What role does nature play in the thought of our authors? Keep in mind
that the words “nature” and “natural” may not mean exactly the same thing
in different authors, and may be used in more than one sense by the same
author. What is the relationship between the natural and the artificial? Is
the best condition for human beings — the best society, or the best way
of life — a natural condition, according to them? If so, in what sense of
“natural”? Do they think it is “natural” (and again: if so, in what sense?)
for human beings to live in (what they call) a “state of nature”? And/or do
they think it is “natural” for human beings to abide by the “law of nature”?
What, according to them, is the relationship between the “right of nature”
or “natural right(s)” and “human nature”?
2.
Discuss and compare the views of our authors about the origin, structure,
and political significance of the family. What, if anything, is the difference
between families as they now exist and families as they would have been
or would be in earlier or more primitive or less organized states of society,
and especially in the “state of nature”? To what extent and/or under what
circumstances do they think families are held together by natural affection?
By natural rights of dominion? By the needs of children? By the power of one
or both parents? By gratitude? By property and/or the prospect of inheriting
it? To what extent or under what conditions do they think both parents
have or would or should have equal authority in a family? To what extent
or under what conditions do they think the authority of one or the other
parent is or would or should be greater? Assuming most families in their time
were patriarchal, how do they explain that? What role, if any, do they think
families played or would play in forming a commonwealth? In what ways,
or under what conditions, do they think families resemble commonwealths
or actually are small commonwealths? How are their disagreements about
these various issues related to their disagreements about the past, present,
or (hoped for) future roles of men and women in civil society?
3.
Discuss and compare the views of our authors about the relationship
between religion and political society. This may include both issues about
what the relationship in fact is or has been in the past (e.g. during various
periods described in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments) and issues
about what the proper or best relationship would be. “Religion” may also
enter into this in various different ways: as a philosophical doctrine about the
nature and will of God (e.g. about a “divine law” that can be discovered by
unaided human reason); as a set of (possibly rational, or possibly irrational)
beliefs about God or the gods, perhaps based, or supposed to be based,
on miraculous revelation and/or verified by public miracles, perhaps partly
due to deliberate fabrication (which some parties, e.g. priests or legislators,
have undertaken for their own private good, and/or for the public good);
as a human institution with its own structure and with its own (legitimate
or illegitimate) claims to authority (a church, ecclesiastical power). How,
according to our authors, might religion (in one or more of these senses) be
necessary or helpful for the origination of a commonwealth? For the lawful
exercise of political power within a commonwealth? As a basis for legitimate
opposition to a commonwealth? How, and in what sense, do they think it
might be dangerous? What kind of political control over religion do they
think desirable and/or legitimate, and why? (Keep in mind that, for at least
some of the above questions, Locke’s views in the Essay and/or the structure
he set up in the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina may be relevant.)
4.
Discuss and compare the views of our authors about some or all of the
following interrelated issues: the state of war; the right to kill an enemy; the
right of conquest (and “commonwealth by acquisition”); despotical dominion
(the dominion of a master over what Hobbes calls a “servant,” but others call
a “slave”: someone who is not literally in chains, but who is compelled by
force to comply with the master’s will and has no rights — at least, no legally
enforceable rights — against the master). What is a state of war, according
to them? Do they make a distinction between just and unjust war, and why
or why not? Or, more broadly: what do they think are the common and/or
legitimate reasons for war (e.g.: self-defense; preemption of a threat; gaining
resources or territory; resettling excess population; punishing or preventing
breaches of justice; spreading peace and/or virtue)? Do they think a state
of war can (or must) exist between individuals in a state of nature? In civil
society? What rights do they think the victors gain over the losers (over
their life, liberty, and possessions), and why? Does it matter whether the
war was just or unjust? Can a war result in a new relation of despotical
dominion, according to them? In a new relation of political dominion? (Do
they think that political dominion is a type of despotic dominion, or that
despotic dominion is a type of political dominion, or that despotic dominion
and political dominion are completely distinct?)
5.
Under what conditions, according to our authors, and in what respects,
and for what purposes, may one human being, or one group of human
beings, legitimately act as the agent (or “representative” or, in Hobbes’s
terminology, “person”) of another (individual or group)? What rights and/or
obligations result on each side of the relationship (the author and the agent,
the represented and the representative)? In particular: what role(s) do they
see for such agency (representation) in the initial formation and/or in the
continued operations of a political community? Which political rights and
obligations, according to them, result from such relationships? What, if
anything, do they think serves to enforce them (i.e., to protect the rights
from infringement or to ensure that the obligations will be fulfilled)? In
what respects, or on what conditions, or for what purposes, on the other
hand, do they think agency/representation is either a bad idea (ill advised),
illegitimate, or simply impossible? To the extent that our authors disagree
about these matters, how does this result disagreements over the possible
and/or advisable ways of organizing political society?