Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Beitrag zum Gemeinwohl: Eigensucht, Begehrlichkeit

Kurzinhalt: ... the burden of his chapter on property is that covetousness and concupiscence, far from being essentially evil or foolish, are, if properly channeled, eminently beneficial and reasonable, much more so than "exemplary charity."

Textausschnitt: 246a Locke's doctrine of property is directly intelligible today if it is taken as the classic doctrine of "the spirit of capitalism" or as a doctrine regarding the chief objective of public policy. Since the nineteenth century, readers of Locke have found it hard to understand why he used "the phraseology of the law of nature" or why he stated his doctrine in terms of natural law. But to say that public happiness requires the emancipation and the protection of the acquisitive faculties amounts to saying that to accumulate as much money and other wealth as one pleases is right or just, i.e., intrinsically just or by nature just. And the rules which enable us to distinguish between what is by nature just and by nature unjust, either absolutely or under specific conditions, were called the "propositions of the law of nature." Locke's followers in later generations no longer believed that they needed "the phraseology of the law of nature" because they took for granted what Locke did not take for granted: Locke still thought that he had to prove that the unlimited acquisition of wealth is not unjust or morally wrong. (Fs)

246b It was indeed easy for Locke to see a problem where later men saw only an occasion for applauding progress or themselves, since in his age most people still adhered to the older view according to which the unlimited acquisition of wealth is unjust or morally wrong. This also explains why, in stating his doctrine of property, Locke "so involved his sense, that it is not easy to understand him" or went as much as possible "with the herd." While therefore concealing the revolutionary character of his doctrine of property from the mass of his readers, he yet indicated it clearly enough. He did this by occasionally mentioning and apparently approving the older view. He traced the introduction of "larger possessions and a right to them" to "the desire of having more than man" needs, or to an increase in "covetousness," or to " amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence." In the same vein he speaks disparagingly of "little pieces of yellow metal" and of "sparkling pebbles."1 But he soon drops these niaiseries: the burden of his chapter on property is that covetousness and concupiscence, far from being essentially evil or foolish, are, if properly channeled, eminently beneficial and reasonable, much more so than "exemplary charity." By building civil society on "the low but solid ground" of selfishness or of certain "private vices," one will achieve much greater "public benefits" than by futilely appealing to virtue, which is by nature "unendowed." One must take one's bearings not by how men should live but by how they do live. Locke almost quotes the words of the apostle, "God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy," and he speaks of "God's blessings poured on [man] with a liberal hand," and yet "nature and the earth furnish only the almost worthless materials as in themselves."2 He says that God is "sole lord and proprietor of the whole world," that men are God's property, and that "man's propriety in the creatures is nothing but that liberty to use them which God has permitted"; but he also says that "man in the state of nature [is] absolute lord of his own person and possessions."3 He says that "it will always be a sin in any man of estate to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty." But in his thematic discussion of property, he is silent about any duties of charity.4 (Fs)