Law and Liberty Symposium on Harvey Mansfield

Check it out here. Harvey Mansfield is a Straussian. I don't consider myself a "Straussian." Though I am "Straussian influenced" and "Straussian interested." They ask the right questions and engage in intense philosophical inquiry. They also have extremely contentious understandings, many of which I can't endorse. 

I'm interested in their view on Locke. They think he was either an atheist or a "deist" as we understand the term today (cold, non-intervening distant deity). There is no question Locke was an "esoteric" something; but I doubt it was THAT as opposed to some kind of freethinker on doctrines like The Trinity. I haven't studied Hobbes as much as Locke, but I doubt he was an atheist or cold deist either.

Though Locke did seem to be influenced by Hobbes in the sense that they spoke of a "state of nature" and then of a "social contract and rights." They may have had different understandings of such; however they were still speaking on that common philosophical ground. On the religion issue, Strauss himself aptly noted that this construct was "wholly alien to the Bible." Yet, during the revolutionary era, the concept of state of nature/social contract and rights ended up being preached from the pulpit.

The Straussian discourse involves the implications of all of this.

For instance, here is how Mansfield understands Locke and America's Declaration of Independence:

Certainly, we live in a world influenced by the ideas of modern political philosophy—and Mansfield provides a key to this influence for the low price of his book. He introduces us to Hobbes, who provides an image of man in his natural condition, wherein he has a right to his own person, yet nothing to safeguard this right. God has no place in this state of war, where each person has the right to preserve his life in whatever way he judges necessary. What comes out of this natural state of war? The idea of the social contract—a new kind of government based upon reasonable consent. “Nature teaches men to preserve themselves,” Mansfield explains, “but … reason teaches men to seek peace by consenting to a common power over them, the sovereign.” Reason now is the foundation of government. 

Locke gives us the right to private property by expanding man’s natural right to his own body to include a right to the products of man’s labor. This has direct political implications. For when men, once again driven by reason, exit the state of nature into the social contract, they do so not only to preserve life but to protect private property. Locke domesticates Machiavelli and Hobbes, and we see his influence overtly enshrined in documents like the Declaration of Independence.

Understanding America's Declaration of Independence as "domesticating Machiavelli and Hobbes" seems a bit of a stretch to me. Though, I agree that the notion of unalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness really have nothing to do with the Bible or traditional practice of Christianity and that the DOI, although a theistic document, is not a "Christian" one.

The revolutionary language of America's DOI is more of a product of Enlightenment philosophy. However, there is other language in that document that speaks more of "resistance" under the extant positive law that resonates with reformed theology/philosophy.