’, pp. 111-112. My reading agrees with Skillen’s in that we
both trace man’s social and psychic problems at this point in Inequality to the changes in the way man desires.
His explanation, unlike mine, rests on the fact that after socialization man begins to love objects who are
actually subjects themselves. Because subjects do not respond as objects, having subjects as objects modifies
our love. But the change is imperfect, and is largely responsible for excessive demands and the loss of human
satisfaction.
41 For an alternate reading see Grace, ‘The Restlessness of “being”’, pp. 141-142. Grace takes multiplicity of
passions, or more precisely their disunity, to obstruct a unification of human appetite and other mental
energies. On her interpretation this precludes Rousseau’s sense of healthy life.
42 Ibid., p. 165 [169].
43 Ibid., p. 166 [169-170].
44 I believe this is in contrast with the venerable interpretation of amour propre as first benign and only later
malign, following the ideas of property ownership and servitude. See O’Hagan, Rousseau, chap. 7, pp. 162179.
40
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epistemological factor which limits their vindictiveness and preserves residual natural pity: our
conception of our self vis-à-vis our peers. 45 This makes sense given the relationship
between passions and relational ideas Rousseau had already advanced. When amour propre’s
object, the esteem each person deems appropriate for himself, is grounded in his relational
conception of himself as roughly equal to his peers, then the passion is also limited.
Meanwhile, natural pity still affects men because of the epistemological/psychological
limits of early amour propre.
This inception of amour propre predicates an even greater change. This is the
development of property-ownership and labour. The technical advancements in metallurgy
and agriculture which make property holding and labour possible also promise a very
different conceptualisation of man’s relations with other men.
Where previously
experience led to ideas of the universal equality of human kind, the experience of some men
labouring for others, allows relational concepts of mastery and servitude. This sort of
relation is considerably different from those previously conceptualised by Rousseauian
men, for it has no basis in any natural traits but only in conventional interaction.
Consequently, where once different individuals would have had only natural grounds to
conceptualise differences amongst one another, they are now able to form quite fantastical
ideas about their fundamental differences. This lies at the heart of hierarchically organised
human classes. All men presume themselves of a higher order from their former peers.
Class difference is an epistemological phenomenon at the same time as a real, social one.
Here, the production of passions out of an ideational framework is once again integral to
Rousseau’s account.46 Amour propre is not replaced by a new passion, but its previous limits
are removed. The relational concept of my own superiority over my fellow man leads
amour propre to demand acknowledgment of that superiority. These new relational ideas are
fantastical, for they conflate conventional social relations with essential qualities, but
precisely because of this they make amour propre limitless. 47
Now, human passion, in the form of amour propre, relates with reason in a new way.
In accordance with the indeterminate and bi-directional relationship of reason and passion
in perfectibility, the direction of the relationship now inverts. Passions incite new reasons,
technical discoveries and relational ideas. These new intellectual advancements feed back
into the passions which stimulated them, further overextending amour propre. This is the
Ibid., p. 166 [170].
Cf. Rose, ‘The restlessness of “being”’, p. 143.
47 Ibid., p. 144-145. Rose offers helpful elucidation of this point. She takes the potential superfluity of our
capacity for desire over our needs to be actualized in amour propre. Upon her reading this superfluity is simply
a given. This contrasts with the interpretation offered in this chapter, which suggests that superfluous
desires result from the interplay of our active powers, particularly will, with the formation of passions by our
perfectibility.
45
46
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story of the descent of humanity into a love of slavery, into despotism, and finally into a
new state of nature.
The anthropological play of perfectibility is also a development of man’s individual
psychological faculties. Rousseau’s narrative in the later part of Inequality is in perfect
conformity with his discussion of man’s active and passive powers and his perfectibility.
The entwined individual and social dramas are pivotal for Rousseau to make good on his
claim that vice has a history and that men cannot be vicious without having ‘opened’ the
causes of vice.
Inequality was not Rousseau’s last word on his analytical psychology. There is
already clear evidence in the text that his understanding of human activity and passivity
could be deepened. It is never clear why Rousseau’s thinks ideas can serve as a nexus for
the interpenetration of active and passive powers. Rousseau has left himself room to
probe this issue further. Inequality’s narrative is despondent, but it is only one instantiation
of perfectibility. Rousseau’s portrayal of the complex interplay between human activity and
passivity leaves room for other historical instantiations of perfectibility. The inadvertent,
but active role man plays in Inequality, suggests a normative dilemma that Rousseau will want
to resolve. In the subsequent sections, I will examine how Rousseau sought to use his
analysis of human psychology to develop an understanding of just political institutions. I
will also trace his increasingly developed understanding of the relationship between ideas
and passions.
Part II: Will in Political Economy
In this section I want to show that the understanding of will and agency which
Rousseau uses in Political Economy relies on his complex analysis of human activity and
passivity. But unlike in Inequality, Rousseau comes to instantiate the interplay of these
human capacities in a positive way. Political Economy depicts a socialisation with
consequences which are morally upright – government can cultivate virtuous will. By
demonstrating this, I am able to start teasing out the way in which Rousseau’s takes
psychology to matter for political thought. Particularly, I want to address the way in which
Rousseau uses his understanding of psychology as an analytical tool both to construct
political arguments and to depict the behaviour and experience of political agents. These
moves are interconnected, for the psychological development of citizens is occasioned by
the social practices, material conditions, and legal norms and institutions inextricable to
political life.
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Ideas, motives and ‘sublime virtue’ in government and law
The interplay between relational ideas and the passions, which was pivotal for the
development of amour propre in Inequality, makes an appearance in Political Economy.
Rousseau deploys this relationship in a consequential analysis of misconceptions about
governmental authority. He also uses his analytical psychology to delineate the proper
understanding and role of political law. In this section I want to elaborate these two
important locations of Rousseau’s analytical psychology.
Rousseau’s first worry in Political Economy is the way governmental authority and
paternal authority are sometimes conflated. He writes:
Although the functions of the father of a family and of the foremost magistrate should aim at
the same goal, they do so in such different ways; their duty and rights are so distinct that it is
impossible to equate them without forming false ideas about the fundamental laws of society,
and committing errors fatal to humankind. Indeed, while the voice of nature is the best
counsel a good father should heed in order to fulfil his duties well, it is for the magistrate
nothing but a false guide which constantly tends to distance him from his duties, and sooner or
later drags him to his own and to the states ruin unless he is restrained by the most sublime
virtue.48
In this passage Rousseau draws attention to the epistemological difference between
fatherhood and government.
This difference means that patriarchal government is
epistemologically confused. Furthermore, Rousseau makes the claim that this error is fatal
to humankind. How might false ideas have such repercussions? This would seem to entail
a change in Rousseau’s discussion from ideas to actions. Rousseau does exactly this. As the
passage above makes clear, the father is motivated, wills and acts according to the voice of
nature.
As David Williams has clarified, the ‘voice of nature’ is an epistemological
principle. I argued in the previous chapter that it is also a sentimental one. The idea of
fatherhood is confirmed by the voice of nature and the motivations it provides contribute
to the rightful behaviour of fathers.
But when the relationship in question is not
fatherhood but governance, the motives connected to the idea of fatherhood become
inadequate and injurious. Rousseau clearly relies on the same analytical psychology he
developed in Inequality. There is a sense, in which the magistrate’s confused ideas and
sentiments have not yet caught up to the facts of political life. If nothing is done, the
confusion of his sentiments and ideas concerning government will result in fatal harm.
This general social catastrophe Rousseau describes, implicates man’s capacity to perfect
himself for ill. But there is a chance that perfectibility might be instantiated in a different
way.
Rather than mistaking natural, paternal passions for the ones appropriate to
government, new passions and new ideas might be cultivated instead.
Rousseau, Political Economy, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau; The Social Contract and other Later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 5, [OC, III, 243].
48
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
These new principles and passions can be summed up in one concept – the
General Will. The magistrate must learn to follow the General Will, which is the ‘first and
most important maxim of legitimate or popular government’.49 The General Will is a kind
of disposition or inclination, a way of knowing the public good, 50 generalised public
reason, and a real will which makes real decisions.51 I will discuss the General Will and
how it is cultivated more below, but what I want to emphasize here is that Rousseau
introduces it as the alternative to the dissonant relationship between the paternalist
magistrate’s active and passive powers.
When Rousseau discusses the importance of law for the political community, it is
clear that rightful government must reconstructs the relationship between man’s active and
passive powers. Rousseau emphasises that law is not simply a set of positive institutional
decrees. Indeed, positive law cannot solve his problems. Law and government are set up
through a quasi-Lockean social contract, which secures the goods, lives and freedoms of
each member;52 however, public authority still disturbs private property.53 This problem is
likely to be divisive. Thus, Rousseau thinks law must go further than the formal stipulations
of a social contract. Law is a ‘celestial inspiration’ and an imitation of the ‘immutable
decrees of the divinity’.54 When Rousseau composed Political Economy, he held the Lockean
and natural juristic view that political law brings divine law into human institutional
practice.55 But what is interesting is not the apparent similarity of his position with his
natural law predecessors, but his discussion of what political law effects. The ‘marvel’ of
‘the work of law’ is that it is the precondition for justice, for it restores natural equality to the
realm of right. 56 This signals an alternative to the annihilation of natural equality by
artificial dependencies and the growth of amour propre in Inequality. Moreover, law does so
Ibid., p. 9 [247-248]
Ibid.
51 Patrick Riley, Will and Poltical Legitimacy, (Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 112. Riley
argues that philosophically speaking the General Will can only possibly make sense as the will of an individual,
and Rousseau ultimately does exactly this. Geraint Parry, ‘Thinking one’s own thoughts: autonomy and the
citizen’, in Robert Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995, pp. 100,
108-110. For Parry, the Rousseauian political individual must be autonomous and ‘think his own thoughts’.
When this is achieved in a political community the individual pursues his own General Will.
52 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 9 [248]. These motives and aims largely follows those Locke stipulated in The
Second Treatise,
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 See also Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book II, Chap. 6, p. 66 [378]. Despite Rousseau’s rejection of natural
law being a common topos in interpretive studies, there is no textual reason to believe that he does anything
else other than append positive political force to natural justice so that it may be ‘admitted’ amongst men.
The ingenuity with which this claim is frequently effaced by interpreters is unnecessary, for Rousseau’s views
need not be significantly different from Locke’s views on natural law in political practice. I address
Rousseau’s position on natural law in The Social Contract more substantively in Chapter 8.
56 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 10 [248].
49
50
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upon the same epistemological and psychological grounds that Rousseau used in Inequality.
The law stands to both reconcile and rectify our judgments and feelings. Rousseau proclaims:
It is this celestial voice that dictates the precepts of public reason to every citizen, and teaches
him to act in conformity with the maxims of his own judgment, and not to be in contradiction
with himself.57
The ‘celestial’ aspect of law brings public reason, personal judgment and behaviour into
alignment. All of this avoids or even prevents self-contradiction. Compare this celestial
aspect of law with Inequality, in which human ideas and judgments about interpersonal
relations are self-reflective, and by way of amour propre, threaten to negate both self and
community alike. In Political Economy, Rousseau claims law averts this epistemological,
psychological and sociological calamity. Because, in Rousseau’s view, amour propre is the
locus of self-contradiction, and because in Political Economy he says law corrects selfcontradiction, he implies that law fundamentally rectifies the problem of amour propre.
Rousseau is instantiating his analysis of psychology in a new way. Thus, the same fluid
movement between active reasoning, judging and knowing, and toward emotive feelings
and actual behaviours, which informed perfectibility in Inequality, is now directed toward
healthy political and mental life.
Love of Virtue
Rousseau claims that with and only with ‘sublime virtue’ can the voice of nature
become politically beneficial. 58 Similarly, law deploys a ‘celestial voice’ to bring reason,
action, and judgment into conformity. The magistrate’s conformity with the General Will
is also a matter of ‘sublime virtue’.59 I think the language of the sublime is an important
facet of Rousseau’s political argument. As hitherto detailed, the language of ‘sublime’ love
would have been familiar to Rousseau from his reading of Plato and early modern neoPlatonic moralists. Hence, I suggest that his alternative to the dissonant relationship
between man’s active and passive powers is delivered by way of an understanding of
higher, sublime love, which makes sublime virtue possible.
Rousseau clearly needs to deploy a form of love or passion to counter the problem
of amour propre. As we saw in Inequality, passions can deform reasoning. In Political Economy
the confusion of paternal sentiments and natural reasons with political reasoning and
government leads to similar corruption.
This confusion promises to initiate another
negative play of perfectibility unless it can be interrupted by law. If it is to wed personal
judgments to public reason and the celestial voice, Rousseau’s conception of law must find
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 5 [243]. In the French the term is ‘sublime vertu’.
59 Ibid., p. 9 [248].
57
58
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
a solution to passion and its capacity to corrupt reason. Rousseau proceeds precisely to this
difficulty.
Rousseau insists that the trick of good governance is not to impose harsh
punishments but ‘to dispose of a thousand ways of making it [law] beloved.’60 Accordingly,
‘the genuine statesman knows how to prevent [transgressions]; he exercises his respectable
dominion over wills even more than over actions.’61 Clearly, establishing law requires the
motivations, passions and will of citizens to change. To achieve this, the magistrate must
not only know ‘how to use men as they are’ he must also be able ‘to make them what one
needs them to be’; moreover, his authority ‘penetrates to man’s inmost being, and affects
his will no less than it does his actions.’62 Borrowing a Fénelonian commonplace from
Telemachus and from Pur Amour, Rousseau insists that the great art of the ancients, when
philosophers gave laws to people, was to make citizens love the laws, so that when one knows
what one ought to do, one does it.63 The will to actually perform one’s obligations is only
viable if a love of law and lawful behaviour is in place. Thus, the way Rousseau harmonises
reason, knowledge and behaviour within man’s psyche depends on a higher form of love.
This love of law is integral to Rousseau’s ‘second essential rule of public economy’.64
If magistrates ‘wish the General Will to be carried out’ then they must ensure that ‘all
particular wills take their bearings by it’, which is to say ‘make virtue reign’, ‘since virtue is
nothing but this conformity of particular will to the General Will’.65 Virtue is required in
order for particular wills to take their bearing according to the General Will or in order for
individual agents to understand and will public reason. As I noted above, ‘sublime virtue’,
had been necessary for governors to distinguish between particular wills and the General
Will. Presumably, making the General Will the predominant will of citizens requires such
sublime virtuosity of the magistrate and elicits it in the people. Later, Rousseau explains
how particular wills can be lead to identify with the General Will:
But when the citizens love their duty, and the trustees of the public authority sincerely try to
foster this love by their example and their efforts, then all difficulties vanish… 66
Because this love of duty solves the same difficulties governors were to solve by the reign
of virtue, that reign can, most likely, be identified with the predominance of the love of
duty. Rousseau is perfectly clear that a robust and publicly shared love of duty makes the
identification of private wills with the General Will possible. This sort of love of duty
Ibid., p. 11 [250].
Ibid.
62 Ibid., pp. 12-13 [251].
63 Ibid., p. 13 [252].
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., p. 15 [253-254]. Italics mine.
60
61
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
would similarly restrict or supplant passions like amour propre, providing public reason and
law with an appropriate framework to align private and public judgments.
For Rousseau, the right kind of love is indispensible for public reasoning and the
General Will. Man’s active capacities cannot be understood without reference to his
passive ones. Speaking generally, the complex relationship between man’s active and
passive capacities can only be virtuously directed if men cultivate higher forms of love,
including the love of law and the love of duty. It is in this way that Political Economy
provides an alternative to Inequality and the horrendous history of human perfectibility.
Love of the Fatherland
Having made love of duty the core of the second rule of political economy,
Rousseau also has something to say about how this love might be evoked. Education is the
method in Political Economy by which each citizen’s psyche is rectified. Rousseau presents
two techniques which seem to be mutually supportive. First, Rousseau thinks the power of
exemplars must be used to inculcate the love of duty.67 Experiencing others enamoured of
the love of duty and acting upon it seems to make a powerful impression. However,
Rousseau insists that examples alone are insufficient. Interestingly enough, another kind of
love is the most powerful form of political education – ‘Love of the fatherland’.68 One
reading of this patriotic love suggests that it consists of a tamed amour propre, redirected for
politically suitable means.69 This interpretation encapsulates something of what Rousseau
is doing, particularly the importance of the psychology of love and passion for his political
thought; nevertheless, it overlooks the particular psychological views which Rousseau uses
to advance his position.
I aim to show that it is not amour propre but a different
understanding of the relation between man’s active and passive powers that informs
Rousseau’s position on patriotic love. This allows us to better understand the way in which
Rousseau uses patriotic love as a form of education.
This love of the fatherland is distinguished from amour propre in important ways.
True, Rousseau claims that this love is powerful – it ‘excites hearts’ and is a ‘seething and
sublime ardor’.70 Moreover, when citizens ‘succeed’ in ‘identifying with this larger whole’,
‘feel themselves members of the fatherland’, ‘love it with that exquisite sentiment from
Ibid, p. 15 [254].
Ibid.
69 Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, London, p. 172. O’Hagan argues that the love of the fatherland, or patriotism
in Political Economy is a combination of virtue and amour propre. See all of Chapter VII, pp. 162-179 for
O’Hagan’s sustained account of amour propre as a morally neutral capacity in Rousseau’s work as a whole.
Amour propre has, in O’Hagan’s interpretation, both positive and negative poles. It is only the negative,
inflated form of amour propre that Rousseau fears, according to this interpretation.
70 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 16 [255].
67
68
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
which any isolated man has only for himself’, and thus ‘raise their soul perpetually to this
great object’, they have done nothing less than ‘transform into a sublime virtue the
dangerous disposition that gives rise to all our vices.’71 If this ‘dangerous disposition’ is
amour proper, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that these utterances reveal Rousseau’s
commitment to the redirection of that artificial passion.
Nevertheless, there are several reasons to deny this conclusion. For instance, the
argument that self-interest in the form of amour propre, could be directed toward virtuous
public ends was one of which Rousseau was deeply suspicious. 72 George Armstrong Kelly
has remarked on Rousseau’s anti-progressivist traits.73 His opposition to Mandeville on
this point is well established. Similarly, Rousseau’s argumentation against the notion of
doux commerce espoused by materialist philosophes, Hume, Mandeville, and members of the
Genevan patriarchate, which Helena Rosenblatt has elucidated so vibrantly, evinces deep
theoretical and political reasons for him to disavow the rectification of amour propre.74
What if that ‘dangerous disposition’ noted above is not amour proper? I want to
suggest that it is not. Instead, I submit that the disposition is perfectibility. Rousseau’s
account of perfectibility indicates quite clearly that most of the time it disposes men toward
vice. Consider Rousseau’s claim that love of the fatherland combines ‘the force of amour
propre’ with the ‘beauty of virtue’.75 Reading this as a rectification of amour propre requires
the interpreter to conflate that desire with its force whereas Rousseau actually distinguishes
them. What might Rousseau mean when he distinguishes amour propre from its force?
Earlier, I showed that amour propre is a form of passion which arises in relation to man’s
active powers and through perfectibility. But perfectibility need not always unfold in the
same way.
Man’s active and passive powers can react in a multitude of ways.
Consequently, patriotic love could be derived from a different process of perfectibility.
Like amour propre, patriotic love must gain its force by being artificial. But unlike amour
propre, there need not be any inherent conflict between amour de soi and patriotic love.76
Thus, it makes little sense to read this passage as advocating a reformation of amour propre.
Instead it is possible (but not certain) that patriotic love possesses the same motivational
Ibid., p. 20 [259-260].
Rousseau, Inequality, pp. 152-153 [154-155]. Rousseau notes with sardonic mirth how Mandeville, ultimately,
is forced to rely on pity, rather than a reconstructed version of self-interest, in order for his examples to
explain how compassion would be elicited.
73 Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, pp. 10, 18, 19.
74 Helena Rosenblatt, Rousseau and Geneva, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Chap. 2. Cf.
Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 20, [260]. Rousseau alludes to the doux commerce argument. See also Norman
Barry, ‘Hume, Smith and Rousseau on Freedom’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty, pp. 29-51; and on
doux commerce: pp. 35-39.
75 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 16, [255]. Italics mine.
76 This makes particular sense given that Rousseau aimed for sublime virtue (by way of the higher love of
duty) to rejoin the voice of nature to political morality. Amour propre could only efface the voice of nature.
71
72
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
force as amour propre because of a different relationship between man’s active and passive
powers. And if this is true, Rousseau’s claim that this love can be elevated and sublime,
rather than merely socially refined, might make more sense.
It is important to remember that Rousseau uses the love of the fatherland as a form
of education. It is supposed to help illicit virtue, the General Will, love of duty and love of
the laws. Rousseau insists that ‘love of the fatherland is the most effective’ ‘means that
should be used’ for teaching citizens to be good.77 Love of the fatherland works in part
because ‘we [already] readily want [or will] what the people we love want [or will]’, which
consequently brings our particular wills into alignment with something more general and
makes them more ‘virtuous’.78 But this initial form of social love is inherently limited, and
its force diminishes the further people are from us. 79 Here sublime love returns to
Rousseau’s story. Patriotic love leads human ardour away from its immediate and parochial
objects and towards sublime, public objects. The connection between the sublime and the
general or the disinterested is one which Rousseau had long been familiar with,80 and it is
clear that he is adapting a neo-Platonic and Fénelonian notion of disinterested political
love. Patriotism concentrates ‘humanity’ amongst ‘those with whom we have to live’ and
adds force to this ‘through the habit of seeing one another, and the common interest that
unites’ us.81 Although Rousseau is not clear how, he maintains that patriotic love itself
leads the citizen’s love from familial identification to political identification, and a sense of
common humanity – this is its educative purpose.
Upon this model, virtue, which is the knowledge of public reason and the general
interest combined with voluntary action upon these principles, is the consequence of
patriotic love. Patriotism helps perfect virtue, for Rousseau insists that even the purest
virtue (established upon other grounds) is not possessed of such ‘sublime ardour’ ‘when
separated from the love of the fatherland’.82 Rousseau then goes on to compare Socrates
and Cato as representatives of pure virtue and virtue combined with the love of the
fatherland, respectively.83 Socrates is splendid, but Cato is superior. In Political Economy,
Rousseau makes clear that reason and knowledge of the good are inadequate without an
empowering, corresponding love. Rousseau never doubts that Socrates loves truth, which
Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 15, [254]. Italics mine.
Ibid.
79 Ibid. Cf. Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, pp. 134-135, 141-144. Riley explores the problem of
distance and social feeling. He suggests the General Will strikes a via media between the most forceful but
also most particular local forms of willing and emaciated cosmopolitan or universal will.
80 As I showed in the previous chapter.
81 Rousseau, Political Economy, pp. 15-16 [254-255]. Italics mine.
82 Ibid., p. 16 [255]. Italics mine.
83 Ibid.
77
78
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
means Rousseau’s use of him as an example takes the analysis one step further. All things
being equal, the kind of love one has, even amongst virtuous ones, matters. It is in this
sense that love of the fatherland is central.
The sublime virtue that reunites man’s
conscience with political morality, that makes the General Will possible, and that law
requires, is a consequence of patriotic love. Thus, the love of the fatherland is at once both
a means to evoking progressively more virtuous forms of love in the polity and an
indispensable component of sublime virtue.
Political Economy compliments Inequality by offering a picture of human virtues that
depends on the right forms of passions, ideas, and the right mode of reasoning. Rousseau
advocates forms of governance which instantiate perfectibility in a new way.
Now
perfectibility aligns man’s active and passive capacities for his benefit and moral
improvement. Rousseau supplements his earlier account of the relationship between man’s
active and passive powers by suggesting that a complex, higher form of love might
empower man’s active powers rather than degrade them. Rousseau goes no further in
Political Economy toward offering a systematic understanding of how the magistrate might
come into possession of this virtue. Rousseau also says nothing more about the underlying
reasons how man’s active and passive capacities can interact in this complex way.
Part III: Motives and interests in Rousseau’s Letter to D’Offreville
Rousseau’s letter to M. D’Offreville (4 October 1761), written in the same year as
the publication of Julie and only eight months before Emile and The Social Contract were in
print, addresses the nature of morality. D’Offreville asks from what frame of reference do
moral motives proceed? One view is that even the most virtuous actor ‘even in the purest
works of charity’ ‘relates everything to himself’. 84
The other view, espoused by
D’Offreville, is that ‘one ought to do good for the sake of good, even without any returns
in personal interest’ and that any relation of an ostensibly good work to ‘oneself’ in fact
constitutes an act of ‘amour propre’.85 This controversy was longstanding. As we saw in the
previous chapter, Archbishop Fénelon had been embroiled in a very similar dispute with
Bossuet and Malebranche. Fénelon’s notion of pur amour, in abnegating the self, seemed to
offer no explanation for how one could be motivated to love disinterestedly. Pur amour
seemed to strip the agent of any apparent interest. As I showed in the previous chapter,
Rousseau would have been well aware of these moral positions.
His response to
Rousseau, ‘Letter to D’Offreville’, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), The Social Contract and other Later Political Writings,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), par. 2, p. 261. The standard French text of ‘to D’Offreville’
is found in Rousseau, Correspondence Complète, R. A. Leigh (ed.), Vol. IX, pp. 143-148.
85 Ibid.
84
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D’Offreville gave him a chance to contribute to that debate. He saw it as a matter of
‘duty’.86 In this section, I show that Rousseau’s answer to this question depends on an
analysis of human activity and passivity. I also elucidate the way Rousseau distinguishes
self interest from interests of the self in order to unite the motivational power of interests
with the disinterestedness of Fénelonian pur amour.
Although the provenance of D’Offreville’s question is familiar, the way in which
Rousseau implodes both rival positions is not.
He does this through establishing an
apparent paradox. First, he assures D’Offreville that self-referential beneficence is indeed
‘without merit’. 87 Rousseau is on the verge of endorsing a Fénelonian, self-abnegating,
answer to this moral dilemma.
But instead, Rousseau indicates that D’Offreville’s
unnamed ‘adversary’s opinion’ lies ‘at the heart of the matter’. 88 Rousseau believes the
current debate has been misconceived although its high moral stakes have been correctly
accounted. The problem is that the self-abnegating position does not properly understand
agency. Rousseau writes:
When we act, we have to have a motive for acting, and this motive cannot be extrinsic to
ourselves, since it is ourselves it sets to work; it is absurd to imagine that being myself, I will act
as if I were another. Is it not true that if you were told that a body is being pushed without
anything touching it, you would say that is not conceivable? The same holds regarding
morality, when one believes oneself to be acting without any interest. 89
Rousseau’s position is that acts of will, just like motions of bodies, must be caused by
something. The action taken by an agent cannot explain itself. This aporia is filled by the
concept of motivation. Although Rousseau does not spell out exactly how motivation is
constituted, there are certain things about it that must be true. Most importantly, it must
be part of or intrinsic to the agent. For an agent to act, only the agent can put himself in
motion. In this sense then, action must be utterly unlikely the motion of bodies caused by
extrinsic physical causes. This view is essentially the same as Rousseau’s understanding of
activity and passivity which I elaborated in Part I
Because morality is a matter of acting, only certain claims about our action can be
true. Although I might be able to imagine myself as someone else, I can never act as if I
were another. Morality must always concern my action; it must follow intrinsic rather than
extrinsic causes. Upon this ground Rousseau cannot accept D’Offreville’s position in the
Ibid., par. 20, p. 265. Cf., V. Gourevitch, ‘Editorial Notes’, in The Social contract and other Later Political Writings,
p. 317. The addressee of the letter, Grimprel d’Offreville, later published his entire correspondence with
Rousseau. Evidently, there is evidence that Rousseau thought his response a ‘public statement’ and had
drafted a manuscript copy of the letter for an edition of his works.
87 Ibid., par. 3, p. 261.
88 Ibid., par. 4.
89 Ibid., par. 4.
86
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way it has been presented because it overlooks the intrinsic motives required for morality
to be a matter of action.
In addition to motivation being obviated in D’Offreville’s question, Rousseau also
thinks ‘interest’ has been incorrectly conceptualised. The problem seems to be that both
D’Offreville and his adversary, by supporting or rejecting ‘[self-] interested’ morality, have
defined the term too narrowly. One level of interest deals with ‘material well-being’ and
includes the ‘physical goods that may accrue to us from another’s good opinions’ and their
esteem for us and our behaviour.90 This type of self-interest is not unlike that lauded by
Bernard Mandeville and later David Hume. The object of this interest seems to be coeval
with Rousseau’s amour de soi yet also includes some of the comparative striving typical of
amour propre. None of these motives in Rousseau’s view are virtuous; rather, they resemble
the behaviours and aims of mercantile exchange. 91
Consequently, the account of
D’Offreville’s opponent, by limiting interests to nothing more than self-interested desires,
is fundamentally incapable of making sense of morality. Rousseau then, wants to provide a
different way of squaring norms and interests.
In order to combine morality and motivation, Rousseau seems to make a sustained
case for one different way of conceptualising the moral question at stake; however, I think
Rousseau actually raises two alternatives, which are not normatively equivalent. One of
them differs from mercantile interest only by substituting spiritual self-benefits for physical
and social ones. The other interest is connected to the self but is interested in virtue as an
end rather than virtue as a means to selfish rewards.
Rousseau proposes one alternative way of conjoining interests and morality:
There is another interest, which is entirely unrelated to social advantages, which is relative only
to ourselves, to the good of our soul, to our absolute well-being, which therefore I call spiritual
or moral interest, by contrast to the first; an interest which, in spite of having no sensible,
material objects, is no less true, no less great, no less solid, and, in a world, the only interest
which tends toward our genuine happiness, since it is intimately related to our nature. This, Sir,
is the interest which virtue pursues and out to pursue, and which in no way deprives the actions
it inspires of merit, purity, or moral goodness. 92
This interest does not aim to possess, utilise or consume goods or esteem, but that does
not mean the self drops out of the picture. This moral interest is, on the contrary, the only
kind which predicates ‘genuine happiness’. Moreover, virtue aims for this interest. The
Ibid., par. 6, pp. 261-262. In regard to esteem Rousseau says that some men give ‘alms to be esteemed
charitable and to enjoy the advantages attending this esteem’.
91 Ibid., p. 262. Given the mercantile allusions and connotations drawn by supporters of public virtue as a
form of intelligent and sophisticated private vice, Rousseau’s similar comparison is not surprising. For an
early example see the role of self-interest, commerce and the approximation of virtue in Pierre Nicole’s Essais
Morales. Helena Rosenblatt provides a formidable summa of the state of this argument in Rousseau’s context,
and particularly in Geneva, in Rousseau and Geneva, pp. 46-52.
92 Rousseau, ‘To D’Offreville’, par. 7, p. 262.
90
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
consequent action remains morally praiseworthy. Rousseau seems to achieve this shift by
changing the object of mercantile interest. Esteem and physical goods are replaced by
spiritual happiness.
Rousseau would seem to have solved D’Offreville’s problem by
bringing into play a higher form of interest.
However, this interest requires careful evaluation. Rousseau uses several terms in
his redefinition of interest which might just problematise it. Interest must have causal
force in Rousseau’s earlier discussion. There is a necessary (if imperfect) connection
between moral interest and moral behaviour. It is tempting to imagine that, consequently,
the interest described in paragraph seven pursues the true happiness of the self. Rousseau,
however, is not clear, for he only states that this interest is ‘relative’ to the self - the
meaning of the relation is not specified. Whatever Rousseau had in mind, his invocation of
absolute well-being of the self does not provide sufficient evidence to deduce that the
moral interest is interested in that absolute well being.
Following the introduction of moral interest, Rousseau’s discussion of it bifurcates
into two quite different propositions. Rousseau discusses religious behaviour as a possible
instance of moral interest. I shall call this religious interest. In the framework or ‘system’
of ‘punishments and rewards in the other life’ our interest is in ‘pleasing the Author of our
being’.93 Religious interest leads us to discount even the advantages of the present life and
‘ennobl[es]’ even ‘the most sublime duties’.94 Happiness is the aim of religious interest.
Virtue, which is the overcoming of other passions in favour of the religious interest,
facilitates this end. Because God’s law combines reason and punishment to elicit the
religious interest, Rousseau echoes Locke, perhaps intentionally, and suggests that this ‘law
to act well is derived from reason itself’.95 God provides the framework of law according
to reason, and provides punishment and reward as means of shaping the motivations and
interests of human agents.
The problem is, this model remains geared toward the advantage of the self, just in
a spiritual rather than material way. The spiritual self-interest indicated here is certainly
more praiseworthy than mercantile interest in Rousseau’s view, but it has really only
substituted spiritual for material objects of self-interest, it has not changed the mode of
interestedness. Although this form of interest provides the religious believer a real motive
to behave virtuously, in Pur Amour and Maxims of the Saints on the Inner Life, Fénelon had
castigated this form of love for its fundamental mercenary self-interestedness.
D’Offreville’s preferred position is the same and it is unlikely that he would have been
Ibid., par. 8, p. 262.
Ibid.
95 Ibid.
93
94
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convinced that Rousseau’s religious interest was really a new conception of interest ‘related’
to the self.
Rousseau also thinks religious interest inadequate. Thus, Rousseau suggests that
there may be yet ‘some other interest which is, by its nature, tied more intimately, more
necessarily to virtue, and which should make us love virtue solely for its own sake’. 96 I call
this virtuous interest. Rousseau adds a caveat to his discussion of virtuous interest; it
requires metaphysical substantiation, which is beyond the scope of his reply to D’Offreville.
In a provision reminiscent of the Florentine and French neo-Platonic tradition on Eros
with which he was familiar, Rousseau states that the challenge is to first discover ‘natural
love of order’ and of ‘the morally beautiful’ and then to determine if this love possesses
sufficient power to override other passions, complementing moral action.97 Rousseau reads
together the love of virtue, of beauty, and of order in a way remarkably similar to the views
of Fénelon and Marsiglio Ficino.
Where his neo-Platonic forbearers had no doubt,
Rousseau wonders if this composite love of virtue, beauty and order can become the
preponderant motivation of human activity.98
Virtuous interest differs from religious interest in several important ways. The role
of virtue in these two apparent forms of moral interest is crucial. For religious interest,
virtue supported the pursuit of spiritual happiness. For virtuous interest, virtue itself is the
aim. Rousseau’s overall schema of interests – mercantile love, religious self-interest, and
purely virtuous love – is reminiscent of Fénelon’s Platonised hierarchy of loves. The
difference is that Fénelon had sought the abnegation of the self.
Rousseau, on the
contrary, seeks to find a real interest of the self in this love of virtue for virtue’s sake.
Rousseau’s story about why this form of love can be attributed to actual human
beings is revealing. Rousseau depicts an English courtroom drama. An innocent man is
accused of murder, the jury correctly acquits him thanks to the stubbornness of one juror.
Rousseau’s juror is not like Henry Fonda’s in Twelve Angry Men; this juror is the actual
perpetrator.
Why would he risk, Rousseau ponders, his very life when he has the
opportunity to permanently escape the crime? What could have motivated him? Not
mercantile interest, surely. What about religious interest? Rousseau indicates that with life
on the line ‘enthusiasm of virtue could not have elevated his heart’.99 Ruling out enthusiasm
of virtue might seem to disqualify both forms of moral interest, but this is worth a second
Ibid., par. 9, p. 262.
Ibid.
98 Ibid. Rousseau also admits that this love of virtue would only matter if this principle of love is innate to
our psyche. If it is not, believing in it would leave us as no more than dupes and fools. But Rousseau also
attributes this view to the ‘new philosophy’, that is the doctrines of the philosophes. In a rather backwards way,
Rousseau thereby indicates the credibility of this form of interest in his view.
99 Ibid., par. 14, p. 263. Italics mine.
96
97
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glance. Rousseau had indicated that religious interest is connected to our absolute well
being and pursues that as its objective. Indeed the very pursuit (and perhaps not the
receipt) of such well being may constitute the connection Rousseau has in mind. In that
model virtue leads to spiritual interest in a way which cannot explicate this juror’s
behaviour. The juror is already an unjust man. In a system of rewards and punishments,
his crime will not be expiated because he later prevents the conviction of the innocent. He
is unlike the martyr expecting eternal rewards. His life is at stake right away but he generally
lacks virtue. The best any kind of self-interest, religious or mercantile, could hope for is
survival. Thus, ‘enthusiasm of virtue’ (virtue predicated on a form of self-interest) cannot
account for the motivation of this juror.
How then was the juror motivated? Perhaps, enthusiasm ‘of’ virtue need not be
enthusiasm ‘for’ virtue. What if Rousseau imagined some other relationship between virtue
and interest? Having excluded religious interest and mercantile interest, but not necessarily
virtuous interest, Rousseau’s point seems to be that only an interest for virtue (rather than
of virtue) could have motivated this juror. Improbable though this conclusion might be
(the juror has murdered someone), it is the only plausible explanation remaining of the
motives behind the juror’s intransigence.
One final problem must still be addressed for Rousseau to resolve the problem of
morals and motivation raised at the opening of his letter. How is this second moral mode
of interest still a motivation intrinsic to us? Because Rousseau has foresworn metaphysical
consideration of this interest, he cannot fully develop his analysis. However, Rousseau
believes the normal dichotomy between this kind of moral interest and an interest
connected to the self 100 is nonexistent – the two interests can be perfectly coequal and
coextensive.101 This is because the moral interest ‘gives’ the soul an internal satisfaction, a
contentment with itself without which there is no true happiness…’.102 Indeed, it is even
the condition for the actual enjoyment of the external advantages merely sought by mercantile
interest, for without this moral interest those goods are ‘poisoned in a corrupt soul’.103 The
consistent love of virtue is not happiness as such, nor does it ‘bestow’ happiness directly,
but it is the only way in which our capacity for enjoyment can be cultivated.104
Virtuous interest is in this way a genuine interest which ‘relates’ to the self. But it is
not an object of appetite, nor is it a means to an end. Satisfaction is found when we do
I eschew the use of term self-interest to avoid its unhelpful connotation. What is important for Rousseau
is that he find an interest that is of the self, rather than merely an interest for the self. This would still be an
interested related to the self, but in a different way.
101 Ibid., par. 18, p. 264.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid., p. 265.
100
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
good for its own sake, but never when we do good for the sake of satisfaction. Some other
way of thinking about motivation must pervade Rousseau’s belief in this interest, but he
does not explain that here. At the very least, this virtuous interest, by being an interest, must
bring to bear man’s intrinsic, active powers in some way. It probably relates to man’s
passive powers as well.
But the complexities of these relationships are unclear, for
Rousseau has not engaged in a metaphysical discussion of the subject. For his purposes,s it
has been sufficient to show that this interest is real [the story of the juror] and that it relates
to the self [the matter of satisfaction]. In order to unpack the metaphysical explanation
Rousseau hints at but does not reveal, we must turn elsewhere.
Part IV: the Activity of Passivity, Wilful vice and the Love of Virtue in ‘The
Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’
As is well known, Rousseau dabbled in more systematic metaphysical work than he
ever published. Although his plans for the Materialism of the Sage were scrapped, his keen
awareness of epistemology, metaphysics and ontology is evident throughout much of his
work.105 Rousseau’s most elaborate explanation of his abstract philosophical views is in in
Emile, particularly in the ‘Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’, which was composed
shortly before ‘To D’Offreville’.
As part of the Vicar’s understanding of will, Rousseau
deploys the framework of activity and passivity to discuss the faculty or power of will.106
The Vicar’s discussion covers a wide range of philosophical topics, including moral
knowledge, moral reasoning, conscience, moral conduct, disinterestedness, the history of
sagacity, and religious truisms. I argue that it is in this text that that Rousseau draws
together the active/passive dichotomy, perfectibility, moral principles, sublime Eros and
relational ideas in a coherent analytical philosophy. And I submit that through the Vicar’s
creed Rousseau explains how ideas can serve as the nexus between active and passive
powers.
Psychology and the Vicar’s philosophical method
The ‘Profession’ begins with a discussion of philosophical method, which reveals
the underlying and complex role of active and passive powers in the human psyche.
Rousseau’s vicar distances himself from the ‘destructive’, standoffish, and self-promotional
See for example, David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, which interprets Rousseau’s thought
through the lens of Rousseau’s epistemology and ontology.
106 Susan James, ‘Reason, The Passions, and the Good Life’, in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (eds.), The
Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, Vol. II, (Cambridge: 1998), pp. 1358-1359. See also this
thesis, Chapter 3 for Locke’s views on active and passive powers.
105
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
quality of most philosophical disputation. 107 The Vicar identifies two causes of this
philosophical breakdown: ‘weakness of the human intellect’ and ‘pride’. 108 The Vicar’s
belief in the limited capacity of human cognition is not unlike Locke’s position in the
Essay. 109 In a theme emblematic of Rousseau’s thought, 110 the Vicar laments the great
dearth of modesty amongst philosophers.
If most ‘philosophers’ were intellectually
forthright, they would simply narrow the bounds of their enquiries. Unfortunately, ‘there is
not one of them who, if he chanced to discover the difference between truth and
falsehood, would not prefer the lie to the truth which another had discovered’.111 The love
of ‘glory’ amongst philosophers is practically limitless. Thus, the very core of the Vicar’s
point of departure includes two challenges. The vicar must resolve the epistemological
crisis with which he is faced; to do so he must outmanoeuvre the insidious and wilful
problem of pride.
In response to this problem, the Vicar offers two interconnected methodological
principles. First, the Vicar proposes to follow his ‘Inner light’ in regard to ‘what directly
concerned’ himself in order to make philosophical progress. 112 As I discussed in the
previous chapter, this inner light is a kind of intuitive reasoning, but it is not simply an
epistemological sense. Rousseau’s second move ties the inner light to an account of
stronger motivations, which make the inner light efficacious. The vicar depicts the state of
mind he adopts for philosophical enquiry:
Bearing thus within my heart the love of truth as my only philosophy, and as my only method a
clear and simple rule which dispensed with the need for vain and subtle arguments, I returned
with the help of this rule to the examination of such knowledge as concerned myself; I was
resolved to admit as self evident all that I could not honestly refuse to believe, and to admit as
true all that seemed to follow directly from this; all the rest I determined to leave undecided,
neither accepting nor rejecting it, nor yet troubling myself to clear up difficulties which did not
lead to any practical ends.113
Because the Vicar’s problem was pride, his principles provide something other than a
purely epistemological paradigm. Through the ‘love of truth’ the Vicar avoids ‘vain’
sophistication. His method taps into the emotive power of this love. He is ‘resolved’ to
follow the intellectually honest results of his enquiries. Thus, Rousseau’s methodology could
never be one of disaffected cognition. The viability of the Vicar’s method depends on the
cultivation of this intellectually forthright, determined and passionate disposition.
Rousseau is clearly addressing the problem of amour propre. Without addressing motivation
Rousseau, Emile, Book IV, p. 276 [OC, IV, 568].
Ibid.
109 Ibid. [568-569] The Vicar surmises that the human intellect is simply not able to penetrate all of creation
110 Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, pp. 11-12. Kelly brings out Rousseau’s regular disdain for any form of
knowledge, whether secular or theological, which engenders pride.
111 Rousseau, Emile, p. 277 [569].
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid., p. 278 [570].
107
108
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
and agency, pride trumps rationality. Rousseau wants the complex relationship between
man’s active powers and his passive powers to be instantiated in a different way. That is to
say, he wants a different relationship between our ideas, our reasoning and our passions to
emerge from a realigned process of perfectibility. His overlapping epistemological and
motivational solutions to prideful epistemology evince this ambition.
I have clarified the overlapping importance of the love of truth and the inner light
because the Vicar’s epistemological and psychological projects are so entwined. David
Williams’s account of the inner light is elucidating, but it unhelpfully elides some of the
most important sentimental aspects of that sense.114 George Armstrong Kelly noticed the
emotive and epistemological nature of the inner light, but blurred them together without
careful analysis. 115 The obvious, foundational importance of these two notions in the
Vicar’s philosophical method requires more careful consideration, particularly in regard to
their psychological aspects.
Activity and Passivity in Rousseau’s Voluntarism
Thus, it is appropriate to turn to the details of the Vicar’s theory of will. Just as in
Inequality and in ‘To D’Offreville’, the ‘Profession of Faith’ relies on a distinction between
activity and passivity. Activity or action involves the spontaneous commencement of
motion, whilst passivity involves transference of motion and seems to be a property of
matter. Because motion must begin with action, Rousseau is able to deduce the necessity
of a first actor – God. But the Vicar also deploys the same distinction in explicating human
behaviour. Some of our responses are purely passive, the desire for our own welfare (amour
de soi) for instance is part of the human constitution.116 Just as in Inequality, this natural
human sentiment is framed within Rousseau’s active/passive dualism. However, some of
our behaviour is active. The vicar describes this dichotomy:
…man is not one; I will and I will not; I feel myself at once a slave and a free man; I perceive
what is right, I love it, and I do what is wrong; I am active when I listen to the voice of reason;
I am passive when I am carried away by my passions; and when I yield, my worst suffering is
the knowledge that I might have resisted.117
In this case the Vicar is clear than man is both passive and active, but is sometimes passive
when he could have been active. This problem is the crux of freedom and slavery. If our
For the inner light as a matter of intuitionism see David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, pp. 7376. Williams argues, convincingly, for the intuitive sense in which the ‘inner light’ can be taken. For my
critique of William’s account of the inner light, see Chapter 5, Part III of this thesis.
115 For an example see Kelly, ‘A General Overview’, p. 27.
116 Rousseau, Emile, p. 291 [586].
117 Ibid., p. 289 [583].
114
181
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
active will is overwhelmed by passion, we suffer guilt. In a quintessentially Rousseauian
story, the relationship of our actions and passions stands to make us moral or immoral.
Because the moral importance of the active-passive distinction is so pivotal, the
Vicar offers further explanation. He tells the young Rousseau:
…my will is independent of my senses; I consent or I resist; I yield or I win the victory, and I
know very well in myself when I have done what I wanted and when I have merely given way
to my passions, I have always the power to will, but not always the strength to do what I will.
When I yield to temptation I surrender myself to the action of external objects. When I blame
myself for this weakness, I listen to my will alone; I am a slave in my vices, a free man in my
remorse.118
The man who is a morally suffering slave to vice is not necessarily malevolent. Instead, his
will is defeated. In explaining this Rousseau returns to the distinctions between intrinsic
and extrinsic motivations and between active and passive powers he utilised in his earlier
accounts of human behaviour. Yielding to passion, or more technically submitting to an
extrinsic power, when one has a power to avoid this, is vice. Will is caused by the self, it is
intrinsic. But willing something is not tantamount to doing something. Action seems to rely
not only on one having a will to do something but having a sufficiently strong will to
overcome competing passions.
Whether will can be strengthened or another power
deployed to support it are questions I shall return to subsequently. What is clear is that our
active capacities and our passive liabilities both motivate us. Unlike will, which is purely
active, human behaviour is constituted by both activity and passivity.
The fork between activity and passivity not only explains virtue and vice, it is the
fulcrum of all normative value in the Vicar’s moral universe. This is elucidated in the
Vicar’s brief theodicy. Human capacities and vulnerabilities are both necessary for and
carefully balanced so that human agents may be virtuous. Rousseau writes:
To complain that God does not prevent us from doing wrong is to complain because he has
made man of so excellent a nature, that he has endowed his actions with that morality by
which they are ennobled, that has made virtue man’s birthright. Supreme happiness consists in
self-content; that we may gain this self-content we are placed upon this earth and endowed
with freedom, we are tempted by our passions and restrained by conscience. What more could
divine power itself have done on our behalf? Could it have made our nature a contradiction,
and given the prize of well doing to one who was incapable of evil? To Prevent a man from
wickedness, should providence have restricted him to instinct and made him a fool? 119
The Vicar maintains this view later:
I say to myself: If man’s soul had remained in a state of freedom and innocence, what merit
would there have been in loving and obeying the order found established… . He would be
happy, no doubt, but his happiness would not attain to the highest point, the pride of virtue,
and the witness of a good conscience within him; he would be but as the angels are, and no
doubt the good man will be more than they. 120
Ibid., pp. 290-291 [585-586].
Ibid., p. 292 [587].
120 Ibid., p. 306 [603].
118
119
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
Thus for Rousseau, the possibilities of man becoming free, exercising his own capacities
and choosing the right are the conditions of virtue.
Recounting a theme from ‘To
D’Offreville’, the Vicar is clear that some measure of happiness may be obtained without
virtue, but without virtue our happiness is woefully incomplete. Upon this view freedom,
will, virtue and happiness converge. But at the same time, the real dangers of passion and
the indeterminacy of intelligent activity are indispensable for moral beings. Without these
risks, one might find arbitrary good deeds or behaviour deprived of intelligence, but one
would find nothing like virtue.
Though the vicar has not yet fully explained virtue, or virtuous behaviour, it is clear
man’s active and passive powers are essential for his morality. The question is in what way
passions and actions are mutually important for ethical life. I turn now to this complex
issue.
The activity of passion
I want to suggest that the parts of the Vicar’s discussion to which I have referred
offer a picture of how man can become moral and immoral in one moment of his
psychological development. A complex and dynamic relationship between activity and
passivity is part of this story. The Vicar’s conversation leads us to this realisation. In this
section, I want to highlight Rousseau’s understanding of the interplay between man’s active
and passive powers, and show how it refines his earlier views.
Rousseau’s Vicar makes it quite clear that the primitive simpleton cannot be
virtuous even if ‘his life is almost entirely free from suffering and from passion…’.121 By
contrast, ‘we’, or those of us who are not in ‘a state of primitive simplicity’, ‘find a
thousand ills’ in our ‘search for an imaginary good’.122 So far this aspect of the Vicar’s
thought is not in tension with traditional understandings of activity and passivity.
However, pains like this, the Vicar claims, are man’s own ‘handiwork’; they are attributable
to the ‘disorder’ inherent in our vices and our faults, and they are found in the ‘mind[s] of
those who experience [them]’.123 By understanding man’s role in his own vice, I claim that
the Vicar, like Rousseau, thinks passions and actions interpenetrate each other.
Rousseau makes man’s active role in his own vices the subject of sustained
examination in the ‘Profession of Faith’. It is quite clear from this discussion, that moral
pains, as opposed to purely physical afflictions, are not grounded in external stimuli but in
Ibid., p. 292 [588]. In regard to the amorality of the natural man in Inequality, see in particular Arthur
Lovejoy, ‘The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality’, in Modern Philology, Vol. 21, (1923),
pp. 165-186.
122 Rousseau, Emile, p. 292 [588].
123 Ibid., p. 293 [588].
121
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
our own imagination. Rousseau is not suggesting that moral ills are phantasmagorical, but
rather he is claiming that as powerful phenomena they depend on a specific aspect of
intelligence. This is our capacity to imagine terms not strictly derived from nature and to
organise and systematise those sensations we do receive. This way of thinking about
imagination would be familiar to Rousseau from his reading of Locke, from his Lockean
philosophe contemporaries or perhaps even from Hume.124 Something like this also seemed
to be implicated in the relationship between idea-formation and passions in Rousseau’s
account of perfectibility in Inequality. At the same time, the role of imagination in the origin
of our moral suffering also points to a way in which active powers may stand to be diverted
into passivity.
To understand how these connections are drawn it is important to start with the
Vicar’s identification of intellectual judgement with will. Returning to the matter of the
inner light, the Vicar discusses two related capacities of the human intellect, perception and
comparison. The vicar finds his ability to compare irreducible to his perceptions. Recalling
Inequality and Lockean ideational thought,125 comparisons are the ground for all relational
ideas. The Vicar avows the distance between comparisons and experience:
To perceive is to feel; to compare is to judge; to judge and to feel are not the same. Through
sensation objects present themselves to me separately and singly as they are in nature; by
comparing them, I shift them so to speak, I place one upon another to decide whether they are
alike or different, or more generally to find out their relations. To my mind, the distinctive
faculty of an active or intelligent being is the power of understanding the word ‘is’. I seek in
vain in the merely sensitive entity that intelligent force [or power] which compares and judges;
I can find no trace of it in nature. This passive entity … can never form a judgment with
regard to them [objects of sensation].126
For Rousseau’s Vicar, it is clear that judgment, unlike sensation, requires the active
capacities of agency. In a broadside against the extreme sensationalism embodied in
Helvetius’ understanding of judgment as feeling, 127 Rousseau insists that the capacity to
compare is the agent’s;128 it is not part of sensation itself. If this were inverted the vicar
speculates that his ‘judgment would never be mistaken, for it is never untrue that [he]
Helena Rosenblatt traces Rousseau’s familiarity with Hume’s understanding of human progress back at
least to the composition of Inequality. In a sense vital to political debates in Geneva, Inequality shows how
human socialization does not refine human moral sentiments or lead to moral progress. Thus, Rousseau
would almost certainly have been familiar with the role of imagination in Hume’s philosophy.
125 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II Chap. 11, §4, p. 157; Chaps. 24-28. Locke writes
quite specifically that ‘The COMPARING them [ideas] one with another, in respect of Extent, Degrees, Time,
Place, or any other Circumstances, is another operation of the Mind about its Ideas, and is that upon which
depends all that large tribe of Ideas, comprehended under Relation’ (p. 157). For the 18th century version of
this view see Jean H. Bloch, ‘Rousseau and Helvetius on Innate and Acquired Traits: The Final Stages of the
Rousseau-Helvetius Controversy’, in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 40, No. 1, (Jan.-Mar., 1979), p. 22.
126 Rousseau, Emile, p. 279 [571-572].
127 Bloch, ‘Rousseau and Helvetius’, p. 22.
128 This view is in no way divergent from Locke’s, who repeatedly insists that both judgment and comparison
are capacities of the mind, judgment particularly, is drawn in stark opposition to any deterministic
sensationalist framework. See Locke, Essay, Book II, Chap. 21 for Locke’s thought on volition and judgment.
124
184
Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
feel[s] what [he] feel[s]’.129 However, the Vicar’s errors in judgment are frequent.130 The
only conclusion is that he is ‘active’ when he judges ‘because the operation of comparison
is at fault’ and because his ‘understanding’ ‘mingles its errors with the truth of
sensations.’131 The Vicar makes two things clear by these reflections: that judgment and
comparison involve an activity that is intrinsic to the agent (and quite unlike the passivity
implied by purely materialist and sensationalist accounts of human psychology); and also
that error is entailed by this activity. I shall examine the way in which intellectual judgment
is deeply connected to volition, the Vicar’s other active power, and then return to the
implications of errors in judgment.
In the details, mental judgment overlaps with will. In a well known passage, the
vicar makes this explicit:
If matter in motion points me to a will, matter in motion according to fixed laws points me to
intelligence; that is the second article of my creed. To act, to compare, to choose, are the
operations of an active, thinking being.132
This passage illustrates one of Rousseau’s fundamental beliefs about the workings of the
human psyche. Moving matter requires a first cause, which is will. Furthermore, motion
according to law, i.e. organised motion, requires intelligence. Because the Vicar is still
discussing the motion of matter, this means intelligence is a quality of some, but not all
wills. Thus the activity of willing, realised in physical motion, can be commensurable with
the activity of intelligence, which is found in the cognitive capacity to compare Judgment
and will are commensurable, and they are both part of activity. In this case, the Vicar’s
claims relate to God’s activity. His will is always an intelligent first cause. But is this true
of man?
The necessity of intelligence for moral virtue, as examined above, makes it clear
that man is or is potentially an intelligent being. Liberty and human choice – matters of
human agency – were prerequisites for virtue. But man was not virtuous simply because he
had free will.
As we saw above, virtue required the choice of certain behaviours over
others and the capacity to resist some motives and passions. The failure to make these
choices or resist those passions was vice. To do this, it is obvious that he must be able to
know what is upright and to act accordingly. Consequently, the Vicar’s notion of virtue
presupposes that human beings have the capacity to combine intellectual judgments with
actual behaviour. Thus, human activity, can be and should become, a matter of intellectual
judgment, choice and behaviour.
Rousseau, Emile, p. 280 [572].
Ibid., [572-573].
131 Ibid., [573].
132 Ibid., p. 284 [578].
129
130
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
But if this is the case, errors, which result from our active comparisons and
judgments, deserve renewed attention. The likelihood of erroneous judgments, which for
Rousseau proves that humans are active intelligent beings, also applies to our normative
judgments and actions.
The reason why the Vicar insisted that the development of
intelligence is a necessary condition for both virtue and vice is now much clearer. Virtue is
a matter of will. For intelligent, active beings will and judgment are integrally connected.
Consequently, virtue requires an intellect. This means that the Vicar, and by extension
Rousseau, are quite consistent when they claim that the conditions required for virtue are
those necessary for vice. This is because, as we know, the behaviour of the virtuous agent
must be free (not causally determined by extrinsic passive forces). The possibility of error
is a condition of free judgments and imagination, which are the active capacities that can
make free agents upright. However, this intellectual freedom can lead just as easily to
erroneous normative ideas.
It is this very process which, as I showed above, causes our
vices and our moral suffering.
The Identity of Ideas and Feelings
The Vicar’s story is more complex than it first appeared.
Earlier, the Vicar
attributed vice to the weakness of will against the passions. Vice remains a problem of the
passions, but these passions are clearly constructed, in part, from both passive and active
powers. Unlike previous iterations of Rousseau’s analytical psychology, the Vicar’s story
includes an innovation that explicates this complex interpenetration of man’s active and
passive powers and that elucidate Rousseau’s solution to the problems of perfectibility and
amour propre.
This innovation comes unequivocally in Rousseau’s voice. He writes the following in
a footnote to the Vicar’s creed:
In some respects ideas are feelings and feelings are ideas. Both terms are appropriate to any
perception with which we are concerned, appropriate both to the object of that perception and
to ourselves who are affected by it; it is merely the order in which we are affected which
decides the appropriate term. When we are chiefly concerned with the object and only think
of ourselves as it were by reflection, that is an idea; when on the other hand, the impressions
received excites our chief attention and we think in the second place of the object which
caused it, it is a feeling.133
Thus, ideas and feelings, whether they deal with simple sense data or whether they concern
moral responses (as in the natural love the good on which the discussion turns) are
inextricably linked. We can make a purely analytical distinction between the passive origin
of our ideas and our sensations and the active role of judgment and reason in developing.
133
Ibid., p. 303, fn. 1. [OC, IV, 1559, see note a) to page 600].
186
Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
But the ontological, phenomenal, and epistemic nature of both ideas and feelings are
coextensive. Because we are passive (have a capacity to sense and feel) and also active
(have a capacity to compare and judge), our frame of reference allows us to make an
analytical distinction between feelings and ideas. Nevertheless, the underlying phenomena
will always elide that analytical device.
The identity between feelings and ideas explains the consistent slippage between
judgments and passions in Rousseau’s thought. When one conceives new ideas one creates
new passions. And when those new ideas are actively and artificially constructed, the
passions that result are vastly more powerful than natural ones. Recall that many ideas,
particularly relational ones are derived from active powers, including comparison,
judgment, and will. Now the inception of amour propre as a result of these relational ideas
becomes clear. Relational ideas are not derived directly from prior feelings and sensations,
they require the contribution of man’s active powers.
However, ideas are always
psychological triggers. Or rather, new relational ideas are new emotions. Artificial and
fanciful relational ideas bear no relation to the truth about our natural capacities, our
relations with others and our relations with things. Consequently, the passions which result
from these ideas are, in a peculiar way, active. This artificiality leads to ungrounded,
excessive passions, which overwhelm our natural sentiments and even our active powers.
In sum, the idea/feeling identity grounds the complex relationship between activity and
passivity in Rousseau’s mature analytical psychology.
The identity between ideas and feelings shows how Rousseau introduces a complex
relationship between action and passion. But this can be fleshed out more. Because
judgment is a form of will and we can now conclude that our own capacity to choose and
decide plays a far more insidious part in the origin of our vices than the Vicar first suggests.
Vice is not always a failure of the will but a misdirection of it. The Vicar confirms this
interpretation:
The guilty who assert that they are driven to crime, are liars as well as evil-doers; how is it that
they fail to perceive that the weakness they bewail is of their own making; that their earliest
depravity was the result of their own will; that by dint of wishing to yield to temptations, they
at length yield to them whether they will or no and make them irresistible?134
The Vicar’s earlier claim that submitting to passion is a failure to will efficaciously remains
true in a sense. But any corollaries that passions are caused extrinsically or are in some way
natural and fixed are falsified. Our passions are manifold and so too are their origins.
Some of them, and generally the most powerful of the passions, are the result of our own
active judgment and will. We yield to temptations that we have created ourselves. This is
134
Ibid., p. 307 [604].
187
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
the essence of amour propre, which must be ultimately nothing other than a manifestation of
malevolence. This is unsurprising because the terminology of amour propre had, amongst
Rousseau’s favourite French moralists, always been conceptually linked to the older
Augustinian term, malevolence.135 Desires like amour propre, which are really both active and
passive, corrupt our independent active capacities precisely because they are not simply
passive.
The Vicar reveals that our intellectual capacities unfold and devise wrong ideas at
the wrong time. Too frequently our intellectual aims serve the purpose of ‘shin[ing] before
the eyes of others’.136 Within this remarkable trap, ‘our judgments and our standards of
worth are determined before we have the knowledge of good and evil; and we measure all
things by this false standard’. 137 In this sense, ‘we are already corrupted by vice and
enslaved to our passions’ before we even think of understanding what virtue might be.138
The hope of higher Eros
Rousseau’s most refined understanding of activity, passivity and ideas allows him to
fully explain the psychological problems he had explored in Inequality. But this analytical
psychology also allows Rousseau to intimate a solution to these same problems. The
details of this complex solution can be elucidated if we return to the Vicar’s discussion of
philosophical method. The Vicar states explicitly that ‘the morality of our action consists
entirely in the judgments we ourselves form with regard to them. If good is good, it must
be good in the depth of our heart as well as in our action.’139 This is not a form of moral
subjectivism. Our consciousness of what is right is an intuitive sense in regard to our
behaviour, which is a clear instance of the inner light. Thus, the Vicar claims that he is ‘still
following the same method’ he had discussed earlier; he does not derive moral principles
from ‘higher philosophy’ but consults his deepest feelings, his consciousness of what is
right, his inner light, or more specifically, his conscience.140 The Vicar’s distrust of reason
remains clear, but ‘conscience never deceives’ and ‘is the true guide of man’. 141 Immediate
conformity to conscience is simply good. The trouble is man rarely conforms to conscience
or the inner light immediately. Because our morality consists in our ‘judgments’ about our
own actions and our principles, we do not passively receive a moral sense from our
Mark Cladis, ‘Rousseau and Eighteenth Century Moral Philosophy’ pp. 225-228.
Rousseau, Emile, p. 307 [604].
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid.
139 Ibid., p. 299 [595].
140 Ibid., p. 298 [594].
141 Ibid., pp. 298-299 [594-595].
135
136
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Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
conscience. Our activity and our will are also implicated in this story. What is the
relationship between our active powers and conscience?
What I want to show is that a certain form of passive power gives man a
motivation to follow conscience, judge his actions by it and behave virtuously. Unpacking
the Vicar’s demonstration of conscience helps explain this. The Vicar believes man has an
efficacious conscience because man is not wholly self-interested. The good man does not
behave morally as a means to an end. Indeed, the vicar repudiates, as Rousseau also did in
‘To D’Offreville, the view that ‘self-interest’ is the exclusive motivation of mankind.142 On
the contrary, ‘…consciousness that we are acting justly’ is the ‘reward of justice’.143 The
possibility that such a consciousness of our moral behaviour is satisfying seems to be
connected to the pleasure humans take in the knowledge of the wellbeing of others. This
pleasure must be social. The Vicar’s point is to draw a distinction between these kinds of
pleasure and the pleasures of a purely self-referential individual. Rousseau writes:
Take from our hearts this love of what is noble and you rob us of the joy of life. The meanspirited man in whom these delicious feelings have been stifled among vile passions, who by
thinking of no one but himself, this man feels no raptures, his cold heart no longer throbs with
joy, and his eyes no longer fill with the sweet tears of sympathy, he delights in nothing; the
wretch has neither life nor feeling, he is already dead.144
The Vicar’s argument is not that the moral man is good because he wants that pleasure;
rather, his goodness consists in the capacity to feel such satisfaction. Much as Rousseau did
in ‘To D’Offreville’, the Vicar is distinguishing motivations intrinsic to but not for the self,
with moral satisfaction apparently providing the former. The stakes could not be higher,
for without real moral conscience human life is shorn of happiness and human fate
consigned to misery.
The trouble is this moral interest of the self is particularly hard to sustain. As we
have already seen, passions, particularly those artificial ones like amour propre, normally
determine our behaviour.
fundamental emotion.
The Vicar insists that conscience is itself an original or
He argues that conscience is prior to knowledge and judgment
although it can become an integral part of them. Ideas arise by sensations, whereas
feelings, already in place, provide the grounds upon and means by which ideas are
‘weighed’ and subsequently judged. 145 Again, the close correspondence of the Vicar’s
epistemological standpoint and his moral system is evident. Conscience stands to direct
idea-formation in such a way that the false judgments which contribute to amour propre
might be averted. But this hope is tenuous. As a standard of judgment, conscience
Ibid., p. 299-300 [596].
Ibid., p. 299 [595].
144 Ibid., p. 300 [596].
145 Ibid., p. 303 [599].
142
143
189
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
legitimises moral rectitude, but its emotive motivational power is feeble. Although the
realisation of moral knowledge through conscience activates an innate love for these
truths, 146 the Vicar is clear that this feeling is readily violable.
This is more or less
consistent with Rousseau’s views in Inequality. Pity, an early version of conscience, and
amour de soi are overwhelmed when confronted by amour popre.
Rousseau’s solution is clear: the cultivation of a powerful love of virtue and truth
which outmodes, excludes or transcends amour propre. I want to show that Rousseau ties
his longstanding neo-Platonic understanding of disinterested love to his analysis of activity
and passivity and to his neo-Lockean understanding of relational ideas.
I begin by
reconstructing the character of this love.
The Vicar’s higher love is quite clearly the disinterested love Rousseau’s neoPlatonic predecessors admired. It is a ‘love of order’,147 but of a particular kind. The Vicar
explains:
Reason alone is not sufficient foundation for virtue; what solid ground can be found? Virtue
we are told is love of order. But can this love prevail over my love for my own well-being, and
ought it so to prevail? Let them give me clear and sufficient reason for this preference. Their
so-called principle is in truth a mere playing with words: for I also say that vice is love of order,
differently understood. Wherever there is feeling and intelligence, there is some sort of moral
order. The difference is this: the good man orders his life with regard to all men; the wicked
orders it for self alone. The latter centres all things round himself; the other measures his
radius and remains on the circumference.148
The vicar thinks disinterested love of order should surpass the love of his own well being.
This is the essence of an upright moral order.
The depraved man’s moral order is
fundamentally different. This moral love of order restores conscience and the inner light
to their rightful place at the centre of man’s reasoning and willing. ‘Natural law, which
man’s injustice had almost effaced’ from the Vicar’s heart, is ‘engraven there, for the
second time’.149 This moral love of order also fulfils man’s capacity for happiness. Virtue
and the right use of freedom are the merit and reward of the moral man, which, in resisting
earthly temptations, prepares him for true happiness.150
In Political Economy, this kind of higher love was tacked on to Rousseau’s earlier
sense of analytical psychology in order to solve the dissonant relation of our active and
passive powers. The Vicar’s notion of higher love integrates it coherently into his analytical
psychology. Our ideas are pivotal for this assimilation. The Vicar thinks that Rousseau will
one day feel this higher love and this happiness, but only once he has ‘fathomed the vanity of
Ibid., p. 303 [600].
Ibid., p. 305 [602].
148 Ibid.
149 Ibid., p. 306 [603].
150 Ibid.
146
147
190
Knowledge, Reason, Will and the Problem of Passion in Rousseau’s Moral Thought
human thoughts and tasted the bitterness of passion’. 151 This is clearly an experience of
emotions which the young Rousseau, whom the Vicar address, has not yet undergone. The
use of ‘fathom’ and ‘taste’ is crucial, for Rousseau is showing that these problems must be
felt, yet because feelings and ideas are identical, they are understood in the same moment. By
understanding these problems and experiencing them, we can form relational ideas
concerning our passions and their connection to our emotional and moral lives.
Rousseauian active judgment is part of this process. The upshot is that these new ideas
occasion new passions. This passion is artificial; it is constituted by active and passive
elements. It is like amour propre in this sense – one recalls Rousseau’s earlier claim in Political
Economy that patriotic love includes the force of amour propre – but not in any other. It is
neither injurious nor self-referential. Most importantly it supports genuinely free, rational,
active and moral willing.
For the Vicar, our intellectual judgment and our will are examples of our active
power and are essential to our status as free beings, but they do not constitute our freedom
simply or automatically. When men actively conceptualise certain relational ideas, they will
invariably evoke new passions in themselves.
When men judge within a framework of
artificial desire, their independence is fundamentally contravened. Men enslave themselves
with the only basis of their freedom, their active will. The disinterested love that the Vicar
cultivates addresses this problem because it also brings to bear a potent alternative fusion
of activity and passivity.
Conclusion
This chapter has shown that the anthropological story told in Inequality and the
political possibilities explored in Political Economy both instantiate Rousseau’s analytical
psychology. This instantiation occurs by way of Rousseau’s understanding of the complex
relationship between activity and passivity played out through perfectibility. Perfectibility is
fundamentally indeterminate.
circumstances.
thought.
Man can perfect himself in different ways in different
This realisation is crucial for understanding the unity of Rousseau’s
Underlying both his positive political pronouncements and his critical
sociological assessments is a coherent and systematic analysis of human psychology. This
psychology can be used as an analytical tool to assess what is wrong with a given social
context or what institutions might be needed to make upright behaviour possible. But it is
also a story about the experience of actual human agents.
It tells us about their
motivations, their joys and their sorrows. Thus, Rousseau’s normative views on individuals
151
Ibid., p. 305 [602].
191
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
in society and on the institutions of social life are both under-girded by this psychological
understanding.
This chapter has also explored Rousseau’s sustained philosophical development of
these views. Between the writing of Inequality and Emile, Rousseau’s understanding of the
complex relationships between our activity and our passivity and between our ideas and
our feelings remains consistent but becomes more coherent and convincing. Ultimately,
our ideas and our feelings are one. Through this point our active and passive powers
interpenetrate each other. In Inequality Rousseau could only tell us that feelings and desires
arise out of new relational conceptions, but by the time he wrote Emile, he was able to
explain exactly why.
Judith Shklar declared that Rousseau never anticipated the enactment of his
political recommendations; rather, his purpose is critical judgment.152 Because amour propre
brings man’s own activity and passivity to bear against his freedom, political possibilities
are frequently circumscribed. So too is our capacity to be moral. But this negative course
is not etched in stone.
The great consolation of Rousseau’s phenomenology of self-
enslavement is that it is inadvertent. It is something which is stumbled into, and in a way
contingent. But our circumstances need not entrap us in this way. Although the Vicar will
never escape his passions entirely and he will always be at risk of succumbing to them, he
has also (re)gained the capacity to ‘know them for what they are’.153 Unlike the primitive
who has never confronted these vices, this knowledge allows the vicar to feel remorse. His
conscience is reintroduced, but not in its immediate, original form. It is conjoined to a love
of truth and virtue. For the vicar this new love is not a perfect antidote to amour propre.
Still, the Vicar is now able to be virtuous. His perfectibility has reached a moral and
constructive compromise between his active and passive powers.
Precisely because perfectibility is so flexible, a reordering of the passions and
actions, and the experiences and the judgments which lead to amour propre, might be
possible in a social setting. This is the insight Rousseau advanced in Political Economy.
In
that case education, and the love of the fatherland are deployed to create a love of law and
duty in the populace and an understanding of public right according to public reasons. If
Rousseau had already applied his early psychology to Political Economy, there is ample reason
to suspect that he would do the same with his more developed psychology from Emile.
Evaluating this possibility requires examination of The Social Contract, to which I now turn.
152
153
Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, p. 30.
Rousseau, Emile, p. 307 [604].
192
Chapter 7
The passionate dispassion of the Legislator
To discover the best rules of society suited to each Nation would require a superior intelligence
who saw all of man’s passions and experienced none of them, who had no relation to our
nature yet knew it thoroughly, whose happiness was independent of us and who was
nevertheless willing to care for ours… 1
And so Rousseau introduces the Legislator with the apparent paradox that he must
understand all human passions while at the same time experiencing none of them. He
should know every facet of the human psyche, while himself having a mind and soul of a
different order. This paradox is particularly vexatious, since elsewhere, Rousseau declares
that nothing can be fully understood except through personal experience – passion
included.2 Indeed, as we have seen in the previous chapter, Rousseau is deeply indebted to
a neo-Lockean account of ideas and judgments in explaining human understanding and
knowledge formation. According to that model, knowledge of the passions requires both
passive experience of and active judgment regarding them. This is just like any other object
of Rousseauian knowing, with the difference that, certain artificial passions captivate the
very active capacities of the human agent by which they might be known. If this holds true,
the dispassion ascribed to the Legislator seems violated by his purported knowledge of the
passions.
This paradox is not insoluble.
What if the experience of passion and the
knowledge of it are chronologically distinct? That is to say Rousseau’s claim would not be
paradoxical if the experience of passion took place before the full understanding of it.
Although conceivable, this solution is not obvious in The Social Contract. That does not
mean that there is no story to be reconstructed.
With this as its starting point, the central aim of this chapter is to unpack both what
Rousseau has in mind by describing the Legislator in the terms above, and how this might
be relevant for understanding the Legislator’s place in Rousseau’s political thought. In the
first case, I aim to show that Rousseau’s claim about the Legislator’s passions, although
frustrating within the context of The Social Contract, can be untangled. This is because, I
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), The Social Contract and other Later
Political Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Book II, Chapter 7, p. 68 [OC, III, 381].
2 Rousseau, Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters Of Two Lovers Who Live In A Small Town At The Foot of The Alps,
Hanover, NH, University Press of New England: 1997. The notion that experience of something is required
for knowledge and understanding of that thing is commonplace in this novel. It is part of Rousseau’s debt to
John Locke and materialist philosophy. In order to know anything about the passions, they must have been
experienced at some time.
1
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
argue, Rousseau’s understanding of the Legislator’s passion is part of his commitment to a
Christian-Platonic understanding of sublimated Eros.3
I substantiate this interpretation of the Legislator in two ways. First, I unpack the
historical plausibility of this interpretation.
This includes a more specific analysis of
Fénelon’s thought than in Chapter 5, focusing on his deployment of sublimated Eros to
explain the disposition of lawgivers. This demonstrates ample precedent for Rousseau’s
particular understanding of sublimated Eros in the Legislator. The second, and more
central, argument deploys textual exegesis of other politically relevant works in Rousseau’s
corpus. Studying concupiscent passion in the Discourse on Heroic Virtue, Emile, and finally
Julie or the New Heloise shows that it comes to be understood and transcended through a
process wherein its ardour is preserved but rectified and chastened. This chapter argues
that amour propre and appetitive desires are replaced by a love of virtue, which parallels the
Christian-Platonic ascent from self-love and concupiscence to pur amour or caritas. These
works show that this transformation marks the true sage (and hero) and seems to
substantiate the Legislator’s qualification concerning passion in The Social Contract.
I
address the broader political ramifications of this understanding of the Legislator in the
final section of the chapter. It becomes clear, I argue, that sublimated Eros not only
explicates the peculiar disposition of the Legislator but it also serves as the medium of the
Legislator’s relationship with the polity. This is true in two ways. First, the Legislator’s
special knowledge of the passions allows him to judge appropriate measures for the
community, ensuring that a sublime reason designs sturdy and lasting institutions. Second,
and more radically, the Legislator’s persona itself, possessed of sublime Eros, guarantees his
ability to persuade without convincing.
Part I: Passion and legislators in early modern French Christian-Platonism
In chapter 5, Rousseau’s interest in and deployment of neo-Platonic moral themes,
particularly on matters of the passion, included an account of disinterested love. The
analysis of Political Economy and ‘The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar’ clarified
that normative willing depended on just such disinterested love. Might this tradition of
disinterested love, in particular the focus on the sublimation of Eros, be important for
Rousseau’s understanding of the Legislator? This view is a hallmark of Fénelon’s writings
By sublimated Eros, I mean the process whereby appetitive, sexual and self-interested love is transformed
and raised into progressively higher forms of love. It eventually reaches love of beauty, goodness, and
wisdom in themselves and, then, God or, as with Plato, the form of the good. But through all of this Eros,
even the love for God is ardent.
3
194
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that Rousseau liked most. The Archbishop’s texts make clear that the sublimation of Eros
was integral for the political role of ancient lawgivers.
As we saw in Chapter 5, Fénelon is tenaciously committed to an understanding of
self-effacing disinterested love. For him, one only comes to this disposition through an
ascent or sublimation of love enabled by divine grace. For Fénelon legislating was an
extraordinary task, and he suggests in Pur Amour that this disinterested love is the very heart
of Platonic philo sophia, or the love of wisdom. This love embraces the sublime for it is an
‘immutable beauty which ravishes man out of himself’.4 Fénelon immediately indicates the
political ramifications of this sublimated Eros for ancient lawgivers:
And this idea of a perfect disinterestedness reigned in the policy of the ancient legislators.
Every man was to prefer the laws, and his country, to himself, because justice required it, and
also what is called beauty, goodness, justice and perfection. This order or law was to regulate
everything, but chiefly man’s self. He was not by obeying this law or order to count upon
making himself happy, but on the contrary, for the love thereof, he was to devote himself to
death and destruction, without hopes of remedy.5
And:
All legislators and philosophers that have reasoned about laws, have taken it for a fundamental
principle of society and government, that the public good is to be preferred to every man’s self,
not through an expectation of some interest or advantage, but through a disinterested love of
order, which is beauty, justice, and virtue itself.6
This means that legislators, qua Platonic lovers of wisdom, not only sublimate their own
Eros, their reasoning about government shows them that they must instil a version of that
love in the polity. This is love is ‘fundamental’ to both society and government. While not
exactly the politics of the Legislator in The Social Contract, this is similar. It is closer still to
Political Economy, where the disinterested love of the fatherland is evoked by ancient
lawgivers.
Simply put, Fénelon’s understanding of legislators is strikingly close to
Rousseau’s. Both of their lawgivers make disinterested love social. Fénelon’s thinks the
Legislator is able to do this solely thanks to his sublimated Eros; it stands to reason that
Rousseau’s Legislator might be conceived similarly.
Characters in Fenelon’s novel Telemachus also resemble Rousseau’s Legislator.
Patrick Riley has documented many parallel similarities.7 For the purposes here, Fénelon’s
story of Telemachus’ psychological development is particularly interesting.
At the
beginning of the novel, on the Isle of Calypso, Telemachus is vulnerable to his own vanity,
addicted to the idea of his own greatness. Stranded on the same island on which his father
Fénelon, Dissertation on Pure Love, No known translator, believed to be translated approximately 1720, p 21.
Ibid., p. 22.
6 Ibid., p. 23.
7 Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau, Fénelon and the Quarrel Between the Ancients and the Moderns’, in P Riley (ed.)
Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. This chapter provides an excellent account of Rousseau’s debt to Fénelon.
It is particularly detailed in examining the political thought of Telemachus and showing how these forms
anticipate Rousseau’s thought on civic education.
4
5
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
had been held prisoner, his neo-Augustinian amour propre entraps him through Calypso’s
flattery, and he is nearly destroyed.8
Telemachus’ passions change, much, as will be seen, as do St. Preux’s in
Rousseau’s novel Julie. Much of the change is attributed to Mentor’s lessons and the
examples of sensible and just polities that Telemachus witnesses. 9 However, Fénelon
depicts Telemachus’ transformation into his father, Ulysses’ equal. This is because he
comes to have the disinterested will he ought to have. 10 Mentor’s guidance and his
experience have actually sublimated Telemachus’ Eros, in a process like that Plato describes
in Symposium. Moreover, Fénelon’s Augustinian orientation is evident. It is God, or rather
the goddess of wisdom Minerva disguised as Mentor, who is responsible for Telemachus’
rectification. Especially in Emile and Julie, Rousseauian education involves many of the
same processes, particularly the presence of a wise guide/guardian and the careful
arrangement of experiences to produce the desired transformation of will and love.
Certainly Rousseau’s psychological explanation is more developed than Fénelon’s. Fénelon
has no equivalent to Rousseau’s subtle understanding of the interpenetration of ideas and
passions. But one can see how the notion of the Legislator’s sublimated Eros was available
to Rousseau.
Turning back to Pur Amour, a Fénelonian philosopher king promises to equal the
work of Minerva. His platonic love of truth, justice, and beauty in themselves draws him
into kinship with the gods. Rousseau’s use of similar views shall prove to be an evolution
of ideas; the disposition of his Legislator echoes his predecessors but, as will be seen, is
developed according to a sublimation of Eros uniquely connected to Rousseau’s analytic
psychology.
Part II: Sublimation of passion and love of virtue in On Heroic Virtue and Emile
In The Social Contract, the Legislator enters the political scene capable of educating
a people’s General Will. This figure is presumed to be possible, but occasionally, in the
guise of Numa, Moses, or Lycurgus, he is actual. Helpfully, the Rousseauian corpus is
replete with figures similar to the Legislator, who might shed light on his peculiar
disposition. The stories Rousseau has to tell about these characters are not always so
Fénelon, Telemachus, son of Ulysses, Patrick Riley (ed.), (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1994), pp. 7,
9, 45-46, 82-92.
9 These examples of disinterested political order are detailed in Chapter 5 of this thesis.
10 Fénelon, Telemachus., pp. 330. When Telemachus discovers that a stranger, who has just departed, is
actually Ulysses, his father, he is anxious to follow him. But Mentor tests Telemachus and proposes that they
wait and offer a sacrifice to the goddess Minerva. Unbeknownst to Telemachus, Mentor is Minerva. But
Minerva is really testing Telemachus’ commitment to duty and, allegorically, wisdom. Rather than showing
interested impatience to follow his father, Telemachus initiates the religious rite without hesitation.
8
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
nebulous as in The Social Contract. With significant interpretive caution,11 these figures may
be used hermeneutically.
Even though they appear in works with different general
polemical aims, there are obvious substantive similarities in the specific ways these
authority figures are conceived and deployed and in the means by which they operate. This
is especially true of Emile, On Heroic Virtue and Julie. The devil lies in the details, and it
should be clear by the end of this exposition that the similarities amongst Rousseau’s
different authority figures are such that their underlying psychology is consistent. And if
Rousseau’s understanding of the psychology of educational authority figures is consistent,
it is likely that he conceptualised the Legislator similarly.
Sublimation of Eros in the education of Emile.
Several conceptions and imperatives regarding the methods and purposes of
Emile’s education are suggestive of how Rousseau might conceptualise the Legislator. For
instance, Lawrence Cooper’s study of Platonism in the fifth book of Emile12 illuminates the
centrality of the love of wisdom in Rousseauian education. 13 The educational goal of
higher love is clear throughout Emile. In a crucial passage in Book II, Rousseau discusses
charity, love of the good and moral will. The discussion begins with the problem of
inspiring children to act virtuously. As is common-place in Emile, an educator cannot wax
eloquent about the virtues of virtue. Also, commanding a child to follow duty is a sure way
to undermine his willingness to be dutiful; it becomes drudgery inimical to his psychology.14
Concerning the cultivation of duty and virtue, Rousseau discusses whether and how Emile
might become charitable. He writes:
It is not the child but the master, who should give; however much he loves his pupil he should
vie with him for the honour; he should make him think that he is too young to deserve it.
Alms-giving is the deed of a man who can measure the worth of his gift and the needs of his
fellow-man.15
Two things are immediately striking about this passage. First, Emile is not yet ready for
giving alms. This indicates that the act of alms giving is not important purely for the
redistributive exchange of money or property but for the mentality behind the act. Second,
Robert Wokler, Social Thought of J.J. Rousseau, (New York, Garland Publishing Inc: 1987), pp. 35-40. Robert
Wokler, in his 1987 book has been careful to note that Rousseau’s works are not multiple instantiations of
some master plan. Thus, even if authority figures readily comparable to the Legislator appear in many places
in Rousseau’s corpus it should not be assumed that they are necessarily commensurable. This is a matter of
validation, and in this case, the weight of the evidence shows that Rousseau’s views concerning authority
figures are largely coherent and sustained.
12 Lawrence Cooper, ‘Human Nature and the Love of Wisdom: Rousseau’s Hidden (and Modified)
Platonism’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 64, No. 1, February 2002. Although I am generally sympathetic with
some of Cooper’s claims, I find many of them too general, as I indicated in Chapter 5.
13 Ibid., pp. 117 – 119.
14 Rousseau, Emile, London, J. M. Dent: 1993, p. 79 [OC, IV, 337-338].
15 Ibid [338].
11
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Rousseau indicates that this mentality must be capable of reason – rightful alms-giving is an
act of wisdom.
As Rousseau continues, it is becomes clearer that what the child lacks is not just
wisdom but wise love or wise benevolence. Without wisdom the child’s gift is meaningless,
but, moreover, this child’s gift also lacks charity and beneficence. 16 Rousseau turns to the
appropriate ways to inculcate wisdom, charity and beneficence. This education involves
the example of the tutor’s behaviour. He will deploy habit and imitation. He will describe
charity as an honour for adults and thereby convince Emile that imitation of the tutor is
desirable not injurious.17 As far as this goes, imitation will elicit in Emile a real desire to
give alms, but this is not Rousseau’s final goal. Although Rousseau had been speaking
about charity quite specifically, his narrative really concerns what is morally good as such.
As a general rule, imitation of virtuous behaviour is not really virtue; rather Rousseau writes,
‘a good action is only morally good when it is done as such and not because of others’. 18
This requires ‘understanding and love of what is good’.19 Just as for Fénelon, morally good
actions must be disinterested and should not be self-interested in any way. Rousseau
clearly feels that selfishness cannot provide moral motives and that the role of habituation
in moral behaviour cannot ultimately account for them either. Instead, Emile’s moral
education requires both self-interest and imitation to be superseded as behavioural motives
by an inherently moral motive.
This inherently moral motivation resembles the neo-Platonic love of virtue for its
own sake, familiar to us from Rousseau’s ‘Letter to d’Offreville’. Later in Emile, Rousseau
is quite explicit in his deployment of sublime Eros and will connect it to his solution for
the problem of passion. In Book IV, Rousseau makes this problem clear. As Emile enters
adolescence his passions erupt, but they cannot be simply annihilated for some are integral
to any human’s self-preservation (amour de soi) and are commingled with their very being.20
Part of the problem with these expanding passions is that they are entwined with social
relations of which Emile is becoming increasingly aware. Amour de soi is a natural passion,
but there are also others which are occasioned because of experiences and relational
concepts which depend on social circumstances.
Because of these social passions,
Rousseau sees that there is an increasing danger that Emile’s limited natural solipsism (amour
de soi) will change. This is problematic:
Ibid., p. 80 [338]. In the French the terms are ‘charité’ and ‘bienfaisance’. These are suggestive of moral love
and moral action that proceeds from that love. This view is largely equivalent to the modified Fénelonian
position Rousseau adopted in ‘To d’Offreville’.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., p. 81 [340].
19 Ibid. [339-340].
20 Ibid., p. 207 [491].
16
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
Amour de soi, which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our needs; but
amour propre, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be; for
this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to themselves,
which is impossible. Thus the tender and gentle passions spring from amour de soi, while the
hateful and angry passion spring from amour propre. … what makes him really bad is a
multiplicity of needs and dependence on the opinion of others. 21
Precisely because others will not love us more than themselves and because we could not
know it if they did, the demand of amour propre is impossible to meet. This makes it all the
more dangerous. As something of a stop gap, the tutor must prevent Emile from entering
society overly soon and allow friendship, pity, clemency, generosity and an understanding
of society to develop before he experiences society directly. 22 This continued isolation
allows Emile’s natural passion to grow and change in such a way that it is not overwhelmed
by amour propre.
But there are explicit limitations to this design. Most importantly, we only pity
those who are less happy than we.23 Further, there is the risk that pity may only be felt
when someone is in actual physical pain.24 In a recent study on Rousseauian pity Richard
Boyd has emphasised its ambiguity as a social virtue, explaining how it leads to
spectatorship, whereby we feel it only in abstract or theatrical situations, and to aversion,
whereby pity reminds us of our own vulnerability and leads us away from situations where
it might be felt.25
Given such limitations, Rousseau himself indicates that preserving Emile’s pity and
protecting his immediately natural passions, is not the end of his education. What Emile
lacks (as does nature) is philanthropy, or love of mankind.
Emile’s natural Eros is
Ibid., p. 209 [493]. Jimack translates amour de soi as self-love and amour propre as selfishness. I have restored
Rousseau’s terms for greater clarity.
22 Ibid., pp. 216 – 220 [500-506]. On p. 218 [503], P. D. Jimack uses the terms, ‘pity, mercy and generosity’ to
translate ‘la commisération, de la clémence, de la générosité’. Mercy and generosity are straightforward and
unproblematic, and so too would be pity if Rousseau would not have used it in a specific technical sense in
Inequality. In the context here, la commiseration looks to be quite similar, with the difference that Emile’s
passions at this point are no longer likely to be the perfectly innocent reactions of the solitaire. Emile is
being taught friendship at this point of the text and pity may no longer accurately encapsulate the feeling
Rousseau means to signify. But it is certainly right that Rousseau is drawing on the same view of man’s
natural sentiments and loves and is building constructive healthy social dispositions out of them.
23 Ibid., p. 221 [506-507].
24 Ibid., p. 225-226 [511-512].
25 Richard Boyd, ‘Pity’s Pathologies Portrayed; Rousseau and the Limits of Democratic Compassion’, Political
Theory, Vol. 32, No. 4, (August 2004), pp. 527, 529 – 530. Richard Boyd’s work illuminates the manifold
weakness of pity and compassion (pity combined with imagination) as social virtues in Rousseau’s thought.
Boyd’s aim is not merely historical and also seeks to intersect with contemporary democratic theorists and
their critics. He hopes to show that social identification cannot really be grounded in Rousseauian pity. I
agree fully, and I suspect that Rousseau would add his own support to the notion that pity cannot be
immediately admitted as a social virtue. Boyd seems less convincing when he apparently indicates that
Rousseau was actually trying to use pity in a robust sense within society. From my reading of Rousseau’s
work, this is not the case. Instead, as I am trying to show here, pity is one element appropriate at one stage
of social development (in Emile’s case) and it must then be supplemented or reformed.
21
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
solipsistic in the sense that he immediately loves his own independence and preservation.26
Two important passages show the qualities Emile must develop if he is to supersede the
shortcomings of mere self-love and pity and outmanoeuvre the danger of amour propre. First:
It is only after long training, after much consideration as to his own feelings and the feelings
he observes in others, that he will generalise his individual notions under the abstract idea of
humanity, and add to his individual affections those which may identify him with the human
race.27
Clearly, it is the general love of humanity which the long tutelage of Emile should help
engender. Second and more specifically:
I would show him that justice and kindness are no mere abstract terms, no mere moral
conceptions framed by the understanding, but true affections of the heart enlightened by
reason … that by reason alone, unaided by conscience, we cannot establish any natural law,
and that all natural right is a vain dream if it does not rest on some instinctive need of the
human heart.28
In this crucial passage Rousseau intermingles justice and natural law, kindness or
benevolence, affection or love, and reason. The higher love of the good and the higher
love of truth are unified here as the epitome of what Emile must embody and feel when his
education is truly complete. It is an education of mind, morals and especially love. In brief,
it is a conception of higher morality, like that espoused by Fénelon and by Rousseau
elsewhere. All of this must be founded on an ‘instinctive need’ of the human psyche –
passion. Passion cannot be annihilated or replaced, but it can become more sophisticated
and its object can be elevated. Relational ideas are essential to these elevated ‘affections’.
In a similar vein Rousseau shows how Emile’s education leads to a Legislator-like
disposition. He explains that Emile is ripe for becoming a proper student of mankind,
which, in words almost identical to his requirement for the Legislator, requires him to have
‘a heart sufficiently sensitive to understand every human passion’, and to be ‘calm enough
to be free from passion’. 29 Again, passion in its normal sense must be superseded or
eliminated if Rousseau’s claim is to make any sense, but emotion and ardour are still
required for the true study of mankind.
Like the neo-Platonic disinterested love that Emile’s comes to resemble, the
problem of passion is overcome, in part, through an explicit process of erotic sublimation.
But in Rousseau’s case, this is a form of sublimated Eros understood through his analytical
psychology. Rousseau uses an amalgam of Emile’s love, experience and active reasoning to
make love sublime, leading it from its immediate selfish form to a generalised love of
Rousseau, Emile, p. 233 [520].
Ibid., pp. 233 – 234 [520].
28 Ibid., pp. 235 – 236 [522-523].
29 Ibid., p. 247 [536].
26
27
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
humanity.30 Rousseau is careful to make sure Emile gains an impression of the common
suffering of mankind.31 Knowing our common suffering creates ‘a bond of affection’.32
But this bond is not an immediate result of these experiences; rather, they allow Emile to
‘force his own way to happiness, without interfering with the happiness of others’.33 If I
am right, the forces Emile uses are his active powers. As Rousseau makes clear, Emile’s
love will not first be for all mankind, but, upon a gradual process of ‘consideration’, Emile
will be able to ‘generalise his individual notions under the abstract idea of humanity, and
add to his individual affections those which may identify him with the race’. 34 Ideas,
reasoning and passion remain linked in this remarkable transformation of passion.
Emile’s disposition toward passion changes by the end of the book because his
passions have changed and his love has become philosophical and virtuous. Reason and
love come to refine and reinforce each other. Because such a change in love resolves the
problem of passion and gives Emile an understanding of it like that Rousseau attributes to
the Legislator, it is conceivable that parallel changes are at work behind those great civic
educators, explaining their understanding of passion. Although the consonance between
Emile’s final disposition and the Legislator’s is noteworthy, it is crucial to remember that
Emile’s education is not intended to produce an educator. In Emile Rousseau’s project is
both one of sublimating some passions, but also meticulously avoiding others, amour propre
in particular. Emile’s love is made sublime, but without encountering the full range of
passions his ascent is insufficiently radical to explain the Legislator’s knowledge. To find
such a model in Rousseau’s works, one must turn elsewhere.
The Hero and the Philosopher
In late 1751 the Academy of Corsica advertised a prise essay competition to which
Rousseau responded with the Discourse on Heroic Virtue.35 In this text he develops a more
radical transcendent Eros than one finds in Emile.
Rousseau begins by establishing a
dichotomy between heroes (who include the founders of states) and philosophers (i.e.
Ibid., pp. 233-234 [520].
Ibid., p. 218-231 [503-518].
32 Ibid., p. 219 [503].
33 Ibid., p. 221 [507].
34 Ibid., pp. 233-234 [520].
35 See Rousseau, ‘Notice’ to Discourse On Heroic Virtue, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), The Discourses and Other Early
Political writings, p. 305 [OC, II, 1262]. There is a danger in relying overmuch on this essay, for Rousseau notes
clearly, in his notice to the reader, that this work is ‘bad’. The reason for this is a ‘frivolous’ question.
Nonetheless, Rousseau must have felt he had something to contribute by writing this piece. And when
reckoning the evidence here with other, reinforcing, statements in Rousseau’s works, there appears to be
something indicative of his thought on civic education and the civic Legislator in the midst of this work.
30
31
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Socrates) only to dissolve the separation in the course of the essay.36 Specifically, Rousseau
reveals that the wonder of both the real hero and philosopher lies in the transcendence of
passion. Significantly, Rousseau depicts the hero as pre-eminent in the social domain. He
is devoid of passion and personal interest (amour propre) and compels men to submit to law
so they may be subject to reason.37 This is not at all dissimilar to Rousseau’s notion of the
Legislator in Political Economy. Strikingly, Rousseau claims that the lawgivers of Sparta and
Athens are amongst the very greatest of heroes, despite their lack of militaristic exploits.38
The hero is only an early prototype of Rousseau’s Legislator, but this essay has the benefit
of better explaining his immunity to passion. After distinguishing the philosopher from the
hero, Rousseau notes that the hero’s qualities are emotional and originate in the ‘heart’, but,
intriguingly, they ‘develop and assume solidity’ in his head. 39 Further, ‘without the
assistance of wisdom, all the virtues get corrupted.’40 Conceptually, the division between
hero and philosopher begins to waiver. For the moment it is unclear how reason can
perfect and assist these emotions. Part of the answer is that Rousseau takes the hero to be
unyielding to passion. Without passions reason would be free of corruption. However,
Rousseau must mean passion in a particular way, for he had just argued that reason perfects
emotion.
The hero’s dispassion is no lack of love or ardour. Rousseau preserves and rightly
directs ardour through sublimated Eros. This becomes clear when Rousseau identifies
fortitude or the strength of soul as the specific virtue appropriate for the hero. Fortitude
overcomes mere passion so that ardour and reason can be compatible and so that the hero
is convinced ‘he can realize his own happiness by working for that of others’.41 This ascent
of love is reminiscent of the sublimated Eros drawn from Plato’s Symposium and popular
among Rousseau’s favourite French moralists; furthermore, it is linked by its disinterested,
general social object to Rousseau’s later conceptualisation of the General Will.
The
sublime love of a true philosopher is not unlike the civic love of a true hero.
Unsurprisingly, in Rousseau’s final list of heroes Socrates features prominently, dissolving
his dichotomy between hero and philosopher.42
For an alternative reading see, M. W. Jackson, ‘Rousseau’s Discourse on Heroes and Heroism’, in Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 133, No. 3 (Sep., 1989). Jackson notes the dichotomy, but does not
conclude that Rousseau moves to dissolve it.
37 Rousseau, On Heroic Virtue, p. 306 – 307 [1263-1264].
38 Ibid., p. 310 [1267-1268].
39 Ibid., p. 311 [1269].
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., pp. 315 – 316 [1273].
42 Ibid., p. 316 [1274].
36
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
Ultimately it is clear that Rousseau’s understanding of moral dispositions,
specifically those of perceptive and transformative leaders, depends on the transformation
of love. Eros itself must change to explain the resistance of such individuals to more
injurious passions. However, the changes in the hero’s character are described more than
explained in this essay. In the early 1750s Rousseau was not yet able to account for how
these psychological changes came about in the hero. He had not yet developed his analysis
of human psychology. But by the time Rousseau wrote Julie, the situation had changed.
For the reason that Julie contains the most developed personifications of authority figures
in Rousseau’s work, an investigation of their characterisation is in order.
Part III: Passion and Authority Figures in Julie
A reading of Julie or the New Heloise shows that the setting of the final three parts,
Clarens, is no normal aristocratic estate. There is good reason to take it as an allusion to a
Rousseauian political community.43 Among its many political themes, Julie delves into the
nature of and personifies the Rousseauian political educator. This is crucial because
Rousseau never elaborates such characters in as fine detail in any other work. Thus, Julie
deserves special attention because it stands to expand the understanding of Rousseau’s
civic educator.
However, it is not entirely clear which characters in the novel are
satisfactory educators. There are three possible candidates: Wolmar, Julie, and St. Preux. 44
I argue that despite the superficial success the Wolmars’ have administering Clarens, they
both succumb to repressed or misconceived desires. St. Preux’s inclusion on a list of
potential educators is controversial, yet it is precisely when Julie dies and Wolmar
deteriorates that Rousseau positions St. Preux to succeed them. Because St Preux spent
most of the novel in bondage to his passions, this part of the drama requires some
There is considerable debate as to what kind of society Clarens is a metaphor. Shklar, Men and Citizens, p.
151. Charles William Hendel, Jean-Jacque Rousseau; Moralist, Vol. 2, London, Oxford University Press: 1934,
pp, 42 – 44, 51. Shklar and Hendel agree that it is a pre-political golden age. But also see, Marshall Berman,
Politics of Authenticity, (London, Allen & Unwin, limited: 1970), pp. 245-257; Lester Crocker, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau: The Prophetic Voice, Vol. II, (New York, The Macmillan Company: 1973), pp. 70 – 74; and James F.
Jones Jr., La Nouvelle Héloïse: Rousseau and Utopia, (Geneva, Librairie Droz: 1977), pp. 66-68. Berman, Jones
and Crocker all think it is a metaphorical Rousseauian political order. While Clarens is certainly not literally
either a political state or a spontaneous, familial social order, I take the view that it is like a political state, for
the reason that Clarens is a work of carefully planned artifice, which shapes the dispositions of its servants in
a way quite familiar to readers of Rousseau’s politics. Cf. Julie, Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters Of Two Lovers
Who Live In A Small Town At The Foot of The Alps, (Hanover, NH, University Press of New England: 1997),
Parts IV – V. Evidence of the constructed nature of Clarens abounds throughout St. Preux’s descriptive
letters in Parts IV and V. See also, Part IV, Letter X, and Part V, Letter II. Both of the chapters are rich with
evidence of the social transformation of Clarens’ residents.
44 When St. Preux re-enters the plot, he arrives in Clarens to live with his old lover Julie and her husband
Wolmar. He finds them in charge of a substantial landed estate. Wolmar is clearly architect and chief
administrator of this order, but Julie is something of a co-administrator and is also in charge of the education
of her own children and her cousin Claire’s.
43
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
explanation. I argue that this character change makes sense because Rousseau follows the
pattern of neo-Platonic sublimated Eros that I have drawn attention to in Parts I and II.
Moreover, it is in St. Preux’s story that we learn most clearly how a Legislator might learn
to overcome the fullness of human passion whilst still understanding them entirely.
Flawed Educators
Scholarship on Julie frequently seeks to identify an archetypal Legislator figure in
the novel – Monsieur or Madame de’Wolmar being the likely candidates. Judith Shklar sees
qualities of the Legislator in Wolmar.45 Ronald Grimsley has described the way in which
Wolmar is like God.46 Conversely, Marshall Berman takes Julie to be the educative figure.47
The Wolmars anchored the entire artifice of Clarens together, and there is convincing
evidence to believe either of them would make a good Legislator. For instance, the perfect
balance of Clarens’ autarchic economy is also the result of Wolmar’s reason. 48 Much as in
The Social Contract only a man of heightened intelligence, reason, clarity and especially
disinterestedness could succeed in such planning. Similarly, Julie’s unique qualities are also
essential to Clarens. For some inexplicable reason, she is beloved by all who meet her. 49
Rousseau adds a decisive footnote in the story of Julie’s last days concerning the origin of
Wolmar’s remarkable servants. He suggests that the whole difficulty of making servants
‘turns on a single point’, and when Julie is discovered, ‘all the rest is found’. 50 It is as
someone who possessed such a capacity to gain love that Julie makes the education of her
servants possible. Without Julie, Clarens fails.
However, not all is as it appears at Clarens. The estate is not entirely well, and its
leaders, both Julie and Wolmar, are actually vulnerable to passion. At the end of Julie, the
eponymous heroine confesses, on her death bed, her abiding love for St. Preux.51 This
comes as no surprise, for whilst Julie’s passion is originally for him,52 her allegations about
its transformation during her forced marriage to Monsieur de Wolmar are specious at best.
Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, p. 134. Indeed, Shklar takes Wolmar to be the most fully developed figure
of authority in the Rousseauian corpus.
46 Ronald Grimsley, Jean-Jacque Rousseau; a Study in Self-Awareness, (Cardiff, University of Wales Press: 1969).
For Wolmar’s divinity see p. 141. See also Shklar, Men and Citizens, pp. 135-136. Shklar’s analysis clearly
follows Grimsley’s.
47 Marshall Berman, Politics of Authenticity, p. 245.
48 Rousseau, Julie, Part III, Letter XX, pp. 305 – 306 [OC, II, 370-372].
49 Ibid., Part V, Letter III, p. 457 [559]. Wolmar is aware that Julie is uniquely and divinely loveable. See also,
Berman, Politics of Authenticity, pg. 249 – 250. Berman believes, I think wrongly, that this love is used for the
exploitation of the populace at Clarens. Nonetheless, it is clear from his reading that Julie possesses a unique
capacity to gain men’s admiration and love.
50 Julie., Part VI, Letter XI, p. 600 [731]. See Rousseau’s footnote.
51 Ibid., Letter XII, p. 608 – 609 [740-741].
52 Julie, Part I. All of Part I clearly demonstrates this point.
45
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
She claims that family, duty, and religious faith replace her earlier sexual passion,53 but this
turns out to be self-deception. This becomes clear from her recurrent worries regarding
her former love; she seems to need continual reassurance that her passion is really silenced
– a sure sign of self-deception. 54 Julie has fooled herself by thinking she only has
dispassionate affection for St. Preux. This self-deception is further evinced when Julie
suggests that St. Preux and Claire be wed.55 Julie is really attempting to put St. Preux out of
her reach, for he is expected shortly to return from Rome and reside at Clarens
permanently – a constant temptation. Ostensibly, she is concerned that St. Preux will be
unable to transcend sexual ardour and vice when ‘sequester[ed]’ with three women his own
age.56 Julie is actually concerned with delivering herself and even confesses that she shares
the danger of renewed romantic temptation with St Preux.57 This suppressed passion is
obvious in Julie’s explanation of how she and St. Preux will be united through his marriage
with Claire. Because Julie sees Claire as half of herself, St. Preux is in some sense marrying
Julie, but, she claims, this indirect union will not violate virtue or dignity. 58 This twisted
attempt to give her love of St. Preux a measure of contorted activity evinces Julie’s strong,
persistent ardour toward him and her crumbling defences against that passion.
Wolmar’s experience and vulnerability to passion are of a different kind. Wolmar is
often seen as a dispassionate cogitator59 and he identifies himself in this way as a kind of
living eye. 60
Yet tellingly, Wolmar takes the ‘sagacity’ of his judgement as a re-
compensation for his ‘amour propre’.61 Peculiarly, Wolmar has one single passion – he loves
Julie.62 Although Wolmar believes the impression of this passion is slight, he knows his
psyche has no experience of passion and no ability to counterbalance or outmanoeuvre this
force.63 Passion will trump pure rationality.64
Ibid., Part III, Letter XVIII, pp. 292 – 295 [354-359].
Ibid., Part IV, Letter 1, p. 330 [401]; Letter VIII, p. 351 [426-427]; Letter XIII, pp. 407 – 410 [497-499].
55 Ibid., Part V, Letter XIII, p. 515 – 520 [628-634]; Part VI, Letter VI, pp. 547 – 548 [666-674]. Julie suggests
this to Claire and St. Preux in two separate letters. Interestingly, the suggestion to St. Preux comes after
Claire herself has refused to have any part in the idea.
56 Julie, Part VI, Letter VI, pp. 547 – 548 [666]. In fact, St. Preux has gone some way towards resolving his
passion. Julie’s worry that he will blindly follow passion seems particularly strange in this context.
57 Ibid., p. 548 [667].
58 Ibid., p. 551-552 [671].
59 Shklar, Men and Citizens, pp. 135-136.
60 Rousseau, Julie, Part IV, Letter XII, p. 403 [491].
61 Ibid. Steward has translated amour propre as self-love, but in his note to the text he indicates that it is amour
propre in the French. He thinks this may be one positive aspect of amour propre, but my reading suggests it is
amour propre in its dangerous sense, if, indeed, there is any other.
62 Ibid., Part IV, Letter XII, p. 404-405 [492-493].
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., p. 405 [493]. This, of course, is much like Rousseau’s view in Inequality and Emile adduced in Chapter
5.
53
54
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Because Wolmar loves Julie, he clearly lacks the psychic repertoire to control that
passion; however, he doubts this vulnerability will come to ill. Yet, having seen the subtle
power of passion to corrupt reason, his conviction is liable to suspicion. Indeed, he
reasons that he can best make Julie happy and so his passion will do no harm. 65 This
smacks of an ex post facto justification. Wolmar knowingly married a woman who loved
another man,66 yet he convinces himself that he has created an optimal situation for her.
But it is no coincidence that his desires are served in the process. Even if innocent of these
secret machinations, Wolmar’s rational-appearing explanation is, we have seen, quite
mistaken, and his understanding of Julie’s psyche is incomplete. If his understanding fully
penetrated the human heart, he should have seen that Julie needed to be with St. Preux to
have real happiness and fulfilment.67 Instead, he convinced himself that Julie’s relationship
with St. Preux could do nothing of the sort.68 It seems evident that Wolmar married Julie
not, at bottom, out of a rational plan to maximise her happiness, but to satisfy his own
passion.
Just as in Chapter 6, the problem of passion is clearly present here. The dominance
of Wolmar and Julie’s respective passions is not simply romantic. Their passions are clearly
self-interested, and worse, their desires occasion the use of rationality on their behalf. Thus,
the hallmark dominance of self-interest over reason is displayed by Wolmar’s preference of
himself as husband for Julie and his subsequent rationalising of this view. The negative
perfectibility of Inequality, so carefully guarded against in Emile, incubates in Wolmar.
Certainly, if Rousseau took Wolmar qua educator to be an image of the Legislator, it would
be peculiar if he were vulnerable to passion in this way.
In the course of the novel, Julie dies after saving her children from drowning and
then taking ill from the cold. Subsequently, the danger of Wolmar’s passion escalates. He
is consumed by grief. Claire puts it best, ‘he cannot believe she [Julie] is obliterated; his
heart, in spite of him, revolts against his vain reason.’ 69 Under these circumstances his
previously insightful judgment loses its penetration. When Clarens’ residents see Julie’s
corpse but imagine her to be alive, Wolmar is frustrated and loses his initiative. 70 He
cannot remove her body because the people of the region would revile him as a ‘parricidal
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 404 [493].
67 On the point of self-fulfilment, see Berman, Politics of Authenticity, pp. 234 – 238. He argues that the
passions of St. Preux and, to a lesser extent, Julie are necessary for self-discovery. This love is an element of
the ego becoming fully realised or authentic.
68 Rousseau, Julie, Part IV, Letter XII, p. 405 [493-494].
69 Ibid., Letter XIII, p. 611 [743-744].
70 Ibid., Part VI, Letter XI, p. 604 [736].
65
66
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
husband’. 71 Instantaneously, Wolmar is left following the inclinations of his servants.
Wolmar’s reaction to Claire’s grief further demonstrates his impotence. He himself realises
that he is no longer capable of understanding her;72 nevertheless, he has Claire’s daughter
Henriette mimic Julie to console her mother, but the result improves nothing.73 Wolmar is
too embroiled by his own passionate grief to heal himself much less others. Clarens teeters
on the brink of collapse.
In the extraordinary circumstances near the close of Julie, the Wolmars’ passions reemerge and threaten their work as civic educators. The new activity of Monsieur de
Wolmar’s passion promises disaster for Clarens. No wonder a Moses, Numa or Lycurgus
must be free of human passions altogether.
St. Preux’s Transfiguration
With Wolmar facing an emotional maelstrom and Julie dead, St. Preux is the only
remaining protagonist who could possibly restore Clarens. Indeed, Wolmar, Claire and
Julie (before her death) all implore him to return, reunite and complete what had begun at
Clarens.74 Furthermore, all three agree that St. Preux must ‘heal’ Wolmar’s ‘sorrows’;75 Julie
and Claire believe St. Preux alone can show Wolmar the true ‘end and reward’ of virtue by
transforming him into a Christian. 76 Even earlier, Wolmar had already expressed his
intention for St. Preux to educate his children because he appreciates St. Preux’s rare
genius.77 Julie goes further and asks St. Preux to make her sons into ‘charitable and just
men’.78 Tasked with the restoration of Clarens, the spiritual healing of Wolmar and the
moral education of Julie’s children, St. Preux faces a tremendous challenge. If he is to
succeed, he needs to be a true sage and a great hero. Is this a baseless hope?
The most obvious answer is yes. St. Preux’s passions are extraordinarily treacherous.
Commentators have often taken St. Preux’s initial nature to be the totality of his character.
M. B. Ellis argues that St. Preux is an unalloyed image of dangerous appetitive passion. 79
Shklar submits he will never really equal Wolmar or leave Wolmar’s community. 80 Over
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 606 [737-738].
73 Ibid., pp. 606 – 608 [738-740].
74 Ibid., Letter XI, p. 608 [740]; Letter XIII, pp. 611 – 612 [744-745]; Letter XII, p. 610 [742].
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid., Letter XII, p. 610 [742]; Letter XIII, p. 611 [744].
77 Ibid., Part IV, Letter XIV, p. 416 [507].
78 Ibid., Part VI, Letter XII, p. 610 [742]. In French, St. Preux is tasked with making Julie’s children ‘des
hommes bienfaisans et justes.’ Charitable and just is an apt translation, but it is important to note the
emphasis on the practical manifestation of their good will. The equivalence of this task with the education
of Emile (Rousseau alludes to a manuscript on education a few lines earlier) is obvious.
79 M. B. Ellis, Julie or La Nouvelle Héloïse; A Synthesis of Rousseau’s Thought (1749 – 1759), p. 9.
80 Shklar, Men and Citizens, p. 143 – 144.
71
72
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
most of the novel, these readings of St. Preux are entirely plausible. A cursory reading of
Part I shows how deeply passion is part of his nature. St. Preux’s passion had corrupted
his reason and his sense of duty when he had educated Julie, when he was her lover and
afterwards during his Parisian exile.81 St. Preux’s passions lead him toward both murder
and suicide. His love for Julie accepts no abrogation in its drive to possess her. When he
is in danger of losing her, his passion becomes destructive. Indeed, he contemplates
hurling himself from the rocks of Meillerie; he proposes a duel with Milord Edward;82 he
writes to justify suicide, and he contemplates hurling himself from the rocks of Meillerie.83
St. Preux’s passions are deep, deceptive, corrupting and destructive. In this state, St. Preux
is utterly unsuitable for a prospective Legislator.
Nonetheless, readings of St. Preux that focus on these passions are problematic
because they do not follow the narrative to its conclusion. They overlook the possibility
that if intends St. Preux is to rescue Clarens, only his thoroughgoing passion would provide
him with the knowledge necessary for this task. This is hinted earlier in the narrative when
Wolmar elaborates a model of the true sage which deploys passion along just these lines.
Wolmar submits that a completely dispassionate and rational disposition is overwhelmed
by the first passion it experiences.84 On the contrary, only a passionate soul can balance
and overcome vicious passions with a passion for virtue.85 The true sage does not merely
experience passions but consciously balances them in favour of a passion for virtue. The
idea is not to subsume the passions but to elicit and draw together love of virtue with
reason.
Although Rousseau is not particularly careful about defining his terminology, it is
clear that his notion of virtue is not just a moral value or verity but a form of striving, use
of strength, or sacrifice toward moral and dutiful ends.86 Put another way, the passion for
virtue requires strength, intrepidness, and self-reliance, much as does the civic hero in On
Heroic Virtue. Virtue, the love of virtue, and wisdom are irreducibly intertwined according
to Wolmar’s model. Because this resembles the understanding of man’s active capacities
normatively deployed, which the Vicar develops in the ‘Profession of Faith’, there is no
reason to believe that Wolmar’s understanding of the sage differs from Rousseau’s own.
Because neither Wolmar nor Julie are able to resolve their passions in this way, Rousseau
Ibid., Letter XXVI, p. 75 [92]. St. Preux writes, ‘No, recognize it finally, my Julie, an eternal edict from
heaven destined us for each other; that is the first law we must heed; the primary concern in life is to unite
oneself with that person who can make it blissful for us’ – hardly a paragon of upright, austere virtue.
82 This occurred at a point in the novel before St. Preux became Edward’s devoted friend and servant.
83 Rousseau, Julie, Part I, Letter XXVI, p. 76 [93]; Letter LVI, pp. 122 – 123 [150-151]; Part III, Letter XXI.
84 Ibid., Part IV, Letter XII, p. 405 [493].
85 Ibid.
86 See editors footnote Ibid., Part 1, footnote 88.
81
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
may very well be foreshadowing a change in the only remaining candidate – St. Preux. In
his typical paradoxical style, Rousseau might make St. Preux’s excessive passions a strength
if the character is able to cultivate the specific love of virtue.
This is exactly what happens, but St. Preux’s journey is a treacherous one. The first
movement towards St. Preux’s transformation occurs despite Wolmar’s guidance.
87
Notwithstanding the dominance of his appetitive passions, St. Preux had always valued
virtue. Wolmar hopes to release this weaker disposition when he brings St. Preux to
Clarens. Later, Wolmar leaves Clarens temporarily so as to expose St. Preux to a number
of situations where Julie is no longer a young maiden, but a devoted matron.88 The idea is
to dissolve the realness of the object of St. Preux’s passion. Yet Wolmar’s intentions are
not simply to help St. Preux distinguish memories from reality but to replace entirely the former
with the impression of the later.89 By inducing this change, Wolmar aims to finally and
completely suppress St. Preux’s concupiscent passion.
Wolmar’s scheme is flawed in several ways. First, it misapprehends the complex
interpenetration of active and passive powers, which lies behind the passions Rousseau
thinks most dangerous. Just as we saw in Chapter 6, judgment, an active power, is both
integral to the relational ideas that produce unnatural passions, and it is subsequently
corrupted and invoked by those same passions. Any remedy for a complex problem of the
passions which operates solely on the terrain of experience and impression is both
misconceived and bound to failure. Second, Wolmar seeks to repress St. Preux’s passion.
He had undertaken to repress Julie’s passions, but his efforts eventually failed. He takes
reason and psychic health on the one hand and passion on the other to be opposed. But as
Rousseau so frequently tells us, ardour as such is not the problem facing virtue and wisdom.
By eliding this important psychological truth, Wolmar’s ‘healing’ is likely to backfire.
Thus, it is not surprising that St. Preux’s frustrated romantic passion grows
catastrophically during a boating expedition he and Julie take during Wolmar’s absence. In
this scene St. Preux uses romantically charged language.90 His passion drives him toward
destructive fantasies, climaxing when he comes within a hair’s breadth of drowning himself
and Julie in Lake Geneva. 91 Despite Wolmar’s efforts, St. Preux really prefers the
annihilation of Julie or himself to the restraint of his passion or the loss of its object. St.
Preux’s old impressions of Julie are too robust to be overwritten. The consonance of these
For an alternative interpretation see, Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, pp. 137-144. Shklar presents the most
powerful and convincing reading of Wolmar as the successful spiritual healer of St. Preux.
88 Ibid., Part IV, Letter XIV, p. 419 [511].
89 Ibid., pp. 418 – 419 [509-511].
90 Ibid., Letter XVII, p. 425 [418-419].
91 Ibid., pp. 427-428 [521]. Another instance of his suicidal and murderous passion in this scene is found on
p. 423 [517].
87
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
events with Rousseau’s rejection of simple materialism in Inequality and Emile is remarkable.
St. Preux’s ideas in regard to Julie are not simple; precisely because he loves her, his
conception of her must be relational and, consequently, active.92 Wolmar’s plan does not
succeed because it does not account for the activity of St. Preux’s passions. Although St.
Preux desperately hopes that these events have eliminated his passion, 93 he is not at all
certain. Ultimately, Wolmar’s attempt to heal St. Preux is doomed because it contravenes
Rousseau’s analytic psychology. Given the likelihood that Wolmar’s character is probably
based loosely on several materialist philosophes, including the arch-materialist D’Holbach,94
the failure of St. Preux’s re-education is a subtle refutation of Rousseau’s materialist
adversaries.
The fact that Wolmar could never have succeeded does not mean St. Preux’s
psyche remains enfeebled by passion. After all, he does not leap from the rocks or drown
himself with Julie.
Sentiments of sadness restrain the destructive promptings of his
passion.95 Though not yet aimed towards virtue, this resembles the kind of balancing of
emotions essential for the hero or the true sage. This latent ability is a clear sign of St.
Preux’s potential.
If St. Preux’s story is traced to it culmination, it is clear he develops a love of virtue.
After the narrowly averted disaster on Lake Geneva, St. Preux gains an increasingly
conscious appreciation of what he still takes to be his former passion. In a passage that
resonates with neo-Platonic psychology, St. Preux sees the subjugation of his passion as a
‘sacrifice’ which leads his soul to an appreciation of the ‘grand and [the] beautiful’.96 St. Preux
may still attempt to suppress his Eros, but his end is clearly the sublime. Realising this is not
yet his outlook, St. Preux plans to use the memory of his passion to ‘become what [he]
means to be.’97 What differentiates this from Wolmar’s plan is that St. Preux’s striving is
not a passive response to the situations in which he finds himself. Reaffirming the weight
Rousseau places on man’s active powers, St. Preux’s change is becoming conscious and
intentional. This active utilisation of ardour is indicative of a true sage.
Nevertheless, St. Preux still labours under the false assumption that his passions
have been effectively repressed. This is not true and would not be desirable. In the
‘Profession of Faith’ and Political Economy, it is only a love of the right kind which protects
reasoning, judging and willing from the corruption of amour propre. It is equally clear that
In Inequality, romantic love depends on comparative ideas of beauty and sustained social relationships. See
Chapter 5 of this thesis.
93 Rousseau, Julie, Part IV, Letter XVII, p. 428 [521].
94 Grimsley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, p. 140.
95 Rousseau, Julie, Part IV, Letter XVII, p. 428 [521].
96 Ibid., Part V, Letter III, p. 456 [557]. Italics mine.
97 Ibid.
92
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
were St. Preux to become a great educator, he would still need to resolve his passion in
favour of virtuous love, as all great civic educators must.
Thus, it is unsurprising that the suppression of St. Preux’s ardour is shattered a little
later in the novel. In Part Six of Julie, St. Preux and Edward leave Clarens on an expedition
to Rome.98 Shortly after their departure, they spend the night in Villeneuve; St. Preux had
occupied the same room shortly before he travelled to the Valais in Part One.99 At the
time, Julie had provisionally dismissed St. Preux as her tutor and he was deeply
impassioned as a result. Returning to that place rekindles all his unsatisfied desires. This
time, his passions become murderously possessive, but unlike before he dwells on these
urges and weighs their implications. He comprehends that Julie’s current life with Wolmar
is causing himself ‘torture’ and ‘despair’. 100 Previously, St Preux was ignorant of the
repercussions of these derailed emotions and did not fully grasp his psychic torment.
Whereas before these passions had occasioned St. Preux’s reasoning, they have now almost
become an object of his own understanding.
St. Preux is poised to develop a new
understanding of the situation.
Amidst these events, St. Preux’s passions are released from Wolmar’s induced
repression. St. Preux is increasingly aware of them as they escalate to their greatest fervour,
but his reason does not yet control them and they render his judgment impotent. In this
climax, he dreams again and again that he is separated from Julie by a veil he can neither
reach nor tear from her visage.101 Even awake, he cannot escape this vision, and his horror
recasts all of the ‘objects’ surrounding him.102 These visions capture his judgment.103 He
flees his room and finds Edward. Edward first dismisses St. Preux’s worries lightly, but
then, seeing his friend’s seriousness, rebukes his weakness. Because St. Preux is now
positioned to think about the consequences of his dream, he can tell Edward forthrightly
that loosing Julie will contribute to his own moral destruction – it will make him nothing.104
This realisation is not one of pure experience but of experience and judgment combined.
Edward returns St. Preux to Clarens so that he can reassure himself of Julie’s health.
St. Preux contemplates his vision; he barely registers the route to Clarens. This long period
of contemplation seems to make a difference. He is reassured that Julie is indeed well when
he overhears her voice, and the last lingering power of those old passions is lost. But even
before this, St. Preux reconsiders his current impulsive action and comes to prefer duty.
I will discuss the purpose of this journey below.
Rousseau, Julie, Part V, Letter IX, p. 503 [515].
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid., p. 505 [616].
102 Ibid., [617].
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid., p. 506 [617]
98
99
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
He takes his terror to be ‘ridiculous’ and his return ‘effrontery’. 105 St. Preux writes that
upon hearing Julie and Claire speak, ‘I felt so changed that I mocked myself and my vain
alarms’.106 St. Preux’s old passions had been the source of his fears. Now he forswears
those phantasms; he no longer fixes his ardour on Julie singularly and romantically, and his
reason is no longer ‘clouded’.107 But this is not an abandonment of ardour, he is proud to
have acted according to virtue, and he takes all his duties ‘to heart’.108 Thus his old passions
are superseded by a new virtuous Eros. St. Preux, having chosen virtue, is now emotionally
committed to it. His personality has transformed completely, and it is evident he loves
virtue even above his now chastened affection for Julie.
At the end of these events, St. Preux is at liberty for virtuous striving because he
has experienced the nadir of human emotion. St. Preux has experienced all human passions,
but that experience was not purely passive. Following the analytical psychology elucidated in
Chapter 6, Rousseau’s portrayal of St. Preux utilises man’s active capacity for comparison
to reverse the negative power of passion. With new ideas originating in St. Preux’s new
reflectivity toward his passion, he is able to develop a love of virtue. But this sublimation
of Eros also depends on St. Preux’s passions. If St. Preux had not lingered at Villeneuve,
and had his passions not descended into their destructive spiral, he would not have become
aware of the danger they posed. Without passion unfolding in such a way that it could be
an object and not just a precursor of consideration, it would remain invariably dominant. St.
Preux’s Eros is made sublime, and his commitment to virtue is empowered in terms of
both activity and passivity. The overall trajectory of this change in St. Preux is one of
passion led from concupiscence to the sublime.
As I have shown, Rousseau was not the first to think virtue required sublime love,
nor was he the first to believe misery could initiate the assent of love. In Fénelon’s
Telemachus, Mentor reveals to the eponymous pupil that the experience of adversity and
misery gives the young prince the compassion and love a ruler needs to relate to his
people.109 But unlike his neo-Platonic forbearers, Rousseau does not empower this change
Ibid., [678]
Ibid., p. 507 [618]
107 Ibid., [618-619]
108 Ibid., [619]. Italics mine.
109 Fénelon, Telemachus, p. 323. Mentor states, ‘Such are the happy effects of adversity; it teaches princes
moderation, and makes them feel the pains of others. When they have never drunk but from the sweet
poisoned cup of prosperity, they look upon themselves as gods; they would have the mountains humble
themselves into plains to please them; they count men as nothing; they expect that all nature should be
subservient to their will. When mention is made of suffering, they know not what it means: they have no
idea of it, having never known the difference between happiness and misery. It is misfortune alone that can
teach them humanity, and soften their obdurate hearts: then they find they are only men, and that they ought
to study the ease and happiness of other men, who are like them’.
105
106
212
The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
through divine grace.110 Chance plays a part, much as it did in Inequality, but it is Rousseau’s
complex analytical psychology which seems to explain the details of St. Preux’s character
development and gives his judgment and will a role therein. St. Preux makes up his own
mind to serve duty whilst his Eros ascends in such a way not to contravene that choice. In
doing this Rousseau presents a unique fusion of neo-Platonic sublimated Eros with his
complex analytical psychology. Now free of his negative passions, St. Preux stands to know
his passions by both his experience of and his now rational judgment concerning them.
Because his passions were deep and manifold, St. Preux understands the gamut of human
desiring. Hence, it is St. Preux alone, of all the protagonists from Julie, who embodies the
Legislator’s peculiar disposition.
Part IV: The Gods speak
This understanding is important not only for answering why Rousseau thought his
paradoxical formulation of the Legislator’s disposition was possible but also for the
relationship between the Legislator and the polity. Specifically, the Legislator’s Eros helps
shed light on another frustrating tension. Rousseau is quite clear that the Legislator must
not command, his legislative authority must be ‘nil’. 111
Yet at the same time his
comprehensions of justice and law exceeds the solipsistic experience and appreciation of
not-yet-citizens.112 The cognitive horizon of the nascent polity is too limited to appreciate
the language of wisdom. Worse, wisdom cannot be translated into vulgar expression. 113
Thus, Rousseau denies the Legislator both reasoned explanation and political coercion. If
the Legislator is to legislate, he must find some other way to interact with and persuade the
people.
In The Social Contract, Rousseau resorts infamously to a deus ex machina to overcome
this problem.
Literally, the gods are invoked to speak on the Legislator’s behalf.
Unfortunately, this point is frequently neglected or misunderstood.
114
Judith Shklar
It was, after all, Minerva who provided the experience of adversity, misery and misfortune Telemachus so
badly needed.
111 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap. 7, p. 70, [OC, III, 383]. This is not to say that the Legislator has
no authority at all, just not this authority.
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid.
114 Lester Crocker, ‘Rousseau’s soi-distant Liberty’, in R. Wokler (ed.), Rousseau and Liberty, (Manchester,
Manchester University Press: 1995), pp. 250-252, 255-256. Crocker takes the Legislator and his techniques to
be deceptive and tyrannical. Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, (London, Routledge: 1999), pp. 23-24, 117, 122,
134, 136, 156-157. O’Hagan treats the Legislator sparsely and seems to reduce the issue to one of ‘timing’ and
institution building. He is quite aware that these institutions have psychological effects and that the
Legislator’s ultimate goal concerns the psychology of citizens, but he takes this goal to be the product of the
Legislator’s institutional work rather than a precondition of that work. Well constituted states cultivate virtue
and patriotism amongst their citizens, but that social disposition cannot explain the constituting of the people
and the state in the first instance. Patrick Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, (Cambridge, MA, Harvard
110
213
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
concludes quite reasonably that while Rousseau’s Legislator is not inordinately manipulative,
he is a smooth operator and a master of symbolism and stage craft.115 Christopher Kelly
has addressed this problem concertedly, taking the Legislator to rely upon the same
capacities as the ‘imitative artist’ depicted in Rousseau’s ‘On Theatrical Imitation’.116 This is
played out, Kelly tells us, not by the use of the miracles but by the very soul of the
Legislator.117 Yet upon further examination, Kelly thinks the Legislator uses rhetoric in a
way that recaptures and amplifies the emotionalism Rousseau ascribes to primitive language
– this allows him to persuade.118 By focusing on the emotional nature of persuasion as a
deployment of symbolism and musicality, whatever is unique about the Legislator’s soul
drops from Kelly’s account. Ultimately, he and Shklar seem to agree that the Legislator’s
rhetorical techne is the precondition for his successful education of the polity.
While these technical readings may explain part of what Rousseau had in mind, they
may also misconstrue the relationship between Legislator and citizens. I want to argue that
Kelly is more right about the soul of the Legislator than he actually argues; however, my
reasoning does not depend obliquely on an analysis of language 119 but directly on the
disposition of the Legislator I have outlined above.
University Press: 1981), pp. 116-117. Riley is keenly aware of the importance of the Legislator as prime
mover in the polity’s common good moral outlook, but he is more concerned with sounding out the
dimensions of the tensions between this theme and Rousseau’s equal commitment to will as the foundation
of moral obligation. See also P. Riley ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, in P. Riley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Rousseau, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2001). The most prominent topic of his analysis in this
later examination is how a ‘non-authoritarian educational authority’ might be found to resolve the tension
between an imposed common good morality and will as the origin of moral obligation. But it is the possible
congruence of freedom with some form of education, rather than the educator himself which remains
Riley’s focus. Helena Rosenblatt, Rousseau and Geneva, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), pp.
257-258. Rosenblatt’s normally splendid treatment of Rousseau’s thought is uncharacteristically sparse on the
Legislator. Most of what she says is summary. But she takes the Legislator to operate on the polity’s will as
if by divine grace. This may be a way of understanding the Legislator’s invocation of the gods, but her
remarks are too brief to really say. In the end she concludes that this grace is like ‘simple persuasion’, which
is no more than saying grace is the problem it is supposed to overcome. John T. Scott, ‘Politics as the
Imitation of the Divine in Rousseau’s “Social Contract”’, in Polity, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring, 1994), pp. 499-495.
Scott recognizes the central problem of Rousseau’s Legislator but takes his invocation of the God’s to be the
application of civil religion. Great founders do indeed create civic religion, but this is of a piece with the
creation of the institutions of the state, and would face precisely the same problems. This is because civil
religion is a matter of political society. It helps maintain and renew that society, but it cannot be presupposed
as a means by which political life originates. David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, (University Park,
PA, Penn State Press: 2007), pp. 153-155. Williams draws attention to Rousseau’s acknowledgement of
Plato’s influence on the Legislator, but the rest of his account is summary or focuses on straightforward
contrasts between the Statesman and the Legislator. Williams does not analyze the Legislator or explain his
relationship with the polity.
115 Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, p. 157.
116 Christopher Kelly, ‘“To Persuade without Convincing”: The Language of Rousseau’s Legislator’, in
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 31, No. 2 (May, 1987), pp. 323-324.
117 Ibid., p. 325.
118 Ibid., p. 326-328.
119 I find Kelly’s account relatively unproblematic on this ground; however, his interweaving of themes from
‘Theatrical Imitation’ and the Essay on the Origin of Languages could be more coherent and could more squarely
address the commensurability of language at different states of man’s anthropological development with the
particular instantiation found in The Social Contract.
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In order to show this connection, it is important to return to Rousseau’s cryptic
remarks on the subject of the Legislator’s particular persuasion. He writes:
Thus, since the Legislator can use neither force nor reasoning, he must of necessity have recourse
to an authority of a different order, which might be able to rally without violence and to persuade
without convincing.
This is what has at all times forced founders of nations to resort to the intervention of heaven
and to honour the Gods with their own wisdom, so that peoples, subject to the laws of the State
as to those of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation of man and in that of the
city, freely obey the yoke of public felicity, and bear it with docility.
The sublime reason which rises beyond the reach [384] of vulgar men it is whose decisions the
Legislator places in the mouth of the immortals, in order to rally by divine authority those whom
human prudence could not move. But it is not up to just anyone to make the Gods speak or to
have them believe him when he proclaims himself their interpreter. The great soul of the
Legislator is the true miracle which must prove his mission. Any man can carve tablets of stone,
bribe an oracle, feign secret dealings with some divinity, train a bird to speak in his ear, or find
other crude ways to impress the people. Someone who can only do that much might even by
chance succeed in assembling a flock of fools, but he will never found an empire, and his
extravagant work will soon perish together with him. Empty tricks form a passing bond, only
wisdom can make it lasting.120
The passage falsifies a number of initially plausible readings of the Legislator’s persuasion.
Religiosity does not seem to be the Legislator’s means, for he calls upon the ‘intervention of
heaven’ ‘so that’ a people might adopt civic religion. Likewise, the techne interpretations of
this passage are not obviously satisfactory. Rousseau seems to exclude trickery from his
Legislator’s repertoire. It is the mark of phoney legislators. The question is whether this
exclusion would rule out the techniques Shklar and Kelly have in mind.
Rather than trying to imagine which techniques satisfy and which do not, a better
way to approach the question is to consider how Rousseau thought the Legislator’s
message differed from the huckster’s. The key distinction in this case depends on the
‘wisdom’ of the Legislator’s message and its absence from the huckster’s. Again, harkening
back to the Fénelonian lawgiver, Rousseau is clear that the wise Legislator cannot
communicate by rational argumentation because the people cannot yet understand the ideas
and the language of reason. 121 Nevertheless, his message is one of ‘sublime reason’.
Because the Legislator’s message requires this reason as much as the invocation of the gods,
the specific techniques of the Legislator’s delivery may be of secondary importance. Thus,
it is both Moses’ divine sanction and his ‘great and powerful genius’ that differentiate him
from the charlatan passing off graven tablets as the dictates of heaven.122
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap 7, p. 71, [OC, III, 383-384]. Gourevitch uses the term Lawgiver
instead of Legislator. In French, Rousseau’s term is ‘du Legislateur’.
121 Ibid., p. 70 [383].
122 Ibid., pp. 71-72 [384]. See also Kelly, ‘“To Persuade without Convincing”’, pp. 325, 329. Kelly may be too
quick to dismiss the use of miracles all together. He suggests that the Israelites pass on their laws, ‘exemplary
lives and religious doctrines’ through music, or musical language. He concludes that the important point
about Moses founding is that it must have been communicated musically. Kelly thus fails to reconcile the way
in which Moses delivered the Decalogue and the Laws – by miracle – with the success of his message. Thus,
the distinctions he has borrowed from elsewhere in Rousseau’s corpus do not quite fit the Legislator.
120
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
Precisely because the techniques Rousseau mentions above are not essentially
antithetical to a great Legislator’s relationship with the polity, interpreting this passage
requires discussion of both the invocation of the divine and the Legislator’s wisdom and
whether and, if so, how these are connected to each other. It is also worth exploring
whether the Legislator’s exceptional Eros and his understanding of passion relate to his
‘sublime reason’, the voice of the divine or both. As I hope to show, in order to address
the first issue it is necessary to have addressed the second.
Returning briefly then, to the Legislator’s sublimation of Eros, it is helpful to first
analyse its political role. Perhaps the Legislator’s transfigured Eros is simply a qualification
for office? By sublimating his Eros the Legislator masters and rectifies his passions,
precluding him from developing any dangerous tyrannical aims. But other than as a
qualifying constraint, his Eros would be of little further relevance upon this reading; his
rational insight into laws and institutions would be what really matters for his political
role.123 I think this reading is unconvincing, as I proceed to argue.
The problem is that Rousseau had long thought lasting politics required virtuous
citizens who love the laws. 124 In Political Economy, Rousseau had already established the
insufficiency of merely explaining the importance of the love of law and of the general
good to citizens.125 Education is required from an early age if citizens are to grow into love
of the law.126 Education in Political Economy solves nearly the same problem the Legislator
faces in The Social Contract, but only for citizens of an established state. Not-yet-citizens could
not be educated in the same way. Interestingly, Rousseau already directs a version of the
Legislator toward this problem. He writes:
Therefore, form men if you want to command men: if you would have the laws obeyed, see to it
[252] that they are loved, and that in order to do what one ought, it suffices to think that one
ought to do it. That was the great art of ancient governments in those remote times when
philosophers gave laws to peoples, and only used their authority to make them wise and happy. 127
Just as in On Heroic Virtue, the great philosopher is also the great lawgiver. The most
essential element of his statecraft involves eliciting the right dispositions from citizens.
Their love of virtue and the fatherland is the object of institution making and their
happiness its end. If this same relationship holds true in The Social Contract, then
however cryptic Rousseau’s discussion of the voice of the gods may be, it is precisely
this unusual authority over the hearts of potential citizens that is necessary.
If this is right, O’Hagan’s institution centred understanding of the Legislator’s political function would be
particularly appealing.
124 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 13 [OC, III, 251-252].
125 Ibid., p. 15 [254]
126 Ibid. See further Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’. The entire article focuses on the commensurability of
freedom with thoroughgoing political/moral education.
127 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 13 [251-252].
123
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
The specific challenge the Legislator faces in The Social Contract suggests a way in
which his understanding of human passion is essential. The Legislator must know these
passions because he must find a way to overcome not-yet-citizens’ ignorance of any ‘other
scheme of government’ other than that ‘which bears directly on’ their ‘particular interest’
and their failure to perceive ‘the advantages’ they are ‘supposed to derive from the constant
privations required by good laws’. 128 The limited and self-referential disposition and
passions of potential citizens constitute the most pressing political challenge.
The
Legislator’s remit includes creating ‘the social spirit’ through the institutions he devises, but
this spirit can only develop after they have been instituted; the effect cannot become the
cause.129 If both the challenge and the goal of the Legislator’s task involves the passion and
disposition of citizens, his full knowledge of these matters stands to be pivotal in this
mission.
This returns the analysis back to the Legislator’s invocation of the Gods, but having
clarified that his business in doing so concerns both the institutions of the state and the
dispositions of the polity. It is quite clear that the general importance of the passions in the
Legislator’s character is of specific importance for his ‘sublime wisdom’. His sublime
wisdom centres on identifying problematic dispositions, and rectifying them by way of
better ones. This is the specific task for which the Legislator invokes the gods. Recalling
the previous section, St. Preux did not know his passions until after his psyche had
transformed. His understanding is not simply a product of experience, but an experience
combined with active consideration, the sublimation of Eros, and the final coming together
of his will and judgment with his love of virtue. If this is the case, then it is clear the
sublime reason which accompanies the Legislator’s rhetorical success cannot be
disentangled from his sublime Eros.
What might this mean for the Legislator’s communication with the people? Any
number of explanations might be plausible. The Legislator’s communication might be
partially explained in terms of one traditional understanding of rhetoric. This is the
longstanding view that rhetoric gauges the emotions of listeners, harnesses them and
deploys them for rationally and morally defensible purposes. Although I do not argue that
the Legislator’s relationship with the people lacks this conventional rhetorical mastery, I
argue that the relationship between the sublimation of Eros, the Legislator’s ‘sublime
reason’ and his invocation of the gods actually runs much deeper. In an interesting twist,
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk II, Chap. 7, pp. 70-71. [OC, III, 383]. I will argue in the next chapter that
these passions are connected to amour de soi, not amour propre.
129 Ibid., p. 71.
128
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
the classical Aristotelian rhetorical presentation of an exemplary persona is superseded by the
presence of the Legislator’s own persona when he communicates with the citizens.
What I have in mind requires some explanation, but I think it becomes clearer by
looking again at Rousseau’s Fénelonian debts. Fénelon, as we saw above, advanced a
conception of ancient legislators much like that Rousseau devised in Political Economy and
developed in The Social Contract. Importantly, Fénelon took Platonic sublimated Eros to
constitute a communion with the divine. Specifically, Fénelon says pur amour transports a
man out of himself and ‘deifies’ him, for ‘there is no person so bad … but what love for
virtue can make a God of… .’130 The Fénelonian lawgiver invokes the gods as a matter of
course, for his disposition is akin to their own. Fénelon then moves to equate ancient
legislators, true philosophers and pure lovers as the architects of a disinterested civic
love.131 Fénelonian legislators become effectively divine and then share a version of that
sublime love with the populace.
When Mentor/Minerva aids the king of Salente,
Idomeneus, in achieving stability, law and justice, his intervention parallels that of
Rousseau’s Legislator. Mentor steps in, alters the hearts of Idomeneus and his subjects,
bequeaths to them a right and stable constitution, defends it with Telemachus’ help and
then departs with the young prince.132 This is not unlike the temporary authority of the
Rousseauian Legislator even if it lacks the careful balancing of educative method and
freedom so characteristic of Rousseau’s educational thought. 133 Because the god-like
quality of the Fénelonian philosopher’s love makes his mission possible and because
Rousseau indicates his Legislator’s love is similar, this form of love may be connected to an
alternative way of thinking about the invocation of the gods in The Social Contract. What
would Rousseau’s thought look like if the Legislator’s communication with citizens was not
merely a technique informed by his knowledge of the passions but instead proceeded immediately
from his quasi-divine persona?
Perhaps it would be something like the eloquence Fénelon recommends in his
‘Letter to the French Academy’.
The parallels between this account of ‘sublime
communication’ and Rousseau’s suspicion of rhetoric without ‘sublime reason’ in The Social
Contract are striking. As we saw in Chapter 5, eloquent communication, Fénelon assures
the French Academy, is solely a matter of the sublime. Conventional understandings of
eloquence stress complex grammatical, poetical, and rhetorical techniques. For Fénelon
Fénelon, Pur Amour, p. 20. Fénelon is playing on the notion that a man’s soul is created in God’s image.
When man is reconciled with God he himself becomes godlike. This is a common view among neo-Platonic
authors of the period, inspired by Plotinus and Ficino.
131 Ibid., p. 23.
132 Fénelon, Telemachus, Books VIII-XIV.
133 On this point see Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, pp. 132, 134.
130
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these are not meaningful because they are matters of obvious manipulation. On the
contrary, true eloquence is largely a matter of simplicity. But this simplicity does not
depend on an alternative set of communicative techniques; rather, Fénelon takes both true
and false eloquence to depend on the disposition of the orator. It is no surprise that in
Fénelon’s view, conventional eloquence proceeds from self-interested forms of love.
Complex eloquence is intended to win the speaker acclaim, but only speakers who are
unburdened by such selfish desires and are instead committed to the disinterested public
good can channel the sublime in their oratory. Thus, Demosthenes’ convincing eloquence,
in all its simplicity, is ultimately a representation of his love of fatherland. Similarly, Mentor
convinces Idomeneus because he speaks plainly to the king, with love, without flattery and
in the true interest of king and country. 134 The statesman’s eloquence presupposes and
flows from his civic pur amour. Remove this love and the very same words fail.
Now this Fénelonian understanding of the sublime in oratory and aesthetics is
particularly important for interpretation of Rousseau’s politics, because we already know
Rousseau is convinced the Legislator must instil disinterested love amongst the body politic.
Could sublime Eros empower the Legislator’s persuasion in the same way it does
Fénelonian orators and lawgivers’? Rousseau was familiar enough with Fénelon to have
been able to assemble these Fénelonian themes in a similar way. In Chapter 5, I showed
Rousseau’s familiarity with Fénelon’s conception of disinterested love. In Julie, Rousseau
reveals certain knowledge of Fénelon’s understanding of simple eloquence. In response to
one of St. Preux’s letters critical of Parisian society, Julie implores him not to denigrate all
French men. To convince him, she contrasts the two most virtuous of moderns, both of
whom are French and one of whom is Fénelon, with the ‘fancy talkers’ St. Preux finds
unpleasant.135 By writing such an obvious play on Fénelon’s own distaste for extravagant
rhetoric, Rousseau demonstrates his own familiarity with and likely approval of Fénelon’s
rhetorical aesthetics. Thus, it is worth taking seriously the possibility that Rousseau might
have imagined the Legislator’s love was directly connected to his persuasion and his
invocation of the gods.
Returning to the story of St. Preux, it becomes perfectly clear that in Rousseau’s
deepest personification of the Legislator, sublimated Eros plays a role much like that
sketched out for the Fénelonian lawgiver. Having on the first, abortive, journey to Rome
sublimated his Eros after his experience of the negative depths of passion, Rousseau makes
quite clear that St. Preux subsequently gains the ability to heal and educate others. It will
134
135
Fénelon, Telemachus, pp. 151-152.
Rousseau, Julie, Part II, Letter XVIII, p. 212 [OC, II, 259].
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
be necessary to briefly recount the circumstances in which St. Preux found himself in order
to explain how he comes into possession of this educational acumen.
If all had gone according to plan, the Roman expedition would have been nothing
more than a ruse planned by Edward and Wolmar to test the repression of St. Preux’s
passion.136 Although St. Preux perceives this contrivance, it quickly becomes clear that the
dangers of the situation are acute 137 and the stakes of Edward’s passion for two lovers
grave.138 In the course of events, Edward proposes to take Laura as his wife in order to test
St. Preux’s virtue. If he marries Laura, he will live at Clarens, where St. Preux wants to
remain, but if he does not marry, he will retire to Oxford, where St. Preux must accompany
him if his sense of duty is firm.139 With St. Preux’s duties lined up on one side and his most
probable passions tempted on the other, the test seems aptly conceived for Edward’s
purposes. The only trouble is Edward’s passion for Laura increases.140 Not only does he
become more passionate but also his passions confound his ‘ruse’ with romantic love. This
starts because Edward thinks ‘opinion’ is no good reason to spurn Laura. At first, his
fairness in treating her as his – an English Peer’s – equal seems intuitively appealing. This
apparently noble sentiment is the product, however, of his concern that using Laura to test
St. Preux is deceitful unless he is willing to ‘press the feint as far as it could go, even to the
point of reality’.141 Edward does not seem to realise that this probably only deepens the lie.
Edward thinks his line of thought confirms that he ‘came fully to love her out of reason’. 142
But this is far from true. Given Edward’s original intentions, it seems his passions have
subtly subverted his reason. His justification of his affair in terms of egalitarian fairness
and his rationalisation of his use of Laura show that his reasoned judgment appears to serve
and deepen his passion. Needless to say, these twisted views are hardly representative of
the noble, virtuous disposition normally characteristic of Edward.
Though with some initial trepidation,143 St. Preux relies on his own resourcefulness
to find a solution to Edward’s love struck state.144 The details are revealing. In order to
Ibid., Part VI, Letter III, pp. 533-534 [649]. Wolmar’s plan to heal St. Preux relied on a misguided attempt
to repress his passions. By this point in the novel, that attempt had collapsed, yet Wolmar remained quite
ignorant of the sublimation of Eros that St. Preux’s psyche had undergone.
137 Rousseau, ‘The Loves of Milord Edward Bomston’, in Julie, Appendix I, p. 616 [OC, II, 755]. The
Marchesa, Edward’s first lover, makes repeated attempts on the lives of Edward and his later lover, Laura.
138 Rousseau, Julie, Part V, Letter XII, pp. 510-511 [622-623]. Edward confirms this danger. Cf. Part VI,
Letter III, pp. 533-535 [649-651].
139 Ibid. Letter III, p. 534 [650].
140 Ibid., pp. 534-535 [650].
141 Ibid., p. 535 [650].
142 Ibid.
143 Ibid., Part V, Letter XIII, p. 510 [622]. At first and only at first, St. Preux seems to wish Wolmar were
present to help him. This is not because St. Preux is permanently in need of Wolmar’s aid, but because he
simply has never been in a position of final responsibility in such a passionately charged and sharply
dangerous situation before.
136
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
straighten out his friends’ twisted passions, St. Preux must also cultivate duty and virtue in
Laura. He writes:
I did not oppose your designs… as forcefully as I could have, fearing a return to the Marquise
[previous lover], and meaning to decay that former passion by means of Laura’s. When I saw
you go further than I intended, I first had recourse to reason; but having too well acquired
through my own faults the right of mistrusting it, I probed Laura’s heart, and finding there all
the selflessness that is inseparable from genuine Love, I invoked it to urge her to the sacrifice
she has just made.145
St. Preux does not reason with either Laura or Edward. Nor does he oppose Edward with
great force. Just as the Legislator must realise, St. Preux understands that when the malady
is of the human heart, force is unproductive and illegitimate whilst rational argument is
untrustworthy and ineffective. Instead, St. Preux makes use of the passions themselves.
He convinces Laura to renounce their affair and enter a convent for the very reason that
the consummation of their love would be injurious to the English peer. But this is not an
argument, or an act of reasoning; instead, St. Preux has invited Laura to explore the
consequences of her own passions. By leading her to imagine these she can also imagine
their negative impact. It is precisely because St. Preux knows the dangers of human
emotions so well, that he is able to present them to Laura. But at the same time, St. Preux
is not opposing Laura’s interests as such. He is committed to her best interest and also
shows her the emotional contentedness she will obtain by fulfilling her duty. He thus
elucidates the dangerous possibilities of romantic love and elicits Laura’s existing
selflessness. Both of these show her the true happiness of virtue. Laura feels a sense of
loss and regret, but she is no longer motivated by romantic love for Edward. Thus, St. Preux
has replaced her selfless, but romantic, passions with a moral will.
St. Preux’s brief account of Laura’s remarkable conversion does not say precisely
how he utilised her own selfless love to lead her to a more substantive commitment to
virtue, yet Laura is not the only subject St. Preux aims to heal. Edward’s passions are his
ultimate concern. Making the relationship between Laura and Edward unfeasible is only
part of St. Preux’s solution because he knows passions like Edward’s pay little heed to the
possible.
‘labors’,
146
Edward recounts what he thinks is St. Preux’s cure, following Wolmar’s
but it is really Edward’s own. This occurs just after St. Preux tells Edward how
he used Laura’s love of duty. Edward writes:
Then coming towards me in a transport, he [St. Preux] said to me as he pressed me to his
breast: Friend, in the common lot Heaven sends us I decipher the common law it prescribes us.
The reign of love is passed, may the reign of friendship begin; already my heart hears nothing
but its sacred voice, knows no other bond than that which ties me to you. Choose where you
wish to reside. Clarens, Oxford, London, Paris, or Rome; all of them suit me, provided we are
For St. Preux’s solution, see Ibid., Part VI, Letter III, pp. 536-537 [652-654].
Ibid., p. 537 [653].
146 Ibid., [653-654].
144
145
221
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
together. Come ahead, come with me where you will; seek an asylum in whatever place it may
be, I shall follow you anywhere. I solemnly swear before the living God that I shall never
again until death leave your side.
I was moved, the zeal and fire of this ardent young man shone in his eyes. I forgot the
Marquise and Laura. What can one regret on earth when one still has a friend? …I dared to
believe, that from the vow he took so whole heartedly to remain attached to me, that he was
more attached to virtue than to his former inclinations. I can therefore bring him back to you
in complete confidence; yes, dear Wolmar, he is worthy of raising men… 147
Rousseau packs this passage tightly, but it says much about educators of the soul. Like the
Legislator, St. Preux invokes the divine. He swears loyalty to Edward ‘before the living
God’, but more importantly he draws upon the ‘common lot of heaven’ to deliver law. Here
St. Preux is the lawgiver.
St. Preux’s efforts depend on his sublimation of Eros. In Emile, the Vicar made
clear that the voice of nature inscribed on the human heart was natural to all men. It is a
sentimental and intuitive guide to moral feeling, knowledge and behaviour that is given by
God to men as part of their nature.
But the din of our artificial, active passions
overwhelms it. For the Vicar, only the sublimation of Eros revives this inner light.
Similarly, St. Preux hears the ‘reign’ of friendship in his heart. His love of virtue guarantees
this.
Just as the Legislator must not coerce, St. Preux never cajoles Edward into
renouncing Laura. He no longer mentions her at all. He states simply that ‘love’ no longer
reigns; ‘friendship’ does instead. St. Preux does not mean friendship is dispassionate. In
fact, his ardour is obvious. It is the ‘transport’, the ‘zeal’ and the ‘fire’ of this ‘ardent young
man’, shining through his eyes, that empowers his words. St. Preux’s transport ‘moves’
Edward to forget the Marquise and Laura. St. Preux establishes the conditions in which
Edward can forgo his own passion. But ultimately, it is the very example of St. Preux’s
persona and his sublimated Eros, combined with simple and earnest words invoking God,
law and duty that heal Edward.
Pivotally, Rousseau casts Edward’s rectification in a political light. Edward decides
not only that he will give up Laura but that he will give up marriage altogether. His new
maxims, in a letter to Wolmar, are most interesting:
The obligation to marry is not common to all: it depends for each man on the estate in which
fate has placed him; it is for the common people, for the artisan, for the villager, for really
useful men that celibacy is illicit: for the classes that rule the others, toward which all the others
constantly gravitate, and which are always only too well filled, it is permissible and even
appropriate. Otherwise, the State is merely depopulated because of the multiplication of
subjects [aristocrats] that are a burden to it. Men will always have enough masters, and
England is more likely to want Plowmen than Peers.148
147
148
Ibid.
Rousseau, Julie, Part VI, Letter III, p. 538 [654].
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
Edward’s reasoning is public, committed to the common good and its implications tend toward
equality. Wolmar apprehends the political poignancy of Edward’s new disposition:
… I find your distinctions about celibacy entirely novel and very subtle. I think they are even
judicious for the political thinker who weighs the respective forces of the State in order to
maintain equilibrium between them.149
Rousseau is highlighting the political nature of Edward’s position. Edward reflects on
his public capacity and the duties that entails. He is putting his public duty before his
private satisfaction. And he avoids mistaking his public duty for the responsibilities
of a father, a mistake which Rousseau criticised in Political Economy. In short, St.
Preux has not only healed Edward of his passion but lead him to a disposition
remarkably appropriate for a citizen or magistrate.
St. Preux’s education of Laura and Edward significantly alters how one might
imagine the educational authority of a Legislator. Although Patrick Riley worries that
subjecting citizens to education results in a loss of autonomy that undermines their
will as the source of moral obligation, the only real authority the Legislator exerts lies
in his capacity to make visible or audible his own love of virtue. For this particular
reason, Judith Shklar was quite right when she suggested that public opinion can only
be changed by extraordinary examples that impose a will to imitate.150
Conclusion
So we have seen that for St. Preux Eros ascends and is made sublime. This is done
through his conscience experience of the culmination of passion, his consequent
reflectivity toward that passion and his active empowerment of the love of virtue over selfpreference and concupiscence. This sublimation of Eros follows many Christian platonic
paradigms much like those Rousseau had already laid out in Emile and On Heroic Virtue.
Rousseau’s understanding of sublimated Eros is, we have seen, of a piece with the analytic
psychology detailed in Chapter 6 of this thesis. The complex relationship existing amongst
experience, ideas, knowledge, will and passion is integral to St. Preux’s transformation.
The importance of this transformation for Rousseau’s politics is twofold.
St.
Preux’s change stands to explain the Legislator’s apparently paradoxical understanding of
and immunity to human passions. Simply put, if the Legislator’s Eros is sublimated, as is St.
Preux’s and the great civic hero’s, then his immunity to vanity, romantic attachment, selfpreference, luxuriousness and all the other troublesome human passions is quite clear. He
loves only disinterested virtue. Moreover, this same process explains his understanding of
149
150
Ibid., Letter IV, p. 539 [656].
Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens, p. 157-158.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
human passions, for the experience of these passions and the knowledge of them are
chronologically distinct. When St. Preux gained impressions of his various passions, he
was concupiscent and his passion corrupted his reason. But when his will and reason
escape these passions, the impressions of them remain. The difference is that St. Preux now
has the advantage of critical distance.
This gives him a categorically different
understanding of his passions, an understanding untouched by their prior motive power.
St. Preux’s conceptualisation of human passion is in this sense complete not just because
he has experienced all of them, but precisely because his sublimation of Eros has
transcended them.
Because St. Preux’s will is properly active both in and through his love of virtue, he
is able to craft himself. As he says, he takes hold of his passions to ‘make himself what he
means to be.’ In this sense, St. Preux bears the relationship to himself that Emile, who
chooses to become what he has been made, bears to his tutor. As we have seen this is
crucial for understanding how the Legislator is expected to educate others.
The
Legislator’s task is to ennoble men, form them into citizens, and prepare them for the
exercise of their own General Will, all of which, Rousseau thinks of in terms of the
psyche.151 Because of this, the Legislator’s knowledge of the passions is central to resolving
Rousseau’s most pressing political concerns. The impetus of political socialisation depends
upon the knowledge the Legislator gains through his experience of and mastery over
passion.
But it is not simply the knowledge of the Legislator that counts. His persona and
demeanour are crucial for his success, and these depend entirely on his sublimated Eros. St.
Preux could not have merely presented facts to Laura in order to heal her. He must instead,
help her understand and feel the consequences of her own passions. It is the transport of
St. Preux’s ardour which allows him to invoke his conscience and God’s law before
Edward. It is this same ‘zeal’ which vanquishes Edward’s passion. Edward’s experience of
St. Preux’s new passion, not the particular propositions which St. Preux makes, effect this
change. Thus, the sublimation of Eros explains the paradox of Rousseau’s qualification for
the Legislator and is fundamental to the Legislator’s relationship with the polity.
Consequently, political education must, in the first instance, effect citizens’ dispositions
indirectly in terms of this relationship between Legislator and polity. It is only later that the
balancing of law, institutions, material conditions and social interdependence might bear
some of this burden. The Legislator’s relationship with the polity must be deeper than a
151
This is a claim discussed in the next chapter.
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The Passionate Dispassion of the Legislator
mastery of certain communicative techniques. Civic education is a matter of the human
heart.
If St. Preux is to restore Clarens, qua civic educator, he will have to gauge and elicit
different passions under different circumstances than those he deployed with Laura and
Edward. His education of them is comparable to the work of the Legislator but not
identical. Nevertheless, it is the sharing of disinterested love which is the Legislator’s
primary task and it is the Legislator’s disinterested love which is the medium of this sharing.
Remove the disinterested love from the persona of the Legislator, and his capacity to
educate citizens is lost. When the Legislator calls upon the gods to sanction his design, it
turns out he is really invoking the sublime imagio dei within himself.
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Chapter 8
Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
Rousseau’s exposition of the General Will is famous for its apparent tensions and
contradictions and for its cryptic terms. Because the General Will has been the subject of
so many varying interpretations, it would be tedious to address all of these. In this chapter I
want to explore one salient problem. Rousseau, confusingly, claims that the General Will is
everything it ought to be because it is what it is.1 At the same time, each individual must
learn to have an actual General Will and the people as a whole must learn what is really in
its interest.2 It might be possible, as Roger Masters seems to assert, that the first of these
claims is connected to Rousseau’s understanding of political right whereas the second is
related to his maxims of efficacious government.3 It might also be possible to suggest, with
Patrick Riley, that Rousseau seeks to reconcile a politics of voluntary legitimacy with a
politics of the common good, and that Rousseau’s understanding of the civic inculcation of
the General Will is essential to this.4 In this chapter, I want to address Rousseau’s varying
normative claims about the General Will in a new way. I want to argue that Rousseau
actually proposes an enlightenment of the General Will itself. I mean this in the sense that
the General Will becomes the predominant will of each individual, but also in the sense
that the General Will of the Sovereign must change from a purely formal concept of right
to a rational, moral, and determinate will. I argue that this transformation is integral to the
full elaboration and actualisation of political right.
In order to make this claim, I must engage two other related questions in the
scholarly literature on Rousseau’s political thought. First, is Rousseau’s political thought on
will connected to his metaphysics?5 Second, to what extent do the conditions of men in
the state of nature and the terms of the original contract explain Rousseau’s position on
Sovereignty, citizenship and the General Will. These questions are not new, but by
exploring them I am able to show that Rousseau’s political thought is integrally connected
Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau, The Social Contract and other later political
writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997), Bk. II, Chap. 6, p. 68, [OC, III, 381].
2 Ibid.
3 Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 1968), pp. 285-293,
301-313. See also Timothy O’Hagan, Rousseau, (London, Routledge: 1999), pp. 133-161.
4 Patrick Riley, ‘Rousseau’s General Will’, in Patrick Riley (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2001).
5 The connection between Rousseau’s political thought and his metaphysics has been challenged in a number
of ways. See particularly Roger Masters, Political Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 73-89, 303, 316, 350-353; Joshua
Cohen, ‘Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy’, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3
(Summer, 1986), pp. 277-288.; and Mathew Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, (New York, Continuum:
2006), pp. ix, 7, 42-44, 63-65.
1
Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
to his metaphysical understanding of agency.
Specifically, I argue that Rousseau’s
understanding of the General Will requires it to move from a merely formal concept to a
rational, normative, active and determinate will. This transformation allows Rousseau’s
understanding of political right to be fully realised. This follows, I submit, the analytic
psychological model I developed in Chapter 6.
Specifically, when the General Will
becomes active and determinate, it is as the result of a sublimation of Eros and a complex
relationship between man’s active and passive powers. This, I argue is the enlightenment
of the General Will Rousseau had in mind and it is a transformation his understanding of
politics is geared to generate.
In order to show this, I assemble several interrelated themes. First, I illustrate that
Rousseau’s understanding of psychology, particularly the distinction between force and will,
explicates how he conceptualises the problem of the state of nature in The Social Contract.
Specifically, the move from the state of nature to political society differs in substantive
ways from that in The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. I argue that this is because
Rousseau explains a politicisation that satisfies amour de soi whilst outmanoeuvring amour
propre in The Social Contract whereas in Inequality he had explained socialisation driven by
amour propre. Thus, I show that Rousseau uses his understanding of human psychology to
construct not only the background but the central terms of political right in The Social
Contract.
Second, I consider Rousseau’s meaning when he defines the Sovereign as the active
aspect of the body politic. I argue that Rousseau is relying on his analytical psychology,
which makes sense because he identifies the activity of the Sovereign with its General Will
and the creation of law. By drawing on Rousseau’s consideration of law, I show that he wants
the Sovereign’s General Will to be active in a determinate way. I argue that Rousseau is
bringing to bear the same understanding of moral will I discussed in Chapter 6. The
normative will I detailed therein depicted the proper activity of volition. Volition becomes
active when man feels higher forms of love, which include and empower judgment and
also normative and emotive intuitive reasoning. Rousseau’s writing on law makes it clear
that he believes an actual General Will (not just its formal definition) depends on
conditions that produce this normative transformation of volition. Thus, I submit that the
original compact and the definition of Sovereignty do not encapsulate the whole of
Rousseau’s understanding of political right and cannot generate a determinate General Will
or, consequently, an actual Sovereign.
Third, I consider whether interpretations of the General Will as a form of
autonomy, as a kind of rational principle or a mode of public reasoning can explain the
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
enlightenment of the General Will. I conclude that they cannot. This is because Rousseau
only suggests that autonomy is a consequence of normative political willing. Furthermore,
whilst Rousseau is somewhat cagey about what that will would be like, the details show that
it is not merely a formal principle. Moral willing is contingent on an original compact
having been agreed to, but it is not fully actualised as a result of that compact. It requires
enlightenment.
Fourthly, I return to the relationship between the Legislator and the polity.
Drawing on the analysis of Chapter 7, I am able to show that an enlightened General Will
combines the formal generality that the original contract makes possible with civic
rationality and civic love, which Rousseau derives from his analytic understanding of
psychology. This suggests that the General Will is best understood as an active disposition,
empowered by civic love, which finds an interest of the self but not selfish interest in moral
reason and political life.
Part I: Force and Will in institutions of Slavery and Right
In the opening lines of The Social Contract Rousseau observed that ‘man is born free,
and everywhere he is in chains’; ostensibly, his question is not how political authority came
about but ‘what can make it legitimate’.6 Although Rousseau labours in the early chapters
of the text to show that right cannot be established by force, it is relatively clear that he
thinks right and force must have some kind of relationship. This relationship is established
through the mediation of the original compact. Thereafter, Rousseau utilises a distinction
between will and force in a number of places in the text. Because this distinction is also
crucial in Rousseau’s analytical understanding of psychology, I want to consider whether
that understanding plays a role in the way Rousseau formulates the terms of the original
compact.
One problem in particular, might motivate the move from freedom to chains. But
what are these chains? The ‘chains’ Rousseau refers to are those of dominion. It is worth
bearing in mind that dominion is always a matter of psychological perversion – amour propre.
As we saw in Chapter 6, both masters and slaves are bound up in this artificial desire. If
Rousseau is to avert the social and material conditions which instigate amour propre, it would
make sense for him to use his analysis of the psyche to order the process of socialisation
and delineate the terms of political right.7 On my interpretation, Rousseau does exactly this.
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 1, p. 41, [351]. Cf. Tracy B. Strong, Jean-Jacques Rousseau; The Politics
of the Ordinary, (Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications: 1994), p. 74.
7 If Rousseau does this in The Social Contract, it provides strong reasons for rejecting interpretations of the
General Will which take it to be a form of non-metaphysical or psuedo-Rawlsian rationalism. See further,
6
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Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
To demonstrate my claim it is necessary to unpack the precise conditions of the original
compact and its specific terms.
In the lead up to the contract, Rousseau depicts the state of nature tersely.
Although each person in the state of nature would will to preserve himself, the ‘forces which
each individual can muster to maintain himself in that state’ are no longer able to meet the
resistance of the obstacles in the state of nature.8 The isolated human faces a situation
where his natural forces are no longer able to preserve him.9 This means that for each
individual to survive, they must find some way to aggregate existing forces and cooperate
with others because they cannot ‘engender’ new natural forces.10
Because the details of the state of nature are so sparse in The Social Contract, it is
sometimes read through the lens of Inequality;11 however, there is significant structural and
conceptual divergence between the two narratives. In both texts natural accidents force men
to socialise and combine their forces.12 In Inequality the social outcome is unplanned and
unorganized and the consequent play of perfectibility is disastrous.
Specifically,
socialisation in Inequality begins pre-politically. By the time life had reached its penultimate
pre-political stage amour de soi had begun to give way to feelings of romantic attachment.
Although these feelings did not contravene amour de soi in any significant way, the
experience of complex interpersonal relations and the idea of esteem had already activated
amour proper during the ultimate phase of pre-political life – the so called ‘golden age’ before
the advent of agricultural labour, metallurgy, and property holding.
The disordered
Richard Dagger, ‘Understanding the General Will’, in The Western Political Quaterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Sep., 1981),
p. 359-363. Dagger takes Rousseau’s General Will to fill the same role as Rawls’ veil of ignorance, and it
makes sense without recourse to metaphysics or psychology. Indeed, for Dagger, the General Will need not
be a will at all and makes more sense as a principle. Dagger thinks this is because metaphysical entities
cannot produce maxims (as the General Will must). Why Dagger would confine metaphysics to metaphysical
entities is quite inexplicable. Joshua Cohen, ‘Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy’, in
Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer, 1986), pp. 277-288. Cohen’s reading of the original
compact and the General Will is proto-Rawlsian. For Cohen, The Social Contract aims to devise norms of
social cooperation that address the conditions and problems of social interdependence. Moreover, Cohen
advances a clear distinction between the anthropological development of social norms and the justification
of norms. Both of these claims are right, as far as they go, but my analysis will make clear that the first
overlooks the precise reasoning Rousseau used to devise the problems of the state of nature (indeed, Cohen
gets the specific problems wrong for this reason) and the second fails to see that the same understanding of
the psyche lies behind Rousseau’s thought on justification and on anthropological development. Recently,
Mathew Simpson has revived the non-metaphysical reading of The Social Contract and the General Will.
8 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 6, p. 49, [360]. Italics mine.
9 Cohen, ‘Reflections on Rousseau’, p. 277. Cohen takes this to mean men are motivated by self-love and that
the satisfaction of their needs is dependent on the actions of others. The first claim is true but imprecise. As
I shall clarify, men are motivated by amour de soi. The second claim reads the problem men face in terms of
the solution they find. This does not represent the problem of nature which Rousseau advances here.
10 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 6, p. 49, [360].
11 Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, p. 9; Andrew Levine, The Politics of Autonomy; a Kantian Reading of
Rousseau’s Social Contract, (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press: 1976), pp. 20-28.
12 For an alternative reading see Levine, The Politics of Autonomy, p. 23. Levine thinks the obstacles which men
face cannot be natural, because natural obstacles are a continuous fact and not historically interesting. Levine
seems to overlook the role of chance as a motive force in Rousseau’s speculative history.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
experience of interpersonal relations and material conditions in Inequality allowed each
individual to devise fantastical ideas regarding their status in relation to others. They
subsequently feel limitless artificial amour propre. In Inequality, the conflict which prompts
landowners to propose a social contract is a result of that amour propre.
Yet in The Social
Contract, Rousseau only states that obstacles arise in the state of nature; he does not indicate
if they are natural or artificial.13 But there is one salient and decisive difference. Men in The
Social Contract become social and form a political society concurrently. Thus, unlike natural
men in Inequality, they have no prior opportunity to form the relational concepts and ideas
of esteem upon which Rousseau thinks amour propre depends. 14 If this is right, then it
makes sense to think the obstacles in this state of nature natural ones. Further, it makes
sense to reject the view that the original compact is a response to interpersonal strife. But
more modestly, it is quite clear that the psychological and material state of primitive society
in Inequality is no guide for the original compact in The Social Contract.
This might be because, as Joshua Cohen argues, there is a clear distinction between
the anthropology of norms and the justification of norms in Rousseau’s work. 15 But if
Cohen is right, why would Rousseau still cling to an account of proto-history at all?
Mathew Simpson’s recent work on Rousseau shows, I think convincingly, that when
Rousseau conceives of origins, he is not investigating real or even hypothetical history but
is instead explaining essences, or qualities. 16 Thus, when Rousseau investigates origins,
particularly to address issues of justification, his use of non-existent conditions to explain
real ones is primarily a conceptual act. Because the state of nature in The Social Contract
varies significantly from that in Inequality, it would seem that Rousseau is not presupposing
the same explanation but something different. Simpson believes the story of Rousseau’s
psychology matters little for the argument of The Social Contract.17 However, if I was right in
Contrast with Ibid., pp. 8-17. Simpson takes the state of nature in The Social Contract to be one in which
some interpersonal struggle is fundamental. He claims that Rousseau does not explain why this is the case in
The Social Contract but that if an explanation is sought, it is readily available in Inequality. Thereafter, Simpson
makes the relatively peculiar claim that all of Inequality might be read as a discussion of the state of nature.
14 Contrast with Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love; Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition,
(Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2008), pp. 161-171. Neuhouser admits that amour propre does not appear
to be The Social Contract’s problem, at least not at first glance. However, in a sign that amour propre matters,
most of Rousseau’s institutional arrangements aim at avoiding forms of inequality that allow interpersonal
dominion and at providing ‘stable and benign forms of social recognition available to all.’ It is Neuhouser’s
view that the problem of amour propre and the need to hold in check can be read into The Social Contract ‘more
or less directly from the Second Discourse’s account’.
15 Cohen, ‘Reflections on Rousseau’, p. 280.
16 Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, p. 23-25. Simpson compares Rousseau’s explanation of origins to
Aristotle’s understanding of formal causes. This is not a claim about intellectual influence but a comparative
heuristic.
17 Ibid., p. 9, 29, 34. Simpson thinks what matters most in Inequality is not man’s psychic state but the
problems the state of nature poses for security and property. Thus, what matters is that the social contract is
willed and that it has the precise terms that it does. How a man feels as a result of this contract is immaterial.
13
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Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
Chapter 6 to assert the significance of Rousseau’s analytical psychology for Political
Economy’s explanatory position, then his psychological thought may also be pivotal for
exhuming the Rousseau’s reasons behind the state of nature in The Social Contract.
Thinking about the relationship between amour propre and certain forms of social
dissonance may help explain why Rousseau formulated a different state of nature in The
Social Contract. Some interpretations of Rousseau take a chastened form of amour propre to
be the motor force of good socialisation.18 This view is not entirely implausible but much
of Rousseau’s thought on amour propre indicates that it is deeply troublesome.19 Further, the
details of Rousseau’s political writings do not bear out this reading. The Geneva Manuscript
is probably the most relevant indicator of whether Rousseau thought amour propre motivates
natural men in the narrative of The Social Contract. In its second chapter, which is dropped
from The Social Contract, Rousseau finds that the first bonds of society bring men together
as their needs and passions expand, yet he writes, ‘...our needs unite us in proportion as our
passions divide us.20 This kind of society is quarrelsome and contentious.21 If this is right,
my distinction between socialisation in The Social Contract and in Inequality might seem
unconvincing; however, two counterpoints are worth considering.
First, Rousseau probably invokes this quarrelsome society to steer readers toward
an alternative. He is looking to establish political society in such a way where the terms of
the social treaty are not ‘dictated by nature’. Social contracts which are said to be dictated by
nature are actually established in accordance with a chimerical understanding of natural law;22
the purely natural development of politics leads invariably to corrupt societies.
This
suggests that Rousseau’s depiction of society in this part of the Geneva Manuscript is
Neuhouser, Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love, pp. 161-171. Neuhouser makes the claim that the institutions
Rousseau develops in The Social Contract are designed to prevent inflated amour propre yet allow benign amour
propre to take on a valuable and socially meritorious form. Neuhouser’s argument follows O’Hagan, Rousseau,
pp.171-175. O’Hagan indicates that this kind of positive form of amour propre is cultivated in Political Economy
and in Considerations on the Government of Poland, but he does not link this form of desire directly to The Social
Contract.
19 See this thesis, Chap. 6; Rousseau, Julie, Part II, Letter XIV, pp.203-204. See also, Rousseau, Discourse on the
Arts and Sciences, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), The Discourses and Other Early Political writings, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 6-7, [OC, III, 6]. Rousseau makes perfectly clear that dedication to
amour propre requires social interaction. It is a desire born out of socialisation and its demands for satiation,
though they cannot be met, are always conceived of in terms of the respect and subservience others owe the
self. Simply put, amour propre presupposes society in the same way the libido dominandi in Augustine, prudent
self-interest in Hobbes, and private vices in Mandeville require some form of socialisation and some
simulacra of virtuous behaviour. Such socialisation enchains all men yet festoons ‘garlands of flowers’ upon
their shackles to make them happy slaves. But this kind of socialisation is Rousseau’s problem not his
solution.
20 Rousseau, ‘Of The General Society of Mankind’, in The Geneva Manuscript, in V. Gourevitch (ed.), The Social
Contract and other later Political Writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997)), p. 153, [OC, III, 281].
21 Ibid., p. 159, [288]. Ultimately Rousseau concludes: ‘Hobbes’s error, then, is not that of having established
that a state of war existed between men who were independent and had become sociable; where he went
wrong was in supposing that this state was natural to the human race, and in considering it the cause of vices
of which it is really the effect.’
22 Ibid., p. 155 [284].
18
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
intentionally problematic.
Logically, Rousseau’s alternative socialisation would either
diverge somewhere along the same narrative or start with a different story altogether.
This leads to the second counterpoint: Rousseau attributes socialisation in this part
of the Geneva Manuscript and in The Social Contract to different causes. In The Social Contract,
we have seen that obstructions overmatch man’s natural capacities and inspire socialisation
whereas men come together in the Geneva Manuscript to satisfy an expansion of needs. This
does not mean Rousseau changed his mind about the social problems he described in
Inequality. Logically, he may have altered the state of nature and the psychological status of
natural men in The Social Contract because this text advanced a rather different explanatory
project - one of positive, constructive political thought.
Upon my reading, Rousseau defines the initial condition in The Social Contract in
contradistinction with his prior elaborations of the state of nature, precisely to avert the
formation of amour propre. I now want to show that when Rousseau changes his purpose
from a critical evaluation of unequal, debased and slavish societies to a conceptualisation
and justification of right forms of government he still enlists his understanding of
psychology. As I showed in Chapter 6, Rousseau believes that man’s active and passive
capacities can be instantiated in different ways, depending upon material, social and
educational circumstances. It makes perfect sense for him to order the state of nature in
The Social Contract to preclude amour proper and to cultivate a different development of the
human psyche. When Rousseau explains the way in which the formal terms of the contract
respond to the conditions provided by the state of nature, it becomes clear that his
complex understanding of man’s active and passive capacities is in play. The relationship
between rational self-interest and cooperation is crucial. Rousseau asks, ‘since each man’s
force and freedom are his primary instruments of self-preservation, how can he commit
them without harming himself, and without neglecting the cares he owes himself?’ 23 As I
have indicated above, it is quite clear that the immediate problem facing potential
contractors cannot be amour propre. Instead the contractors must satisfy their natural
commitment to self-preservation – amour de soi. This helps us understand how Rousseau
can speak of these natural agents owing care to themselves. Although the role of amour de
soi is unpronounced, Rousseau’s narrative conforms to his understanding of that love in
Emile and in Inequality, which I considered in Chapter 6. With no alternative motivation to
amour de soi available for the natural man, he never or rarely wills anything contrary to his
preservation. The natural desire to preserve oneself is the essence of amour de soi. In this
sense natural man is obliged to preserve himself.
23
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap 6, p. 49, [360].
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Because Rousseau carefully proscribes the experiences which might give rise to
amour propre, he must explain how natural men are socialised on the basis of amour de soi
without incurring amour propre. Rousseau elaborates this problem:
“To find a form of association that will defend and protect the person and goods of each
associate with the full common force, and by means of which each, uniting with all,
nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as before.” This is the fundamental problem
to which the social contract provides the solution. 24
There are two elements to this quandary. The first returns to the issue of force. Rousseau
must find a form of contract by which the common force satisfies everyone’s obligation to
preserve themselves against natural obstacles. So long as self-preservation is assured the
motive of amour de soi is satisfied. The second part concerns freedom, the contract must
leave each member as free as they were and subject only to their own will. In other words,
whatever these almost-citizens covenant to, it must not entail a loss of freedom. The
importance of these two requirements is multifaceted. To see this one must turn to the
solution.
Rousseau notes that there is only one solution to this problem, and its clauses are
‘completely determined by the nature of the act’.25 Anything different, violates freedom
and right or self-preservation and amour de soi. That one term is this:
These clauses, rightly understood, all come down to just one, namely the total alienation of
each associate with all of his rights to the whole community: For, in the first place, since each
gives himself entirely, the condition is equal for all, and since the condition is equal for all, no
one has any interest in making it burdensome to the rest.
Moreover, since the alienation is made without reservation, the union is as perfect as it can be,
and no associate has anything further to claim: For if individuals were left some rights, then,
since there would be no common superior who might adjudicate between them and the public,
each, being judge in his own case on some issue, would soon claim to be so on all, the state of
nature would subsist and the association necessarily become tyrannical or empty.
Finally, each, by giving himself to all, gives himself to no one, and since there is no associate
over whom one does not acquire the same right as one grants him over oneself, one gains the
equivalent of all one loses, and more force to preserve what one has.26
One is actually able to preserve oneself through this contract, since one has access to the
force of all precisely because all have given their force entirely to each other. Thus, the
incorporation of private forces into a public force is established by this contract. This
public force satisfies amour de soi because it allows the people to persevere over obstacles
which would defeat them individually. Thus it enlists the motivational power of that desire,
and consequently, the proposed covenant is willed by all prospective members of the polity.
The same term of political engagement, the total alienation of force, ensures that
right is not violated. The contract is not merely an institution of force proclaiming itself
one of right. It prevents violations of right by ensuring conditions of equality. Here the
Ibid., pp. 49-50, [360].
Ibid. p. 50
26 Ibid.[360-361].
24
25
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
value of equality is instrumental.27 Rousseau claims total, equal alienation prevents members
of the polity not only from expressing but from having an ‘interest’ in burdening their peers.
However, it is hard to imagine how equality in and of itself could prevent such an interest.
Rousseau’s use of the term ‘interest’ is obscure here, but he had explored it thoroughly in
Inequality. The experience of inequality, particularly unequal material and labour relations,
allows each individual to conceptualise status, worth and interpersonal relationships
according to the fantastical relational idea that they are fundamentally superior to everyone
else. As Rousseau shows in Emile, these relational ideas are also sentiments or feelings.
Aggrandised amour propre results from this ideational process. Amour propre demands that
others acknowledge one’s own superiority by way of their servile inferiority.
When
Rousseau wrote The Social Contract, he would have had no doubt that under inequitable
conditions amour propre would be indefatigable. There is no good reason for doubting that
he had the same phenomena in mind in The Social Contract when he sought to prevent an
‘interest’ in burdening others.28 Because of these very specific ramifications of Rousseau’s
psychological views, the provision of total equality in the original compact is necessary to
prevent Rousseauian government from becoming another society of amour propre.
The second paragraph quoted above clinches this interpretation. Under Rousseau’s
social contract, the initial transfer of all natural rights means that any later attempt to claim
independent rights is illegitimate. Why would independent rights be such a problem? One
explanation might be that the initial condition is one of interpersonal strife and that private
rights would propagate such discord. 29 Upon this reading, Rousseau quite rationally
concludes that private rights would slowly dissolve the political order or irrevocably change
it.
Although this explanation may seem superficially convincing, we already know
Rousseau never stipulates interpersonal competitiveness in the initial condition.
Prior
acrimoniousness cannot be the problem that the total alienation of rights addresses.
Perhaps looking for a palliative for an existing natural condition is not the right approach.
What if Rousseau intended the total alienation of rights to prevent certain injurious
consequences of socialisation? This makes sense because Rousseau thinks the preservation of
private rights leads to two possible consequences: dissolution of that contract or a descent
into tyranny. I will consider the second of these. If tyranny is a consequence of the
Elsewhere Rousseau will espouse substantive moral commitments to equality, but it is not material to my
current interpretation if this is also entailed by his claim here.
28 This contrasts with Neuhouser, Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love, pp. 161-171. Neuhouser takes amour propre to
be an established desire political right must subsequently redirect. He does not think amour propre is the
consequence of ill-conceived and disordered socialisation and politicisation.
29 By definition, private rights are not subordinate to public obligations.
If they are preserved the
government cannot authoritatively adjudicate competing private rights claims or competing private and public
rights claims. Cf. Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 34-35.
27
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Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
disjunction between private and public rights, Rousseau’s meaning requires further
exploration.
In The Social Contract, Rousseau draws a distinction between tyrants, who usurp the
offices of government, and despots, who usurp Sovereignty.30 However, Rousseau rarely
maintains this distinction and violates it a few paragraphs before he makes it. The usurping
tyrant ‘dissolves’ the original sovereign state and creates a new one, ‘which is no longer
anything to the rest of the People but its master and Tyrant.’31 What is clear is tyrants are
illegitimate; they rely on force or trickery to establish their position.
Their position
resembles that of masters over slaves, which Rousseau had detailed in Book I. Rousseau
had long held this understanding of tyranny. In Political Economy, tyrannical government
‘necessarily exists wherever the government and the people have different interests, and
hence opposing wills.’32
Before this, Rousseau had situated ‘despotism’ at the conclusion of
Inequality’s sad narrative. Rousseau defines despotism as a form of government which
tramples ‘Laws and People underfoot’ and establishes ‘itself on the ruins of the Republic’.33
The ‘Tyrant’ rules in a despotic state.34 This is a slavish government in which the only
suitable virtue is the blind obedience of slaves. Just as in The Social Contract and Political
Economy this tyrant sets his will against the peoples’. As a master ruling over slaves, his rule
is comparable to a cease fire; once the slaves have sufficient force to overthrow him, there
is no question about the legitimacy doing so. 35
Tyranny is the ultimate form of
institutionalised slavery, and Rousseau vociferously opposes it. The total alienation of
private rights prevents tyranny in this sense, but it is not clear how.
Perhaps Rousseau’s thicker depiction of tyranny in Inequality might clarify the
motives that produce the ‘opposing will’ between masters and slaves. This opposition
originates in the ‘rule’ of the master’s passions and the consequent exclusion of ‘notions of
the good and the principles of justice’.36 This is nothing other than amour propre at its most
extreme. These passions captivate the master and prevent his active capacities from having
any normative role in his personality. It is quite clear that the essence of despotism is the
tyrant’s corrupted disposition. As we saw in Chapter 6, this anthropological explanation
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. III, Chap. 10, p. 108, [423].
Ibid., pp. 107-108, [422]. Here the tyrant destroys the Sovereign state. This is quite unlike the usurpation
of government alone.
32 Rousseau, Political Economy, p. 9, [OC, III, 247]. Italics mine.
33 Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, p. 185, [OC, III, 190-191]. In the French, Rousseau uses the
term ‘despotisme’ to describe this mode of cataclysmic social organization
34 Ibid. Rousseau describes the commander of that order as ‘des tyrans’. See also Ibid., p. 186, [191] where
Rousseau exchanges the term tyrant for ‘le despote’ and then later ‘un sultan’.
35 Ibid., p. 186, [191].
36 Ibid., pp. 185-186, [191].
30
31
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depended on the principles of the human psyche Rousseau had introduced in the first part
of Inequality.
The problem of tyranny in this part of The Social Contract, makes more sense if it is
supported by a similar psychological explanation. Rousseau does not elaborate one therein,
but careful analysis of the consequences of faulty social compacts shows that his analytical
psychology is presupposed. Rousseau thinks the disjunction of private and public rights leads
to self-aggrandisement in judgment. As Rousseau made perfectly clear in ‘The Profession
of Faith’, judgment is an active mental process. Because self-aggrandisement qualifies a
mode of judging, it too must be a mental phenomenon. The idea is that judgment in one’s
own case leads to the presumption of juridical authority in all. The capaciousness of this selfexalting disposition and its inevitability are striking.
These qualities reflect Rousseau’s
understanding of amour propre. Pivotally, the psychological traits of tyranny do not make
sense as part of man’s condition in The Social Contract’s state of nature; rather, they must be
consequences of bad politicisation. Given Rousseau’s understanding of perfectibility, these
traits will not arise in this state of nature because such inflated demands for juridical
dominion require the idea of independent juridical authority and also the relational ideas
which are developed following the experience of flawed socialisation.
By contrast,
Rousseau’s commitment to the egalitarian alienation of force and rights is a commitment to
a specifically ordered socialisation which precludes the love of dominion from arising. By
preventing this love of dominion, Rousseau outmanoeuvres the usurpation of sovereignty
and the degeneration of the state into an order of slavery. In brief, the terms of the original
compact prevent the tragic hazards of man’s perfectibility. Ultimately, Rousseau believes his
contract guarantees its members’ freedom and allows them to depend solely on their own
will because he has elaborated its terms according to his psychological understanding of
man.
Taken in succession, the three passages from The Social Contract detailing the terms
of the original compact tell us that Rousseau constructs them precisely to obviate certain
problems frequently found in disordered social development. Rousseau clearly believes
this because of his analytical understanding of the psyche. Thus, the original compact
originates in a voluntary decision and not in fear, illusion or the desire for dominion. But
motives for covenanting, the stability of the contract and its suitability as a truly voluntary
decision are only possible under specific, strict, narrowly defined conditions. As we have
seen, all of these conditions, which satisfy amour de soi or preclude amour propre, 37 are
For a contrasting view see Strong, The Politics of the Ordinary, pp. 77-80. Strong wants to read the original
contract not as a means to satisfy our natural desires, but as a way of forming individuals who are able to
37
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achieved by the equal alienation of the rightful use of force. In Rousseau’s thought these
two goals seem equally important and are achieved concomitantly. If this is right, it makes
no sense to interpret Rousseau’s political thought without reference to his understanding of
the human mind.
As clarified in Chapter 6, Rousseau takes the fundamental aspects of the human
psyche to be dynamic.38 This is why socialisation always changes man. New experiences
and new relationships spur on an ideational transformation of man. Thus, Rousseau thinks
it no paradox that he treats men as they are and laws as they might be while at the same
time proposing to denature natural man. But if all of this is true, Rousseau’s careful
preservation of amour de soi is not the end of the political narrative. Amour de soi cannot
remain as it is. Knowing that Rousseau thinks amour de soi is only a root of morality and
virtue, it seems like the terms of the original compact are clearing the ground for the
realisation of that promise. This is worth further investigation.
Part II: The Being of the Body Politic and the Activity of the Sovereign
Having teased out the psychological reasoning behind the specific terms of the
original compact, it is now worth exploring its consequences. In this part I argue that
Rousseau’s original compact specifies the formal conditions of a voluntary, legitimate body
politic but that none of this amounts to more than the preconditions of sovereignty and law.
To be sovereign, Rousseau will claim that the body politic must be active and it must make
its General Will determinate. To cash out Rousseau’s meaning, I argue that the determinacy
of the Sovereign’s will entails a reconciliation of natural law with political right, and that as
part of this, the determinate will of the Sovereign is realised through an enlightenment of
the body politics qua Sovereign and qua individual citizen. This enlightenment produces a
moral disposition which unites reason, will and higher love, like that I elaborated in
Chapter 6.
This enlightenment allows the General Will to be determined. One of the
strengths of my reading is that it explains why Rousseau can say the General Will is always
what it ought to be while also claiming that the General Will is not always enlightened and
that both the citizens and the Sovereign stand in need of education.
exist beside themselves, and, thereby, able to share a truly common life with their fellows. In Strong’s view
this means the original pact replaces the primitive me and the alienated me with a me that can be common.
This is a change in the ontological status of self, and the dispositions which follow from this, rather than the
creation of a truly composite individual. While my position is in somewhat reminiscent of this, Strong’s
interpretation handles the details of the original position and the original compact too loosely to convince.
38 See Chapter 6 of this dissertation. See also Masters. George Armstrong Kelly. O’Hagan
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
The original contract and the formal conditions of political right
Rousseau is fairly clear about the limitations of the original compact. Mathew
Simpson has recently contended that the social contract is the pivot of Rousseau’s thinking.
For Simpson, the contract determines the rest of Rousseau’s political thought and defines
the ‘nature and scope’ of his understanding of freedom.39 But if I am right, the formal
terms of the original compact only establish political conditions which are necessary but not
sufficient for the practice of sovereignty.40 Rousseau intimates this in his chapter on law.
Utilising an analogy with living organisms, Rousseau clarifies that the original compact
creates a political body and provides it with life.41 Rousseau had described this change in
greater detail when he first introduced the social pact. He describes the immediate results of
the compact: ‘this act of association produces a moral and collective body made up of as
many members as the assembly has voices, and which receives by this same act its unity, its
common self, its life and its will’.42
But Rousseau limits the significance of this immediate unity and common will. The
social pact has not given the body politic ‘motion’ or ‘will’.43 Rousseau’s problem is not
that the body politic lacks a will but that it lacks a determinate will. The ‘initial act’ ‘leaves
entirely undetermined what it [the body politic] must do to preserve itself’. 44 Although
Rousseau’s prose is a little inconsistent, it seems that what he has in mind is a distinction
between the formal characteristics of the body politic, which are entailed immediately by
the terms of the original compact, and the determinate will45 of the body politic, which
does not originate in the social pact itself.
All of these problems are resolved by
‘legislation’. What this distinction makes clear, is that the content of legislation is crucial
for the actuality of political right. Furthermore, this determined content does not originate
in the terms of the contract but in something else. Thus, while the compact binds each
Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, p. 7. See further Maurizio Viroli, Jean Jacques Rousseau and the ‘WellOrdered Society’, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1988), pp. 118-122, 126-132. Viroli concentrates on
the social contract as a means of defining a rule which informs the sovereign authority and on the contract as
a means of defining the sovereign authority itself. The general will as a formal principle results from the
contract upon this view. But Viroli advances the further notion that this allows citizens to love order in the
right way. In a sense, I aim to deepen and develop this notion of appropriate civic love, whilst suggesting the
inadequacy of the original contract to deliver.
40 Cf. Patrick Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 104. Riley argues that Rousseau saw social contract theory as
a good way of attacking illegitimate notions of political obligation; however, contract theory was not, in itself,
a complete political theory. I support Riley’s position in general, but the specific inadequacies Riley and I
attribute to contractual political right are different.
41 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book II, Chap. 6, p. 66, [378].
42 Ibid., Book I, Chap 6, p. 50 [361].
43 Ibid., Book II, Chap. 6, p. 66, [378].
44 Ibid.
45 By using describing the importance of the Sovereign’s determinate will, I do not mean to suggest that the
Sovereign makes a decision it cannot later abrogate.
39
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individual equally to all, its terms might best be described as pre-conditions or formal
characteristics of subsequent, legitimate political activity.46
These formal characteristics of political right are pivotal in Rousseau’s view.
Rousseau says in his chapter on the Sovereign that it ‘cannot have any interest’ contrary to
the citizens’, that it is impossible for the body, acting as the body, ‘to want to harm all of its
members’ or ‘any one of them in particular’ and that ‘the Sovereign, by the mere fact that it
is, is everything it ought to be’.47 Moreover, Rousseau’s General Will is always upright;
each and every citizen ‘consistently’ wills each others’ happiness, and they are able to
identify themselves (or their own benefit) when they vote for all. 48 All of this is a matter of
definition; if the Sovereign failed to will in such a way that applied to all, made no particular
decrees, and always tended to equality – say to burden a particular member or class – it
would cease to have a General Will.49 However, this sense of the Sovereign and its General
Will applies to any Sovereign and any General Will. Moreover, these formal terms tell us
nothing about the Sovereign’s determination of its General Will.
In brief, Rousseau’s
definition of Sovereignty and the General Will fall short of an explanation of the political
activity of the Sovereign.
Rousseau’s distinction between the formal terms of the contract and subsequent
political activity was already evident earlier in the text. After suggesting that the contract
creates a unified body politic with, life, will and a common self, Rousseau states that ‘the
public person … formerly assumed the name City and now assumes that of Republic or of
body politic, which its members call State when it is passive, Sovereign when it is active, Power
when comparing it to similar bodies’.50 It is particularly important, Rousseau argues, that
these different aspects of the body are distinguished in their ‘precise’ sense.51 As we can
see, Rousseau defines the Sovereign as the ‘active’ sense of the body politic.52 What he
For a contrasting reading see, Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 7, 29-30, 44. For Simpson the
contract is the ‘pivot’ of Rousseau’s political thought. He argues that agreement is the only ground of
obligation, but makes the further claim that the nature of right, morality and three civic forms of freedom
(freedom from coercion, power of collective self-government, and autonomy but not free will) are all
integrally related to the terms of the compact itself. I dispute this reading for the reason that Rousseau
clearly does attribute a form of morality to the General Will. This is not reducible to the contract from
which it arises. I further dispute Simpson’s position because Rousseau’s moral understanding of the General
Will relies on his analytical psychology.
47 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 6, , p. 51, [362]
48 Ibid, Bk. II, Chap. 4, p. 61, [373].
49 Ibid., Bk. II, Chap. 2, p. 58, [369].
50 Ibid., Bk. I, Chap. 6, pp. 50-51, [361-362].
51 Ibid., p. 51, [362].
52 See also Tracy Strong, The Politics of the Ordinary, p. 80. Despite Rousseau’s injunction against imprecise
readings of the different senses of the body politic, Strong takes the Sovereign to be the ‘moi cummun’
‘considered collectively’. He comes to this view by taking the passage to invoke the distinction between
individual members of the body politics and its status as a collective, composite organization. This is a
distinction merely of perspective. This distinction is quite real, but attributing it to this passage is a
misreading.
46
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means by ‘active’ is no great mystery because the particular task of the Sovereign in
Rousseau’s thought is to legislate and provide binding law for the entire body politic. Thus,
it seems reasonable to conclude that the activity of the Sovereign is legislation. This makes
sense because we have seen that legislation provides the ‘motion’ and ‘will’ of the body
politic. Thus, when Rousseau uses the term ‘active’ to describe the Sovereign it is because
its determinate political activity makes actual and instantiates the General Will, which the
original compact had only made possible.
When Rousseau comes to explain the activity of the Sovereign through its legislation
his analytical psychology proves instrumental. We have already seen, Rousseau uses the
language of activity and will to characterise the Sovereign. In Rousseau’s discussion of the
indivisibility of Sovereignty, he says that a will may be either ‘general’ or not, and ‘in the
first case, the declaration of this will is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law’. 53 It
makes sense that law, as the pronouncement or declaration of the General Will on a specific
but general principle, requires a determination of the will. 54
Is the original compact itself
sufficient to explain this determination? It is interesting that Rousseau teases out this
understanding of law and the activity of the Sovereign with the terminology of his
analytical psychology. I do not believe this is coincidental, but it will be necessary to probe
Rousseau’s thought on law to show that he devises sovereignty with his analytical
psychology in mind. For the moment, it is clear that when Rousseau says the Sovereign is
active, he means that it has actually manifested the body politic’s will regarding its
constitutive members in the form of legislation. With the active and determinate sense of
the Sovereign clarified, I now turn to the way in which Rousseau thinks a Sovereign might
possess this determined will.
Natural law and the determinate General Will
In order to elucidate the nature and moral status of the Sovereign’s determinate
General Will, it is worth exploring the way Rousseau relates this legislation to natural law.
This subject is a well worn theme in Rousseau scholarship, and it is not uncommon to read
Rousseau’s politics as deliberately rejecting natural law,55 but I think Rousseau does nothing
of the sort.56 In Rousseau’s chapter on law, he raises the subject of natural law immediately
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap. 2, p. 58, [369].
Otherwise, one might imagine situations where certain behaviours are at once and in the same sense both legal
and illegal.
55 Perhaps the most powerful of these interpretations acknowledge that Rousseau believed in natural law but
doubt its pertinence for his. See Further, Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, pp. 62-74, 85, 163-165;
Arther Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 1990), pp. 156-160.
56 I am not alone. See especially, Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enligthenment, pp. 93-127. David Williams offers
the most sustained analysis of the ontological status of Rousseauian natural law and insists that for the
53
54
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after the problem of the determinacy of the will. Rousseau affirms the reality of natural law
when he states that what is ‘good and conformable to order is so by nature and
independently of human conventions’.57 The ‘source’ of this and ‘all justice’ is God.58 But
there is only one hitch. Analysing the nature of divine law, Rousseau claims that the
‘universal justice emanating from reason alone’ is ‘vain’ for ‘want of natural sanctions’. 59
Thus, Rousseau ironically dispenses with the older natural law tradition, or so some
readings conclude. But this is not the only plausible reading of the relationship amongst
reason, natural law and political sanctions. Might not Rousseau believe that natural law is
realised through political sanctions? Might not Rousseau, as he normally does, doubt the
efficacy of reason alone but believe reason can be resuscitated through a form of higher
Eros? Especially in the context of the indeterminacy of the purely formal General Will, it
makes sense to ask whether the discussion of natural law is different than it first seems.
First it is important to situate Rousseau’s discussion of natural law within his chapter
on law as a whole. Shortly after his introduction of natural law, Rousseau writes the
following:
Conventions and laws are therefore necessary to combine rights with duties and to bring
justice back to its object. In the state of nature, where everything is common, I owe nothing to
those whom I have promised nothing. I recognize as another’s only what is of no use to
myself. It is not so in the civil state where all rights are fixed by laws.60
This is sometimes taken to reveal Rousseau’s commitment to will as a form of moral
causation. 61 In a certain sense this is quite right. But this statement also clarifies the
circumscription of the rights and duties available to pre-political natural men.
This
circumscription makes sense not simply because men have not agreed upon duties amongst
themselves but also because the normative ideas and rationality available to men in The
Social Contract’s state of nature are nil or very limited.
Thus, Rousseau’s claim that
General Will to be different than the will of all, it must be connected to Rousseau’s metaphysics and his
conception of natural law. I follow Williams, but argue that Rousseau thinks natural law and the general will
are resolved by a form of higher Eros. See also, Viroli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pp. 140-147. Viroli presents a
magnificent interpretation of the way Rousseau distinguishes between the natural law of Hobbes, Pufendorf
and other natural jurists and another form of natural law, which takes each person to share a common
purpose and which sets in motion each person harmoniously with the whole. This notion of natural law, for
Viroli approximates the General Will itself. I am deeply supportive of this claim, but think Viroli has not
fully apprehended the specific psychological notions which underlie it.
57 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap 6, p. 66, [378]. Cf. Viroli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, p. 23.
58 Ibid.
59 Locke’s understanding of law in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, of which Rousseau was perfectly
aware, is that moral knowledge is meaningless, or not law at all, without punishment. Divine law has an
associated set of punishments, but those are of questionable relevance for short sighted men in the here and
now. In The Two Treatises, which Rousseau also knew, in the state of nature some people might spontaneously
obey out of personal moral commitments or a sense of duty to God, but this remains ‘inconvenient’. For
Locke, political institutions and political rewards and punishments are necessary to preserve natural law.
60 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap 6, p. 66, [378].
61 Patrick Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 102-103
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promising is the only source of duty in the state of nature need not be a claim that
promising is the source of all normative obligations.
If I am right, this passage qualifies Rousseau’s doubts about natural law. Ironically,
he is worried about the efficaciousness of natural law in natural society. This is because the
law of nature accords perfectly with reason but the reason of natural men, thanks to their
amour de soi, is limited and solipsistic. Natural men are unable to understand normative
concepts or reason about them. But this does not entail the further claim that that natural
law is also inappropriate for political societies. The question remains whether Rousseau
wants to reconcile actual human dispositions and reasoning with those presupposed by
natural law or whether he wishes to dispense with natural law altogether.
I want to read the gap between natural law, on the one hand, and the actual
dispositions and reasoning of political agents, on the other, as a temporary dichotomy in
the actualisation of Rousseauian political right. This gap is bridged in part by conventions
that allow ‘justice to be returned to its object’. However, conventions alone are not
sufficient to return justice to its object. To do so, Rousseau challenges himself to combine
rights and duties through both conventions and laws – these are not identical phenomena.
As I have clarified above, the formal, conventional definition of the Sovereign and the
General Will are not equivalent to law. Law requires a determinate General Will, which the
original convention does not provide. Thus, the original compact does not generate law
and, consequently, cannot return justice to its object.
Perhaps Rousseau’s discussion of natural law in the context of a determinate
General Will implies that he wants to reconcile natural law with political dispositions and
practices. I do not mean that natural law binds the General Will. As Tracy Strong makes
clear, Rousseau doubts that the Sovereign can be obliged at all.62 But that does not mean
the General Will can will anything. As I showed above, the formal definition of the
General Will helps define what can and what cannot count as a General Will.63 Thus, it
might be plausible for the principles of natural law to become the principles the General
Will takes as its own?
David Williams focuses on this possibility, and reinterprets
Rousseauian natural law as a form of transcendent or moral constraint on the General
Will.64 I want to show instead, that Rousseau’s reconciliation operates at the psychological
core of Rousseau’s moral philosophy. For Williams, when Rousseau insists that law is not
Tracy Strong, The Politics of the Ordinary, p. 91.
See further Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, pp. 97-98. Williams offers a good discussion of the
way in which the General Will might be interpreted as being constrained.
64 Ibid.
62
63
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simply an ‘attaching’ of merely ‘metaphysical ideas to this world’, 65 the problem is to apply
indeterminate metaphysical principles to political practice.66 Upon my reading, the problem
is more complex. If Rousseau aims to reconcile natural law with political practice, then
natural law, i.e. metaphysical principles, must become a fundamental part of the General Will
because we know that law is an instantiation of the General Will. That is to say, Rousseau
must reconcile ab initio natural, moral conceptions with the practical, active power of law.
Rousseau does exactly this. Toward the end of the chapter, Rousseau explains the
shortcomings of a purely formal understanding of political law in such a way that clears up
the confusion about his position on natural law. The ‘People’, Rousseau assures the reader,
are ‘subject to the laws ought to be their author’, and they ‘may regulate the conditions of
society; but how will they regulate them?’67 At first glance it looks like Rousseau wants to
investigate the procedural mechanisms which generate the General Will, but it becomes
apparent his concern is different.
Rousseau wants to raise questions about the
epistemology and the moral psychology behind the authorship of law. Rousseau writes:
How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills because it rarely knows
what is good for it, carry out an undertaking as great, as difficult as a system of legislation? By
itself the people always will the good, but by itself it does not always see it. The General Will is
always upright, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to
see objects as they are, sometimes as they should appear to it, shown the good path which it is
seeking, secured against seduction by particular wills, bring together places and times within its
purview, weigh the danger of remote and hidden evils. Individuals see the good they reject,
the public wills the good it does not see. 68
Furthermore, Rousseau is emphatic that the gap between our knowledge of the good and
our behaviour be resolved. He states:
All are equally in need of guides: The first must be obligated to conform their wills to their
reason; the other must be taught to know what it wills. Then public enlightenment results in
the union of understanding and will in the social body, from this union results the smooth
cooperation of the parts, and finally the greatest force of the whole.69
There are several problems enumerated here. First, the judgment or reason that guides the
General Will may lack enlightenment. In this case the Sovereign, properly speaking, will
not know what it wants. As long as this is true, it will be unable to determine its will or may
determine it ignorantly. Instead, it must be taught to know what it wills. If this does not
happen, the will of the Sovereign would merely be ‘upright’ and general in the formal sense,
but it would be nothing more than that.
A second problem involves the dissonance between knowledge and will amongst
individual members of the body politic. They reject what they know is good for them. The
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap 6, p. 66, [378].
Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, pp. 119-120.
67 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap 6, p. 68, [380]. Italics mine.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
65
66
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outline of the problem is superficially clear, but Rousseau’s position does not really make
sense unless the meaning of knowledge he has in mind is elucidated. This requires us to
think about reason in Rousseau’s philosophy of action. Rousseau uses reason in two
distinctive but not unrelated ways. In both cases reason refers to one of the active capacities
of mankind and involves our ability to identify, compare, qualify, deduce and judge. In the
first case, these active capacities are used instrumentally.
Moreover, they are readily
subverted by our passions, particularly those like amour propre that are artificial, complex
syntheses of our active and passive powers.70 In the second case, which I call normative
reason, reason is informed by conscience. Conscience gives an emotive feeling of right and
wrong in regard to our beliefs and actions. Yet, conscience is only really efficacious once
man has a higher form of love which supports his active powers. As we saw, Rousseau
connects this kind of moral reasoning with metaphysical interests of the self which
Rousseau praised in ‘To D’Offreville’.71 This corrective feeling allows right reasoning and
the recognition of moral principles.
Rousseau iterates this point most strongly in a
footnote to Emile. Rousseau doubts that the golden rule – do unto others as you would
have them do unto you – is plausible as a mere point of reason, it isn’t in my selfish
interests to do this, and it is implausible for me to have reason to act as if I wasn’t myself,
but:
...if the enthusiasm of an overflowing heart identifies me with my fellow-creature, if I feel, so
to speak, that I will not let him suffer lest I should suffer too, I care for him because I care for
myself, and the reason of the precept is found in nature herself, which inspires me with the
desire for my own welfare wherever I may be. From this I conclude that it is false to say that
the precepts of natural law are based upon reason only; they have a firmer and more solid
foundation. The love of others, springing from self-love, is the only source of human justice.72
Simply put, the overflowing love of others, which identifies their best interest with our own,
is nothing other than the essence of natural law and the empowering principle of moral
reasoning.
When Rousseau discusses men who know the good without willing it, their
knowledge might be connected to one of these two senses of reason. I think close analysis
rules out the first, instrumental sense of reason. Note that Rousseau takes the problem to
be a disjunction between will and public spirit, on one hand, and knowledge, on the other.
This specific problem is of the utmost importance, for Rousseau would not have imagined
this disjunction if knowledge was the result of corrupted, instrumental reason. As we saw
in Chapter 6, the passions that instrumental reason serves provide sufficient motivational
See further, this thesis, Chap. 6.
See further, this thesis, Chap. 6, part III.
72 Rousseau, Emile, p. 236 [OC, IV, 523].
70
71
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force to determine both our behaviour and our will. 73 The most appropriate kind of
reasoning and willing for these immediately political men remains that of conscience. Just as
I clarified in Chapter 6, the innocent man can will what conscience suggests, but this will is
not always sufficient to determine. Thus, it makes sense to interpret the disjunction
between behaviour and reason in this passage as a problem with the relative weakness of
normative rationality.
As in Emile, Rousseau also connects this moral rationality to natural law. Rousseau
had asserted, as we saw above, that natural law, or ‘universal justice’ emanates ‘from reason
alone’. As above, when Rousseau claims that, he could not have had in mind the kind of
solipsistic, instrumental reason which is subverted by passion. Because the same sense of
moral reason must be fortified amongst citizens and because that normative reason is the
source of natural law, reconciling the gap between this kind of reason and actual political
willing would effectively bring natural law into political effect. And as we have seen above,
Rousseau is enthusiastic about linking normative reason and will. Thus, the moral love and
moral reason that make up natural law become principles of will. Natural law becomes a
vital and active force, not merely a transcendental constraint. Public enlightenment fuses
natural law, reason, will, knowledge and motivation together in a way which is utterly unlike
the mere attachment of metaphysical principles to the world. The result is a complex,
active moral disposition like that I described in Chapter 6.
The stakes of public enlightenment show that this complex disposition is as
important to political right as the terms of the original compact. If the will of citizens does
not conform to their reason, then it is possible that the body politic might not have a
determined General Will at all or that it might be misdirected, ignorant and unenlightened.
This problem is deeper than it might first seem. It threatens the very psychological
conditions upon which the body politic depends. Thus far, Rousseau had helped his
citizens circumnavigate amour propre, but particularity, even of a more benign kind, remains
a danger. The clarion call is the ‘seduction’ of particular wills. Rousseau had already raised
this problem earlier in Book I with the free rider who takes his social duty as a gratuitous
contribution. Dealing with this kind of particularity when it undermines the political order
is essential if the Sovereign and its General Will are to exist. If particular willing becomes
systematic, the General Will ceases to be. If the Sovereign does not understand the true
nature of its interest or it cannot determine its will at all, then it shall neglect the laws
necessary for circumscribing particular wills.
With these laws neglected, magisterial
In Chapter 6 I argued that when certain natural passions get the better of us, it is a problem of the
weakness of will. But when our passions are artificial, the will does not protest but participates in those
passions.
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enforcement is a non-starter. Then the problems of particular will, amour propre, the
negative socialisation of Inequality, and all these entail become likely consequences. Thus,
the stakes of this public enlightenment are just as important as the formal conditions of
political right. The formal terms of the original compact are necessary but not sufficient to
realise political right.
This section has made several positions clear. The notion that the original compact
itself accounts for Rousseau’s normative political position does not withstand close scrutiny.
Political right is fully realised when reason and natural law become integral to the General
Will of the polity. Because this involves the love of citizens for the law and each other,
justice is returned to its object. And by reconciling their normative reason to their will and
behaviour, citizens can actually adopt the previously formal General Will as a real will of
their own. They can, qua members of the Sovereign, determine that General Will in the
interest of all, normatively and metaphysically conceived. Law becomes possible thanks to
this enlightenment. In all of this, Rousseau draws on both the terms and concepts of his
analytical psychology to make the body politic, the Sovereign, and the General Will more
than the contract which creates them.
Because the problems addressed here concern will, the weakness of reason, and the
threat of partiality, Rousseau’s position makes the most sense when we understand his
recourse to the framework of his analytical psychology. This psychological structure shows
the underlying unity of Rousseau’s understanding of the formal characteristics of political
order, the formal qualities of Sovereignty and the psychological development citizens must
undergo after the after the original compact. These two narratives are mutually supportive,
for the correct psychological development of men is only possible amidst institutions
formally suited to it, and that same psychological development is integral to the proper
realisation of those institutions.
Ultimately, Rousseau believes these potential problems cannot be or are highly
unlikely to be resolved by the body politic itself. This is why everyone is in need of a guide.
Rousseau returns to education to account for how public enlightenment might be achieved.
The body politic is perfected not thanks to the terms of the original contract but thanks to
the further education of the polity. Rousseau’s specific solution: the Legislator.
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Part III: The Inadequacy of the General Will as Autonomy and as a Formal
Consequence of the Original Compact
Before returning to the role of the Legislator, it is now possible to discard several
interpretations of the General Will.
A number of commentators have noted that
Rousseau’s understanding of the General Will looks like an understanding of autonomous
will.
To this is sometimes added the corollary that the General Will is a formal
consequence of the original compact and the definition of the Sovereign; it is not
connected to any deeper metaphysical principles.
Both of these interpretations obscure
the psychological depth and dynamism of Rousseau’s understanding of will. Exploring
these problems will help frame the public enlightenment which the Legislator is to deliver.
The will of the citizen and the General Will are sometimes likened to Kant’s
understanding of rational autonomy. Upon this reading, citizens can be free because they
have the capacity to oblige themselves to obey laws that they can rationally chose.
Furthermore, Rousseauian citizens are actually free because they have obliged themselves to
laws that they have rationally chosen. 74 Doubtless, Rousseau expresses this form of
freedom in quite certain terms. He writes concerning freedom, the terms of the original
compact and acts of sovereignty: ‘So long as subjects are subjected only to conventions
such as these, they obey no one, but only their own will…’.75 It is quite clear that Rousseau
understands the freedom or part of the freedom of citizens to be obedience to laws they,
qua members of the sovereign, have prescribed for themselves.
Interpreting Rousseauian moral freedom as a form of autonomy seems sensible.
But it is not clear that Rousseau’s theory of autonomy is also an explanation of the will. 76
Contrasting Rousseau’s position on freedom and will with Kant’s understanding of rational
autonomy in The Groundworks of the Metaphysics of Morals is helpful. For Kant, autonomy is a
characteristic of rational beings.
In so far as human beings are rational beings and
irrespective of their capacity to be irrational beings, reason must be a practical principle or
Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean Jacques Rousseau, P. Gay (trans.), (Bloomington, Indiana University Press:
1963), p. 55. Viroli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pp. 11, 148-156. Viroli attributes to Rousseau a republican
conception of liberty – freedom from dependence on the arbitrary will of others – but includes as part of
this a ‘positive’ notion of autonomous freedom. Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 92-109.
75 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Chap. 4, p. 63, [375].
76 As a theorist of positive liberty, but never simply positive liberty, it is easy to read Rousseau’s understanding
of freedom back into his understand of will. Particularly in regard to autonomy. See further Cassirer, The
Question of Jean Jacques, pp. 56-57, 62-63. Cassirer reads law becomes a principle of the Rousseauian General
Will itself. Viroli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, p. 157. Viroli thinks moral freedom is the capacity to ‘live in harmony
with a law’ man ‘has imposed on himself.’ A free will is understood as the kind of will which could will in
that way, it requires virtue and a restraint of passion. For a contrasting reading of autonomy, see Simpson,
Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 103-109. Simpson thinks autonomy really is just a form of freedom.
Rousseau’s understanding of will is always a choice between passions. In the state of nature the choice can
only be between passions, but the social compact also allows choices between passion which might also
include duties.
74
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power of human agents as an end in itself.77 This means, at least some of the time, that
human beings, as rational agents, must be able to act according to reason and nothing but
reason.78 Because Kant believes all actions are caused according to law, he argues that the
only way in which a will could be caused immediately by reason is if reason acts in the form
of law.79 Ultimately, the only kind of practical law reason alone can provide comes in the
form of the categorical imperative. This means that Kant’s theory of action includes the
notion that will can be rational and autonomous.
For my purposes it is important to draw attention to one interesting contrast
between Rousseau’s understanding of agency and Kant’s. 80 Kantian autonomy is a kind of
willing, whereas I submit that Rousseauian autonomy describes a form of freedom which
results from willing in a certain way. As noted above, Rousseau takes autonomy to be
subjection to one’s own will. The autonomy of the self is a particular kind of relationship
between oneself and one’s will. Because a certain kind of will is able to participate in this
relationship, it is true that this will is autonomous, but that claim is tautological. Such a
description of the General Will does not tell us anything about its nature. To better
examine the relationship between autonomy and the General Will, it is important to
consider Rousseau’s views about how and in what ways the ‘transition from the state of
nature to the civil state produces a most remarkable change in man’ – a change which is a
necessary condition for autonomous freedom.81 This transformation concerns the volition
and behaviour of citizens.
‘Justice’ replaces ‘instinct in his conduct’, ‘the voice of duty
succeeds physical impulsion and right succeeds appetite’.82 Man is then ‘forced to act on
other principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations’.83 This might
seem to intimate an understanding of rational autonomy not unlike Kant’s. Perhaps
confirming this, later in the passage Rousseau writes, ‘to the preceding [concepts of natural
freedom, civil freedom, possession and property] one might add to the credit of the civil
state moral freedom, which alone makes man truly the master of himself; for the impulsion
of mere appetite is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed to oneself is
Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Thomas K. Abbot (trans.), (Upper Saddle
River, NJ, Prentice Hall: 1949), pp. 14, 22-23, 30.
78 Ibid., pp. 25, 28-31, 57-58.
79 Ibid., p. 30,
80 I do not mean to suggest that there is only one salient difference between Rousseau and Kant on agency.
In chapter 6 I showed that Rousseau’s subverted hard and fast distinctions between activity (including reason)
and passivity. Kant, dissimilarly, takes the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy to be indelible.
Thus, there is a certain oddity in reading Rousseau’s theory of agency as anything like Kant’s.
81 Rousseau, The Social Contract, p. 53, [364].
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid. Italics mine.
77
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freedom.’84 Here Rousseau comes closest to elaborating a Kantian view of autonomous
will. In one sense, autonomy as an obedience to a law one has willed for oneself, can only
follow from the kind of will available in upright political society. The result of this is
autonomous freedom. Because this will is dutiful and consults reason, it seems like Kantian
autonomous will.
However, I want to suggest that these similarities are largely superficial. My claim
depends on unravelling what Rousseau might mean when he says man is forced to act on
other principles. I believe this is connected to the formal nature of the original compact I
elaborated earlier in the chapter. In turning to the formal nature of the original compact, I
also turn to those readings of the General Will which take it to be entailed and completed
by the terms of the original compact. Drawing upon the conclusions of the previous
section, it is clear that Rousseau’s discussion of autonomy and the transformation of man’s
will is situated within a formal discussion of the moral and legal implications of the original
compact. One way of understanding the inception of each individual’s General Will is as a
consequence of the formal terms of the original contract and the participation of each
individual in the Sovereign. Mathew Simpson offers an interpretation of the General Will
like this. The strengths of this reading help rebut the idea that Rousseauian will is like
Kantian practical autonomy. Let me explain. In so far as men are citizens, their joint
decisions as members of the Sovereign – their General Will – are by definition law. Law is
a result of the General Will and changes when the General Will changes. The Sovereign is
perfectly free to change its mind, but when it has pronounced its determinate General Will
its members, qua citizens, are obliged to obey the law. The same individuals are involved as
members of the Sovereign and subjects of the Sovereign; the relationship changes with
perspective. But Sovereignty is not self-supporting. Men as citizens must consult public
reason and must behave according to the laws they have prescribed if sovereignty is to last.
Members of the body politic do exactly this, in so far as they will and behave as citizens and
not private individuals.
This behaviour is essential to the definition of citizens. Hence,
Rousseau uses the terms of the original compact and the definition of the Sovereign to
make legal obedience and publically rational behaviour fundamental to his conception of
citizens. In this sense being a citizen entails necessarily non-natural principles of behaviour
– men are forced to abide by these in so far as they are citizens. 85 The result of this is
autonomy as a form of freedom.
84
85
Ibid., p. 54, [365].
Forcing or convincing private individuals to want to be citizens is another matter.
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In agreement with Simpson,86 I think it relatively clear that the force Rousseau has
in mind is not provided by an immediately practical aspect of reason but by the formal terms
of sovereignty.
This makes sense because Rousseau’s discussion of will in relation to
autonomy is purely formal.87 The General Will is a characteristic of citizens only in so far as
they are citizens. Yet this leaves several pressing question. The ‘voice of duty’, which
sounds intuitively like conscience, has not been unpacked. It is also unclear to what extent
men must will as citizens or as members of the Sovereign and not as private individuals.
This formal notion of the General Will also fails to unpack the qualities an individual’s
actual will requires for that individual to will as a citizen or member of the Sovereign. Thus,
all of these questions need answering to explain the viability of the General Will, as a
determined will. Similarly, addressing these questions might also say something important
about Rousseau’s full conceptualisation of political right.
The formal interpretation of the General Will is unable to address these problems.
To make the General Will real, and not just a logical corollary of the definition of
Sovereignty, something must change in the political man. In language which mirrors his
psychological phraseology, Rousseau writes that the original compact puts man into a
framework in which ‘his faculties are exercised and developed, his ideas enlarged, his
sentiments ennobled, [and] his entire soul is elevated’.88 These changes are nothing less
than the transformation of man from a ‘stupid and bounded animal’ into ‘an intelligent
being and a man’.89 This transformation is like that Rousseau had already detailed in the
‘Profession of Faith’. The Vicar tells us that man is transformed by socialisation and that
morality, intelligence and virtue become possibilities only after the experience of
interpersonal relations and the development of interpersonal relational ideas. Rousseau’s
claim about the transformation of the political man is psychological. Consequently, the
formal characteristics of the General Will and autonomous freedom are only part of
Rousseau’s understanding of the General Will.
To unpack the full transformation produced by politicisation according to the
original compact, it is important to address how the motives of ‘instinct’ and ‘physical
impulsion’ are replaced with ‘justice’ and ‘the voice of duty’.90 What is perfectly clear is that
this is a thoroughgoing transfiguration of each individual’s motives. Rousseau is discussing
Simpson, Rousseau’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 105-106.
A contrasting view is found in Viroli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pp. 157-159. Viroli moves too directly from the
formal characteristics of autonomous ‘civil freedom’ to presupposing that form of freedom as part of a
thicker model of ‘moral freedom’ based on virtuous self-control and restraint of the passions. He may be
right, but it is not immediately clear that autonomous freedom plays this psychological role.
88 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. I, Chap. 8, p. 53, [364].
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
86
87
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agency. Rousseau’s use of the ‘the voice of duty’ is particularly noteworthy. David Williams
has made clear that this voice is another instance of Rousseau’s conception of the ‘inner
light’ or conscience.91 As I made clear in Chapter 6, Rousseau always believes the ‘inner
voice’ is complex and is both a psychological and epistemological trait. It provides agents
with a feeling of epistemological and moral surety.92 Reason alone cannot be properly moral.
It must be conjoined with this inner voice and must itself be coupled with a form of active,
higher love if man is to determine his will accordingly. The elevation of the soul and the
change in willing, which political life effects in man, make sense if they are attributed to a
change in human Eros.93 The close similarity between Rousseau’s claims about the moral
enlightenment amongst correctly socialised and politicised men and his understanding of
virtuous willing clarify the vast distance between his political theory and formalistic
readings which overlook these psychological and metaphysical underpinnings.
It seems fairly clear that Rousseau’s discussion of the General Will requires any
account of it to have a robust understanding of his analytical psychology. The Kantian
interpretation of the General Will engages a philosophy of action but not Rousseau’s. The
formal interpretation eschews Rousseau’s philosophy of action altogether. In the case of
the Kantian interpretation, there is a danger that Rousseau’s belief in autonomy as form of
freedom is conflated with his understanding of will.
In the case of the formalistic
interpretation, the danger is that the General Will is reduced to public interest when it is
actually more complex.
Both readings avoid the way in which Rousseau might possibly
have understood his claims about the moral enlightenment and transformed will of rightly
politicised man.
Autonomy is not the end of Rousseau’s moral narrative in The Social Contract.
Socialisation promises a moral enlightenment and an extension of man’s faculties, but it is
equally conducive to calamitous vice.
To prevent the negative consequences of
socialisation, Rousseau must ensure that each political agent’s will is actually enlightened.
He must also ensure that the General Will becomes predominant in members of the body
politic; it must not merely be their will insofar as they are members.
However, this
transformation of the mind cannot be attributed to political laws and institutions, at least
not in the first instance, because those institutions are acts of the Sovereign’s determinate
will.
And as is clear, the Sovereign’s determinate will depends on this same moral
transformation. Thus, the moral perfectibility of citizens does not conclude with the terms
David Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, pp. 74-76, 80-81, 85.
This is in contradistinction to William’s focus on the epistemological qualities of the ‘inner light’.
93 Rousseau does not want the metaphysical freedom of the will to be his subject in The Social Contract. But that
claim about the subject matter does not mean Rousseau’s metaphysical understanding of the will has no role
in The Social Contract.
91
92
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of the original compact. Each individual and the public as a whole must be enlightened.
Rousseau writes, ‘the better constituted the state the more public business takes precedence
over private business in the minds of Citizens.’94 It is clear that the constitution cannot be
the same as the original compact. Indeed, the term constitution is crucial, for Rousseau
believes the constitution of a state is co-extensive with the work of the Legislator. It is to
his intervention that I now turn.
Part IV: The Legislator and the Enlightenment of the General Will
At this point it is important to return to the relationship between the Legislator and
the polity. Now the scope of that relationship is clear. As we saw above, the Legislator’s
intervention must allow the Sovereign to determine its General Will. This change must
allow the General Will to be upright in a moral and psychological, and not merely
definitional way. The Legislator’s work must enlighten each citizen’s individual will so that
they each will in harmony with conscience and reason. The Legislator must make that will
the predominant (if not the only will) of the citizens. All of these challenges are solved by
the system of law the Legislator devises for a people. In this section, I unpack the
essentially psychological nature of this conception of legislation. I argue the Legislator’s
intervention follows Rousseau’s analytical understanding of psychology. I want to suggest
that this system of legislation is responsible for the life or activity of politics. The Legislator
inculcates a rational, active and moral disposition amongst citizens precisely so they might
be meaningfully active.
Although the activities of the Legislator in this regard are
frequently taken to supplement political right, I argue that this determined, enlightened
General Will shows that the disposition of citizens is the culmination of Rousseau’s
understanding of political right.
What is the Legislator’s task, what is its nature, and when does it occur in the life of
a body politic? Rousseau discusses the way the Legislator changes individuals and the body
politic. He writes:
Anyone who dares to institute a people must feel capable of, so to speak, changing human
nature; of transforming each individual who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole into part
of a larger whole from which that individual would as it were receive his life and his being; of
weakening man’s constitution in order to strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral
existence for the independent and physical existence we have all received from nature. In a
word, he must take from man his own forces in order to give him forces which are foreign to
him and of which he cannot make use without the help of others. 95
The challenge is to ‘to institute a people’. This passage focuses on the relationship between
the individual and the whole, and the need to transform individuals into moral beings. I
94
95
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. III, Chap. 15, p. 113, [429]. Italics mine.
Ibid., p. 69, [381-382].
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want to draw attention to the differences between the Legislator’s institution of a people
and the original compact. This passage concentrates on both social force and social existence.
Man’s force is weakened and replaced with a composite one, which can only be used in
concert. His mode of existence changes concomitantly. The original compact has a
broader and more general remit, which includes the corporate will. Because the institution
of a people directly concerns the actual use of the corporate force, it would seem connected
to the remit of government, which is always a matter of public force and never of will.96
But because the institution of a people also concerns their corporate being and not just the
public force, the Legislator’s work also seems to overlap part of the definition of
Sovereignty. Thus, the Legislator’s work cannot be coextensive with either the original
compact or the origin of government. Rather, his intervention occupies a space in between
the formal principles of the contract and the practical maxims of government. What might
this intermediate position entail?
Although instituting a people requires changes in the way individuals use their force,
the meaning of this conception remains unclear. What I want to show is that the institution
of a people, is the culmination of Rousseau’s understanding of the body politic. There is a
difference between the formation of a body politic on the one hand, which applies in a
general sense to any political community, and the institution of a people on the other,
which applies once in one specific way to one political community. It is in this later sense
that the Spartans become Spartan.
Forming a body politic concerns the formal
requirements of justice, instituting a people determines these formal criteria for the political
life of a real community. Rousseau makes this distinction clearly. As I have suggested
already, the original compact lays the foundations for true laws, but these foundations are
formal and indeterminate preconditions. Rousseau intimates the same:
What people, then, is fit for legislation? One, which, while finding itself already bound
together by some union of origin, interest, or convention, has not yet borne the true yoke of
laws; one with neither deep-rooted customs nor deep-rooted superstitions… one whose every
member can be known to all, and where one is not forced to charge a man with a greater
burden than a man can bear… What makes the work of legislation difficult is not so much
what has to be established as what has to be destroyed; and what makes success so rare is the
impossibility of finding the simplicity of nature linked with the needs of society. 97
This kind of a people resembles one that has recently become a body politic. There is
nothing distinct about such a society. It does not have entrenched customs or superstitions.
It does not yet have true laws, and hence, lacks a determinate and active General Will. Just
as was true of the parties to the original pact, these individuals and their political society are
unlikely to have been deeply changed by perfectibility. Given an ordered introduction to
96
97
Ibid., Book III, Chap. 1, p. 82, [395].
Ibid., Bk. II, Chap. 10, p. 77-78, [390-391].
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social life and a careful education and expansion of their faculties, this people might be
saved from the disastrous play of perfectibility and they might become disposed toward
political right.
In order to save such a people, its generic quality must be overcome. In stark
contrast to this people and to the formal terms of the original compact, instituting a people
is always exceptional, and ‘could not even happen twice with the same people’.98 Rousseau
criticizes Peter the Great and his reforms on these grounds:
The Russians will never be truly politically organized because they were politically organized
too early. Peter’s genius was imitative; he did not have true genius, the kind that creates and
makes everything out of nothing. Some of the things he did were good, most were misguided.
He saw that his people was barbarous, he did not see that it lacked the maturity for political
order. He wanted from the first to make Germans, Englishmen, whereas he should have
begun by making Russians; he prevented his subjects from ever becoming what they could be
by persuading them that they are what they are not. In the same way a French Tutor forms his
pupil for a moment’s brilliance in childhood, and to be nothing after that. 99
Rousseau makes quite clear that Peter’s failure involves education; he failed in the same
way that the French tutor fails. Rehearsing an argument developed in Emile, Rousseau
rejects educating or encouraging prodigies. Each stage of Emile’s life must be valued in
itself, while at the same time his life must never be reduced to perfection of some talent.100
Peter’s legislation failed because he did not recognise the unique character of a people.
Instead, Peter deployed the generic customs of civilized Europe. He left the Russians with a
vacant national character. In contradistinction, the Legislator provides moeurs bespoke for
one people. Thus, Rousseau makes perfectly clear that a unique national disposition, which
can live and grow with a people, is the objective of the Legislator’s institutional efforts.
For understanding what this unique national disposition is like, the medium of the
Legislator’s relationship with the body politic, which I examined in the previous chapter, is
decisive. The Legislator effects this change not by arguing and not by coercion. Rousseau
writes:
Thus he who drafts the laws has, then, or should have no legislative right, even if it wanted to
do so; because according to the fundamental pact only the General Will obligates particulars,
and there can never be any assurance that a particular will conforms to the General Will until it
has been submitted to the free suffrage of the people: I have said this already, but it is not
useless to repeat it.101
In this passage, Rousseau disqualifies the Legislator from any share in legislative right
because legislation is a fundamental aspect of the General Will. As I showed in Part II, law is
essentially the determined General Will. Were the Legislator to have legal authority, he
would breach the unity of the Sovereign’s will and its law, which Rousseau thinks inviolable.
Ibid., Chap. 8, p. 73 [385].
Ibid., [386].
100 Rousseau, Emile , pp. 9-10, 83-87, 169, 171.
101 Ibid., Bk. II, Chap. 7, p. 70, [OC, III, 383].
98
99
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Nonetheless, this passage also indicates something important about the object of the
Legislator’s operation. Precisely because he must legislate whilst being forbidden from
doing so, his educational project presupposes he convince the Sovereign to adopting his own
penetrating understanding of the institutions necessary for the body politic.
In the previous chapter, it became clear that the Legislator’s relationship with the
body politic depends on his knowledge of their mental condition and potential. This is a
consequence of his sublimation of Eros. The technical aspects of institutional design are not
my concern here.102 Interestingly, the medium of his engagement with the people is his own
sublime Eros. Rousseau thinks institution building itself is a psychological process. As we
saw in the previous chapter, when St. Preux needs to convince Edward to renounce his
inappropriate love, he actually transforms the English peer in the process. This alteration is
constitutive of Edward’s newfound moral and political outlook. This seems to hold true
for the Legislator and the members of the body politic.
In an example of neat symmetry, Rousseau closes Book II with the Legislator’s
ultimate response to the legal and moral problems which required his intervention in the
first instance. This delineates the core of the Legislator’s spiritual mission. Rousseau
classifies four different types of law: political (constitutional), civil, criminal, and moeurs.
The fourth is pivotal, for it indicates unequivocally the psychological result of the
Legislator’s mission. Rousseau writes:
To these three sorts of laws must be added a fourth, the most important of all… which is the State’s
genuine constitution; which daily gathers new force; which, when the other laws age or die out ,
revives or replaces them, and imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that of authority.
I speak of moeurs, customs, and above all opinion; a part [of the laws] unknown to our
politicians but on which the success of all the others depends: a part to which the Legislator
attends in secret, while he appears to restrict himself to particular regulations which are but the
ribs of the arch of which moeurs, slower to arise, in the end form the immovable Keystone.103
The most important kind of law provides the state’s most essential force and its true
constitution. O’Hagan thinks this national spirit is a consequence of the social
environment, in part provided by the other laws, 104 but Rousseau makes a subtly
different claim when he says this law can ‘revive’ all the others. Rousseau is telling
his reader that the common moeurs of each and every individual are the foundation of
political law, civil law, and criminal law. As we have already seen, these moeurs are
Masters, by contrast, centres his interpretation on these maxims of government and the science of the
Legislator. This is part of a claim that The Social Contract is, ultimately, addressed to would be or current
princes and magistrates, who hope to enlarge and secure their power and authority. However, Masters and I
agree that Rousseau took Montesquieu to have mastered the minutiae of institutional design. Rousseau’s
understanding of institutions was directed elsewhere.
103 Ibid., Chap. 12, p. 81, [394]. Italics mine. Gourevitch translates moeurs as morals. I retain the original
because of the capaciousness of the French term. It means, possibly at once, the way of life of an individual
and a people and their moral practices, habits, and beliefs.
104 O’Hagan, Rousseau, p. 136.
102
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unique to a particular people. Because they revitalise and replace particular laws, it is
perfectly reasonable to suggest that they are or are integral to the determinate
General Will. Only the unique spirit of a people allow it to determine its interest and
instantiate that as law.
Moeurs are the consequence of the public enlightenment which Rousseau had
promised in his first chapter on law. Although moeurs are in some way habitual, we can rule
out identifying the national disposition with a kind of habitualised Aristotelian moral sense.
As we know from Emile, Rousseau believes the power of habituation is circumscribed.105 It
cannot produce properly normative dispositions.
According to Rousseau’s analytical
psychology, habit can only be made morally meaningful if it is joined by certain kinds of
higher love. Rousseau claims that moeurs constantly gather new ‘force’. They empower the
lawfulness of the body politic and its judicious, disinterested judgment. This force is
mental. And if a people’s moeurs renew and rejuvenate all the other laws, they cannot be
merely forceful. They must draw together the unique conviction and spirit of a people with
the capacity to make rational legal decisions.
Moeurs, qua determined General Will,
constitute the public enlightenment Rousseau had promised. With these laws of the heart
in place men will what they ought and the body politic is able to know what it should will.
Following this enlightenment, the citizens can be moved by conscience and the voice of
reason. Clearly, an instantiation of Rousseau’s analytical psychology is in place. In this
case the psychological force of moeurs, a kind of Eros, entwines with normative reasoning
and judgement. Once again, man’s active and passive powers relate in a complex way.
This transformation of the psyche allows citizens to recognize the principles of natural law,
as Rousseau had promised, and make them the principles of their own determinate General
Will.106 Thus, they return justice to its object.
Thus, it is right to conclude that the determinacy of the General Will and the public
enlightenment which are both instantiated in moeurs are the effects of a form of higher,
political love. In a sense, Rousseau is following the intuitions he earlier elaborated in
Political Economy. As we saw in Chapter 6, the principles of public right are inextricably tied
to the love of the fatherland. This love uplifts the entire disposition of the polity, yet at the
same time, it is the essence of civic virtue. I endeavoured to show in the last chapter that
the Legislator cultivates precisely this kind of love within a polity. And the details of his
intervention and the moeurs it produces confirm this.
See this Thesis, Chapter 7, Part II.
This is similar to David Williams view, but the reconciliation of natural law and the General Will occurs as
a constitutive part of the transformation of political man’s psyche. Williams, by contrast, reads this
reconciliation as a matter of constructivist application. I do not think Williams is wrong, but I believe this
form of application is secondary to the political moeurs felt by political agents.
105
106
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When the citizens are convinced by the Legislator’s institutional suggestions, they are
also possessed of a conviction which alters the way in which each of them wills and behaves.
Their will is brought into alignment with their reason, and their instinctive moral sense,
their habits and their character are cultivated so as to support their public, moral reasoning.
Each member of the body politic transforms from a citizen whose reason is paltry and
ineffective into a citizen whose moeurs manifest a love of his patria, makes his moral reason
efficacious, perfects the General Will and guarantees that the Sovereign makes decisions
according to those principles. This new way of willing is a fundamental part of instituted
people.
Conclusion: The Politics of Disposition
In this chapter I have shown that Rousseau’s believes instituting political right is
integrally tied to the psychological development of citizens. As is well known, Rousseauian
citizens must be lead out of themselves and they must be given a new nature. These claims
make sense when one distinguishes between the formally upright General Will, which is a
consequence of the original compact, and the enlightened and determined General Will.
The determined General Will, which as I have shown, is constituted in the moeurs of a
people and established through the intervention of the Legislator, is not distinct from
political right. Rather, all of this is essential for the realisation of political right. Sovereigns
that lack a determinate General Will, lack law and are not really Sovereigns at all. Thus,
common distinctions between Rousseau’s conception of political right and his maxims of
politics often fail to grasp the integral relationship between national character, the
Legislator, and the actualisation of political right in political practice.
In elaborating these broad claims about the system of Rousseau’s political thought, I
have also shown the coherence of his psychological and social beliefs. Agency and right
are integrally connected in Rousseau’s political philosophy. This enlightened political life
returns justice to its object.
In the same moment that citizens gain their national
disposition and the patriotic love this includes, their will, qua General Will, becomes
robustly active. This is no supersession or resistance of the passions, but a transformation
of Eros in support of reason. In a way much like the higher love I examined in Chapter 6,
when citizens have moeurs, patriotic love and a General Will, they come to be free. This is
because the complex relationship of actions, passions, and ideas, which is encapsulated in
the General Will, empowers rather than corrupts man’s truly active and capacities.
Rousseau, for all his belief in the power of experience and circumstances in the
development of human agents, never forgets the inherent activity of human beings. Even
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when we are most enslaved to passions, our own active powers lie at the core of our vice.
It is for precisely these reasons that Inequality paints such a complex picture of the history
of corruption. It is for these reasons that Emile is eventually weaned off the education of
the senses and learns to elevate his disposition instead. This is why Emile’s educated
disposition must draw upon his active will and his passions. And it is precisely for this
reason that the public enlightenment Rousseau calls for cannot possibly be generated by
the original compact, or institutions or political experiences alone.
The determination of the General Will must begin as a moment of sublime education.
The Legislator must evoke what the original compact cannot. But Rousseau, as Patrick
Riley has demonstrated, wants the General Will to be part of each citizen’s life.107 This
living General Will is a consequence of the citizens’ upright patriotic love and their unique
national moeurs. This is the sense of the General Will that matters most and stands to
regenerate the republic from the inside. In this sense, the General Will must always be
concrete, even if it is not continually giving law. This is the Legislator’s secret work and the
full realisation of political right.
By reassessing the role of Rousseau’s analytical psychology in his understanding of
Sovereignty, the General Will and the intervention of the Legislator, one can rethink the
nature of the political in Rousseau’s thought. For Rousseau, true politics is always alive; he
believes in a politics which realises the moral disposition of citizens. In an interesting
dénouement, both the purpose and the essence of Rousseauian politics is the flourishing of a
people’s mouers and the full realisation of each individual’s active, moral psyche.
By way of conclusion, I want to suggest that Rousseau’s politics of disposition
provides new insight into the relationship between government and sovereignty. Rousseau
makes a crisp analytical distinction between these two: government executes law whereas
the Sovereign generates it. Rousseau claims that ‘every free action’ has a ‘moral’ cause,
‘namely will which determines it’, and another ‘physical’ cause, ‘namely power [force] which
executes it’; he conceptualises the distinction between the Sovereign qua will and the
Government qua power accordingly.108 But this distinction is not what it first appears. It
describes Government in terms of the formal arrangement of political right immediately
entailed by the original compact. Rousseau suggests a more complex interrelationship
between governance and the General Will.
Tying down the parallels between the Legislator’s work and the future operation of
Government helps elucidate the complexities of this relationship. Rousseau makes it
107
108
Riley, The General Will, p. 202.
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book III, Chap. 1, p. 82, [395].
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Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
abundantly clear that what a Legislator creates, the Prince maintains. He writes, ‘if it is true
that a great Prince is a rare man, what of a great Legislator?’ 109 We now know that it is the
Legislator who provides the population with a love of virtue and unique mouers. He helps
each individual find an interest of the self in the general good. It is he who draws together
the reason of a people and its will, making the General Will enlightened, active and
determinate. The Prince, on the other hand, ‘need only follow the model which the other’
proposes.110 Whilst the Legislator is ‘the mechanic who invents the machine’, the prince is
‘the workman who assembles and operates it.’111 This implies that whatever it is that the
Legislator inculcates, the prince maintains.
At this point, it is important to remember that Rousseau thinks the term prince a
euphemism for Government. He writes:
The embers of this body [Government] are called magistrates or Kings, that is to say Governors,
and the body as a whole bears the name Prince. Thus those who contend that the act by which
a people subjects itself to chiefs is not a contract are perfectly right. It is absolutely nothing
but a commission, an office in which they, as mere officers of the Sovereign, exercise in its
name the power it has vested in them, and which it can limit, modify, and resume, since
alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social bond and contrary to the
aim of the association.112
Again, Government carries on what the Legislator started.
As we saw above, the
Legislator’s most important work is the nation’s moeurs. The continued life of these moeurs
must, in some way, be part of the Government’s purpose.
Just as the Legislator’s
institution of a people involves instituting governmental bodies and codes of written law in
addition to the transformation of each citizens’ psyche, I argue that exercise of
Governmental authority is composed so that the enlightened, patriotic disposition of
citizens is continually reconfirmed and revitalised.
Thus government is a fundamental aspect of the body politic, 113 and as such, it is
impossible to separate it from the formal concepts of political right entailed by the original
compact. These formal concepts were only part of Rousseau’s understanding of political
right, for they did not determine the General Will. Similarly, Rousseau’s beliefs about the
place of government in political right do not conclude at the formal level either. In
practice, Rousseau insists that ‘nothing is or should be done in the body politic without
their [the Sovereign and the Government’s] concurrence’.
114
Furthermore, the
Government does for the body politic ‘what the union of soul and body does in man’; this
is to be ‘an intermediate body established between subjects and Sovereign so that they
Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book II, Chap. 7, p. 69 [OC, III, 381].
Ibid.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid, Book III, Chap. 1, p. 83 [OC, III, 396].
113 Ibid., Book III, Chap. 1, p. 82, [395].
114 Ibid.
109
110
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
might conform to one another’.115 When subjects and Sovereigns conform to each other, one
can safely surmise that the General Will is predominant among the people and that the
Sovereign knows what is truly best for its members. This is nothing else than the public
enlightenment which the Legislator had delivered.
The Legislator made this public
enlightenment possible by providing the body politic with moeurs, but the members of this
body, which ‘as a whole bears the name Prince’, operate the machine. Government must
play a crucial role in maintaining the public enlightenment of the body politic.
Indeed, Government plays an integral role in the actualisation of law, and it ensures
that the General Will determines real political action – force and will must conform. By
enforcing the Sovereign’s determined will, the Government helps establish a veneration of
the law. Law is venerated when it is ancient. Rousseau writes, ‘people must believe that
nothing but the excellence of the ancient wills could have preserved them for so long; if the
Sovereign had not consistently recognized them as salutary it would have revoked them a
thousand times over’.116 On one side, the conditions for this veneration depend on the
Sovereign’s consistent, determined General Will. But on the other side, that changeless will
provides Government with a standing remit. When government executes the same general
laws according to the same procedures over lifetimes, the General Will is strengthened. The
respect for ancient laws leads to a flowering of a people’s moeurs: ‘the prejudice in favour
antiquity renders them [the laws] daily more venerable’.117 In this way, the General Will
continues to be the predominant will of each citizen.
The Government, the Sovereign, and the subjects, are all different aspects of the
body politic. Although they can be disentangled analytically, the actual interrelationship
between them is intricate. This is doubly so because these groups exist as discernable
constitutional bodies, the membership of which is coextensive. Thus an individual may be
a member of the Sovereign, a member of Government, a subject, a citizen and a private
man all it once. In this thesis, I have only been able to point toward the complexity that
this entails. But it seems that the multifarious relationships amongst these bodies and these
individuals succeed because Rousseau has attuned them to the psychological complexities
of public enlightenment. Underneath the actualisation of political right is the realisation
that each and every citizen is a complex agent, with a complex psyche. Man’s psychology
and its dynamic possibilities are inextricable from a concrete sense of political right.
Superficial readings of Rousseau’s principles of political right, which take them to be the
formal terms delineated by the original compact, miss a veritable tapestry whose threads are
Ibid., pp. 82-83, [396].
Ibid., Chap. 11, p. 109, [424-425]. Italics mine.
117 Ibid., pp. 109-110.
115
116
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Rousseau and the Politics of Disposition
spun from interpenetrating political institutions, man’s multifaceted participation in these,
and his experience of all this. If the harmony of right, psychology, and institutions shows
us anything, it is that Rousseau’s sense of politics is a politics of disposition.
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Chapter 9
Conclusion
The forgoing chapters have examined the way in which volition is a complex
faculty composed of passive or active modes (for Locke) or of complex and dynamic webs
of active and passive powers (for Rousseau). Concurrently, this work has sought to
elucidate the importance of volition as a conceptual resource for their arguments about
political right and as a theoretical core for their understanding of the mental states and
dynamic behaviours of political agents. It is worth reviewing these claims.
Volition, philosophy, morality and virtue
As I have sought to show, both thinkers situate their understandings of volition
within broader and systematic accounts of philosophy and the human agent, including
sensational experience, our active construction of that experience, the play of passions, the
formation of knowledge and the attitudes appropriate for philosophical endeavour. For
both Locke and Rousseau, these accounts are analytical and phenomenal. By analytical, I
mean Locke and Rousseau conceptually delineate sensation, comparison and judgment and
they epistemologically distinguish between fantastical beliefs and certain knowledge. By
phenomenal, I mean Locke and Rousseau want to understand and explain these categories,
acts and mental states as actual mental phenomena. It is for their phenomenal account of
philosophy that volition proves central. Thus, Locke’s reliance on dispositions in his
account of epistemology, linguistic use and the application of reason in the formation of
knowledge is entwined with his understanding of will. Similarly, Rousseau thinks, I have
shown, that agency is situated within a complex framework of active and passive powers.
Sometimes sensations cause ideas, which lead to passions that in turn occasion reasoning.
But the formation of ideas and, hence, passions is never merely passive for Rousseau
because active powers, like judgment and comparison, are always entailed by ideaformation. Because of this, passions can corrode our reason or, potentially, empower it.
For both Locke and Rousseau, it is possible to draw an analytical distinction between rules
and technical procedures of reasoning and the disposition of the cogitator, but as
phenomena of human activity, these two aspects of philosophy are inextricable.
Morally, these apparatuses of agency and philosophy are pivotal. Both Locke and
Rousseau believe that forms of elevated desire or higher love are required for intellectual
endeavour. In other words they both understand the term philosophy literally, as philo
sophia or love of wisdom. And as I have shown, Locke believes pains must be taken to
Conclusion
pursue moral knowledge and to construct our sense of right and wrong. Or put another
way, moral knowledge depends on dispositions committed to the practice of legitimate
philosophy. Moreover, the realisation of moral knowledge in action and the development
of the dispositions necessary for this are obligatory.
This moral and dispositional
framework is realised through Locke’s conceptualisation of law, according to which
punishment should be constituted so that it produces conditions favourable to a criminal’s
repentance – his active judgment in regard to his past and future behaviour. Similarly,
Rousseau thinks that virtue requires sacrifice. In order to sacrifice virtuously, we must
have a love of virtue. This love is achieved concomitantly with the love of wisdom that
allows us to listen to our inner light and our conscience, to know the moral good and to
effectively manifest it in our actions. Without the cultivation of higher love, our knowledge
of the good is effaced, while our amour propre subtly yet radically subverts our rationality.
Volition and Politics: heuristic devices and political life as an actual phenomenon
The encounter between volition and politics is crucial for both Locke and
Rousseau. The terms of political legitimacy and the remit of political institutions are not
based merely on logical or juridical argumentation, and Locke and Rousseau do not think
of political decision making merely in terms of economic calculations. Instead, both of
them tie their understanding of legitimate political institutions to their understanding of
volition and the dynamic mental dispositions which lead to behaviour. For Locke, political
institutions must be able to mitigate our self-preferential and excessively vindictive
tendencies – those ‘inconveniences’ of the state of nature.
If they do not, political
organisation represents a bad bargain which cannot be the outcome of rational consent.
Concurrently, I have argued Locke’s definitions of the just exercise of juridical authority
and his stipulations about its limited remit presuppose his hope that the disposition of
lawfulness and the truly active, moral will of political agents can flourish. It is only when
his theory of volition is fleshed out that we can fully understand how Locke conceptualises
the exercise of coercive punishment, exceptional cases of prerogative and the limits of legal
authority. Rousseau meticulously devises the state of nature in The Social Contract so that
amour de soi remains active and amour propre undeveloped. Moreover, the importance of the
total alienation of rights in the original compact prevents tyranny of judgment – essentially
amour propre run amok – from arising as a consequence of socialisation and politicisation.
The precise terms of his analytical psychology are crucial for the formal and logical
framework of the original compact. By extension, the way in which Rousseau defines
Sovereignty and the General Will is also tied to his psychological views.
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
But as we have also seen, neither Locke nor Rousseau think the political
importance of volition can be limited to a conceptual heuristic for the derivation of
principles of political justice and institutional design.
Rather, both Locke and Rousseau
think about the realisation of forms of political agency and political morality as actual
phenomena to which political authority and political institutions must be attuned.
Thus,
Rousseau explains how important it is that the morality of mere voluntary consent be
replaced with the obligation of natural law and public enlightenment – the enlightenment
and determination of the General Will effected by the Legislator and the moeurs he devises
for the body politic. In this move, Rousseau makes a particular mental disposition – one
which supports virtuous behaviour and which is constitutive of virtue – the foundation of
political socialisation and institutional design, the purpose of political life, the mode of
political interaction and the means by which politics might be rejuvenated.
Likewise, Locke argues that punishment, when rightly conceived, not only deters
crime but also encourages repentance.
Locke conceives of repentance as a genuine
realisation of one’s wrong doing and a firm and effective resolution against future crime;
this is the same self-reflective and active disposition by which men use the law to judge
their own actions. The purpose of juridical authority, the moral purpose of law as such,
and the normative value of active will all converge in Locke’s account of political law and
legal punishment. This is of the greatest importance for Lockean politics, for when we
develop such an active, lawful disposition we are in a state of liberty. We can now bring
into relief the psychological depth and complexity of the political institutions and actions
geared toward ‘preserving’ liberty. Moreover, Locke argues that the most important social
disposition is charity, which he conceives as a universal moral imperative. Political life
benefits from charity, and government should help bring about charitable dispositions, but
government cannot impose them. As I have discussed, one of the reasons Locke delimits
the remit of political authority in regard to our beliefs and our dispositions is so that extrapolitical space is maintained in which political agents can become charitable. Meanwhile,
the importance of the beneficent monarch’s prerogative for the forgiveness and reward of
morally meritorious but technically illegal acts helps create conditions favourable for active,
moral volition. Yet again institutional limits are crucial because monarchs rarely develop
the insight and beneficence to use prerogative rightly unless its remit has been tightly
defined.
In a comprehensive way, Locke’s understanding of institutions and of the
activities of political office holders is inextricable from his understanding of the mental
states which inform and are produced by political action.
264
Conclusion
The plastic nature of mankind and political responses to passion
Having restated the claims I advanced in regard to Locke and Rousseau, it is worth
finally indicating the difference in the ways they develop a politics of will and disposition.
To do so, it is important to consider the political responses they devise toward problems of
passive agency. Neither think suppressing passive emotions suffices. Both Locke and
Rousseau must find a way of disentangling desire from passivity and redirecting it toward
rational and moral activity.
Consider the following passage from one of Locke’s manuscript ‘Reputation’. Here
Locke sounds particularly proto-Rousseauian. He writes:
The principal spring from which the actions of men take their rise, the rule they conduct them
by, and the end to which they direct them, seems to be credit and reputation, and that which at
any rate they avoid, is in the greatest part shame and disgrace. This makes the Hurons and
other people of Canada with such constancy endure inexpressible torments. This makes
merchants in one country, and soldiers in another. This puts men upon school divinity in one
country, and physics or mathematics in another. This cuts out the dresses for the women, and
makes the fashions for the men; and makes them endure the incoveniences of all. This makes
men drunkards and sober, thieves and honest, and robbers themselves true to one another.
Religions are upheld by this and factions maintained, and the shame of being disesteemed by
those with whom one hath lived, and to whom one would recommend oneself, is the great
source and director of most of the actions of men. Where riches are in credit, knavery and
injustice that produce them are not out of countenance, because the state being got, esteem
follows it, as it is said in some countries the crown ennobles the blood. Where power, and not
the good exercise of it, gives reputation, all the injustice, falsehood, violence, and oppression
that attains that, goes for wisdom and ability. Where love of one’s country is the thing in
credit, there we shall see a race of brave Romans; and when being a favourite at court was the
only thing in fashion, one may observe the same race of Romans all turned flatterers and
informers. He therefore that would govern the world well, had need consider rather what
fashions he makes, than what laws; and to bring anything into use he need only give it
reputation.1
Locke ruminates on the plastic nature of mankind – a notion which Rousseau would
develop with even greater profundity. When Locke wrote this, he thought human agency
was regularly motivated by what we believe constitutes esteem. Because of this our
behaviour, our mores and even our physical constitution – our capacity to endure pain and
hardship – are dynamic.
Locke concludes with the maxim that cultivating the right
reputations and understanding the way in which these can be elicited by political activity
distinguishes good governance from everything else. Although Locke changes his views
about the institutional structure of government after he writes ‘Reputation’ and his
understanding of agency changed considerably in the next decade, he continued to think
opinion tremendously powerful and public esteem a potent tool to, in a sense, promote
virtue and curtail vice, making conditions favourable to more robust and independent
1
John Locke, ‘Reputation’, in M. Goldie (ed.), Locke: Political Essays, (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 271-272
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
moral dispositions.2 In a way, peer pressure, if it is disposed toward virtue, can set the
stage for moral independence. Public esteem for morality cannot really be established
through government coercion. Precisely because good opinion is more motivationally
potent than juridical coercion, part of Locke’s story about social morality cannot also be a
political story – hence the importance of education and the right conduct of one’s own
understanding in Locke’s mature thought.3 Yet as we have seen, political institutions are
not merely juridical institutions. The use of prerogative, for instance, to forgive and reward
virtuous (but technically illegal) acts is sometimes contra-juridical and it is one way in which
governors can make upright behaviour fashionable.
This is strikingly close to Rousseau’s notion that our understanding of the way in
which others estimate us leads to tremendously powerful and artificial passions – amour
propre being the most noteworthy. And regardless of whether one thinks amour propre has
benign and malign forms 4 or whether Rousseau distinguishes amour propre from rather
different and virtuous artificial passions, as I have argued, the public enlightenment of the
General Will presupposes that virtue and the objects of esteem be aligned. And like Locke,
Rousseau argues in The Social Contract that the norms and traditions of a people can effect
this alignment of General Will, virtue and esteem – hence, Rousseau’s focus on the
venerability of laws and the importance of moeurs written in the human heart.
But because Locke and Rousseau have a rather different understanding of what
passion is, they advance different tactics to invoke the right kinds of passion in politics.
For Locke, the law of opinion motivates because it stimulates passions in much the same
way that all passions are stimulated. The law of opinion is an extrinsic power which
motivates us by passive means. For instance, Locke worries about the stupefying effects of
certain forms of education, particularly the veneration of our teachers and our oldest
beliefs.
These responses are central to the law of opinion and quite powerful.
Unfortunately, we remain passive agents in this process. Thus, when moral knowledge is
For a contrasting view see James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 1993), pp. 182-239. Tully and I agree that the right use of the law of opinion is
crucial to Locke, but Tully thinks that the politics of dispositions ends here, whereas I have argued
throughout this thesis that Locke also hopes to elicit more robust active, moral forms of agency.
3 This study has not included Locke’s late works Some Thoughts Concerning Education or On the Conduct of the
Understanding. In order for me to advance an argument about the consistency of Locke’s social and civic
thought and the role of active and passive will therein, I would have to address these important texts.
4 Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love; Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition, (Oxford,
Oxford University Press: 2008), pp. 161-171. Neuhouser makes the claim that the institutions Rousseau
develops in The Social Contract are designed to prevent inflated amour propre yet allow benign amour propre to
take on a valuable and socially meritorious form. Neuhouser’s argument follows O’Hagan, Rousseau,
(London, Routledge: 1999), pp.171-175. O’Hagan indicates that this kind of positive form of amour propre is
cultivated in Political Economy and in Considerations on the Government of Poland, but he does not link this form of
desire directly to The Social Contract
2
266
Conclusion
esteemed in this manner, it remains like ‘fairy money’ until we understand its moral force
ourselves. Real morality entails our rational, active will. Consequently, pursuing virtue
merely as a precondition of esteem will never really make us properly virtuous. In response
to this, Locke will utilise, as I have shown, legal and extra-legal political means, among a
wider ranging apparatus, to make conditions favourable for truly active morality.
Nevertheless, there is a caesura in Locke’s political views between the institutions of
politics and exercise of political authority on the one hand and the mental dispositions by
which politics is successfully undertaken. Locke can legitimate the use of coercive force to
prevent or curtail criminal behaviour. He can create institutions whereby the judgment of
criminal cases is not perverted by our tendencies to vindictiveness and self-preference.
And he can delimit royal authority so that tyrannical dispositions will gain less purchase.
All of this can help incite upright, lawful dispositions, but by and large, these legal and
political means are never sufficient to elicit the dispositions that make good political actors,
whether they be private individuals or monarchs. It is unsurprising that the Lockean agent
himself, exercising his own inherent active capacities, must elevate his desires and
transcend merely passive willing. As Locke tells us in ‘Of Power’, it is precisely because of
the nature of human activity that any apparatus of external stimuli is insufficient to yield it.
Philosophically problematic or not, Locke thinks something like active will must operate
anterior to itself to produce the elevated desires by which active willing is possible. And
because of this, Locke develops a politics of will and disposition that does not guarantee
but does secure space for the independent development of moral agency.
For Rousseau by contrast, no neat dichotomy can be drawn between active, rational
will and passive, irrational will. As I elaborated in Chapter 6, Rousseau believes our active
powers (comparison, judgment, reason and will) and artificial passions interact in vicious
and virtuous circles. For Rousseau, new ideas are never the product of mere sensation but
are always mediated by comparison, judgment or reason, incite artificial passions, which in
turn stimulate and direct reason. In the worst case, these artificial passions disconnect
reason from the moral and epistemological standards of conscience and the inner light –
man creates his own misery. But in the best cases, certain forms of virtuous love reinforce
reason and provide motive force for morality. These artificial passions, both the vicious
and the virtuous ones are quintessentially human, and they, as I have shown are central to
Rousseau’s political thought.
Thus, Rousseau makes an analytical distinction when he differentiates activity and
passivity. This allows him to construct the analytical psychology I detailed in Chapter 6;
however, the actual mental phenomena involved are in fact constitutive of each other and
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Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
relate fluidly. The ramifications of this fluidity for Rousseau’s political thought should not
be understated, for Rousseau, unlike Locke, seems to think higher forms of Eros can be
politically evoked and that these are constitutive of the right form of agency – the
determined and enlightened General Will. This explains Rousseau’s confidence in the
secret work of the Legislator and the most important form of law – the moeurs of a people.
Rousseau thinks these moeurs, which are the traditions, habits and the emotive disposition
of a people, revitalise the law. As I argued in Chapter 8, these moeurs must be equivalent to
the Sovereign’s General Will, for by definition nothing else can legitimately re-codify and
revitalise the law. This is crucial, for it clearly makes use of the interchange amongst the
emotional state of Rousseauian agents, their capacity to engage in legal reasoning and their
capacity to determine their General Will. Whereas Locke thinks a juridical and legal
framework along with traditions and fashions rightly constituted is a necessary but
insufficient condition for the moral disposition of a polity, Rousseau thinks those traditions
rightly established directly empower a polity’s active, intelligent judgment and allow it to
maintain a supporting juridical and legal structure.
Policy and participation; the mastery of politics in Locke and Rousseau
Most of the time, the practical implications of Locke and Rousseau’s different
conceptualisation of activity and passivity are negligible. The Legislator, for instance,
cannot coerce and he cannot command a people to adopt the General Will. The Lockean
magistrate, similarly, cannot utilise political authority to mandate higher moral dispositions.
The politics of disposition for both thinkers normally involves carefully crafted, indirect
activity. But there are certain cases in which the politics of disposition is more direct. The
problem of free riders is illustrative of Locke’s and Rousseau’s political differences.
Locke believes that charity as an act and as a disposition, while a duty, is not legally
enforceable unless someone is seriously harmed as a result of someone else’s lack of
charity.
At this point, acts of charity can be required and failure to perform them
criminalised. In other cases, the contributions that one might legally be expected to make
are minimal. Thus the free rider problem, for Locke, is not particularly vexatious. One
could imagine Locke endorsing a regime of taxation and participation sufficient for
government to preserve life, liberty and property. Further political participation is not
requisite. Of course, Lockean politics can accommodate representative and participatory
institutions; as Jeremy Waldron has shown, the form of government a people adopts,
whether it be majoritarian democracy, aristocracy, monarchy or some composite
268
Conclusion
constitution, is a matter of the people’s own volition.5 But regardless of whether or not
Lockean political agents become active citizens, it is important that they take themselves to
be obliged and that they find the exercise of political authority rational and just. Hence, the
limitation of executive and legislative powers, the remit of political and juridical authority
and institutional design help prevent, on the part of political authorities, ‘a temptation to
humane frailty apt to grasp at Power’. 6 Meanwhile, these same institutional constraints
leave space for citizens to adopt an active, moral will possible in their private dealings and,
potentially, in their capacity as political agents. Participation is not demanded of them, only
tacit consent. Thus, Lockean politics is largely is a mastery of the policies that make
possible and preserve inviolably this extra-political space in which active will can germinate.
Such is not the case for Rousseau; the free rider case occasions one of his most
infamous pronouncements.7 He defines the problem:
Indeed each individual may, as a man, have a particular will contrary to or different from the
General Will he has as a Citizen. His particular interest may speak to him quite differently
from the common interest; his absolute and naturally independent existence may lead him to
look upon what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution… and, by
considering the moral person that constitutes the State as a being of reason because it is not a
man, he would enjoy the rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfil the duties of a
subject; an injustice, the progress of which would cause the ruin of the body politic. 8
Here attention to detail pays dividends. Pivotally, the free rider problem concerns the will
of the individual, not his particular actions or the goods he wrongly retains. The free rider
chooses to view the social contract as Joshua Cohen does, thinking the body politic merely
‘a being of reason’. But this view is the problem. The original compact and the principles
of political right, once fully realised, enlighten man and perfect him without stimulating his
amour propre. If his individual will remains predominant, then he cannot see the imperative
of his participation because of the residual force of his natural existence and the amour de soi
that accompanies it. As this injustice progresses, under conditions of socialised life and
emboldened by ‘the rights of a citizen’, the obstinacy of amour de soi would soon be
transformed into the impossible demands of amour propre. Thus it is no surprise that
Rousseau thinks this free rider problem dynamic; its ‘progress’ ruins the body politic.
Rousseau’s solution addresses this dynamic free rider problem. The state must have
means ‘to ensure’ the ‘fidelity’ of recalcitrant citizens.9 This is, of course, the notion that ‘for
the social compact not to be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the following engagement
Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality; Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press: 2002), pp. 114-119.
6 John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press: 1988), par. 143. Italics mine.
7 I have addressed this passage obliquely several times in this thesis, but not yet directly.
8 Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), Rousseau; The Social Contract and other
later political writings, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1997). Book I, Chap. 7, pp. 52-53, [OC, III, 363].
9 Ibid.
5
269
Activity, Passivity and the Politics of Will and Disposition
which alone can give force to the rest, whoever refuses to obey the General Will shall be
constrained to do so by the entire body: which means nothing other than he shall be forced
to be free’.10 Certainly the free rider case reveals that Rousseau’s understanding of law
breaking is more capacious than Locke’s, but the precise conditions under which Rousseau
justifies legal punishment clearly indicate that he never advocated indiscriminate coercion.
Rousseau clearly thinks this coercion produces a force of another order. By dealing
with legal infractions in this way, not only are crimes prevented but the original compact is
empowered. This is an engagement which ensures fidelity. Indeed, it is part of the broader
scheme that I investigated in chapters 7 and 8 by which the active, disinterested General
Will of each citizen is continuously maintained. The Sovereign’s legal will and the body
politics’ governing force are brought together in juridical coercion, for the legitimacy of the
General Will justifies the use of force and the use of force helps actualise the General Will
in the people. In this moment, the social compact is no ‘empty formula’ of formal
reasoning; it is a living phenomenon, even if its life is not biological.
This part of
Rousseau’s story concludes in the next chapter with the moral realisation of man – his
transformation from brute to citizen, in tune with the voice of duty and reason and able to
exercise his free will over and against the physical impulsions of nature.11
Reflecting on this remarkable passage shows us that legal coercion, in this case,
produces an active and moral disposition which in turn actualises the General Will.
Rousseau’s conceptualisation of man’s natural state contains a fluid elision between man’s
passions and dispositions on the one hand and his reasoning and particular will on the
other hand. Because passions and actions are entwined in this way, changes to either
extend to the other. Locke could hope for an elevation of desire, yet Rousseau was more
confident in the efficaciousness of juridical coercion.
And because this coercion is
exercised by all citizens so that the reluctant among them participate fully, Rousseau clearly
places greater weight on participation in civic life than does Locke. This participation,
engages the fidelity of men. It sets the conditions by which passions and actions are
transformed in the body politic. And by long standing practice, such active participation
becomes engrained in the moeurs of civic and public life. In Rousseau’s understanding,
participation in legitimate politics, right dispositions and right reasoning occur as different
aspects of the same phenomena. The Legislator is indispensible in suggesting the political,
juridical and mental institutions fitting for the body politic, but it is each citizen’s
subsequent participation which is the continuous life of the body politics. This entails, for
10
11
Ibid., p. 53, [364].
Ibid., Chap. 8.
270
Conclusion
Rousseau, a robustly democratic understanding of politics, which, as we have seen is
capable of revitalising codified law and government when policy fails. Rousseau does not
think this makes political life perpetual, but his politics of disposition promises
considerable endurance.
In the end, Locke and Rousseau support rather different political perspectives with
the resources of their respective understandings of agency. Some of the salient differences,
as I have shown, correspond neatly with their understandings of agency. These different
foci in Locke and Rousseau’s political and philosophical writings should not be overstated.
As I said earlier, most of the time the politics of disposition must operate by indirect
means. But exceptional cases are often the most interesting. Locke and Rousseau both
understand ordinary politics and extraordinary statesmanship as actual phenomena and
respond to these with elaborate understandings of human volition.
At their most
penetrating, Locke and Rousseau both understand politics through the dynamic interplay
between political life and volition. This provides them with a framework which supports
anthropological investigation, political declamation and principles of political legitimisation.
But in addition to all these, this framework also underpins the notion that legitimate
politics is voluntary because it produces conditions by which active willing is possible.
Ultimately, Lockean and Rousseauian politics are only fully comprehensible when we
realise that agency, for them, is not a place holder in formal, juridical or calculative
reasoning but a central feature of the ontological status of just politics and the behaviour
and experience of political agents.
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