Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Verhältnis: Neues Testament - partielles Naturrecht; Schutz des Eigentums

Kurzinhalt: According to Locke, one of the rules of "the law of God and nature" is to the effect that the government "must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people, ...

Textausschnitt: 214a We must now consider the relation between what we call for the time being the partial law of nature and the New Testament law. If "no more nor no less" than the entire law of nature is supplied by the New Testament, if "all the parts" of the law of nature are made out in the New Testament in a manner which is "clear, plain, and easy to be understood," the New Testament must contain in particular clear and plain expressions of those prescriptions of the law of nature with which men must comply for the sake of political happiness.1 According to Locke, one of the rules of "the law of God and nature" is to the effect that the government "must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people, given by themselves or their deputies." Locke does not even attempt to confirm this rule by clear and plain statements of Scripture. Another very important and characteristic rule of the law of nature as Locke understands it, denies to the conqueror a right and title to the possessions of the vanquished: even in a just war the conqueror may not "dispossess the posterity of the vanquished." Locke himself admits that this "will seem a strange doctrine," i.e., a novel doctrine. In fact, it would seem that the opposite doctrine is at least as much warranted by Scripture as is Locke's. He quotes more than once Jephtha's saying "the Lord the Judge be judge"; but he fails even to allude to the fact that Jephtha's statement is made in the context of a controversy about the right of conquest, as well as to Jephtha's entirely un-Lockean view of the rights of the conqueror.2 One is tempted to say that Jephtha's statement, which refers to a controversy between two nations, is used by Locke as the locus classicus concerning controversies between the government and the people. The statement of Jephtha takes the place in Locke's doctrine of Paul's statement "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," which he hardly, if ever, quotes.3 (Fs)