1/13. Locke on Power

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1 1/13 Locke on Power Locke s chapter on power is the longest chapter of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and its claims are amongst the most controversial and influential that Locke sets out in this work. The opening paragraph here is important since what Locke states is that the mind concludes from a constant observation of its own operation that like changes will for the future be made, in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways and it is by means of these assumptions concerning change that the mind is led to the idea of power. So, underpinning the notion of power, is a conception of its manner of operating by constant principles. Subsequently, Locke distinguishes power into two fundamental sorts: the power to make changes occur and the power to receive changes (the former being called by him an active power; the latter a passive one). Power is an idea that includes in its conception relations to action and change, a point that Locke says makes this idea of a piece with extension, duration and number, all of which include secret relation of parts but, despite this, he still numbers power amongst simple ideas, due to it being a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances. The first question concerning Locke s view of power emerges with reference to his reason for viewing it as a simple idea since, in the chapter on Simple Ideas (II.ii.1), he had described them as being uncompounded by which he meant that they contained nothing but one uniform appearance which was not

2 2/13 distinguishable into different ideas. Viewed in terms of this criterion it would not appear that power is a simple idea. In suggesting that it is a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances he uses a different criteria for a simple idea than he gave in the earlier chapter on simple ideas. At the conclusion of the chapter on power (II.xxi.73) he gives a different account when he refers to original ideas, from whence all the rest are derived, and of which they are made up and, includes here in relation to body, the power of being moved, and in relation to mind, both the power of perception or thinking and the power of moving. In making these claims he is using another criterion of simple ideas since now the criterion is that they are fundamental to the formation of other ideas and this claim is here explicitly connected to what is essential to the conception of minds and bodies. Viewed in these terms power does appear to be a simple idea but only due to the fact that Locke has moved from one sense of the term simple to another. Returning to the distinction between active and passive power, the description of the former as involving the ability to bring about change requires it to be understood directly as a causal notion whilst, by contrast, the ability to receive change only indirectly refers us to causation. However, towards the close of the chapter, Locke elaborates further on this distinction since there he makes clear that it is not enough to bring about a change in something else for an active power to be manifested. A body in motion

3 3/13 affects another body if it comes into contact with it, often causing the second body to move in its turn but, due to the fact that the power of motion is not something that originated in the first body itself, but came to it from without, the first body is not here manifesting an active power. So, similarly, if I think about something due to something beyond me acting on me then my act of thought is not the operation of an active power. Active power requires, in addition to the initiation of action in something else, that this initiation be produced directly by the power in question on its own. So, when, without being forced by something outside me, I consider and compare two ideas and reflect on their relation, then I am exercising an active power, as also I am when I direct my body to move in a certain way simply because I so wish it to move without a force being exerted on me from without requiring its motion. The sense of a beginning of motion is an idea not of sense but of reflection, as we understand the sense of motion beginning when we determine ourselves to move in a certain way, but such determination of beginning is not something we note in bodies. In a later chapter Locke also describes thinking as one of the primary qualities of minds along with a power of action (II.xxiii.30) whilst no sense of action is there attributed to bodies. Despite this, however, in his account of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, Locke argues that primary qualities of bodies produce simple ideas in us (II.viii.9) which requires them to be

4 4/13 powers in some sense. Common ideas, however, lead to active powers being understood to be a great part of our complex ideas of natural substances says Locke (II.xxi.2) but this is precisely based on the misunderstanding that assimilates movement to activity. When it comes to the mind Locke is clear in his statement that there is activity present. The power that is involved in such action is what is philosophers have traditionally termed will with the sense of its operation being based only on our specific wish or order being what we understand to be its voluntary operation. Will is distinguished from understanding as the latter is engaged in perception. Perception is of three sorts: perception of ideas in the mind; perception of signs; perception of agreement or disagreement between ideas. The latter two of these operations really produce understanding in the full sense. Freedom is related by Locke to the ability not to perform some action should we wish not to and this ability not to do is essential for the ability to do to be understood as the exercise of a free ability. If we can do something but are not able to avoid doing it then our exercise of the capacity in question is in a sense forced. This again distinguishes the action of minds from those of bodies since neither the initiation of motion in them nor its cessation is as a result of a distinction within the bodies themselves concerning inclination to act or desist from acting. It is evident though that if action is something that can be brought about by minds that the

5 5/13 possession of a mind is not enough for us to act freely in the sense that Locke has defined. So if I am walking on a bridge and it collapses under me then it is not in my power to prevent my body from falling. In such circumstances the possible capacity of action possessed by the mind is not capable of actualization and thus the mind is overwhelmed by the body. However, not only can the mind be affected in ways it would not wish by the body but it is also the case that within the mind itself there are constraints as when Locke mentions that we cannot choose not to think. What these limitations point to is that the activity that is connected to mind is one whose circumstances are restrained in certain ways. Given these restraints, however, he can describe beings that do not and cannot think as governed by necessities, that is, as un-free. Liberty is a power of agents that have minds and the will is simply a name for this power and given that it is such it makes no sense on Locke s view to ask whether the will is free. What is free is the agent who possesses the capacity to act in ways that are the product of decision and not of necessity if that agent is sufficiently unconstrained as to so act. So to be free is, on Locke s account, to possess the power to do what we will (II.xxi.21). An action that fits the conception of such a notion is capable of being an object of volition is we can perform it soon after we have determined that we wish to do so and we correctly believe it to be in our power.

6 6/13 In understanding the operation of the will to be only another way of describing our ability to make decisions Locke moves away from the reference to faculties that was used in medieval philosophy. The use of them is effectively decried by him as a false form of metaphysics that makes a capacity into a cause of itself. As he puts it: that which has the power, or not the power to operate, is that alone, which is, or is not free, and not the power itself (II.xxi.19). The notion that the will is that whose freedom should be addressed leads to questions concerning whether we are free to avoid willing but this makes no sense since, to able to bring something about, we must will so to do or, conversely, will not to do but we are not capable of choosing neither. Actions that involve the use of this power are voluntary actions whilst actions that do not are involuntary. However, the performance of an action that we have willed to perform, whilst sufficient to classify an action as a voluntary one, is not sufficient for it to be viewed as a free action. Freedom requires something in addition to this criterion for something being voluntary. This is not merely that an action be something that we have willed to perform but that it was possible for us to not will it in addition. It follows from this point that there can be some actions that are voluntary and yet not free. The example that Locke gives to demonstrate this point concerns someone who is moved, whilst asleep from one room to another and left then in a room that is locked and so which he could not leave even

7 7/13 if he wished to. Since the person in question in fact finds the room in which he awakes to be one that he is pleased to find himself in and does not wish to leave then he is there voluntarily but, since he cannot leave, even if he wished to, it follows that his voluntary stay in the room is not a free stay. It also follows from this example that there may well be occasions on which we perform certain acts voluntarily believing that thereby we are performing them freely when in fact they are not freely being performed. Locke also distinguishes other notions that appear similar to freedom from this idea. So, to prefer something is not equivalent to freely choosing it since preference, on Locke s view, is only a passive passion. We may prefer any number of things that we cannot bring about and hence having a preference is no guide to what we can do. Preference has to be added then to the ability to do something out for us to reach a sense of freedom and if I prefer something and can do either do or not do it then I am free with regard to it. However it does not follow from this that I can freely decide not to will at all with regard to some possible action. When you are given a choice to will or not to will a certain action you cannot abstain from either alternative, one or the other is what you will have to will so even when you are free to will or not something you are not thereby free to not will altogether. This is why Locke states that liberty consists in a power to act, or to forbear acting, and in that only (II.xxi.24). Locke also argues against a view of the will that would ask whether we can will to determine which

8 8/13 action would please us the more arguing that this would be absurd. All we can do is will one action or another, we cannot separately will to be pleased by this decision as that would lead to an infinite regress with regard to the nature of willing. Locke connects willing to understanding in the sense that its operation is based on an act of decision that leads us to direct our power in accord with our preference so anything that is incapable of understanding is, by that fact, not possessed of a will in Locke s sense. At this point we can now turn to the question as to what it is that leads us to will a certain thing when we do and as we do. This requires an analysis of our motives. Carrying on with a certain action, once begun, is indicated by Locke, to be grounded on a present satisfaction whilst the motive to change and do something different, is linked instead to what he terms uneasiness. Here there is an analogy between Locke s account of mind and his view of body. In speaking of body Locke described inertia as its natural state so that if it is resting it will continue so unless something moves it from without and once having begun moving will continue in the same manner until something stops it. By contrast, in the case of mind, the operation of the active power of willing is understood to be always concentrated on something but to be capable of being moved from one concentration to another by some form of friction within it that he is terming uneasiness.

9 9/13 In looking more closely at this account of mental friction we can see a further distinction in Locke s view of the mind between willing and desiring. The two are not equivalent as whilst we perform some action that we have determined upon we may desire to be doing something else. So, for example, whilst we have freely chosen to work for some end that will ultimately be one we will be happy to have attained, we may often be desiring to do something different. However, in other cases, we may find that having begun some action that we discover the desire to do something else and that this desire unsettles our present determination and this situation is the occasion of the friction that Locke describes as uneasiness. Desire is thus understood by him to refer us to something that is absent and whose absence causes us to feel pain so that we wish for its presence. So desire is presented by Locke as a state that is not a pleasant one. It interrupts our endeavours and places us in a state where we wish for something else and in response to it we act differently than we were acting prior to its appearance. A popular account of action was provided by Socrates who suggested that we do things due to the view we have that they are good (whether good for us or good in themselves). Locke s account is an alternative to the Socratic view as that view has difficulty in accounting for the phenomena that people perform actions that they often can admit are not the ones they should have performed (a phenomena known as akrasia or

10 10/13 weakness of will ). Locke s point is that acknowledgement that some action would be a good one to perform is not sufficient to motivate us to do it. We have to feel, in addition to this, a lack of easy with what we are presently doing, a lack of ease that leads us to positively desire something that would be attained by acting differently. Unless we feel this unease the intellectual recognition of something being good will have no affect on us and so Locke, unlike Socrates, does not adopt an intellectualist view of motivation. As opposed to this position Locke takes it to be the case that our general wish is for happiness where this is understood by him to mean that we feel at ease, that is, are not aware of friction. This account of motivation requires the first reason why we undertake to do something to involve consciousness of friction and, since such consciousness makes us wish to resolve the unease we feel, adoption of resolutions that will remove or at least mitigate it. This requires us to feel however that the absence of something at present is not merely something we can acknowledge but that we also directly feel the want of. Inasmuch as we do feel the want of that which is absent, the greater the strength of such feeling, the more, proportionately will resolutions follow that will enable us to act in such a way that we can work to make it present. It is important to be clear in regard to the understanding of desire that emerges from this picture that what may be desired could arise in any number of ways. Whilst bodily discomfort often moves us to act in ways

11 11/13 that remove or mitigate the feeling in question we are also moved by desires that come from passions felt even though, in themselves, passions are passive. The reaction to a passion felt can render the experience of it one that requires action. If we take the passion of anger then we can recall that anger is directed towards persons or states that we find difficult to accept so that the experience of this passion produces a desire in us and this desire in turn can lead us to form resolutions in relation to actions. Locke adds to this point the recognition that passions and states of feeling generally are ones that we find to be located in temporal currents. So experience of something in the present is related to states in the future and anger is most effective, for example, in directing action when the situation that has produced anger in us is imagined to be prolonged or deepened in the future. Such prolongation is what requires us to act in ways to remedy the situation. Having made all this clear however we also should be aware that whilst states of desire relate to many types of condition that it is likely that at various points that we will be uneasy in many different ways. Why then do we act in relation to one type of uneasiness rather than another? Locke s answer is that one of them is felt by us to be more pressing than others and that it may well be the one we have most sense of how to ameliorate. This reference to the understanding of our situation indicates the level at which understanding is required since without an assessment of which causes of uneasiness are most within our power to address we would be left without a

12 12/13 means to assess our situation and would act automatically in response to stimuli. Having conceded this element of importance to intellect however we can see how far Locke s account of motivation is from that adopted by intellectualists when we see that for him what is most desired is only happiness. Happiness can be understood in one of two ways and Locke combines these. On the one hand we could think of happiness in terms of absence of pain, on the other, as experience of great pleasure. Since both pleasure and pain can be understood in both bodily and mental terms and viewed as including differences of kind that may well have different weights for different persons, it follows that assessing motivation in terms of it can allow for weakness of will but only by assuming some sense of what pleasures are most worthy of attainment and which pains we should most act to rid ourselves of. In attempting to formulate his understanding of motivation Locke tries to avoid this problem to some degree by focusing on the temporal character of desire. At any given moment what causes us the greatest unease can vary greatly and this ensures that what we have become motivated to do at that point may well relate closely to our general view of what it is best to do. In response to why then some seem more able than others to overcome the need to satisfy gratifications that would be transient but possibly whilst being experienced of great intensity Locke introduces the notion that it is possible to suspend the prosecution of desires so that we can consider them

13 13/13 all. This power of suspension is essential to Locke s notion of freedom and it follows from his account of it that those are most free whose voluntary actions most often are related to suspension of desire in order for reflection to be undertaken and attended to. This is the second element of appeal to intellect in Locke s account and is more important than the first element as it enables a hierarchy to emerge in Locke s discussion despite his earlier attempt to present this discussion as neutral between different desires. Certain situations will not permit the exercise of suspension and reflection to be undertaken (situations of physical pain for example) and in other states we respond to the emotions in such a way that passions take over us (and hence we act voluntarily but not freely).