LOCKE REVISION
• What is the difference between tacit and express consent?
Tacit consent = consent not physically expressed by an individual, rather than
by benefiting from any part of a state or authority, they are consenting to be
subject to the rules and laws that the state has whilst living in the territory –
obeying that government without delivering 'any expressions of it at all'
(Locke, Two Treaties of Governments, 119)
Express consent =
• How does a person acquire an obligation to obey the law?
• How does one obtain a legitimate right to property?
• What is the Lockean proviso in property acquisition?
• When can the people remove the government?
• The relationship between Locke’s theory of property acquisition and equality
• What are the limitations of Locke’s theory of property?
• Can tacit consent ground any obligations?
• What conditions must be met for a person to have ‘tacitly’ consented?
-Walking down the road
----Simmons finds it difficult to see how merely walking on a street or inheriting land can
be thought of as an example of a “deliberate, voluntary alienating of rights” (Simmons
1993, 69). It is one thing, he argues, for a person to consent by actions rather than words;
it is quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that they have
done so. To require a person to leave behind all of their property and emigrate in order to
avoid giving tacit consent is to create a situation where continued residence is not a free
and voluntary choice.
• Does Locke successfully demonstrate that political obligation rests on consent?
• Should Locke have put more restrictions on when people can rebel?
Scholars:
Tacit Consent
- Locke's account for tacit consent is problematic and appears somewhat 'watering down' of
the idea of consent (Pitkin,1965).
-Not convincing in terms of how a state gets its authority (Wellman 2001)
- tacit consent legitimates and obligates authority under conditions in which there is duly
constituted authority (Christiano, Authority in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2020).
No Alternative option
• What is the difference between tacit and express consent?
Tacit consent = consent not physically expressed by an individual, rather than
by benefiting from any part of a state or authority, they are consenting to be
subject to the rules and laws that the state has whilst living in the territory –
obeying that government without delivering 'any expressions of it at all'
(Locke, Two Treaties of Governments, 119)
Express consent =
• How does a person acquire an obligation to obey the law?
• How does one obtain a legitimate right to property?
• What is the Lockean proviso in property acquisition?
• When can the people remove the government?
• The relationship between Locke’s theory of property acquisition and equality
• What are the limitations of Locke’s theory of property?
• Can tacit consent ground any obligations?
• What conditions must be met for a person to have ‘tacitly’ consented?
-Walking down the road
----Simmons finds it difficult to see how merely walking on a street or inheriting land can
be thought of as an example of a “deliberate, voluntary alienating of rights” (Simmons
1993, 69). It is one thing, he argues, for a person to consent by actions rather than words;
it is quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that they have
done so. To require a person to leave behind all of their property and emigrate in order to
avoid giving tacit consent is to create a situation where continued residence is not a free
and voluntary choice.
• Does Locke successfully demonstrate that political obligation rests on consent?
• Should Locke have put more restrictions on when people can rebel?
Scholars:
Tacit Consent
- Locke's account for tacit consent is problematic and appears somewhat 'watering down' of
the idea of consent (Pitkin,1965).
-Not convincing in terms of how a state gets its authority (Wellman 2001)
- tacit consent legitimates and obligates authority under conditions in which there is duly
constituted authority (Christiano, Authority in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2020).
No Alternative option
