The Good Life (Aristotle, Vol. 9, pp. 455-455, 471-502)

I really like Aristotle because he gets right to the point about why we have government. For Aristotle, the purpose of the state is the “good life.” 

The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life (478).

And for Aristotle, the “citizen” is the one who has “the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state” and that “a state is a body of citizens sufficing for the purposes of life” (472).  And these citizens, make up the structures and institutions of the state to bring about the “good life” for all those who make up the state.

A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determine what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community (488).

            What is interesting to me, though, is that the glue that keeps the state together is not mere random geographical occupation, security, or commerce. On the contrary, the glue that keeps the state together is affection, loyalty, and friendship.

But a state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only: if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. Nor does a state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice, nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse; ….  It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregation of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life (478).

Again, though, friendship and community is not the end goal, but a means to a greater end. But what is this “good life” and what is government’s role in helping achieve the “good life”? Professor Adler argues that one of the great philosophical mistakes is the idea that “happiness” is a psychological state rather than an “ethical” state. He makes a distinction between “happiness,” which describes the sum total of a good life, and “contentment,” which better describes the psychological state we have when our momentary desires are being met.

          In setting up this argument, he makes a distinction between “apparent goods,” things that we want or think we want, and “real goods,” things that we need, whether or not we know that we need them.

The two distinctions that we now have before us, distinctions generally neglected in modern thought – the distinction between natural and acquired desires, or needs and wants, and the distinction between real and merely apparent goods – enable us to state a self-evident truth that serves as the first principle of moral philosophy. We ought to desire whatever is really good for us and nothing else (Adler, “Ten Philosophical Mistakes,” 125).

This search for “real goods” versus “apparent goods” in our search for a “good life” reminds me of the narrator in Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” Professor Roger Shattuck points out that Marcel, throughout the books, has three chances to succeed. He argues that Marcel “tries three solutions to the puzzle of life, and one after the other they fail” (Shattuck, “Proust’s Way” 71). He refers to three “false scents,” which include (1) prestige and social status, (2) love (in the sense of sentimental attachment and the attainment of physical desire), and (3) art as a vocation. Yet, “[e]verything seems to go wrong for Marcel. Social success is empty. Love and friendship carry him not to the discovery of another person but into closer quarrels with himself. Art escapes him.” This led Marcel to wonder if he had “some infirmity in [his] nature” (78).  But even though the protagonist in these books constantly failed in his search, Shattuck argues, that “since error is recognized as a source of personal knowledge, the years of quest have not been wasted” (71).  From this, perhaps, one of the real goods that we cannot get enough of is skill and knowledge. Not as a means to gaining wealth, but as a means of learning to know ourselves and to better understand the world around us. I would argue that this type of “real good” is something that we cannot get enough of and will bring us to the “good life” and a final state of Aristotelian happiness (sometimes referred to as “Eudaimonia”).

           And from this, we can reason, that if happiness is getting whatever “is really good for us,” then the purpose of government:

… consists in the effort to discharge our moral obligations to seek whatever is really good for us and nothing else unless it is something, such as an innocuous apparent good, that does not interfere with our obtaining all the real good we need.

A just government can then aid and abet the pursuit of happiness on the part of its people by securing their natural rights to the real goods they need – life, liberty, and whatever else an individual needs, such as the protection of health, a sufficient measure of wealth, and other real goods that individuals cannot obtain solely by their own efforts (Id. 135).

The end of government, then, is not the accumulation of wealth or security. The accumulation of wealth and security is only a means to this greater end of living a virtuous or ethical life based upon self knowledge and knowledge of the world we live in.

           

Was Glaucon Right? (Plato, Vol. 7, pp. 295-373)

Johnathon Haidt, in his fascinating book The Righteous Mind, argues that Socrates' brother Glaucon portrayed a more accurate version of human nature than Socrates did.  

Haidt writes: "... I've painted a portrait of human nature that is somewhat cynical. I've argued that Glaucon was right that we care more about looking good than about truly being good. Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. We lie, cheat, and cut ethical corners quite often when we think we can get away with it, and then use our moral thinking to manage our reputations and justify ourselves to others. We believe our own post hoc reasoning so thoroughly that we end up self-righteously convinced of our own virtue" (Haidt 220). Is this portrait accurate? 

In Book II of the Republic, after Socrates disposed of Thrasymachus' arguments that might makes right, Glaucon asks him: "Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? [Socrates answered,] I should wish really to persuade you, ... if I could" (Vol. 7, 310). Notice again the theme of appearance versus reality. This is a common thread in the Republic.

Soon after this exchange, Glaucon recounted the story of the ring of Gyges to make his point about justice. Gyges was working as a shepherd for the ruler of Lydia. After an earthquake, and while shepherding his flock, he found a cave on a mountainside that had opened up during the earthquake. He went inside and found a tomb with a bronze horse containing a corpse of a creature larger than a man. The corpse wore a golden ring, which Gyges took. He soon figured out that when he turned the ring in, he had the power to become invisible. He then used this power to seduce the queen and murder the king. He then became the king of Lydia.

After recounting this story, Glaucon used the story to make his claim about the true nature of man and the role of justice in society. He argued that it is better to appear just than to be just. And that, given the opportunity to live without consequences, most human beings would seek out pleasure and live selfishly.

"Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men" (Vol. 7, 312).

An important part of Glaucon's argument is the distinction he makes among goods. First, there are things that are intrinsically valuable, like a painting or health; second, there are things that are valuable for what they can get you, like money; and third, there are things that are valuable both intrinsically and for what they can get you, art and health may also fall in this category. Plato argues that justice is both intrinsically good and that it can bring you a good reputation, which is also helpful for what it can get you. By using the Gyges story, though, Glaucon argues that justice is really only good for the reputation it can get you and is not something that is intrinsically good in and of itself. But, Glaucon argues, if you aren't buying that argument, at the very least if acting justly does not bring you a good reputation, and not acting justly does bring you a good reputation, then the reasonable thing to do is to act unjustly. 

Machiavelli, in The Prince, likewise sets forth the notion that we are better off seeming to be good than being good.

"... it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have described, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite." (Vol. 23, p. 25). 

The Framers of the Constitution also seem to adopt the approach to human nature advocated by Glaucon, Machiavelli, and Haidt. They created checks and balances to ensure that the public's business is done openly and subject to review so that those working in government may not become invisible and act unethically. (I discuss this in more depth in my post on the American State Papers). 


As an aside, there has been a transition lately, where some perceive that many leaders are not even trying to appear to be "just." George Pyle, the Editorial Page Editor for the Salt Lake Tribune, recently wrote an editorial in which he argued that Republicans in the Utah Legislature and in the United States Senate are not even pretending to further democratic values. These politicians are acting not in a Machiavellian or Glauconian way, but rather, according to Pyle and other commentators, they are acting in an authoritarian or tyrannical way simply because they are the ones in power and they can do what they want. He is arguing that they are essentially taking the position of Thrasymachus (and later Hobbes), that justice is nothing more than the interest of the stronger. And this approach is often adopted, or at least tolerated, by those who value order and abhor the chaos of an ever changing society. 


So Glaucon gives Socrates a difficult challenge. In Book IV, Socrates makes his first argument in response. He argues that justice is to the state as health is to the body. And since health is of both intrinsic value and is good for what it gets you, then justice is both intrinsically good and good for what it gets the state. In a sense, justice cleanses the state and keeps it healthy in a (sort of) spiritual way and this allows it to function as it should for the benefit of all. Socrates then asks a rhetorical question: "Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practice virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed?" (Vol. 7, p. 355) And while there is rhetorical appeal to his argument, the real issue is whether this comports with what is real within a community and within a person. Does "just" or "virtuous" living truly bring about intrinsic benefits, which human nature strives for its own benefit?

Socrates also makes two arguments in Book IX, but I'll address those arguments in a different post as they are not within this reading. 

I agree with Socrates that justice within society is an aspirational goal. Specific individuals and communities should aspire to just and virtuous living. But I also agree with Haidt that Glaucon likely got it right in accurately portraying human nature. Just as living a healthy lifestyle to provide health to the body is the best way to live, it does not motivate most people (by itself) to live a healthy lifestyle. And likewise, living a just and virtuous life for the spiritual benefits that it brings does not, for the most part, motivate humans to live a just and virtuous life. What motivates humans to live virtuously is the effect that such a life has on reputation and the consequences that may arise from selfish choices. We are (generally) more concerned about what people think of us than the reality of who we are. I think Glaucon is correct that if we could live without consequences, most of us would seek out the greatest amount of wealth and pleasure that we could seek out. This being said, I (and I'm sure many others) would like to think that I would live virtuously if I had the ring of Gyges. But our society is ordered in such a way that I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to find out.

If You Get Human Nature Wrong, the Whole Thing Breaks Down: Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx-Engels, Vol. 50, pp. 415-434)

          There is one idea in this reading that smacked me across the face. To me, it explained why Communism failed:

          The Communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality; 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to press through they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole (425, emphasis added).

          Matching up the right system to complement human nature has been a major theme of the first year readings. There is a lot of interesting stuff in the Manifesto. Marx's and Engels' thoughts on history and class struggle are intriguing. Their thoughts on morality and workers' rights are also interesting.

          But the entire theory breaks down because they miss the mark on human nature. A system that relies almost entirely on virtue will always fail. Humans do not generally "point out and bring to the front the common interests" of all.  Nor do they "always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole." No person will do this unless it is in their personal best interest to do this. You can't keep a rabbit in a box and you can't keep a snake in a cage. And you can't expect people to govern themselves based upon virtue alone. I won't dwell on this point any longer as it is a common theme of this blog.

          There is another idea that Adler raised in the study guide that is worth mentioning.  Marx and Engels predicted the collapse of capitalism by the ever widening gap between overproduction and underconsumption. Adler points out that this prediction may have come true if wages remained at a mere subsistence level. This is because if the laboring masses do not have the means to purchase the goods they are producing, then eventually the market will dry up and the whole system will collapse in on itself. But in the 130 years after Marx and Engels wrote the Manifesto, wages in capitalist countries kept up well enough to generally keep supply and demand in equilibrium.

          In recent years, though, wealth inequality in the US has increased. According to this CNN article, the top 1% now holds 38.6% of the nation's wealth. While the "bottom 90%" only holds 22.8% of the nation's total wealth.

          Is this wrong or bad for our society? I think it is.  And it goes deeper than the fact that 90% of the population may not be able to buy Teslas or put solar panels on their houses. Philosopher T.M. Scanlon gives four reasons why inequality leads to negative consequences for our society.  The basic premise is that if the rich use their money and influence to create rules to benefit themselves and their children to the political and economic exclusion of others, then there truly is no freedom of opportunity. This limits competition and creates an oligarchy that guts our Republican Democracy and limits the voices and opportunities of the masses and their children. Some have argued that the frustration from those whose voices have not been heard by our government has led to the so-called populist rise of our current President.

          While Engels and Marx completely missed the mark on the cure for class inequality, I think they may have correctly identified some flaws in capitalism. And I think some of those flaws are manifesting themselves in our society today. Wealth and class inequality is a problem. Communism is not the cure for this problem. The cure is a subject for great debate and too much for me to try to address in this post.

         
          

Is Virtue a Prerequisite to Republican Government: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Federalist (American State Papers, Vol. 43, pp. 1-3, 11-20, 29-53, 62-66, 103-105, 153-156, 162-165, 205-218)

"But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself" (Publius, Federalist Number 51, Vol. 43, p. 163).

If government reflects our nature, what does that say about us? And does the continuation of our system of government require any subordination of our will to the public good? Or, can the system be set up in such a way through checks and balances to counteract ambition with ambition?

Some scholars such as J.G.A. Pocock and Gordon Wood have argued that the Founders abandoned the idea of virtue as a prerequisite to republican government. In his The Creation of the American Republic, 1776 - 1787, Wood argued that it was the Founders' position that "America would remain free not because of any quality in its citizens of spartan self-sacrifice to some nebulous public good, but in the last analysis because of the concern each individual would have in his own self-interest and personal freedom" (Wood 612). Wood acknowledged that the Founders continued to publicly promote virtue. But that the necessary preconditions for a virtuous citizenry did not exist.

Conversely, the late Richard Vetterli and Gary Bryner argued in their book In Search of the Republic that the Founding Fathers believed that "virtue" was a necessary condition of self government. "But of one thing they [the Founders] appear to have been certain: a citizenry lacking in virtue was not capable of sustaining a democratic republic" (Vetterli and Bryner 2). Moreover, they argued that "the Founders attempted to, and were ultimately successful, in responding to both traditions. They believed that republican virtue and liberal individualism -- self interest, properly understood -- are compatible and interdependent" (Vetterli and Bryner 8, emphasis in original).

Neither Hamilton nor Jefferson listed "virtue" per se as one of the first principles of republican government. In Federalist, No. 31, Hamilton listed his "primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend." The maxims that related in his mind to ethics and politics included "that there cannot be an effect without a cause; that the means ought to be proportioned to the end; that every power ought to be commensurate with its object; that there ought to be no limitation of a power destined to effect a purpose which is itself incapable of limitation" (Vol. 43, p. 103).  While virtue is not expressly listed, some of these are value statements ("oughts") that arguably require some restraint for implementation.

Jefferson's "self-evident" truths do not necessarily comport with Hamilton's. Hamilton never mentioned the "truths" in the Federalist "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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness" (Declaration of Independence, Vol. 43, p. 1).  Perhaps Hamilton didn't believe that these things are self-evident or even "true."

Hamilton and Jefferson were different men with different backgrounds and values. This is the case with each individual we collectively refer to as the "Founders" as well as our elected officials representing us today. Over the past two-hundred thirty years, our nation has managed (with the exception of the Civil War, the occasional riot, and awful inequality towards racial minorities and women) to overcome serious differences through the passage of laws by the legislative branch, the implementation of those laws by the executive branch, and the resolution of most disputes through the judiciary.  

I think the bottom line is that the Founders figured out that most people act in their own best interest notwithstanding what is in the nation's best interest.  And so they devised a system that blunted ambition with ambition. They created due process to make sure that similarly situated people are treated similarly. They created separation of powers to ensure that no branch of government could overwhelm another branch of government. They provided for the freedom of the press to ensure that government action is generally transparent. They created a legal system that punished bad behavior so that it would be in everyone's best interest to obey the law.  All these checks and balances presuppose that people will take what they can unless and until it is not in their best interest to do so.

Virtuous and fair conduct in the affairs of government is ideal and aspirational. And many elected officials, public servants, soldiers, and citizens put the needs of the country ahead of their own. But if we replaced checks and balances with a greater reliance on public virtue, I doubt it would stand up much longer.  Human nature includes elements of self-restraint and self-interest. But the latter usually overwhelms the former.

In sum, many of the Founders discovered that "[t]he republics of antiquity had failed because they had 'attempted to force the human character into distorted shapes.' The American republics, on the other hand, ... were built upon the realities of human nature. They were free and responsive to the people, framed so as to give 'fair play' to the actions of human nature, however unvirtuous" (Wood 611, quoting William Vans Murray, Political Sketches from 1787).  Looking back, while there are exceptions, our country has not been a beacon of virtue over the past two-hundred and thirty years. And yet it survives and flourishes. We have survived wars, civil war, racial and gender inequality, massive cultural and social differences, scandals at the highest levels of government down to local governments, and even Donald Trump (at least so far)!  President Trump may end up putting this issue to the ultimate test.

Under the system put in place by the Founders, there are incentives for people to act with virtue.  But only because it is in their own best interest to do so.   That our republic has survived over the past two-hundred and thirty years is a testament to the genius of our Founders. They devised a system of government that married the ambitions of the individual parts with the good of the whole. It's messy and imperfect, but it works.

How to Look Back: The Problem of History (Gibbon, Vol 40, pp. 179-234)

This reading includes a small portion of a large book called The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And this small portion involves Gibbon's famous critique of a nascent Christian religion. Gibbon's work, written in the 1770s, deals with the early church up to the year A.D. 350 and how it evolved into the official religion of the Roman Empire. He went though the process of compiling, organizing, and evaluating records and recording them in an organized fashion.


In the opening lines of Chapter 15, Gibbon notes that "[a] candid and rational inquiry into the progress and establishshment of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman Empire.... The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings" (p. 179).Is his treatment of the christian church "candid and rational"? And why does he consider it a "melancholy duty"? Why is it "inevitable" that "a mixture of error and corruption" fell upon the early christian religion? Is his work at all invalidated because of his assumptions and biases?

Wallace Stegner beautifully described the process of historical process in Angle of Repose. The novel's protagonist, Lyman Ward, is a historian who reaches back into history to understand the unmet expectations of his Grandmother, Susan Ward, and her relationship with his Grandfather, Oliver Ward. And in the process he discovers a (depressing) thing or two about his own life. As is evident from the tone of this masterpiece, Stegner also sees the duty of the historian as "melancholy." 

“There is another physical law that teases me, too: the Doppler Effect. The sound of anything coming at you- a train, say, or the future- has a higher pitch than the sound of the same thing going away. If you have perfect pitch and a head for mathematics you can compute the speed of the object by the interval between its arriving and departing sounds. I have neither perfect pitch nor a head for mathematics, and anyway who wants to compute the speed of history? Like all falling bodies, it constantly accelerates. But I [Lyman] would like to hear your [Susan's] life as you heard it, coming at you, instead of hearing it as I do, a somber sound of expectations reduced, desires blunted, hopes deferred or abandoned, chances lost, defeats accepted, griefs borne" (Angle of Repose 24-25).

I like this description of history. The ever changing pitch of the train as it rumbles toward and away from us is a beautiful metaphor for the difficulty of capturing events. We can record the pitch of the moving train and re-listen to it and re-watch it. But its not the same as seeing and hearing and smelling it in person. And even our present sense of what is happening is different than someone else's present sense of what is happening. How much more so is knowledge of the "event" distorted when we sense it through a recording, or a written description, or a photograph.

Because of our "weak" and "degenerate" state, not only can we not hear life as others before us heard it, but we can all see, hear, touch, taste and smell the same present event, and walk away with completely different points of view. We may be able to create a record of what happened, and we may be tempted to say that the record of what happened is something that we know. But it is filtered and obfuscated and formulated according to the limited ways in which we acquire knowledge. 

Hans Reichenbach argues in The Direction of Time that "[w]e might be tempted to [say] that the future is unknown, whereas the past is known. Such a statement however would be obviously false. Some events of the future are well known, such as astronomical events, or the fact that there will be general elections in the fall. And many events of the past are unknown; if they were known, historians and geologists would have an easier task" (excerpted in Law Language and Ethics 283).  

But, as Reichenbach points out, even these "known" future events depend upon records from our past. The difference is the way in which we use the record. Some are used to describe what happened at an earlier time, and others are used to predict what will happen at a future time.

To the extent we use history to predict the future, we are engaging in a type of determinism, aren't we? The old cliche, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" presumes a type of historical determinism. Human nature is such, the argument goes, that if we forget our past, or stop evaluating the records of the past, we are doomed to a future filled with the same mistakes that haunt our past. Is this really the case? Is determinism the way our minds try to make sense of the present by taking what we know from the past.

I don't know if this is true and I realize that there is nothing groundbreaking here. This is another epistemological problem that I have to continue to work through.


 

Is Government in our Nature? (Locke, Vol. 35, pp. 25 - 81)

An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government

The concept of "Government" is not popular right now.  Government is "bureaucratic."  Government is "too big."  Government is "inefficient."  So what is the source of government and end of government?  How does this play into today's attitudes about government.

Locke's brilliant essay asks about the source of government, the legitimacy of government once established, the importance of the rule of law, and the role of property.  

The Source of Government

As Professor Adler points out, Locke's first treatise was in response to the claim that the monarch ruled by divine right.  Locke rejects this assertion.  He then asks, if kings do not rule by divine right, and if government is more than "rule by the strongest," then what is the source of government?  Locke answers his own question:

      "Who shall be judge whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust?  ... To this I reply, the people shall be judge."  (p. 81)

As this concept had rarely been put into practice up to this point, Locke asserts the controversial idea that the source of government is in the people.

How is Government Legitimized?

In Locke's search for the legitimacy of government, he first defines the nature of political power.  

     "Political power, then, I take to be the right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good."  (p. 25)

Locke argues that this power arises from a compact made by persons who previously lived in an unorganized state of nature.  While some, like Hobbes, found this state of nature to be "one of war and brutishness, Locke thinks of it as a state of liberty."  And in this state of liberty, and to protect the rights and property of those living in this state of liberty, society organized government through a social contract.

     "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, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join 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."  (p. 46)

The Rule of Law and the Practical Aspects of Governance: Creation, Execution and Judgment.

Locke sets forth three reasons that society would subject itself to government: (1) to establish the rule of law, (2) to establish judges to interpret the law and decide controversies, and (3) to establish a method to execute the law.  And to what end are these three purposes put?  It is important to note that these three reasons line up nicely with the purposes behind the three branches of government.  And according to Locke, one of the principal ends of government is the preservation of property.

The Preservation of Property

Property is an important part of Locke's political theory.  Locke defines property and how it comes to be that somebody owns something to the exclusion of others.  Locke concludes that property is created through labor.

      "Though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great foundation of property ....  Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it, upon what was common ...."  (p. 34)  

So for Locke, one of the principal purposes of government is to protect property (in the broadest sense, including life, liberty, and estate).  So not only may government not take property, it must protect a person's right to it.  

Locke and The Ideal Form of Government

The form of government envisioned by Locke differs slightly from our constitutional government of today.  He envisioned a constitutional monarchy.  In this form, the legislative power of Parliament was supreme, but the Monarch retained certain executive preogatives.  Our current government established by "the people" is a better developed form of government in protecting our rights and property.  While government gets a bad rap, I would be willing to bet if there were the popular will to call another constitutional convention today, the final product would be remarkably similar to what we currently have in place.

The current debates about the role of government and the balance of power between the state and federal governments are the same debates that occurred at the founding of our Republic.  I am hoping to become more conversant in those debates and the philosophical strains that run through those arguments.  But Locke and others before him established the basic foundation and structure of the government we have (and enjoy?) today.  And while the opportunity is there to change it, when it gets right down to it, I doubt that we would make that choice.  

To Be or Not to Be ??? Hmmm, That is a Good Question. (Shakespeare, Vol. 27, pp. 29-72)

Death, and what happens to the soul after death, is one of the great mysteries of life.  Philosophy, religion, science, anthropology, sociology, law, and almost every other discipline has grappled with the mystery of death.  And the uncertainty of what happens to a being after death.

Hamlet says it much more eloquently, but sometimes life really sucks.  And if we knew that if we could just go to sleep and not exist anymore, wouldn't we be better off? Who wants to put up with the pain that life sometimes brings?

                            [A]nd by a sleep to say we end 

                            The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

                            That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 

                            Devoutly to be wished.  To die, to sleep; To sleep?

                            Perchance to dream.  Ay, there's the rub.  [Act III, Scene I]

What is the rub?  The point is that we must respect those things we do not [and can not] understand.  And Hamlet says that "conscience does make cowards of us all," and that sometimes we put up with this life because we fear the unknown more than we fear the difficult things we do understand.  While Hamlet died in the end, he endured a lot of tough times because he feared the alternative unknown of suicide.

Socrates also considered death as he sat in his cell waiting to be put to death.  In the Apology, he argued:

Now if you suppose that [in death] there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. [Vol. 7, p. 211]

Both Hamlet and Socrates agreed that if death were nothing but an endless sleep, this would not be a bad thing.  Would we act differently if we knew what happened after we die?  Do religious people act differently because they believe in an afterlife?  Do they live life more or less fully?  And the same for nonbelievers?

The unknown nature of death, and our beliefs about the nature of death, affects the way we live.  The theme of death and the way it affects the way we live weaves its way throughout the great books.  I look forward to learning more about it as I continue my journey through.