Locke, Consequentialism, and Spoilage
Lockes reasoning for both rights and spoilage use both consequentialism and non-consequentialism in their reasoning leading me to question the strength of how natural the rights he poses really are.
Locke poses rights that exist pre-politically, and seem to come about through reason within a state of nature, yet much of the evidence present in the text for these rights draws on empirical evidence with conequentialst justifications. If rights are truly self evident then why must Locke point to ideas like the increased productivity gained from private property. Mixing labor with nature and it become property follows logically through no emprical evidence strengthening the claim to self evident rights. However his constant return to empirical evidence seems to call into question wether the rights we posses are demonstrably self evident, if he must fall back on consequentialism to convince the reader, can rights really be arrived at through pure reason in a state of nature.
Spoilage also illustrates this point to me, Lockes justification for the seizure of land is that God created nothing for man to spoil. This point is posited as one that needs no justification, being both logically self evident and divine commend, yet it also has a consequentialist underpinning. Spoilage is pointed out to be wrong due to its effects, creating waste and disallowing the most effiecient use of land. If it were truly a divine command and something that arises from self evident reason it would not require this underpinning as consequence ought to not matter.
Lockes use of emperical evidence seem to largely undermine his much more important claim that natrual rights are evident and found just through reason.
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