Determinism

Determinism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that all physical events, including human thought and actions, are causally determined by the unbreakable chain of cause-consequence and, therefore, the current state in some sense "determines" the future. There are different formulations of determinism, differing in the details of their claims. There are three types of determinism.

Logical determinism holds that the truth value of any proposition is timeless. For example: the sentence "Tomorrow it will rain" is true or false, and if it is true, then tomorrow it will rain by logical necessity.

Epistemic determinism holds that if any future event is known in advance, then that event must inevitably occur.

Causal determinism holds that all events are the result of natural laws and preceding conditions.

To distinguish the different forms of determinism, it is convenient to classify them according to the degree of determinism they postulate:

 

Strong determinism holds that there are no genuinely random or chance events and that, in general, the future is potentially predictable from the present. The past could also be "predictable" if we know perfectly well a specific situation in the chain of causation. Pierre-Simon Laplace defended this type of determinism.

Weak determinism holds that it is probability that is determined by present events, or that there is a strong correlation between the present state and future states, even allowing for the influence of essentially random and unpredictable events.

It should be noted that there is an important difference between determination and predictability of events. Determination exclusively implies the absence of chance in the cause-effect chain that gives rise to a specific event. Predictability is a potential fact derived from the accurate determination of events, but it requires that the initial conditions (or any point) of the causal chain be known.

 

Soren Kierkegaard. the angst of living

 Soren Kierkegaard argued that the self has absolute freedom to choose and that the silence of God condemns us to uncertainty.

 

After a tormented and lonely life, Soren Kierkegaard died in 1855 of tuberculosis in Copenhagen, the city where he was born and lived. He was only 42 years old, which was not an obstacle for him to leave an important philosophical work that influenced authors such as Heidegger and Sartre.

 

 

Kierkegaard's intellectual legacy was strongly marked by his origins. His father, a man of an absorbing Lutheran faith, wanted his son to be a pastor. But Soren chose to study philosophy in Copenhagen and soon became highly critical of the Church, convinced that he had turned away from God to serve men. His writings in various local publications drew the ire of well-thinking society, which considered him an eccentric character.

 

 

Kierkegaard's thought is, to a large extent, a reaction against Hegel's philosophy, which had elevated Reason not only to the motor of History but also to individual decisions. Everything real is rational, according to the well-known Hegelian postulate. Kierkegaard challenges this thesis: human existence is not governed by absolute values nor by economic laws, as Marx would later argue, but by the free exercise of the will. Man is built by choosing his own life.

 

 

What matters is not the theory nor does it make sense to seek an objective explanation of the world. What counts is the self. The only real thing is the singular. In this sense, he writes: “What I really need is to see perfectly clearly what I must do, not what I must know. What matters to me is to understand the very meaning and definition of my being, to see what God wants from me, what I must do. It is necessary to find a truth to live and die.

 

 

Therefore, and in this he is a precursor of Sartre and existentialism, we are not born with a determined essence, but we are pure existence. Each individual has absolute freedom to choose, to do good or evil. We are, then, condemned to be free.

 

 

Kierkegaard experienced this painfully, since he was always a very indecisive person. Madly in love with Regina Olsen, he called off his engagement at the last moment. He always regretted his decision.

Positive discrimination

Positive discrimination, also called positive action or affirmative action, refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization that seek to increase the representation of certain groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed, or nationality in areas where they are underrepresented, such as education and employment.1234 Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as reducing inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education , the promotion of diversity and the repair of apparent grievances, damages or obstacles from the past.

 

The nature of affirmative action policies varies from region to region and exists on a spectrum from a hard quota to the mere encouragement to increase participation. Some countries use a quota system, whereby a certain percentage of government jobs, political offices, and places in schools must be reserved for members of a certain group; an example of this is the reservation system in India.

 

In other regions where quotas are not used, members of minority groups have preference or special consideration in selection processes. In the United States, affirmative action in employment and education has been the subject of legal and political controversy. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court, in Grutter v. Bollinger, held that the University of Michigan Law School could consider race as an additional factor when evaluating applicants globally and upheld the ban on the use of quotas.

 

In the UK, hiring someone simply because of their protected group status, without regard to their performance, is illegal. However, UK law does allow membership of a protected and disadvantaged group to be taken into account in recruitment and promotion where the group is underrepresented in a given area and if candidates are of equal merit. The control logic is that the person should not be chosen simply because they belong to a group, but that the competent authorities can use the status of disadvantaged group as a "break-off criterion" between two candidates with the same merits. This is functionally the same as the practice known as affirmative action in the United States.

 

However, a common alternative approach in the UK is described as 'positive action'. With this approach, the focus is often on ensuring equal opportunities and, for example, running targeted advertising campaigns to encourage candidates from ethnic minorities to join the police force. This is often described as "color blind", although the social viability of that concept is hotly contested in the United States.

 

Personalism

 Personalism is a philosophical school that emphasizes the person. It considers man as a relational being, essentially social and communal, a free, transcendent being with a value in itself that prevents him from becoming an object as such. A moral being, capable of loving, of acting based on updating his powers and finally of defining himself, always considering the nature that determines him.

 

Personalism as a current of thought takes place within an environment surrounded by various equal ideologies of the political situation that the world was going through during the first half of the 20th century.

 

Scientism and positivism were part of this context and were two of the ideologies that had the most repercussions on human thinking and acting at the time. The cause of the popularity of this new intellectual materialism lies in the success achieved by experimental science.

 

The scientific method was considered the only valid method of knowledge and the only dimensions that really existed were the physical and material ones since they could be controlled through this method. In this way, the transcendent dimensions of the person were rejected.

 

Capitalism, for its part, proclaimed the freedom of the individual and their right to private property but later did not establish solidarity mechanisms between the subjects, but each one had to solve their problems with their own strength and resources. However, through the free decision of the subjects, these solidarity mechanisms can be organically given from the consent.

 

In response to capitalism, Marxism as an ideology of great popularity in the old world offered a confrontation with the oppressor through the class struggle to reappropriate the means of production that the exploiters had usurped. The man was subordinated to the total humanity for what the so-called communist paradise was sought.

 

Together with Marxism, two totalitarian movements appeared with a very particular conception of the person. Nazism, on the one hand, advocated the supremacy of the Aryan race over all the others and from there it deduced its right to dominate over all peoples. Fascism, on the other hand, defined man as a concrete moment or manifestation that adopts an absolute Spirit that remains and that has to be put at his service.

 

Faced with the schools of thought that subordinated man to a superior entity and reduced his nature to specific dimensions that did not cover everything that being a person implies; the need arises for a response that would revalue it and defend its true identity.

 

This response should be contextualized in the reality of today's world and should be a means to facilitate proposals for action on man's problems. Highlighting the notion of person, the experience of his being, the encounter with others, his transcendence, subjectivity and freedom constituted a hallmark of the utmost importance  for Personalism.

Contemporary Philosophy

Contemporary philosophy is understood as all the philosophical thought that has been developed after modern philosophy. In other words, it covers the philosophy of the late 19th century and early 20th century to the present day. Thus, it is usually grouped into two great schools: continental philosophy, from Europe; and analytical philosophy, coming from Anglo-Saxon countries. In this way, it is made up of the philosophical currents of existentialism, phenomenology, logical positivism and post-structuralism, among others.

 

What are the contemporary philosophical schools?

The philosophical thought from the 20th century is divide into two great currents: analytical philosophy and continental philosophy. These are then made up of the following schools:

 

Analytical Philosophy:

Experimental philosophy: which focused its line of thought on empirical information, which is why it uses surveys and different types of measurement to answer the great questions of philosophy.

Logical Positivism: Also known as the Vienna Circle, it sought to make philosophy a science through empirical verification and analytical methods.

Naturalism: which thought of nature as the basis of reality, so that consciousness was understood as an entity in interdependence with natural causes and forces.

Philosophy of ordinary language:

Quietism: who focused his efforts on making philosophy a therapeutic method.

Post-analytic philosophy (pragmatism): which sought to separate itself from analytical philosophy and make philosophy a useful object for social progress.

Continental Philosophy:

Deconstruction: which focused on demonstrating that all speech had paradoxes, so it could be deconstructed. That is to say that the destruction of the text or the discourse is not sought, but to demonstrate how it is brought to that state.

Existentialism: that focused on human existence, understanding that this preceded the essence and, therefore, subjectivity prevailed over the objective.

Phenomenology: that focused on studying reality from its manifestation.

Post-structuralism: which was born in opposition to structuralism, and which had an influence on other disciplines such as literary criticism, history, anthropology or sociology.

Postmodern philosophy: which was born in opposition to the totalizing and fundamental ideas of Western philosophy.

Social constructionism: which studies the structures of society as a cultural artifact or an invention of a particular society.

Critical theory: that focused on studying society from the statements of Freud and Marx.

 

Main thinkers of contemporary Philosoph

Among the main thinkers of the 19th century, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Auguste Comte, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Gottlob Frege can be highlighted. While in the 20th century the following philosophers can be highlighted: Sigmund Freud, Ernst March, John Dewey, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Karl Jaspers, Albert Camus, Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Claude Lévi Strauss, and Karl Popper.

 

Simone de Beauvoir

 (January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986) was a French thinker, feminist, and novelist. She is a representative of the atheist existentialist movement and a crucial figure in the claim of women's rights. She was born into a bourgeois and Christian family. Her father, Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, was a lawyer and amateur actor, and Françoise Brasseur, a deeply religious homemaker. She enrolled in a very prestigious Catholic girls' school where she was noted for her brilliance. Years later, she had the privilege of studying at the Sorbonne and she met Jean-Paul Sartre, whom she accepted as her life partner. Although, it was a relationship that was quite out of the parameters of the moment: they talked to you for more than 50 years, they never lived together, and they did not see fit to get married or have children.

 

In her adolescence, she understood that religion was a way to subjugate the human being, and for this reason, she decided to declare herself an atheist. After World War I, Gustave Brasseur, her grandfather who was president of the Bank of the Meuse, went bankrupt. As a consequence of this family ruin, Simone's parents left the stately residence on boulevard Raspail and moved to a small apartment. The family relationship became increasingly tense, which is why her parents saw that studying was the only option for their daughters' economic situation to improve. At fifteen years old, Ella Simone knew that her destiny was to be a writer. Beauvoir began her higher education at the Catholic Institute in Paris, a private religious institution. She there she expanded her literary training at the Institute Sainte-Marie de Neuilly.

 

She earned certificates in mathematics, literature, and Latin. In 1926, she studied philosophy and obtained her certificate. Her university studies concluded in 1929 with the writing of a thesis on Leibniz. From 1943 she dedicated herself to teaching in the high schools of Marseille, Rouen and Paris. Her first work was the novel The Guest (1943), then The Blood of Others (1944) and the essay Pyrrhus and Cineas (1944). She was one of the few women to participate in the ideological debates of the time, she was reticent to the political right of her country and assumed the role of a committed intellectual. She joined with Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to found the magazine Modern Times, whose first issue came out on October 15, 1945. Over time, she was a political and cultural reference for French thought in the mid-20th century. . Although at this time her name was highly questioned after not replicating the acts of World War II, as expected.

 

Subsequently, she published the novel All Men Are Mortal (1946), the essays For a Morality of Ambiguity (1947) and America Up to Date (1948). But, her starting point and her strong irruption into feminist issues occurred with her work entitled The Second Sex (1949); it became a classic work of contemporary thought. Elaborating a history on the social condition of the woman and analyzed the different characteristics of the masculine oppression. At the time when women's decision-making was limited in matters such as reproduction, social and affective ties, women's freedom and autonomy were restricted. This approach was new and little discussed at the time.

 

She also analyzed the gender situation from the perspective of biology, psychoanalysis and Marxism; destroying feminine myths, and inciting authentic liberation. She maintained that the struggle for the emancipation of women was different, although parallel to the class struggle, and that the main problem for women was linked to the economic factor. Simone de Beauvoir founded with the help of other empowered women the Women's Rights League, one of her intentions was to react firmly to any sexist discrimination, and through the magazine she disseminated all the talks and dissertations that came out of this space . She won the Prix Goncourt with The Mandarins (1954), where she spoke about the difficulties of postwar intellectuals in assuming their social responsibility.

 

Simone developed a vision of solidarity, and that is why in 1968 she joined the students led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, in 1972 she presided over the Choisir association, in charge of defending free contraception, and received the admiration of her classmates for being a tireless fighter for human rights. In short, she Simone expressed herself in favor of communism and met with Che Guevara, with Mao and with Fidel Castro. Among his most outstanding works we can name: Memoirs of a formal young woman (1958), The fullness of life (1960), The strength of things (1963), A very sweet death (1964), Old age (1968), Final of accounts (1972) and the goodbye ceremony (1981).

 

Simone De Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986. Her work was recognized before and after her death. In the 21st century, the Simone de Beauvoir Award was created, given to those women who have been concerned with promoting freedom and women's rights. This prize awards the amount of 20 thousand euros and is supported by various international institutions, including Diderot University. For example, it was handed over to Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai in 2013.

Cultural Relativism:

All Truth Is Local

Cultural Relativism is the view that moral or ethical systems, which vary from culture to culture, are all equally valid and no one system is really “better” than any other. This is based on the idea that there is no ultimate standard of good or evil, so every judgment about right and wrong is a product of society. Therefore, any opinion on morality or ethics is subject to the cultural perspective of each person. Ultimately, this means that no moral or ethical system can be considered the “best,” or “worst,” and no particular moral or ethical position can actually be considered “right” or “wrong.”

Cultural relativism is a widely held position in the modern world. Words like “pluralism,” “tolerance,” and “acceptance” have taken on new meanings, as the boundaries of “culture” have expanded. The loose way in which modern society defines these ideas has made it possible for almost anything to be justified on the grounds of “relativism.” The umbrella of “relativism” includes a fairly wide range of ideas, all of which introduce instability and uncertainty into areas that were previously considered settled.

 Stepping up to the edge of a cliff gives you a good perspective of the terrain below. Taking one step too far, as cultural relativism does, is simply a disaster.

Obviously, perspective is important to our understanding of history, psychology, and politics. Cultural perspective can help us understand why certain actions are considered right or wrong by a particular culture. For example, an ancient society might have considered dyeing one’s hair green to be a punishable offense. Most modern societies would find that strange, if not oppressive. Yet, good cultural perspective might tell us more. If we were to find out that green hair was a sign of a prostitute, we would understand that it wasn’t the hair color itself, but the prostitution that was truly considered “wrong.”

However, the problem with moving from cultural perspective to cultural relativism is the erosion of reason that it causes. Rather than simply saying, “we need to understand the morals of other cultures,” it says, “we cannot judge the morals of other cultures,” regardless of the reasons for their actions. There is no longer any perspective, and it becomes literally impossible to argue that anything a culture does is right or wrong.  Holding to strict cultural relativism, it is not possible to say that human sacrifice is “wrong,” or that respect for the elderly is “right.” After all, those are products of the culture. This takes any talk of morality right over the cliff, and into meaningless gibberish.

 

Tolerance, acceptance of differences, respect for all cultures are absolutely right and our world lives by those standards. Problems begin to arise when someone gets “hurt.” Perhaps the starting point maybe to put again into use Kant’s moral categorical imperative. First formulation: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.” Second formulation:“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” Third formulation: “Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.” The first formulation of the Categorical Imperative appears similar to “The Golden Rule.” Kant himself did not think so in “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals “ Rather, the categorical imperative is an attempt to identify a purely formal and necessarily universally binding rule on all rational agents. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, is neither purely formal nor necessarily universally binding. It is "empirical" in the sense that applying it depends on providing content, like "If you don't want others to hit you, then don't hit them." Also, it is a hypothetical imperative in the sense that it can be formulated, "If you want X done to you, then do X to others." Kant feared that the hypothetical clause, "if you want X done to you," remains open to dispute. He wanted an imperative that was categorical: "Do X to others." And this he thinks he discovered and formulated. Kant thought, therefore, that the Golden Rule (insofar as it is accurate) is derived from the categorical imperative

 

Absolutely Impossible

The contradiction of cultural relativism becomes immediately apparent. A society that embraces the notion that there is no ultimate “right” or “wrong” loses the ability to make any judgments at all. The way in which relativism, including cultural relativism, has permeated modern society is demonstrated in the bizarre ways in which we try to deal with this contradiction. “Tolerance” has mutated to imply unconditional support and agreement for all opinions or lifestyles. However, those who choose to be “intolerant” are not to be supported or agreed with. Tolerance, therefore, becomes an “ultimate good” in and of itself, which is contradictory to the entire idea of relativism. In the same way, heinous crimes such as rape and murder demand a moral judgment -- but strict cultural relativism cannot say that such things are always wrong.

Relativism in general breaks down when examined from a purely logical perspective. The basic premise is that “truth is relative.” If every truth statement is valid, then the statement “some truths are absolute” must be valid. The statement “there are no absolute truths” is accurate, according to relativism -- but it is an absolute truth itself. These contradict the very concept of relativism, meaning that absolute relativism is self-contradictory and impossible.

Crumbling Away

In practice, cultural relativism cannot overcome the boundaries of logic, nor can it override the sense of morality inherent to mankind. We instinctively know that some things are wrong, so cultural relativists attempt to tweak their philosophy to fit that need. Declaring certain actions “mostly” wrong, or “mostly” right is nothing more than making up the rules as one goes. Saying that some morals are “better,” even if they aren’t “the best,” still implies some ultimate standard that’s being used to make that judgment. How do you know which cloud is higher unless you know which way “up” is? To firmly state that anything at all is always wrong is to reject relativism itself. In the end, those who insist on clinging to cultural relativism must jettison logic, because there isn’t room for both. It is literally impossible for a person to rationally believe that there are no moral absolutes, or at least to live out that belief in any meaningful way.

 Since this philosophy is nonsensical, there must be some fundamental absolutes of right and wrong, regardless of the opinions of any given society. Since there are disagreements among different cultures, we cannot assume that these truths are developed by one particular group of people. In fact, the only logical place for these concepts to originate from is something more universal, or at least more fundamental, than culture.  What may be?  I am not sure, but we must work on it. Something akin to the resurrection of Universals from the ashes of post-modernism, very easy said but very, very complex to realize. Kant help us !

 

Hyperconnectivity and its influence on contemporary culture and metal health

What is hyperconnectivity?

Hyperconnectivity is a concept that synthesizes the current situation of the human being in which he lives permanently connected to information through different devices such as radio, television, internet and mobile phone.

 

During the first months of 2020, due to the confinement situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen how the times of use of digital devices have increased, not only for leisure, but also in the workplace. What has made it necessary to pay attention to the habits that we have been acquiring.

 

ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) have constituted a technological revolution. They have opened new doors to human relations, the world of work, research, entertainment, education, etc.

 

We have gone from direct to indirect communication. Thanks to them we can be in contact with people from the other part of the world and follow their lives as if they were nearby. Distances and limits become shorter, they allow us to have access to all kinds of information in an almost unlimited way, thanks to social networks we can know the latest news within minutes of it happening. We are more connected than ever to the world as a whole. The advantages are more than evident, they represent an enormous advance in the sense that it facilitates the free expression of ideas, thoughts, knowledge, news, etc. One of the great benefited areas has been education, thanks to educational computer programs, a motivating environment has been achieved to work on the cognitive stimulation of the youngest.

 

What repercussions does hyperconnectivity have on our culture and health

Although ICTs are neither good nor bad by themselves, we could consider that they are all advantages, that accessibility and connection cannot bring anything negative. But the fact is that harmful repercussions may appear, especially derived from the misuse and abuse of these tools.

When we talk about misuse, we refer to the use of ICT as a means to insult, deceive, swindle, harass, or cause harm to another person.

 

Regarding abuse, it is the state reached when the hours of exposure to ICTs are increased to the point where certain activities and responsibilities are renounced to be connected.

 

Some of the consequences that may appear due to the abuse of ICTs would be:

 

·         Suffering from anxiety or FOMO (fear of missing something, or being excluded from social networks).

·         Cancels creativity.

·         Loss of critical analysis of reality, cognitive distortions.

·         Encourages isolation, and causes socialization problems.

·         Generates compulsive behaviors.

·         Increases  the risk of depression.

·          Causes sleeping problems.

Destruction of the personality.

It is interesting to benefit from all the tools that allow us to grow and evolve both professionally, personally and socially, but, for this, it is essential to make responsible use of them. We must be attentive to the warning signs that may indicate that we are entering a certain degree of abuse, for example, the fear and anxiety of going without the mobile phone, the abandonment of tasks or recreational activities due to being connected, the excess of hours of exposure to ICT. Becoming aware of our relationship with them will allow us to have greater control over their use, since we are the ones who direct that relationship, not the ones who are being directed. We can implement some tips to deal with ICT without falling into excess, such as, for example, turning off the mobile during social gatherings or meals, prioritizing reality over the virtual world, carrying out activities that free us from stress.

Locke: Reconciling the Law with Happiness

 The main lines of Locke’s natural law theory are as follows: there is a moral law that is ( discoverable by the combined work of reason and sense experience, and binding on human beings in virtue of being decreed by God.  Locke thinks that all human beings are naturally oriented to the pursuit of happiness. This is because we are motivated to pursue things if they promise pleasure and to avoid things if they promise pain. It has seemed to many commentators that these two discussions of moral principles are in tension with each other. On the view described in Law, Locke straightforwardly appeals to reason and our ability to understand the nature of God’s attributes to ground our obligation to follow the law of nature. In other words, what is lawful ought to be followed because God wills it and what is unlawful ought to be rejected because it is not willed by God. Because we can straightforwardly see that God is the law-giver and that we are by nature subordinate to Him, we ought to follow the law. By contrast, in the discussion of happiness and pleasure in the Essay, Locke explains that good and evil reduce to what is pleasurable and what is painful. While he does also indicate that the special categories of good and evil—moral good and moral evil—are no more than the conformity or disagreement between our actions and a law, he immediately adds that such conformity or disagreement is followed by rewards or punishments that flow from the lawmaker’s will. From this discussion, then, it is difficult to see whether Locke holds that it is the reward and punishment that binds human beings to act in accordance with the law, or if it is the fact that the law is willed by God.

One way to approach this problem is to suggest that Locke changed his mind. Because of the thirty-year gap between Law and the Essay, we might be tempted to think that the more rationalist picture, where the law and its authority are based on reason, was the young Locke’s view when he wrote Law. This view, the story would go, was replaced by Locke’s more considered and mature view, hedonism. But this approach must be resisted because both theories are present in early and late works. The role of pleasure and pain with respect to morality is present not only in the Essay, but is invoked in Law (passage quoted at the end of §2c), and many other various minor essays written in the years between Law and Essay (for example, ‘Morality’ (c.1677–78) in Political Essays, 267–69). Likewise, the role of the authority of God's will is retained after Law, again evident in various minor essays (for example, ‘Virtue B’ (1681) in Political Essays, 287-88), Government II.6), Locke’s correspondence (for example, to James Tyrrell, 4 August 1690, Correspondence, Vol.4, letter n.1309) and even in the Essay itself (II.xxviii.8). An answer to how we might reconcile these two positions is suggested when we consider the texts where appeals to both theories are found side-by-side in certain passages.

 

In his essay Of Ethick in General (c. 1686–88) Locke affirms the hedonist view that happiness and misery consist only in pleasure and pain, and that we all naturally seek happiness. But in the very next paragraph, he states that there is an important difference between moral and natural good and evil—the pleasure and pain that are consequences of virtuous and vicious behavior are grounded in the divine will. Locke notes that drinking to excess leads to pain in the form of headache or nausea. This is an example of a natural evil. By contrast, transgressing a law would not have any painful consequences if the law were not decreed by a superior lawmaker. He adds that it is impossible to motivate the actions of rational agents without the promise of pain or pleasure (Of Ethick in General, §8). From these considerations, Locke suggests that the proper foundation of morality, a foundation that will entail an obligation to moral principles, needs two things. First, we need the proof of a law, which presupposes the existence of a lawmaker who is superior to those to whom the law is decreed. The lawmaker has the right to ordain the law and the power to reward and punish. Second, it must be shown that the content of the law is discoverable to humankind (Of Ethick in General, §12). In this text it seems that Locke suggests that both the force and authority of the divine decree and the promise of reward and punishment are necessary for the proper foundation of an obligating moral law.

A similar line of argument is found in the Essay. There, Locke asserts that in order to judge moral success or failure, we need a rule by which to measure and judge action. Further, each rule of this sort has an “enforcement of Good and Evil.” This is because, according to Locke, “where-ever we suppose a Law, suppose also some Reward or Punishment annexed to that Law” (Essay, II.xxviii.6). Locke states that some promise of pleasure or pain is necessary in order to determine the will to pursue or avoid certain actions. Indeed, he puts the point even more strongly, saying that it would be in vain for the intelligent being who decrees the rule of law to so decree without entailing reward or punishment for the obedient or the unfaithful (see also Government, II.7). It seems, then, that reason discovers the fact that a divine law exists and that it derives from the divine will and, as such, is binding. We might think, as Stephen Darwall suggests in The British Moralists and the Internal Ought, that if reason is that which discovers our obligation to the law, the role for reward and punishment is to motivate our obedience to the law. While this succeeds in making room for both the rationalist and hedonist strains in Locke’s view, some other texts seem to indicate that by reason alone we ought to be motivated to follow moral laws.

One striking instance of this kind of suggestion is found in the third book of the Essay where Locke boldly states that “Morality is capable of Demonstration” in the same way as mathematics (Essay, III.xi.16). He explains that once we understand the existence and nature of God as a supreme being who is infinite in power, goodness, and wisdom and on whom we depend, and our own nature “as understanding, rational Beings,” we should be able to see that these two things together provide the foundation of both our duty and the appropriate rules of action. On Locke’s view, with focused attention the measures of right and wrong will become as clear to us as the propositions of mathematics (Essay, IV.iii.18). He gives two examples of such certain moral principles to make the point: (1) “Where there is no Property, there is no Injustice” and (2) “No Government allows absolute Liberty.” He explains that property implies a right to something and injustice is the violation of a right to something. So, if we clearly see the intensional definition of each term, we see that  is necessarily true. Similarly, government indicates the establishment of a society based on certain rules, and absolute liberty is the freedom from any and all rules. Again, if we understand the definitions of the two terms in the proposition, it becomes obvious that  is necessarily true. And, Locke states, following this logic, 1 and 2 are as certain as the proposition that “a Triangle has three Angles equal to two right ones” (Essay, IV.iii.18). If moral principles have the same status as mathematical principles, it is difficult to see why we would need further inducement to use these principles to guide our behavior. While there is no clear answer to this question, Locke does provide a way to understand the role of reward and punishment in our obligation to moral principles despite the fact that it seems that they ought to obligate by reason alone.

Early in the Essay, over the course of giving arguments against the existence of innate ideas, Locke addresses the possibility of innate moral principles. He begins by saying that for any proposed moral rule human beings can, with good reason, demand justification. This precludes the possibility of innate moral principles because, if they were innate, they would be self-evident and thus would not be candidates for justification. Next, Locke notes that despite the fact that there are no innate moral principles, there are certain principles that are undeniable, for example, that “men should keep their Compacts.” However, when asked why people follow this rule, different answers are given. A “Hobbist” will say that it is because the public requires it, and the “Leviathan” will punish those who disobey the law. A “Heathen” philosopher will say that it is because following such a law is a virtue, which is the highest perfection for human beings. But a Christian philosopher, the category to which Locke belongs, will say that it is because “God, who has the Power of eternal Life and Death, requires it of us” (Essay, I.iii.5). Locke builds on this statement in the following section when he notes that while the existence of God and the truth of our obedience to Him is made manifest by the light of reason, it is possible that there are people who accept the truth of moral principles, and follow them, without knowing or accepting the “true ground of Morality; which can only be the Will and Law of God” (Essay, I.iii.6). Here Locke is suggesting that we can accept a true moral law as binding and follow it as such, but for the wrong reasons. This means that while the Hobbist, the Heathen, and the Christian might all take the same law of keeping one’s compacts to be obligating, only the Christian does it for the right reason—that God’s will requires our obedience to that law. Indeed, Locke states that if we receive truths by revelation they too must be subject to reason, for to follow truths based on revelation alone is insufficient (see Essay, IV.xviii).

Now, to determine the role of pain and pleasure in this story, we turn to Locke’s discussion of the role of pain and pleasure in general. He says that God has joined pains and pleasures to our interaction with many things in our environment in order to alert us to things that are harmful or helpful to the preservation of our bodies (Essay, II.vii.4). But, beyond this, Locke notes that there is another reason that God has joined pleasure and pain to almost all our thoughts and sensations: so that we experience imperfections and dissatisfactions. He states that the kinds of pleasures that we experience in connection to finite things are ephemeral and not representative of complete happiness. This dissatisfaction coupled with the natural drive to obtain happiness opens the possibility of our being led to seek our pleasure in God, where we anticipate a more stable and, perhaps, permanent happiness. Appreciating this reason why pleasure and pain are annexed to most of our ideas will, according to Locke, lead the way to the ultimate aim of the enquiry in human understanding—the knowledge and veneration of God (Essay, II.vii.5–6). So, Locke seems to be suggesting here that pain and pleasure prompt us to find out about God, in whom complete and eternal happiness is possible. This search, in turn, leads us to knowledge of God, which will include the knowledge that He ought to be obeyed in virtue of His decrees alone. Pleasure and pain, reward and punishment, on this interpretation, are the means by which we are led to know God’s nature, which, once known, motivates obedience to His laws. This mechanism supports Locke’s claim that real happiness is to be found in the perfection of our intellectual nature—in embarking on the search for knowledge of God, we embark on the intellectual journey that will lead to the kind of knowledge that brings permanent pleasure. This at least suggests that the knowledge of God has the happy double-effect of leading to both more stable happiness and the understanding that God is to be obeyed in virtue of His divine will alone.

But given that all human beings experience pain and pleasure, Locke needs to explain how it is that certain people are virtuous, having followed the experience of dissatisfaction to arrive at the knowledge of God, and other people are vicious, who seek pleasure and avoid pain for no reason other than their own hedonic sensations.