Judging Rights: Lockean Politics and the Limits of Consent.
Mossoff, Adam
MCCLURE, Kristie M. Judging Rights: Lockean Politics and the Limits
of Consent. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. x + 327 pp. Cloth,
$30.00--As an Enlightenment philosopher and the father of liberalism,
John Locke's explication of the natural right to property, of
limited government, and of the right to rebellion constitute fascinating
ideas that are often treated by scholars as deserving of attention in
and of themselves. This is not the case for Kristie McClure. McClure is
more interested in the "architecture of order" (p. 13) and how
this metaphysical and epistemological metaphor ultimately shapes and
defines Locke's political theory. From this perspective, McClure
draws out some interesting insights into the nature of Locke's
political philosophy.
What is this "architecture of order" that McClure finds
so illuminating? Quite simply, it is the "God-given order of
nature" presumed by seventeenth century England to have set forth
both an existential and a moral framework for understanding human
society (p. 5). Thus, it is not only true that "[n]atural law and
natural right ... define the objective moral boundaries of properly
human action" in the state of nature, but also that these moral
precepts are accessible by and obvious to anyone who uses their
God-given capacity for right reason (p. 96). Within this decidedly
theistic universe, Locke finds a self-sustaining purpose for humankind
that unites practical living and the moral ideal, that is, judgments
about how to live are necessarily linked with proper moral judgments.
McClure thus concludes from her review of this metaphysical architecture
of order that "the political problematic Locke addresses ... pivots
crucially upon the question of judgment" (p. 100).
This shift from the architecture of order to the problem of
judgment--a shift from metaphysics to epistemology--is best illustrated
in McClure's discussion of Locke's analysis of the development
of money. It is undisputed that Locke views the development of money as
the driving force for the creation of civil society. Scholars differ
widely, however, on whether Locke considers money an immoral or moral
device for creating civil society. McClure sidesteps this interpretive
dispute by focusing on the function of money within the God-given
order--discussing how it impacts human decisions based upon this order.
McClure maintains that in Locke's original state of nature
humankind lives within the God-given moral framework of production for
immediate use. Yet, "money introduces into human judgments of
convenience a worldly consideration that knows no bounds, an estimation
of value that recognizes no natural limits" (p. 182). As such,
money dissolves a person's ability simply to observe and reason as
to each other's moral obligations. The result is that "money
removes Locke's natural agents from the original order of
God's design and deposits them in new circumstances, new social
relations, plagued by a moral chaos of their own making" (p. 185).
The move toward civil society is thus not a response to immoral or moral
usage of money, but rather is a response to the need for neutral agents
to assist people in discerning what are the proper moral actions. Civil
society arises out of an epistemological need; it is an answer to a
human-created problem of how to reach a proper moral judgment.
In similarly interesting ways, McClure draws upon the architecture
of order metaphor throughout her book and develops several, integrated
themes concerning Locke's political theory. One of her more
intriguing conclusions is that according to Locke the function of
government is not to protect rights as such, but rather is to reorient its citizens back towards the God-given moral order of the cosmos; thus,
"Locke can be seen here as simultaneously a proponent of limited
government and a strong state theorist" (pp. 284-5). What makes
this conclusion at least intriguing is that McClure derives it not from
any preset ideological program, but rather from adopting the
metaphysical and epistemological perspective of Locke and his
contemporaries. In thus developing a new perspective on Locke's
Treatises, McClure has produced a work of scholarship that is deserving
of her subject.
--Adam Mossoff, University of Chicago Law School.
