Revolution & Rights

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration of Independence, one of the most salient documents in political history. The declaration marked the colonists’ official act to “dissolve the political bands” between America and Great Britain, but more importantly, it represented a breakthrough in a long fight for liberty. For the colonists, this meant governance in accord with natural rights. Thomas Jefferson famously described it as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The colonists resented Great Britain for violating something they believed they were entitled to: the rights of Englishmen. Rights, as the colonists conceived of them, were largely rooted in a philosophical tradition known as natural law, refined and popularized by English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke. Produced in the aftermath of Great Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, Locke’s writings on natural law provided a philosophical substrate that ended up molding the American ideal of natural rights.  

Jefferson’s ideal that “all men are created equal” and are endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” mirrored Locke’s belief in universal equality and rights–importantly, Locke claimed those rights were deducible through reason alone, as opposed to divine command. Yet, despite that supposed distinction between reason and divine command, Locke’s vision of natural law and rights was inherently reliant on scriptural support. And, if Locke’s theory of natural law and rights was ultimately theological, what does that mean for the foundations of American liberty?

Answering these questions necessitates a look at the philosophy and history to which Locke’s work responds, an analysis and critique of his theory itself, and finally how that theory was later adapted by Jefferson. 

Locke’s World

In the early modern period, divine monarchy dominated western politics. Locke’s radical tradition of liberalism would soon help challenge and transform that political landscape from one of divine rights to one of natural freedom. He did not, however, invent the concept of natural law: in fact, natural law has existed since antiquity. So, if the concept has existed for millennia, what does it mean and how did Locke adapt it?

In essence, natural law is a set of objective, universal moral laws that apply to everyone, unqualifiedly. Locke’s adaptation defines natural law as the duty to not harm other humans in their “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” While natural law refers to a universal rule, this is different from natural rights, which are rights governed by reason that all humans innately possess: those being a right to life, liberty, and property. 

In the Christian tradition, natural law relies on reason alone and divine law on revelation. While Locke alleges that natural law and rights are deducible through reason alone, his reasoning says otherwise. Before grappling with Locke’s line of reasoning, we must examine the thinker and theory that motivated his work: Robert Filmer and his defense of the divine right of kings.

Filmer & Divine Rights

Filmer, a 17th-century English political theorist, defended the divine right of kings. Locke’s First Treatise of Government was a direct rebuttal of Filmer’s Patriarcha, which argued monarchical authority was natural, divinely sanctioned, hereditary, and absolute. Written during the English Civil War and published posthumously during the Restoration to legitimize the Stuart monarchy, Filmer’s argument ultimately relies on the premise that God granted Adam dominion over all living things. This premise comes from his interpretation of the following excerpt from Genesis:

“So, God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). 

Filmer interpreted this as God granting Adam absolute authority over family, property, and posterity. From that he inferred that women were naturally subject to their husband’s rule and children were naturally subject to their parents’ rule. Moreover, Filmer added that patriarchal dominion did not stop at Adam:

“Adam was lord of his children, so his children under him had a command over their own children, but still with subordination to the first parent, who is lord paramount over his children’s children to all generations, as being the grandfather of his people” (Patriarcha, 4).

Filmer argued that in addition to children being naturally subordinate to their parents (ultimately the father), this “royal authority” (absolute rule by parents) was also passed down to the children, the children’s children, and so on. While he used the lineage of Adam as a paradigm of familial patriarchy, he also equated parental power to political power, meaning that kings had absolute power over those he governed. Locke’s First Treatise was an attempt to directly dismantle Filmer’s argument, and in doing so, he laid the groundwork for his own theory.

The State of Nature

Locke’s theory of natural law developed out of differences with Filmer over scriptural interpretation. The difference between Locke and Filmer’s interpretative frameworks concerned the use of natural reason–and more importantly, appeal to divine command. Locke first addressed Filmer’s point that Adam was given absolute dominion over all other humans, writing:

“For though God gave Adam dominion over the world, yet he gave him no private dominion, exclusive of his children; the earth was to be their common inheritance” (First Treatise, §30). 

As opposed to Filmer, Locke said that God granted all humankind the earth as common property and dominion over it and its creatures. While he pointed out an apparent lack of explicit dominion granted to Adam, the denial of private dominion was merely a negation. Still, it was an important negation that laid the groundwork for the first stage of natural law: the state of nature. Locke describes this as the state humans initially find themselves in:

“A state of perfect freedom [for humans] to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons […] without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man” (Second Treatise, §4). 

For Locke, the state of nature exists as a contrast from political society: the former is natural, while the latter is artificial. In the state of nature, individuals have liberty to order their lives as they please, not being confined to the positive law instituted in political society. While it is described as a state of liberty, Locke emphasizes it is not a state of license: rather, individuals only have license to exercise their liberty so long as it does not harm the property of others. So, why is the state of nature one of liberty but not of license? Locke said it was equality, adding that the state of nature is:

“a state also of equality […] there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection” (Second Treatise, §4). 

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke argued that the human mind begins as a Tabula Rasa (blank slate), meaning all knowledge is gained through experience. While he did not explicitly reference this essay in Second Treatise (it was also published after the Second Treatise), he alluded to those concepts as evidence of equality: all humans are born equally devoid of any knowledge. In the Second Treatise, Locke made an adjacent argument that humans are not only born equally ignorant but are born of the same capacities and faculties. Thus, the state of nature is a state of absolute freedom and equality, two features that set the foundation for the next stage, natural law.

The Divinity of Natural Law

Locke’s description of the state of nature laid the foundation for his theory of natural law. He defined natural law as follows:

“That being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property” (Second Treatise, §6).

While Locke claimed natural law is dependent on reason alone, it presupposed divine creation. He inferred from the premises of equality and independence that no one ought to harm another, yet, without scriptural support, reason can merely observe equality of faculties and capacities, not an equality of moral value. Moreover, even if it could observe moral value, it cannot logically infer why one ought to act morally. Thus, Locke’s theory of the state of nature and natural law inherently relies on scriptural support.

For Locke, equality was first referred to as the equality of species, rank, faculties, and capacities–but moral equality cannot be logically inferred from these observations, as it has no connection to the premises. Because his interpretative framework validated scripture if it was compatible with natural reason, so long as his reasoning faculties seemed correct and the scripture seemed to be compatible with it, his claim could be deemed true. In this context, though it is logically impossible to empirically observe moral value, he infers moral value because it seems reasonable given his observations of equality of faculties and capacities.

Even if we did grant Locke that moral value was observable through natural reasoning faculties, a syllogism with a prescriptive conclusion is logically unsound because it is impossible to infer an ought statement from factual premises. This is because empirical evidence can only describe but cannot prescribe–thus, natural law’s prescriptiveness cannot be inferred from the state of nature’s descriptiveness. With this in mind, Locke once again used his reasoning faculties to discover what seemed true and then validate scripture with it–in turn, that validated scripture also acted to validate his reasoning faculties. Hence, the prescription of natural law is grounded in divine command.

Natural law also relies on divine command with respect to property. As stated in the definition of natural law, Locke believed that God granted humans the earth as a common gift and dominion over it and its creatures for good use; yet, humans are ultimately the property of God. For Locke, property is not merely private ownership of objects. It is also ownership of one’s body and labor. Thus, he concluded it is a duty to preserve oneself and others because it entails the preservation of God’s property: to not preserve that property would be a violation of divine command. Ultimately, the state of nature and natural law served as the universal principles to which political society must conform.

The Shape of Positive Law

The majority of Second Treatise is dedicated to outlining the principles of a political society characterized by legitimate political power: in other words, a government that functions in accord with natural law and rights. Locke’s overarching principle for political society is that natural law transcends positive law (conventional laws dictated by a government) in importance, and thus positive law must conform to natural law (with the exception of certain government prerogatives).

Given that Locke’s theory of natural law and rights is necessarily theological to a greater or lesser degree, that renders the moral architecture of a Lockean government as beholden to Christian theology. It is, however, important to recognize that a government grounded in a Lockean natural law does not justify a theocratic government (in fact, Locke was one of the staunchest supporters of separation between Church and State), but it does require a certain theological subscription to defend. So, what does that mean for the American idea of natural rights?

A Christian Declaration of Rights?

Locke’s theologically coated natural law thus informed not only his vision of legitimate government but also the broader intellectual inheritance in America. When Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal and are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he was alluding to Locke–though not entirely. Jefferson was a deist–a believer in a passive but omniscient creator, known through reason alone and disconnected from Christian theology. Importantly, deism does not require the same scriptural grounding that Locke’s argument evidently does. Thus, those inalienable rights outlined by Jefferson are not beholden to the same Christian theology that grounded Locke’s natural rights.

Despite the fact that Jefferson’s inalienable rights are disconnected from Christian theology, those rights were still grounded in an ill-defined notion of deism. The crux of Jefferson’s deism was that God was a kind of “supreme architect” of nature and cosmic “clockmaker” who set nature in motion but did not interfere with it. Hence, though Jefferson avoids Christian theology, there are arguably other problems with the metaphysical foundations of deism–notably, its vagueness.

While Locke and Jefferson’s ideas of natural rights have their theoretical gaps–gaps that concern some of the most mysterious questions of metaethics–they served (and still do serve) immense pragmatic purposes. Perhaps the enduring paradox of American liberty is that the rights we call natural may depend, in the end, on divinity.