2.

the good:
a. pleasure and pain.
According to locke happiness is associated with good, and that good is in obtaing pleasure. Human person
should strive for getting pleasure. Locke’ moral theory is based on Hedonism for whom pleasure is important.
For locke ideas come by two means they are: sensation and reflection. And he rejects the concept of innate
ideas. And he says all ideas come to us through sense experience and reflection.Locke describes sensation
as the “great source” of all our ideas and as wholly dependent on the contact between our
sensory organs and the external world. The other source of ideas, reflection or “internal
sense,” is dependent on the mind’s reflecting on its own operations, in particular the
“satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought” (Essay, II.i.4). What’s more, Locke
states that pleasure and pain are joined to almost all of our ideas both of sensation and of
reflection (Essay, II.vii.2). This means that our mental content is organized, at least in one
way, by ideas that are associated with pleasure and ideas that are associated with pain.
That our ideas are associated with pains and pleasures seems compatible with our
phenomenal experience: the contact between the sense organ of touch and a hot stove
will result in an idea of the hot stove annexed by the idea of pain, or the act of
remembering a romantic first kiss brings with it the idea of pleasure. And, Locke adds, it
makes sense to join our ideas to the ideas of pleasure and pain because if our ideas were
not joined with either pleasure of pain, we would have no reason to prefer the doing of one
action over another, or the consideration of one idea over another. If this were our
situation, we would have no reason to act—either physically or mentally (Essay, II.viii.3).
That pleasure and pain are given this motivational role in action entails that Locke
endorses hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the sole
motives for action.
he notes that the things that we describe as evil are no more than the things that are
annexed to the idea of pain, and the things that we describe as good are no more than the
things that are annexed to the idea of pleasure. In other words, the presence of good or
evil is nothing other than the way a particular idea relates to us—either pleasurably or
painfully. Now the argument arises if such is the case for Ram breaking the promises of
Sita would be pleasurable in the other hand for Sita Ram keeping the promises would be
pleasurable. Here what is good for Ram is bad for Sita. So in this case we would be blind to
judge what is morally good and what is not.Locke blocks this kind of consequence for his
view by introducing a distinction between “happiness” and “true happiness.” Here he
speaks of correct use of our intellectual powers.
Now we need to ask this question what is true happiness for Locke?
while Locke equates pleasure with good, he is careful to distinguish the happiness that is
acquired as a result of the satisfaction of any particular desire and the true happiness that
is the result of the satisfaction of a particular kind of desire. Drawing this distinction allows
Locke to hold that the pursuit of a certain sets of pleasures or goods is more worthy than
the pursuit of any pleasure.The pursuit of true happiness, according to Locke, is equated
with “the highest perfection of intellectual nature” (Essay, II.xxi.51). And, indeed, Locke
takes our pursuit of this true happiness to be the thing to which the vast majority of our
efforts should be oriented. To do this, he says that we need to try to match our desires to
“the true instrinsick good” that is really within things. He says we need to use our intellect
to find out which is better good and which is long lasting. And not doing things for the
sake of doing. While doing things we must be conscious of what we are doing.
3. The Law of Nature
a. Existence
In the Essay, the concepts of laws and lawmakers do not receive much treatment beyond
Locke’s affirmation that God has decreed laws and that there are rewards and
punishments associated with the respect or violation of these laws (Essay, I.iii.6; I.iii.12;
II.xxi.70; II.xxviii.6). The two most important questions concerning the role of laws in a
system of ethics remain unanswered in the Essay: (1) how do we determine the content of
the law? This is the epistemological question. And (2) what kind of authority does the law
have to obligate? This is the moral question. Locke spends much time considering these
questions in a series of nine essays written some thirty years before the Essay, which are
known under the collected title Essays on the Law of Nature (hereafter: Law).

The first essay in the series treats the question of whether there is a “rule of morals, or
law of nature given to us.” The answer is unequivocally “yes” (Law, Essay I, page 109;
hereafter: Law, I: 109). The reason for this positive answer, in short, is because God exists.
Locke appeals to a kind of teleological argument to support the claim of God’s existence,
saying that given the organization of the universe, including the organized way in which
animal and vegetable bodies propagate, there must be a governing principle that is
responsible for the patterns we see on earth. And, if we extend this principle to the
existence of human life, Locke claims that it is reasonable to believe that there is a
pattern or a law that governs behavior. This law is to be understood as moral good or
virtue and, Locke states, it is the decree of God’s will and is discernable by “the light of
nature.” Because the law tells us what is and is not in conformity with “rational nature,” it
has the status of commanding or prohibiting certain behaviors (Law, I: 111; see
also Essay, IV.xix.16). Because all human beings possess, by nature, the faculty of reason,
all human beings, at least in principle, can discover the natural law.

Locke offers five reasons for thinking that such a natural law exists. He begins by noting
that it is evident that there is some disagreement among people about the content of the
law. However, far from thinking that such disagreement casts doubt on the existence of
the law, he takes the presence of disagreement about the law as evidence that such a
true and objective law exists. Disagreements about the content of the law confirm that
everyone is in agreement about the fundamental character of the law—that there are
things that are by their nature good or evil—but just disagree about how to interpret the
law (Law, I: 115). The existence of the law is further reinforced by the fact that we often
pass judgment on our own actions, by way of our conscience, leading to feelings of guilt or
pride. Because it is not possible, according to Locke, to pronounce a judgment without the
existence of a law, the act of conscience demonstrates that such a natural law exists.
Third, again appealing to a kind of teleological argument, Locke states that we see that
laws govern all manner of natural operations and that it makes sense that human beings
would also be governed by laws that are in accordance with their nature (Law, I: 117).
Fourth, Locke states that without the natural law, society would not be able to run the way
that it does. He suggests that the force of civil law is grounded on the natural law. In other
words, without the natural law, positive law would have no moral authority. Elsewhere,
Locke underlines this point by saying that given that the law of nature is the eternal rule
for all men, the rules made by legislators must conform to this law (The Two Treatises of
Government, Treatise II, section 135, hereafter: Government, II.35). Finally, on Locke’s
view, there would be no virtue or vice, no reward or punishment, no guilt, if there were no
natural law (Law, I: 119). Without the natural law, there would be no bounds on human
action. This means that we would be motivated only to do what seems pleasurable and
there would be no sense in which anyone could be considered virtuous or vicious. The
existence of the natural law, then, allows us to be sensitive to the fact that there are
certain pleasures that are more in line with what is objectively right. Indeed, Locke also
gestures towards, but does not elaborate on, this kind of thought in the Essay. He
suggests that the studious man, who takes all his pleasures from reading and learning will
eventually be unable to ignore his desires for food and drink. Likewise, the “Epicure,”
whose only interest is in the sensory pleasures of food and drink, will eventually turn his
attention to study when shame or the desire to “recommend himself to his Mistress” will
raise his uneasiness for knowledge (Essay, II.xxi.43).

So, Locke has given us five reasons to accept the existence of the law of nature that
grounds virtuous and vicious behavior. We turn now to how he thinks we come to know
the content of the law.

b. Content
Locke suggests that there are two ways to determine the content of the law of nature: by
the light of nature and by sense experience.Locke is careful to note that by “light of
nature” he does not mean something like an “inward light” that is “implanted in man” and
like a compass constantly leads human beings towards virtue. Rather, this light is to be
understood as a kind of metaphor that indicates that truth can be attained by each of us
individually by nothing more than the exercise of reason and the intellectual faculties
(Law, II: 123). Locke uses a comparison to precious metal mining to make this point clear.
He acknowledges that some might say that his explanation of the discovery of the content
of the law by the light of nature entails that everyone should always be in possession of
the knowledge of this content. But, he notes, this is to take the light of nature as
something that is stamped on the hearts on human beings, which is a mistake (see Law,
III, 137-145). While the depths of the earth might contain veins of gold and silver, Locke
says, this does not mean that everyone living on the stretch of land above those veins is
rich (Law, II: 135). Work must be done to dig out the precious metals in order to benefit
from their value. Similarly, proper use must be made of the faculties we have in order to
benefit from the certainty provided by the light of nature. Locke notes that we can come
to know the law of nature, in a way, by tradition, which is to say by the testimony and
instruction of other people. But it is a mistake to follow the law for any reason other than
that we recognize its universal binding force. This can only be done by our own intellectual
investigation (Law, II: 129).

But what, exactly, is the light of nature? Locke acknowledges that it is difficult to answer
this question—it is not something stamped on the heart or mind, nor is it something that is
exclusively learned by tradition or testimony. The only option left for describing it, then, is
that it is something acquired or experienced by sense experience or by reason. And,
indeed, Locke suggests that when these two faculties, reason and sensation, work
together, nothing can remain obscure to the mind. Sensation provides the mind with ideas
and reason guides the faculty of sensation and arranges “together the images of things
derived from sense-perception, thence forming others [ideas] and composing new ones”
(Law, IV: 147). Locke emphasizes that reason ought to be taken to mean “the discursive
faculty of the mind, which advances from things known to thinks unknown,” using as its
foundation the data provided by sense experience (Law, IV: 149).
When directly addressing the question of how the combination of reason and sense
experience allow us to know the content of the law of nature, Locke states that two
important truths must be acknowledged because they are “presupposed in the knowledge
of any and every law” (Law, IV: 151). First, we must understand that there is a lawmaker
who decreed the law, and that the lawmaker is rightly obeyed as a superior power (a
discussion of this point is also found in Government, I.81). Second, we must understand
that the lawmaker wishes those to whom the law is decreed to follow the law. Let us take
each of these in turn.

Sense experience allows us to know that a lawmaker exists. To demonstrate this, Locke
appeals, once again, to a kind of teleological argument: by our senses we come to know
the objects external world and, importantly, the regularities with which they move and
change. We also see that we human beings are part of the movements and changes of the
external world. Reason, then, contemplates these regularities and orders of change and
motion and naturally comes to inquire about their origin. The conclusion of such an
inquiry, states Locke, is that a powerful and wise creator exists. This conclusion follows
from two observations: (1) that beasts and inanimate things cannot be the cause of the
existence of human beings because they are clearly less perfect than human beings, and
something less perfect cannot bring more perfect things into existence, and 2) that we
ourselves cannot be the cause of our own existence because if we possessed the power to
create ourselves, we would also have the power to give ourselves eternal life. Because it is
obviously the case that we do not have eternal life, Locke concludes that we cannot be the
origin of our own existence. So, Locke says, there must be a powerful agent, God, who is
the origin of our existence (Law, IV: 153). The senses provide the data from the external
world, and reason contemplates the data and concludes that a creator of the observed
objects and phenomena must exist. Once the existence of a creator is determined, Locke
thinks that we can also see that the creator has “a just and inevitable command over us
and at His pleasure can raise us up or throw us down, and make us by the same
commanding power happy or miserable” (Law, IV: 155). This commanding power, on
Locke’s view, indicates that we are necessarily subject to the decrees of God’s will. (A
similar line of discussion is found in Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity, 144–46.)

As for the second truth, that the lawmaker, God, wishes us to follow the laws decreed,
Locke states that once we see that there is a creator of all things and that an order
obtains among them, we see that the creator is both powerful and wise. It follows from
these evident attributes that God would not create something without a purpose.
Moreover, we notice that our minds and bodies seem well equipped for action, which
suggests, “God intends man to do something.” And, the “something” that we are made to
do, according to Locke, is the same purpose shared by all created things—the glorification
of God (Law, IV: 157). In the case of rational beings, Locke states that given our nature,
our function is to use sense experience and reason in order to discover, contemplate, and
praise God’s creation; to create a society with other people and to work to maintain and
preserve both oneself and the community. And this, in fact, is the content of the law of
nature—to preserve one’s own being and to work to maintain and preserve the beings of
the other people in our community. This injunction to preserve oneself and to preserve
one’s neighbors is also endorsed and stressed throughout Locke’s discussions of political
power and freedom (see Government, I.86, 88, 120; II.6, 25, 128).

c. Authority
Once we have knowledge of the content of the law of nature, we must determine from
where it derives its authority. In other words, we must ask why we are bound to follow the
law once we are aware of its content. Locke begins this discussion by reiterating that the
law of nature “is the care and preservation of oneself.” Given this law, he states that
virtue should not be understood as a duty but rather the “convenience” of human beings.
In this sense, the good is nothing more than what is useful. Further, he adds, the
observance of this law is not so much an obligation but rather “a privilege and an
advantage, to which we are led by expediency” (Law, VI: 181). This indicates that Locke
thinks that actions that are in conformity with the law are useful and practical. In other
words, it is in our best interest to follow the law. While this characterization of why we in
fact follow the law is compelling, there is nevertheless still an inquiry to be made into why
we ought to follow the law.

Locke begins his treatment of this question by stating that no one can oblige us to do
anything unless the one who obliges has some superior right and power over us. The
obligation that is generated between such a superior power and those who are subject to
it results in two kinds of duties: (1) the duty to pay obedience to the command of the
superior power. Because our faculties are suited to discover the existence of the divine
lawmaker, Locke takes it to be impossible to avoid this discovery, barring some damage or
impediment to our faculties. This duty is ultimately grounded in God’s will as the force by
which we were created (Law, VI: 183). (2) The duty to suffer punishment as a result of the
failure to honor the first duty—obedience. Now, it might seem odd that it would be
necessary to postulate that punishment results from the failure to respect a law the
content of which is only that we must take care of ourselves. In other words, how could
anyone express so little interest in taking care of himself or herself that the fear of
punishment is needed to motivate the actions necessary for such care? It is worth quoting
Locke’s answer in full:

[A] liability to punishment, which arises from a failure to pay dutiful obedience, so that
those who refuse to be led by reason and to own that in the matter of morals and right
conduct they are subject to a superior authority may recognize that they are constrained
by force and punishment to be submissive to that authority and feel the strength of Him
whose will they refuse to follow. And so the force of this obligation seems to be grounded
in the authority of a lawmaker, so that power compels those who cannot be moved by
warnings. (Law, VI: 183)

So, even though the existence, content, and authority of the law of nature are known in
virtue of the faculties possessed by all rational creatures—sense experience and reason—
Locke recognizes that there are people who “refuse to be led by reason.” Because these
people do not see the binding force of the law by their faculties alone, they need some
other impetus to motivate their behavior. But, Locke thinks very ill of those who are in
need of this other impetus. He says the these features of the law of nature can be
discovered by anyone who is diligent about directing their mind to them, and can be
concealed from no one “unless he loves blindness and darkness and casts off nature in
order that he may avoid his duty” (Law, VI: 189, see also Government, II.6).

d. Reconciling the Law with Happiness

The main lines of Locke’s natural law theory are as follows: there is a moral law that is (1)
discoverable by the combined work of reason and sense experience, and (2) binding on
human beings in virtue of being decreed by God. Now, in §1 above, we saw that Locke
thinks that all human beings are naturally oriented to the pursuit of happiness. This is
because we are motivated to pursue things if they promise pleasure and to avoid things if
they promise pain. It has seemed to many commentators that these two discussions of
moral principles are in tension with each other. On the view described in Law, Locke
straightforwardly appeals to reason and our ability to understand the nature of God’s
attributes to ground our obligation to follow the law of nature. In other words, what is
lawful ought to be followed because God wills it and what is unlawful ought to be rejected
because it is not willed by God. Because we can straightforwardly see that God is the law-
giver and that we are by nature subordinate to Him, we ought to follow the law. By
contrast, in the discussion of happiness and pleasure in the Essay, Locke explains that
good and evil reduce to what is pleasurable and what is painful. While he does also
indicate that the special categories of good and evil—moral good and moral evil—are no
more than the conformity or disagreement between our actions and a law, he immediately
adds that such conformity or disagreement is followed by rewards or punishments that
flow from the lawmaker’s will. From this discussion, then, it is difficult to see whether
Locke holds that it is the reward and punishment that binds human beings to act in
accordance with the law, or if it is the fact that the law is willed by God.

One way to approach this problem is to suggest that Locke changed his mind. Because of
the thirty-year gap between Law and the Essay, we might be tempted to think that the
more rationalist picture, where the law and its authority are based on reason, was the
young Locke’s view when he wrote Law. This view, the story would go, was replaced by
Locke’s more considered and mature view, hedonism. But this approach must be resisted
because both theories are present in early and late works. The role of pleasure and pain
with respect to morality is present not only in the Essay, but is invoked in Law (passage
quoted at the end of §2c), and many other various minor essays written in the years
between Law and Essay (for example, ‘Morality’ (c.1677–78) in Political Essays, 267–69).
Likewise, the role of the authority of God's will is retained after Law, again evident in
various minor essays (for example, ‘Virtue B’ (1681) in Political Essays, 287-
88), Government II.6), Locke’s correspondence (for example, to James Tyrrell, 4 August
1690, Correspondence, Vol.4, letter n.1309) and even in the Essay itself (II.xxviii.8). An
answer to how we might reconcile these two positions is suggested when we consider the
texts where appeals to both theories are found side-by-side in certain passages.
In his essay OfEthick in General (c. 1686–88) Locke affirms the hedonist view that
happiness and misery consist only in pleasure and pain, and that we all naturally seek
happiness. But in the very next paragraph, he states that there is an important difference
between moral and natural good and evil—the pleasure and pain that are consequences of
virtuous and vicious behavior are grounded in the divine will. Locke notes that drinking to
excess leads to pain in the form of headache or nausea. This is an example of a natural
evil. By contrast, transgressing a law would not have any painful consequences if the law
were not decreed by a superior lawmaker. He adds that it is impossible to motivate the
actions of rational agents without the promise of pain or pleasure (Of Ethick in
General, §8). From these considerations, Locke suggests that the proper foundation of
morality, a foundation that will entail an obligation to moral principles, needs two things.
First, we need the proof of a law, which presupposes the existence of a lawmaker who is
superior to those to whom the law is decreed. The lawmaker has the right to ordain the
law and the power to reward and punish. Second, it must be shown that the content of the
law is discoverable to humankind (Of Ethick in General, §12). In this text it seems that
Locke suggests that both the force and authority of the divine decree and the promise of
reward and punishment are necessary for the proper foundation of an obligating moral
law.
A similar line of argument is found in the Essay. There, Locke asserts that in order to judge
moral success or failure, we need a rule by which to measure and judge action. Further,
each rule of this sort has an “enforcement of Good and Evil.” This is because, according to
Locke, “where-ever we suppose a Law, suppose also some Reward or Punishment
annexed to that Law” (Essay, II.xxviii.6). Locke states that some promise of pleasure or
pain is necessary in order to determine the will to pursue or avoid certain actions. Indeed,
he puts the point even more strongly, saying that it would be in vain for the intelligent
being who decrees the rule of law to so decree without entailing reward or punishment for
the obedient or the unfaithful (see also Government, II.7). It seems, then, that reason
discovers the fact that a divine law exists and that it derives from the divine will and, as
such, is binding. We might think, as Stephen Darwall suggests in The British Moralists and
the Internal Ought, that if reason is that which discovers our obligation to the law, the role
for reward and punishment is to motivate our obedience to the law. While this succeeds in
making room for both the rationalist and hedonist strains in Locke’s view, some other
texts seem to indicate that by reason alone we ought to be motivated to follow moral
laws.

One striking instance of this kind of suggestion is found in the third book of
the Essay where Locke boldly states that “Morality is capable of Demonstration” in the
same way as mathematics (Essay, III.xi.16). He explains that once we understand the
existence and nature of God as a supreme being who is infinite in power, goodness, and
wisdom and on whom we depend, and our own nature “as understanding, rational
Beings,” we should be able to see that these two things together provide the foundation of
both our duty and the appropriate rules of action. On Locke’s view, with focused attention
the measures of right and wrong will become as clear to us as the propositions of
mathematics (Essay, IV.iii.18). He gives two examples of such certain moral principles to
make the point: (1) “Where there is no Property, there is no Injustice” and (2) “No
Government allows absolute Liberty.” He explains that property implies a right to
something and injustice is the violation of a right to something. So, if we clearly see the
intensional definition of each term, we see that (1) is necessarily true. Similarly,
government indicates the establishment of a society based on certain rules, and absolute
liberty is the freedom from any and all rules. Again, if we understand the definitions of the
two terms in the proposition, it becomes obvious that (2) is necessarily true. And, Locke
states, following this logic, 1 and 2 are as certain as the proposition that “a Triangle has
three Angles equal to two right ones” (Essay, IV.iii.18). If moral principles have the same
status as mathematical principles, it is difficult to see why we would need further
inducement to use these principles to guide our behavior. While there is no clear answer
to this question, Locke does provide a way to understand the role of reward and
punishment in our obligation to moral principles despite the fact that it seems that they
ought to obligate by reason alone.

Early in the Essay, over the course of giving arguments against the existence of innate
ideas, Locke addresses the possibility of innate moral principles. He begins by saying that
for any proposed moral rule human beings can, with good reason, demand justification.
This precludes the possibility of innate moral principles because, if they were innate, they
would be self-evident and thus would not be candidates for justification. Next, Locke notes
that despite the fact that there are no innate moral principles, there are certain principles
that are undeniable, for example, that “men should keep their Compacts.” However, when
asked why people follow this rule, different answers are given. A “Hobbist” will say that it
is because the public requires it, and the “Leviathan” will punish those who disobey the
law. A “Heathen” philosopher will say that it is because following such a law is a virtue,
which is the highest perfection for human beings. But a Christian philosopher, the
category to which Locke belongs, will say that it is because “God, who has the Power of
eternal Life and Death, requires it of us” (Essay, I.iii.5). Locke builds on this statement in
the following section when he notes that while the existence of God and the truth of our
obedience to Him is made manifest by the light of reason, it is possible that there are
people who accept the truth of moral principles, and follow them, without knowing or
accepting the “true ground of Morality; which can only be the Will and Law of God” (Essay,
I.iii.6). Here Locke is suggesting that we can accept a true moral law as binding and follow
it as such, but for the wrong reasons. This means that while the Hobbist, the Heathen, and
the Christian might all take the same law of keeping one’s compacts to be obligating, only
the Christian does it for the right reason—that God’s will requires our obedience to that
law. Indeed, Locke states that if we receive truths by revelation they too must be subject
to reason, for to follow truths based on revelation alone is insufficient (see Essay, IV.xviii).

Now, to determine the role of pain and pleasure in this story, we turn to Locke’s discussion
of the role of pain and pleasure in general. He says that God has joined pains and
pleasures to our interaction with many things in our environment in order to alert us to
things that are harmful or helpful to the preservation of our bodies (Essay, II.vii.4). But,
beyond this, Locke notes that there is another reason that God has joined pleasure and
pain to almost all our thoughts and sensations: so that we experience imperfections and
dissatisfactions. He states that the kinds of pleasures that we experience in connection to
finite things are ephemeral and not representative of complete happiness. This
dissatisfaction coupled with the natural drive to obtain happiness opens the possibility of
our being led to seek our pleasure in God, where we anticipate a more stable and,
perhaps, permanent happiness. Appreciating this reason why pleasure and pain are
annexed to most of our ideas will, according to Locke, lead the way to the ultimate aim of
the enquiry in human understanding—the knowledge and veneration of God (Essay,
II.vii.5–6). So, Locke seems to be suggesting here that pain and pleasure prompt us to find
out about God, in whom complete and eternal happiness is possible. This search, in turn,
leads us to knowledge of God, which will include the knowledge that He ought to be
obeyed in virtue of His decrees alone. Pleasure and pain, reward and punishment, on this
interpretation, are the means by which we are led to know God’s nature, which, once
known, motivates obedience to His laws. This mechanism supports Locke’s claim that real
happiness is to be found in the perfection of our intellectual nature—in embarking on the
search for knowledge of God, we embark on the intellectual journey that will lead to the
kind of knowledge that brings permanent pleasure. This at least suggests that the
knowledge of God has the happy double-effect of leading to both more stable happiness
and the understanding that God is to be obeyed in virtue of His divine will alone.

But given that all human beings experience pain and pleasure, Locke needs to explain
how it is that certain people are virtuous, having followed the experience of dissatisfaction
to arrive at the knowledge of God, and other people are vicious, who seek pleasure and
avoid pain for no reason other than their own hedonic sensations.

4. Power, Freedom, and Suspending Desire

a. Passive and Active Powers
In any discussion of ethics, it is important not only to determine what, exactly, counts as
virtuous and vicious behavior, but also the extent to which we are in control of our actions.
This is important because we want to be able to adequately connect behavior to agents in
order to attribute praise or blame, reward or punishment to an agent, we need to be able
to see the way in which she is the causal source of her own actions. Locke addresses this
issue in one of the longest chapters of the Essay—“Of Power.” In this chapter, Locke
describes how he understands the nature of power, the human will, freedom and its
connection to happiness, and, finally, the reasons why many (or even most) people do not
exercise their freedom in the right kind of way and are unhappy as a result. It is worth
noting here that this chapter of the Essay underwent major revisions throughout the five
editions of the Essay and in particular between the first and second edition. The present
discussion is based on the fourth edition of the Essay (but see the “References and
Further Reading” below for articles that discuss the relevance of the changes throughout
all five editions).

Locke states that we come to have the idea of “power” by observing the fact that things
change over time. Finite objects are changed as a result of interactions with other finite
objects (for example fire melts gold) and we notice that our own ideas change either as a
result of external stimulus (for example the noise of a jackhammer interrupts the
contemplation of a logic problem) or as a result of our own desires (for example hunger
interrupts the contemplation of a logic problem). The idea of power always includes some
kind of relation to action or change. The passive side of power entails the ability to be
changed and the active side of power entails the ability to make change. Our observation
of almost all sensible things furnishes us with the idea of passive power. This is because
sensible things appear to be in almost constant flux—they are changed by their
interaction with other sensible things, with heat, cold, rain, and time. And, Locke adds,
such observations give us no fewer instances of the idea of active power, for “whatever
Change is observed, the Mind must collect a Power somewhere, able to make that
Change” (Essay, II.xxi.4). However, when it comes to active powers, Locke states that the
clearest and most distinct idea of active power comes to us from the observation of the
operations of our own minds. He elaborates by stating that there are two kinds of
activities with which we are familiar: thinking and motion. When we consider body in
general, Locke states that it is obvious that we receive no idea of thinking, which only
comes from a contemplation of the operations of our own minds. But neither does body
provide the idea of the beginning of motion, only of the continuation or transfer of motion.
The idea of the beginning of motion, which is the idea associated with the active power of
motion, only comes to us when we reflect “on what passes in our selves, where we find by
Experience, that barely by willing it, barely by a thought of the Mind, we can move the
parts of our Bodies, which were before at rest” (Essay, II.xxi.4). So, it seems, the operation
of our minds, in particular the connection between one kind of thought, willing, and a
change in either the content of our minds or the orientation of our bodies, provides us with
the idea of an active power.

b. The Will

The power to stop, start, or continue an action of the mind or of the body is what Locke
calls the will. When the power of the will is exercised, a volition (or willing) occurs. Any
action (or forbearance of action) that follows volition is considered voluntary. The power of
the will is coupled with the power of the understanding. This latter power is defined as the
power of perceiving ideas and their agreement or disagreement with one another. The
understanding, then, provides ideas to the mind and the will, depending on the content of
these ideas, prefers certain courses of action to others. Locke explains that the will directs
action according to its preference—and here we must understand “preference” in the
most general sense of inclination, partiality, or taste. In short, the will is attracted to
actions that promise the procurement of pleasing things and/or the distancing from
displeasing things. The technical term that Locke uses to describe that which determines
the will is uneasiness. He elaborates, stating that the reason why any action is continued
is “the present satisfaction in it” and the reason why any action is taken to move to a new
state is dissatisfaction (Essay, II.xxi.29). Indeed, Locke affirms that uneasiness, at bottom,
is really no more than desire, where the mind is disturbed by a “want of some absent
good” (Essay, II.xxi.31). So, any pain or discomfort of the mind or body is a motive for the
will to command a change of state so as to move from unease to ease. Locke notes that it
is a common fact of life that we often experience multiple uneasinesses at one time, all
pressing on us and demanding relief. But, he says, when we ask the question of what
determines the will at any one moment, the answer is the most pressing uneasiness
(Essay, II.xxi.31). Imagine a situation where you are simultaneously experiencing
discomfort as a result of hunger and the anxiety of being under-prepared for tomorrow’s
philosophy exam. On Locke’s view the most intense or the most pressing of these
uneasinesses will determine your will to command the action that will relieve it. This
means that no matter how much you want to stay at the library to study, if hunger comes
to be the more pressing than the desire to pass the exam, hunger will determine the will
to act, commanding the action that will result in the procurement of food.

While Locke states that the most pressing uneasiness determines the will, he adds that it
does so “for the most part, but not always.” This is because he takes the mind to have the
power to “suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires” (Essay, II.xxi.47).
While a desire is suspended, Locke says, our mind, being temporarily freed from the
discomfort of the want for the thing desired, has the opportunity to consider the relative
worth of that thing. The idea here is that with appropriate deliberation about the value of
the desired thing we will come to see which things are really worth pursuing and which are
better left alone. And, Locke states, the conclusion at which we arrive after this
intellectual endeavor of consideration and examination will indicate what, exactly, we take
to be part of our happiness. And, in turn, by a mechanism that Locke does not describe in
any detail, our uneasiness and desire for that thing will change to reflect whether we
concluded that the thing does, indeed, play a role in our happiness or not (Essay,
II.xxi.56). The problem is that there is no clear explanation for how, exactly, the power to
suspend works. Despite this, Locke nowhere indicates that suspension is an action of the
mind that is determined by anything other than volition of the will. We know that Locke
takes all acts of the will to be determined by uneasiness. So, suspending our desires must
be the result of uneasiness for something. Investigating how Locke understands human
freedom and judgment will allow us to see what, exactly, we are uneasy for when we are
determined to suspend our desires.

c. Freedom
When the nature of the human will is under discussion, we often want to know the extent
of this faculty’s freedom. The reason why this question is important is because we want to
see how autonomously the will can act. Typically, the question takes the form of: is the
will free? Locke unequivocally denies that the will is free, implying, in fact, that it is a
category mistake to ask the question at all. This is because, on his view, both the will and
freedom are powers of agents, and it is a mistake to think that one power (the will) can
have as a property a second power (freedom) (Essay, II.xxi.20). Instead, Locke thinks that
the right question to pose is whether the agent is free. He defines freedom in the following
way:

[T]he Idea of Liberty, is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any particular

Action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is
preferr’d to the other; where either of them is not in the Power of the Agent to be
produced by him according to his Volition here he is not a Liberty, that Agent is
under Necessity. (Essay, II.xxi.8)

So, Locke considers that an agent is free in acting when her action is connected to her
volition in the right kind of way. That is, when her action (or forbearance of action) follows
from her volition, she is free. And, her volition is determined by the “thought of the mind”
that indicates which action is preferred.

Notice here that Locke takes an agent to be free in acting when she acts according to her
preference—this means that her actions are determined by her preference. This plainly
shows that Locke does not endorse a kind of freedom of indifference, according to which
the will can choose to command an action other than the thing most preferred at a given
moment. This is the kind of freedom most often associated with indeterminism. Freedom,
then, for Locke, is no more than the ability to execute the action that is taken to result in
the most pleasure at a given moment. The problem with this way of defining freedom is
that it seems unable to account for the kinds of actions we typically take to be emblematic
of virtuous or vicious behavior. This is because we tend to think that the power of freedom
is a power that allows us to avoid vicious actions, perhaps especially those that are
pleasurable, in order to pursue a righteous path instead. For instance, on the traditional
Christian picture, when we wonder about why God would allow Adam to sin, the response
given is that Adam was created as a free being. While God could have created beings that,
like automata, unfailingly followed the good and the true, He saw that it was all things
considered better to create beings that were free to choose their own actions. This
decision was made despite the fact that God foresaw the sinful use to which this freedom
would be put. This traditional view explains Adam’s sin in the following way: Adam knew
that it was God’s commandment that he was not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Adam
also knew that following God’s commandment was the right thing to do. So, in the
moment where he was tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he knew it was
the wrong thing to do, but did it anyway. This is because, the story goes, and in that
moment he was free to decide whether to follow the commandment or to give in to
temptation. Of his own free choice, Adam decided to follow temptation. This means that in
the moment of original sin, both following God’s commandment and eating the fruit were
live options for Adam, and he chose the fruit of his own agency.

Now, on Locke’s system, a different explanation obtains. Given his definition of freedom, it
is difficult, at least prima facie, to see how Adam could be blamed for choosing the fruit
over the commandment. For, according to Locke, an agent acts freely when her actions
are determined by her volitions. So, if Adam’s greatest uneasiness was for the fruit, and
the act of eating the fruit was the result of his will commanding such action based on his
preference, then he acted freely. But, on this understanding of freedom, it is difficult to
see how, exactly, Adam can be morally blamed for eating the fruit. The question now
becomes: is Adam to be blamed for anticipating more pleasure from the consumption of
the fruit than from following God’s command? In other words, was it possible for Adam to
alter the intensity of his desire for the fruit? It seems that on Locke’s view, the answer
must be connected to one of the powers he takes human beings to possess—the power to
suspend desires. And, in certain passages of the Essay, Locke implies that suspending
desires and freedom are linked, suggesting that while agents are acting freely whenever
their volitions and actions are linked in the right kind of way, there is, perhaps, a proper
use of the power to act freely.
d. Judgment
Locke asserts that the “highest perfection of intellectual nature” is the “pursuit of true and
solid happiness.” He adds that taking care not to mistake imaginary happiness for real
happiness is “the necessary foundation of our liberty.” And, he writes that the more
closely we are focused on the pursuit of true happiness, which is our greatest good,
the less our wills are determined to command actions to pursue lesser goods that are not
representative of the true good (Essay, II.xxi.51). In other words, the more we are
determined by true happiness, the more we will to suspend our desires for lesser things.
This suggests that Locke takes there to be a right way to use our power of freedom. Locke
indicates that there are instances where it is impossible to resist a particular desire—when
a violent passion strikes, for instance. He also states, however, that aside from these kinds
of violent passions, we are always able to suspend our desire for any thing in order to give
ourselves the time and the emotional distance from the thing desired in which to consider
the worth of thing relative to our general goal: true happiness. True happiness, or real
bliss, on Locke’s view, is to be found in the pursuit of things that are true intrinsic goods,
which promise “exquisite and endless Happiness” in the next life (Essay, II.xxi.70). In
other words, true good is something like the Beatific Vision.

Now, Locke admits that it is a common experience to be carried by our wills towards
things that we know do not play a role in our overall and true happiness. However, while
he allows that the pursuit of things that promise pleasure, even if only a temporary
pleasure, represents the action of a free agent, he also says that it is possible for us to be
“at Liberty in respect of willing” when we choose “a remote Good as an end to be
pursued” (Essay, II.xxi.56). The central thing to note here is that Locke is drawing a
distinction between immediate and remote goods. The difference between these two kinds
of goods is temporal. For instance, acting to obtain the pleasure of intoxication is to
pursue an immediate good while acting to obtain the pleasure of health is to pursue a
remote good. So, we can suppose here that Locke is suggesting that forgoing immediate
goods and privileging remote goods is characteristic of the right use of liberty (but see
Rickless for an alternative interpretation). If this is so, it is certainly not a difficult
suggestion to accept. Indeed, it is fairly straightforwardly clear that many immediate
pleasures do not, in the end, contribute to overall and long-lasting happiness.

The question now, and it is a question that Locke himself poses, is “How Men come often
to prefer the worse to the better; and to chase that, which, by their own Confession, has
made them miserable” (Essay, II.xxi.56). Locke gives two answers. First, bad luck can
account for people not pursuing their true happiness. For instance, someone who is
afflicted with an illness, injury, or tragedy is consumed by her pain and is thus unable to
adequately focus on remote pleasures. Quoting Locke’s second answer
“Other uneasinesses arise from our desire of absent good; which desires always bear
proportion to, and depend on the judgment we make, and the relish we have of any
absent good; in both which we are apt to be variously misled, and that by our own fault”
(Essay, II.xxi.57).

Here Locke states that our own faulty judgment is to blame for our preferring the worse to
the better. This is because, on his view, the uneasiness we have for any given object is
directly proportional to the judgments we make about the merit of the things to which we
are attracted. So, if we are most uneasy for immediate pleasures, it is our own fault
because we have judged these things to be best for us. In this way, Locke makes room in
his system for praiseworthiness and blameworthiness with respect to our desires: absent
illness, injury, or tragedy, we ourselves are responsible for endorsing, through judgment,
our uneasinesses. He continues, stating that the major reason why we often misjudge the
value of things for our true happiness is that our current state fools us into thinking that
we are, in fact, truly happy. Because it is difficult for us to consider the state of true,
eternal happiness, we tend to think that in those moments when we enjoy pleasure and
feel no uneasiness, we are truly happy. But such thoughts are mistaken on his view.
Indeed, as Locke says, the greatest reason why so few people are moved to pursue the
greatest, remote good is that most people are convinced that they can be truly happy
without it.

The cause of our mistaken judgments is the fact that it is very difficult for us to compare
present and immediate pleasures and pains with future or remote pleasures and pains. In
fact, Locke likens this difficulty to the trouble we typically experience in correctly
estimating the size of distant objects. When objects are close to us, it is easy to determine
their size. When they are far away, it is much more difficult. Likewise, he says, for
pleasures and pains. He notes that if every sip of alcohol were accompanied by headache
and nausea, no one would ever drink. But, “the fallacy of a little difference in time”
provides the space for us to mistakenly judge that the alcohol contributes to our true
happiness (Essay, II.xxi.63). We experience this difficulty of judging remote pleasures and
pains due to the “weak and narrow Constitution of our Minds” (Essay, II.xxi.64). The
condition of our minds makes it easy for us to think that there could be no greater good
than the relief of being unburdened of a present pain. In order to correct this problem and
convince a man to judge that his greatest good is to be found in a remote thing, Locke
says that all we must do is convince him that “Virtue and Religion are necessary to his
Happiness” (Essay, II.xxi.60). Locke explains that a “due consideration will do it in most
cases; and practice, application, and custom in most” (Essay, II.xxi.69). The suggestion is
that contemplation and deliberation alone may be sufficient to correct our problem of
considering all immediate pleasures and pains to be greater than any future ones. And, if
that does not work, practice and habit can also correct this problem. By practice and
exposure, we can, according to Locke, change the agreeableness or disagreeableness of
things. It seems, then, that the power to suspend desire must be the power to reject
immediate pleasures in favor of the pursuit of remote or future pleasures. However, it
seems that in order to suspend in this way, we must already have judged that these
immediate pleasures are not representative of the true good. For, without this kind of prior
judgment, it seems that we would not be in a position to suspend in the way that is
required. This is because absent the prior judgment, there would be no reason for the
uneasiness we felt for the perceived good to not determine the will. The question to
resolve now is how to get ourselves into a position where we are uneasy for the remote,
true good and can suspend our desires for immediate pleasures. In other words, we must
determine how we can come to seriously judge immediate pleasures to not have a part in
our true happiness.

5. Living the Moral Life

In order to behave in a way that will lead us to the greatest and truest happiness, we must
come to judge the remote and future good, the “unspeakable,” “infinite,” and “eternal”
joys of heaven to be our greatest and thus most pleasurable good (Essay, II.xxi.37–38).
But, on Locke’s view, our actions are always determined by the thing we are most uneasy
about at any given moment. So, it seems, we need to cultivate the uneasiness for the
infinite joys of heaven. But if, as Locke suggests, the human condition is such that our
minds, in their weak and narrow states, judge immediate pleasures to be representative of
the greatest good, it is difficult to see how, exactly, we can circumvent this weakened
state in order to suspend our more terrestrial desires and thus have the space to correctly
judge which things will lead to our true happiness. While in the Essay Locke does not say
as much as we might like on this topic, elsewhere in his writings we can get a sense for
how he might respond to this question.

In 1684, Locke was asked by his friend Edward Clarke, for advice about raising and
educating his children. In 1693, Locke’s musings on this topic were published as Some
Thoughts Concerning Education (hereafter: Education). This text provides insight into the
importance that Locke places on the connection between the pursuit of true happiness
and early childhood education in general. Locke begins his discussion by noting that
happiness is crucially dependent on the existence of both a sound mind and a sound body.
He adds that it sometimes happens that by a great stroke of luck, someone is born whose
constitution is so strong that they do not need help from others to direct their minds
towards the things that will make them happy. But this is an extraordinarily rare
occurrence. Indeed, Locke notes: “I think I may say, that, of all the men we meet with,
nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education”
(Education, §1). It is the education we receive as young children, on Locke’s view, that
determines how adept we are at targeting the right objects in order to secure our
happiness. He observes that the minds of young children are easily distracted by all kinds
of sensory stimuli and notes that the first step to developing a mind that is focused on the
right kind of things is to ensure that the body is healthy. Indeed, the objective in physical
health is to get the body in the perfect state to be able to obey and carry out the mind’s
commands. The more difficult part of this equation is training the mind to “be disposed to
consent to nothing, but what may be suitable to the dignity and excellency of a rational
creature” (Education, §31). And Locke goes further still, stating that the foundation of all
virtue is to be placed in the ability of a human being to “deny himself his own desires,
cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best, though the
appetite lean the other way” (Education, §33). The way to do this, he says, is to resist
immediately present pleasures and pains and to wait to act until reason has determined
the value of the desirable things in one’s environment.

Locke states that we must recognize the difference between “natural wants” and “wants
of fancy.” The former are the kinds of desires that must be obeyed and that no amount of
reasoning will allow us to give up. The latter, however, are created. Locke states that
parents and teachers must ensure that children develop the habit of resisting any kind of
created fancy, thus keeping the mind free from desires for things that do not lead to true
happiness (Education, §107). If parents and teachers are successful in blocking the
development of “wants of fancy,” Locke thinks that the children who benefit from this
success will become adults who will be “allowed greater liberty” because they will be
more closely connected to the dictates of reason and not the dictates of passion
(Education, §108). So, in order to live the moral life and listen to reason over passions, it
seems that we need to have had the benefit of conscientious care-givers in our infancy
and youth (see also Government, II.63). This raises the difficulty of how to connect an
individual’s moral successes or failures with the individual herself. For, if she had the bad
moral luck of unthinking or careless parents and teachers, it seems difficult to see how
she could be blamed for failing to follow a virtuous path.

One way of approaching this difficulty is to recall that Locke takes the content of law of
nature, the moral law decreed by God, to be the preservation both of ourselves and of the
other people in our communities in order to glorify God (Law, IV). The dictate to help to
preserve the other people in our community shifts some of the moral burden from the
individual onto the community. This means that it is every individual’s responsibility to do
all they can, all things considered, to preserve themselves and to ensure, to the best of
their ability, that the children in their communities are raised to avoid developing wants of
fancy. In this way, children will develop the habit of suspending their desires for terrestrial
pleasures and focusing their efforts on attaining the true happiness that results from
acting to secure remote goods.