Reconciling Sovereignty and Toleration in Locke’s Early Essays

• In Event: Origins of Nationalism

Abstract

In 1967, Philip Abrams produced the first English translation and detailed study of John Locke’s earliest political writings, which Abrams titled, Two Tracts on Government. Over the next three decades, a broad consensus emerged among Locke scholars that these early writings were at odds with Locke’s later writings on toleration. The most obvious discontinuity was Locke’s attack on religious freedom in the "Tracts" (1660-1662) and his defense of religious freedom in the Essay Concerning Toleration (1667) and the Letter Concerning Toleration (1685). James Tully, for example, argues that Locke proposes two incompatible solutions to religious pluralism: in the Tracts, Locke argues for absolutist government and religious conformity, while in the Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke argues for limited government and religious toleration. In the Tracts, Locke argues that the state must have the right to enforce religious uniformity, but in his Letter Locke argues that the public good is not served by religious coercion and that such coercion is ineffective. Tully and others concluded that Locke suddenly changed his mind about the relationship between religion and the state at some point between 1662 and 1667. Some authors attributed the sudden change to Locke’s close relationship with Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury, for whom Locke composed the Essay Concerning Toleration in 1667. Before meeting Shaftesbury, Locke was “Hobbesian” and “authoritarian”; under Shaftesbury’s patronage, he converted to liberalism.

Against this widely accepted interpretation, I argue that these two sets of writings—the “Tracts” and the writings on toleration—represent the two complementary strands of Locke’s political secularism: (1) a defense of civil power against claims of freedom of conscience and (2) a defense of religious freedom against caesaropapism. These arguments both rest on Locke’s principle of “civil interests.” According to this principle, the civil commonwealth is constituted solely for securing temporal ends and not for the pursuit of spiritual, religious, or supernatural ends.

Locke applies this principle to two distinct political-religious problems. The problem addressed in the Tracts is the abuse of the idea of freedom of conscience to claim exemption from civil laws. When applied to this problem, the civil interests principle results in an argument for the use of state power to suppress freedom of conscience and place limits on toleration. The problem addressed in the Essay Concerning Toleration and Letter Concerning Toleration is the government’s use of its coercive power to enforce certain beliefs and religious practices. When applied to this problem, the civil interests principle results in an argument for greater toleration and respect for freedom of conscience. Despite some important changes in Locke’s thinking between 1661 and 1667, his view of the place of religion within the state remains mostly fixed during this period. Most of the apparent contradictions dissolve once we distinguish between these two political-religious conflicts and their respective solutions.

Author

• Nathaniel Mull, Princeton University