Joseph Pallattil

Obedience, submission to another’s authority, is always a matter of discussion. The way how one person obeys differs according to his or her understanding of authority. Some blindly obey, some shows reasonable obedience and some may live in total negligence of the authority. We have in our mind a story of such a man who was blind in front of his superior. This irrational obedience lead him to do very brutal crime against humanity which world has ever witness. For the trial, he was brought to the court room. The judge asked: “Why did you do all these cruel acts?” He replied, “I didn’t do.” Then? “I just obeyed my authority” then comes the climax statement from the vice mouth of the Judge. “You are responsible for your obedience.” The culprit was Adolf Eichmann, who was the Nazi officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question.” We see how the understanding of authority influences a human person.
With this introduction about obedience to the authority, let us come to the political philosophy of John Locke. John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism”. We can see his political philosophy in his famous work, Treatises of Government.
In the first treatise, there is criticism of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. Locke found this account of political authority, according to which God granted Adam absolute and total political authority, unworkable. “It could not be used to justify any actual political authority, since it is impossible to show of any particular ruler that he is one of Adam’s heirs.” John Locke refuted the theory of the divine right of kings and argued that all persons are endowed with natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that rulers who fail to protect those rights may be removed by the people, by force if necessary. The second treatise argues that though subjects do have a duty to God to obey their ruler, their ruler’s power is not God- given or absolute, and it goes along with duties to his subjects. If a ruler’s command do not deserve obedience, resistance to them might be justified.
For Locke, people are living in a state of nature. They are free from external authority. Here, each person has God given duty and right. Duty is not to harm the other. Right is to defend against such attack. But we are sure that these rights and duties are not always equally respected and obeyed. Therefore, people unite. They enter into society to make one people. They form one supreme government. They set up a judge with authority to judge all controversies related to members in the community. But this authority is not absolute. The supreme authority is accountable to the will and determination of the majority. The views and wishes of the people form a possible court of appeal against the ruler.
John Locke’s political philosophy is democratic. It values the will and wishes of the people. The authority is from the people as well as for the people. If the authority goes against the will of the people, it has no right to lead the people.