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Originally Posted by DrModern
I think you ought to think long and hard about whether this conclusion is actually tenable within a Lockean framework without inserting an arbitrary (and ancillary) set of moral principles regarding what's eligible for ownership into Locke's theory of property. In other words, I think you are playing Mr. Fix It for Locke's system by inserting a caveat to his traditional rules of just acquisition that categorically precludes owning other human beings, even though there's no principle within Locke's system that necessitates this addition. It's not an accident that slave-owning men turned to Locke.
While I won't object to an admonition to think hard about a topic, I'll also say that you seem to have an overly narrow view of Locke's political philosophy. While it isn't uncommon for some leftist thinkers to focus almost exclusively on his account of property, that is only one part of much broader political theory.
So, Locke describes the state of nature as a place of moral equality that is governed by a
Law of Nature:
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John Locke:
Reason, which is that Law [of Nature], 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 Possessions. For Men being all the Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker; All the Servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order and about his business, they are his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure. And being furnished with like Faculties, sharing all in one Community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such Subordination among us, that may Authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one anothers uses, as the inferior ranks of Creatures are for ours. Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his Station wilfully; so by the like reason when his own Preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of Mankind, and may not unless it be to do Justice on an Offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the Preservation of the Life, the Liberty, Health, Limb or Goods of another.
This lays out the basic principle that the only grounds on which you can legitimately harm another person (which for Locke includes taking away their liberty) is for self-defense or (as he later says) for punishment. This is neither an arbitrary nor ancillary principle of Locke's philosophy--indeed this is typically described as Locke's Fundamental Law of Nature. Locke describes one of the primary purposes of government as being it's greater facility in maintaining this Law of Nature. So I would say that this principle actually has precedence over the rules of just acquisition later laid out by Locke, rather than just being a caveat.
It follows naturally from this that slavery is not, barring the special cases listed below, permissable. Later on in his chapter on slavery,
Locke says:
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John Locke:
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it.
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This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. For a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot by compact or his own consent enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than he has himself, and he that cannot take away his own life cannot give another power over it.
This clearly lays out that for Locke that slavery is against the natural condition of humans, whether in a state of nature or in society, and so deeply so that he claims it is impossible to enslave ourselves to another even by agreement.
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Dr Modern:
Indeed, under traditional Lockean homesteading, original ownership can be acquired by marking property as one's own -- such as by branding. And indeed, in the U.S., branding of slaves for identification as one's property was extremely common -- and equally brutal. As Frederick Douglass wrote:
Huh? Branding is nowhere claimed in Locke to be a sufficient condition of ownership. Furthermore, it is very clear in Locke that if slavery is permitted in some cases, it is not so as a matter of original acquisition. This seems like a pretty weak point.
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Like many other cultures before him, Locke accepted the theory that the exclusive condition on which slavery was valid was when someone would otherwise come to owe a life-debt. See David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville 2011) for more. He writes in the Second Treatise:
Please expand on where this is in Locke. My understanding is that Locke thought slavery was permissible in cases where someone's life is forfeit because of a crime or possibly due to an act of aggressive war. Is that what you mean by a "life-debt"?
Anyway, Locke doesn't justify slavery in terms of a debt in the Second Treatise. Rather he says that it can be justified only when slavery does the slave less harm than what he would otherwise deserve--death. Notice also that you could not be born into slavery, as was mostly the case in the American South at the time of the Civil War, so even this justification would have been of no help to the Confederates.
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Locke goes on to say that slavery most often comes about in war, and indeed it was typical for British slave traders to incite violence between African tribes in an effort to engineer exactly these conditions of apparent life-debt, thereby "legitimizing" their practice of enslavement. Locke also owned -- and profited handsomely by -- a significant stake in the Royal African Company.
Meh. I'll grant that Locke participated in some unsavory activities, but I'm talking here about the Lockean political philosophy, not his worthiness as a person. And, for what it's worth, the practice you describe would not justify the taking of Africans as slaves.
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So, why does Locke get off the hook here? Why shouldn't slave-taking count as an act of original appropriation under Locke's rules of acquisition?
The answer to the bolded question is obvious. Locke doesn't justify slavery as an act of original acquisition. Rather, he views slavery (in the state of nature) as being a justified only when someone has forfeited his right to life, liberty, and property by acting aggressively to deprive me or others of their own rights. In some sense, this is more analogous to criminal punishment than a legal form of chattel slavery. In the same way that we think that criminals give up some of their rights when they commit crimes, Locke think that people in a sense give up their rights when they commit crimes against the Law of Nature.
It is true that Locke expands this to include acts of aggressive war, but explicitly on the same basis--that an aggressive war is an attempt to take away your life, liberty, and property. Locke also says that your right as a conqueror in defeating an aggressive power only extends to those who actively participated in that aggressive event--thus not extending to the children or wives of the conquered.
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Why does Locke get to insert moral categories into his theorem, and how can he defend them? Indeed, the historical evidence seems to suggest that he would have taken no such view, and rather believed that under the appropriate conditions, life itself could be commoditized and property rights could be acquired over other human beings.
I think the problem here is that you are ignoring central elements of Locke's theory--such as theory of natural rights and natural laws--and so have an view of his political philosophy as being exclusively an account of property. He isn't inserting moral categories into his theorem; his entire system is suffused with moral categories from the very beginning.