CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background

Philosophy is the root of all knowledge. It is considered as mother of all sciences. Philosophy
has interpreted man and his various activities in a comprehensive manner. It helps to coordinate
the various activities of the individuals and the society. It helps us to understand the significance
of all human experience. It explores the basic source and aims of life. It asks and tries to answer
the deepest questions to life.

Liberalism is one of the educational philosophy. What is liberalism? The word “liberal” is
notoriously slippery. There is no stable, uncontested understanding of the concept liberalism.
Liberalism’s first guiding idea—conflict—was less an ideal or principle than a way to picture
society and what to expect from society. Lasting conflict of interests and beliefs was, to the
liberal mind, inescapable. Social harmony was not achievable, and to pursue it was foolish. That
picture was less stark than it looked, for harmony was not even desirable. Harmony stifled
creativity and blocked initiative. Conflict, if tamed and turned to competition in a stable political
order, could bear fruit as argument, experiment, and exchanging.

1.2 Formulation of Problem

1.2.1 What is liberalism?
1.2.2 What is the philosophy of liberalism according to the view of John Locke?

1.3 The Purpose of the Study

1.3.1 To know what Liberalism is.
1.3.2 To know the philosophy of liberalism according to the view of John Locke

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION
2.1 Liberalism

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and

equality. Whereas classical liberalism emphasizes the role of liberty, social liberalism stresses
the importance of equality. Liberalism includes a broad spectrum of political philosophies that
consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal, and emphasize individual
rights and equality of opportunity. Although most Liberals would claim that a government is
necessary to protect rights, different forms of Liberalism may propose very different policies (see
the section on Types of Liberalism below). They are, however, generally united by their support
for a number of principles, including extensive freedom of thought and freedom of speech,
limitations on the power of governments, the application of the rule of law, a market economy
(or a mixed economy with both private-owned and state-owned enterprises) and a transparent
and democratic system of government.

Like the similar concept of Libertarianism, Liberalism believes that society should be
organized in accordance with certain unchangeable and inviolable human rights, especially the
rights to life, liberty and property. It also holds that traditions do not carry any inherent value,
that social practices ought to be continuously adjusted for the greater benefit of humanity, and
that there should be no foundational assumptions (such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary
status or established religion) that take precedence over other aspects of government.

Anarchism is a much more radical form of Liberalism, although, like Anarchism,

Liberalism historically stands in opposition to any form of authoritarianism, whether in the form
of Communism, Socialism, Fascism or other types of Totalitarianism. Its emphasis on individual
rights (Individualism) also puts it in opposition to any kind of collectivism, which emphasize the
collective or the community to a degree where the rights of the individual are either diminished
or abolished (e.g. Communitarianism).

The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" (meaning "free" or "not a slave"). In
everyday use, it means generous and open-minded, as well as free from restraint and from
prejudice. Its use as a political term, however, only dates from the early 19th Century.

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 There are two major currents of thought within Liberalism, Classical Liberalism and
Social Liberalism:

 Classical Liberalism holds that the only real freedom is freedom from coercion, and that
state intervention in the economy is a coercive power that restricts the economic freedom
of individuals, and so should be avoided as far as possible. It favours laissez-faire
economic policy (minimal economic intervention and taxation by the state beyond what
is necessary to maintain individual liberty, peace, security and property rights), and
opposes the welfare state (the provision of welfare services by the state, and the
assumption by the state of primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens).
 Social Liberalism argues that governments must take an active role in promoting the
freedom of citizens, and that real freedom can only exist when citizens are healthy,
educated and free from dire poverty. Social Liberals believe that this freedom can be
ensured when governments guarantee the right to an education, health care and a living
wage, in addition to other responsibilities such as laws against discrimination in housing
and employment, laws against pollution of the environment, and the provision of welfare,
all of which would be supported by a progressive taxation system

2.2 Philosophy of Liberalism According to the View of John Locke

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the
modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by
nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch.
He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a
foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are
naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political
government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally
transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable
enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the
people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that
fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments. Locke is thus also important for
his defense of the right of revolution. Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the

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separation of legislative and executive powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke
denied that coercion should be used to bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true
religion and also denied that churches should have any coercive power over their members.
Locke elaborated on these themes in his later political writings, such as the Second Letter on
Toleration and Third Letter on Toleration.

John Locke's "Two Treatises on Government" of 1689 established two fundamental

liberal ideas: economic liberty (meaning the right to have and use property) and intellectual
liberty (including freedom of conscience). His natural rights theory ("natural rights" for Locke
being essentially life, liberty and property) was the distant forerunner of the modern conception
of human rights, although he saw the right to property as more important than the right to
participate in government and public decision-making, and he did not endorse democracy,
fearing that giving power to the people would erode the sanctity of private property.
Nevertheless, the idea of natural rights played a key role in providing the ideological justification
for the American and the French revolutions, and in the further development of Liberalism.

Here are some point of philosophy of liberalism according to the view of John Locke :

 Conception of Human Nature

Locke believes that man is a rational and a social creature and as such capable of
recognizing and living in a moral order. He feels sympathy, love and tenderness
towards his fellow-beings and is capable of being actuated by altruistic motives. He
wants to live in peace and harmony with others and feels bound to them by ties of
social cohesion. According to Locke, rationality was the characteristic attribute of
man. Locke did not take a dark picture of human nature as Hobbes did because his
times were more peaceful and settled than those of Hobbes. He wrote after
theGlorious Revolution whereas the Leviathan of Hobbes came after the violent Civil
War.
 The State of Nature
Lockean picture of the state of nature accords better with the findings of the
Historical and Comparative method of enquiry than that of Hobbes. It agrees more
with the habits and customs of existing primitive tribes. Locke, like Hobbes, begins
his theorising about the state with the state of nature but differs materiallyfrom the

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latter in his conception of the same.” Men living together according to reason,
without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is
properly the state of nature”. This is a description not of savages but of moral
beings with reason i.e. the law of nature to guide them. It was a “state of perfect
freedom to order their actions and dispose off their possessions and persons, as
they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or
depending upon the will of any other man”. It was also a state of equality
“wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal”. It is not a state of war ofall
against all.
To Locke, the state of nature is a state of ‘goodwill, mutual assistance and
preservation’ i.e. a state not of war but of peace. The Lockean state of nature represents
a “pre-political rather than a pre-social condition”. Men do not indulge in constant
warfare in it, for peace and reason prevail in it. The state of nature is governed
by a law of nature. Locke, like Grotius, believes that this law of nature does not
represent a mere natural impulse but is a moral law, based upon reason, to regulate
the conduct of men in their natural condition. The law of nature does not
constitute an antithesis of the civil law but represents a condition precedent to the
latter. One of the fundamentals of the law of nature is the equality of men who
possess equal, natural rights. “Man being born as has been proved, with a title to
perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of
the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath
by nature a power not only to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty and
estate—against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the
breaches of that law in others.”[1] In the state of nature, there was equality not in
intellect, physical might or possessions but equality in personal liberty or
independence. This equality of independence extended to life, liberty and property
and was everybody’s inherent and inalienable birthright. It means that one man
is morally the equal of others and has rights, belonging to him as man, equal to those of
other men. There was considerable social equality before money was invented, in the
state of nature.

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 In the skate of nature it was the law of nature that regulated men. This law of
nature was a law of freedom and equality. But equality was moral, not actual.
The law of nature was based on reason, the spark of divine nature’, and its object
was to preserve society. It provided moral standards for social action. It enjoined
keeping of faith and contract. The law of nature gives property-right on the basis of
labour-theory i.e. mixing of labour with some natural gift. It “willeth the preservation
of all mankind”. Representing a moral standard, it is applicable to the ruler and
theruled alike. Being identical with Reason, it not only regulated men in the state
of nature but also regulated them in civil society.
 Locke on Natural Rights
The natural, rights or man, to Locke, are to life, liberty and property. Liberty means an
exemption from all rules save the law of nature which is a means to the realisation of
man’s freedom. It means the liberty of men to dispose of their persons or goods as they
like ‘within the allowance of those laws under which they are; therein not to be, subject
to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow their own’. By equality Locke means not
mental or physical equality but the ‘equal right every man hath to his natural freedom
without being Subjected to the will or authority of any other man’. Property comes when
an individual changes the primitive community of ownership into individual possession
by mingling his labour with some object. In the state of nature, individuals are conscious
of, and respect these, natural rights for they are subject to reason which “teaches all
mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to
harm another in his life, health, liberty or possession”. The state of nature is to be
distinguished from the civil state by the absence in it of a common organ for the
interpretation and exe­cution of the law of nature’. Hence in the state of nature every
individual is the interpreter and executor of the law of nature. Variety in interpretation
due to difference in standards of intelli-gence and in execution of the law of nature leads
to chaos and confusion and consequent insecurity of life and property. Hence it is
necessary to replace the state of nature by civil society in which there would be a known
law accepted by all and applied by an impartial and authoritative judge whose decisions
would be enforced by the state. Locke talks of rights as natural and inherent in the
individual. If rights are ‘natural’ they should be eternal and non-varying but rights vary.

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 The fact is that rights are a gift of society and can effectuate only through the medium of
civil society. Rights are born of human reason and human needs. They are ‘social’ rights.
The primitive man had no conception of ‘natural’ rights. Locke's insistence on rights
being natural to man has, however, led to the conception of a system of funda-mental
rights of the individual which calls for a limited government as a servant and trustee of
the individuals.
 Individualism
Fundamental to the philosophy of Locke is the concept that an individual has certain
innate and inviolable rights i.e. the rights to life, liberty and property which he cannot be
deprived of. It is for the more effective safeguarding of these rights than he him- self can
do that he institutes the state which is a trustee for him The authority of the state is
conditioned by the prior rights of the individual. Locke was a thorough-going
individualist and placed his individual before his state and society. . With Locke, if there
is any sovereign, it is not the state but the individual. The state is a means, the individual
the end. The state is a convenience. It is a servant of the all-powerful individual. It is a
subordinate, subservient agent of the individual. If the individual of Hobbes is best in the
state, that of Locke comes before the state.
‘Everything in Locke's system revolves round the individual; everything is disposed so as
to ensure the sovereignty of the individual’. It is the individual and not the state which is
the all-important entity. The state is founded and maintained on the consent of the
individual. The individual has the right of resisting the state if the latter misbehave or
abuse its trust. Theoretically every individual has the right of `appeal to heaven’ i.e.
rebellion against the unjust or tyrannical state. This means that the individual can resist
any law or executive act of the state which in his judg-ment is contrary to the laws of
nature or to the trust imposed on the state.
The individual enters the state as a rational and a moral being and does not owe the state
his rational or moral development. He does not owe the state his intellectual
development. In the rational and moral spheres, he is independent of the state. The state is
there—indeed has been primarily created—to protect for the individual his inalienable
rights, particularly that of property. The state does not create these rights, it only

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safeguards them. The state of Locke is an individualist state with a minimum of functions
but plenty of restraints and limitations.