The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the
only idea which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain,
and yet that if we aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then
has to be done is to seek out “the rules and measures of human actions
which lead to happiness.” This is the office of ethics, the end of which
is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are one. With Locke moral
actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an understanding
and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr.
Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question
in connection with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether
the man be free.” The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is
“a power to act, or not to act, according as the mind directs.” In his
“Thoughts concerning Education” Locke affirms that “the result of our
judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines the man, who
could not be free, if his will were determined by anything but his own
desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says the
author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the
will, by its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude,
that those who are not governed by reason have not true freedom.
We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on
Institutional Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property
rights are given only by labor, and not by occupation, and that labor
is the source of all values. The latter doctrine cannot now be accepted
as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, but Locke deservedly
holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed to have
been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of
him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many
valuable observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.”
Any fresh light that can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so
profound a thinker, especially on the important question of ethics, is of
value and hence we welcome the present work as an acceptable addition to
philosophic literature.
Ω.
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