Abstract
Locke’s reasons for introducing the concept of trust into his political philosophy are not stated as explicitly as one might wish. However, the gap can be filled by considering the context in which he uses the notion, particularly in relation to his arguments about liberty and authority.
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Notes
For an example of the same point see P. Singer, Democracy and Disobedience, Oxford, 1973, p. 25: ‘Consent, to give rise to obligations, must be voluntary ⋯’; also pp. 46–51. Compare the repeated emphasis on ‘voluntarily’ in Plamenatz’s Man and Society, vol. I, p. 240,
And J. J. Jenkins, ‘Political Consent’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 20, 1970, 65.
See R. S. Hill, ‘David Hume’, in History of Political Philosophy, ed. L. Strauss and J. Cropsey, Chicago, 1963, p. 505. For Hume see A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III, Pt. ii, sects. 2–4.
J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen, London, 1948, p. 21. See also J. Bentham, Leading Principles of a Constitutional Code for any State, Sect. I, paras. 5, 8, and 17 (Works, ed. J. Bowring, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. II, pp. 269 f.).
The background to the whole issue concerning the relationship between law and prerogative power was the lifelong antagonism between Sir Edward Coke and Francis Bacon. Coke had been the champion of the com-mon law and was in favour of subjecting the royal prerogative to definitive legal limitations. Bacon stood for a strong royal prerogative as part of the King’s sovereignty which he considered almost unlimited. The test-case was Coke’s attempt to define the legal limits of the use of Royal Proclamations which, according to him, were not part of the law of England (statute, common law, and custom) and hence could not change the principles of common law merely by the King’s own will: ‘The King hath no prerogative but that which the law of the land allows him’. Coke’s Reports, Pt. XII, pp. 74–5, London, 1656; Collected ed. 1777 (Proclamations, 1610/11). Also J. R. Tanner, Constitutional Documents of the Reign of James I, 1603–1625, Cambridge, 1930 (2nd ed.), p. 188.
Seneca, Letter 90. See R. W. and A. J. Carlyle, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, London and New York, 1903–36, vol. I, pp. 23 ff.
The Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, ed. C. E. Vaughan, Cambridge, 1915, vol. I, p. 184. In the Everyman ed. of Rousseau’s Social Contract and Discourses, p. 208. For Pliny see his Panegyricus, 55, 7.
For the exercise of discretionary power (see above, p. 145) in relation to the non-arbitrary aspect of prerogative see C. J. Friedrich, ‘Authority, Reason, and Discretion’, in Authority (Nomos I), ed. C. J. Friedrich, Cambridge, (Mass.), 1958, pp. 40–5.
H. R. Fox Bourne, The Life of John Locke, London, 1876, vol. I, p. 176;
C. A. Viano, Scritti editi e inediti sulla tolleranza, Turin, 1961, p. 83.
Sect. 95, lines 11–14. For a full exposition of Locke’s argument that the theory of majority-right is logically implied in his theory of popular sovereignty see W. Kendall, ‘John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule’, Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, 26, Urbana, Ill., USA, 1941, 117–19 (partly reprinted in Life, Liberty, and Property, Essays on Locke’s Political Ideas, pp. 168–77).
C. E. Vaughan, Studies in the History of Political Philosophy before and after Rousseau, Manchester, 1925, vol. I, p. 55.
Leibniz, too, appears to have adopted a theory of ‘multiple sovereignty’ in connection with his preference for the constitutional state and concern for the public good (see C. J. Friedrich, ‘Philosophical Reflections of Leibniz on Law, Politics, and the State’, Natural Law Forum, vol. 11, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1966, pp. 87–8, and n. 34).
W. J. Rees, ‘The Theory of Sovereignty Restated’, Mind, LIX, 1950 (reprinted in Philosophy, Politics, and Society, ed. P. Laslett, First Series, Oxford, 1956, ch. iv).
S. I. Benn, ‘The Uses of “Sovereignty”’, Political Studies, III, 1955 (reprinted in Political Philosophy, ed. A. Quinton, London, 1967, ch. iv).
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© 1981 W. von Leyden
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von Leyden, W. (1981). Lawful Government and Popular Control. In: Hobbes and Locke. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05060-4_5
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