POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 3

SoN: 3 problems

  1. Specificity of Natural Law
  2. Conflict Partiality
  3. Uncertainty of punishment

Civil Society as a solution

  • consent is crucial
  • we are free and equal, any authorithy must be consentual
  • Social laws must be based on Natural Laws, obedience must be consensual
  • consent: imagining ourselves in SoN and realize its problems, then consenting to some arbiter of conflict

2 forms of consent:
1. Express Consent: leaving SoN
2. Tacit Consent: future generations

  • by entering a society you consent to it to some extent

individuals have property, the state has jurisdiction

  • German consent can extend to Belgium, via individuals consenting to the German CS/SC

PITKEN: Locke without consent, following NL is sufficient
SIMMONS: consent is the bedrock of Locke
- for Simmons the state should have SoN zones for people who refuse to consent [no more Tacit Consent]
WARLDEN: we must be able to withdraw consent freely

Against Political Absolutism (Hobbs): autocracy is worse than SoN, rulers must be bound by certain laws

Private Property: if a man has transformed smt by labour, it is now beyond common property and must be private
- labour theory of value: labour composes most of a thing’s value
- apple tree: common prop.; apple tree I’ve taken care of: private prop.
- a better life when you’re the source of your own property
- enough must be left for others
[Private property is derived from my right to self-preservation]

LEA YPI: Locke for and against colonialism (natives own land if they’ve introduced labour into it)

Right to Revolution: Locke justifies the Glorious Revolution
- tyranny and loss of consent go together, revolution can be justified

Slavery is acceptable as an alternative to capital punishment
- the unjust party of a just war can be killed or enslaved
- God gives up ownership once a man has transgressed NL