Rights of an Individual in Respect to his Community and Government

Rocco D’Ambrosca: 04/06/2010

Much has been said in regards to social and political systems. It is one of the primary concerns of philosophy as far back as Plato in ancient Greece. The focus of this paper will be the rights of an individual in respect to his community and government. While Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan gives reason for the need of government to remove us from the state of nature, the combined accounts of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government and John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty, give us the strong foundations for how a government should ideally operate with respect to an individual’s rights and sovereignty, in concert with the individual’s obligation to the government in exchange for the protection granted from the state of war, which can so easily occur in the state of nature.

Hobbes expressed and argued for the need of government to protect us from the almost constant state of war, which can occur in the state of nature. He argued that without a formal system of government to keep everyone in check, we are doomed to mutual self destruction. Hobbes solution was to have an all powerful absolute sovereign to force the people into obedient submission, preventing them from destroying each other. While such a system protects man from the state of war that can occur in the state of nature, it only exchanges that state of war for another, that being a war between the government and its people. Not much room is left in Hobbes system for individual sovereignty if at all.

What is meant by individual sovereignty? In simplest terms it means ownership of oneself. Individual sovereignty is the right of the individual to decide for oneself, all those things that concerns oneself and oneself alone. Locke directly addresses the topic of individual sovereignty by setting forth natural rights which every man is entitled to as a human. Starting with the right to life, he reasons that by extension, such a right to life includes the rights of liberty and property. Locke, “tells us that men, once they are born, have a right to survive and thus a right to food and drink and such other things as nature provides for their subsistence” (Locke10). According to Locke, we are simply born with these natural rights for life, liberty, and property. Since we have the right to live and survive, we must by extension have the right to live our life freely with liberty and by further extension appropriate our own property separate from the common property or the property of another. Locke’s belief in these natural rights set a strong argument for individual sovereignty, as he also includes the limits of such rights. Locke includes in his system the inherent necessity for a government to ensure that individuals don’t infringe on the equal rights of others, while ensuring that their own rights are protected. Saying, “the chief purpose of men’s uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property,” since in the state of nature, “all men are kings as much as he is, every man is his equal, and most men are not strict observers of fairness and justice; so his hold on the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure.” (Locke40).

While Hobbes set in place the need for government and Locke the natural rights that man possesses unconditionally, Mill establishes the boundaries of power between the state and the individual. Mill expresses extremely clearly and forcefully, what he believes to be the limit of the government’s power concerning the individual. In a way, it could be said that Mill sees the government as the father who has to be there to be sure that his two sons don’t kill each other on their frequent occasions of dispute. This father doesn’t and shouldn’t care what his sons do on their own, separate from each other, but must forcefully interject on matters that concern dispute between them. Mill states, “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.” (Mill8). “The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” (Mill8). Mill could not be any clearer or direct in his declaration of individual sovereignty for each citizen. The line is explicitly visibly drawn.

Mill has stated that the only time government may forcefully intervene in the affairs of a citizen is when it directly concerns another citizen. Could this make any more sense in reflection upon Locke and Hobbes? Locke has identified our natural rights as life, liberty, and property. And Hobbes has identified how easily these rights are threatened in the state of nature. Logically, we can see that government only exists to protect and defend these rights. Most principally, the rights to life and property are protected directly by the government. The government steps in to protect you if another citizen threats your right to life with physical assault or attempted murder and/or when another citizen attempts to violate your right to property by stealing from you. The government stepping any further into a citizen’s affairs would easily violate their right to liberty and quite possibly well violate their right to life.

Therefore, on the case of the many modern social taboos, all prohibitions justifiably and rationally must be removed. All drug prohibition ceased. All prostitution legalized. Any continued prohibition is in direct conflict with the individuals’ rights to life and liberty. Moreover, penalties for these crimes, drugs specifically, further violate an individuals’ right to property in the advent of government seizure. Anything consumed by an individual in the privacy of their home is their business and should be protected as their natural right. It affects no other person directly and is therefore inherently out of the governments’ jurisdiction. In the case of cannabis, the government threatens an individuals’ right to life from preventing the usage of a completely benign and extremely effective medicine. Any proposed abuse of alcohol or any other drug can further be seen as affecting the person himself only. At some point they will realize it is not sustainable and change their habits or find means of supporting it. If that means of supporting it becomes crime, then you may prosecute them for that crime, not for their gluttony and wasteful living. It is their natural right to liberty that dictates every man may choose what life they prefer to live. No one has the right to state or enforce what constitutes a proper life. Such talk is condescending, extremely arrogant, and unwarranted.

On the topic of prostitution, the government has no right to prohibit. If a man or a woman decides they wish to have such an occupation, who has the right to tell them they can’t? If they greatly enjoy the activity and enjoy making other people happy, why should they be prevented? In both the cases of drug prohibition and prostitution, natural rights are not simply the only defense. Utility as argued by Mill is possibly even stronger at defending such. Tax revenue is lost on both drugs and prostitution, while revenue is collected by unsavory criminal organizations. Millions and Billions of tax payer dollars are wasted in fruitless efforts to eradicate businesses that will never lose demand. And the safety of the citizens is unnecessarily put in jeopardy. There is no FDA oversight for the products sold or age restrictions to protect children. The individuals who participate in prostitution and drug sales are also put in harm’s way through the lack of a safe environment to operate their businesses. Obviously, it is in the greater good to have such things legal and regulated. Absolutely nothing good comes from prohibition, in any form, with its absolute violation of natural rights.

Mill states, “As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person’s conduct affects the interests of no persons besides himself, or needs not affects them unless they like (all persons concerned being full of age, and the ordinary amount of understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.” (Mill61). Further cementing the case of individual sovereignty, with the added clarification and prerequisites to possess such; removing children, those of mental illness, and of mental handicap from those entitled to complete individual sovereignty.

Now that we know the government’s limits of power, what are the limits of individual sovereignty? Mill states, “Every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and secondly, in each person’s bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labors and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation.” (Mill61). Here, Mill has stated that an individual’s sovereignty is restrained in any actions against another’s sovereignty, and has imposed an obligation of stipulation, in the form of taxation, for the duties preformed by the government. The individual is obviously justifiably prevented from infringing on another’s natural rights, but the justification for the imposed obligation of taxation is slightly less obvious.

The individuals’ sovereignty is subverted by the government justifiably, in the act of forced taxation, because such government requires such to defend the rights of life, liberty, and property of others. Without taxes the government does not have the funding to operate and complete its obligated duty to protect the citizens’ rights. An individual’s refusal to pay taxes can be seen as an indirect threat against another citizen’s rights. If taxes aren’t paid, there isn’t any funding for the police and fire departments. Without police, there is no father to stop those two sons from killing each other or stealing property from one another. Without a fire department, there is nothing to salvage property from total destruction or save the lives of those in danger. Taxes are simply a citizens’ due for the protection rendered by the government in keeping them out of the state of war which so easily occurs in the state of nature. However, if these taxes are wastefully and unjustly used to subvert and assault an individual’s natural rights, they cease from being justified, as the government has now crossed over the line of jurisdiction and the citizen would now be paying for his own punishment and imprisonment; putting him in a state of war with the government, who has become a far more dangerous tyrant than any that could be encountered in the state of nature.

Another potentiality for individual sovereignty to become damaging to society would be in the exaggeration of natural rights. An example that comes to mind is that of air space or fly over rights. If an individual’s right to property was exaggerated to include everything above the land they own it would be very damaging to society. How would air travel be economically possible if no one was allowed to fly over someone’s land without permission? Such abuse of the right to property would unjustly stagnate societal progress. Those complaining of the noise of jets, or for that matter supersonic jets, could receive a tax deduction for sound insulation. But to force society to be subjected to an unnecessary ceiling of progress is truly unacceptable. Why should it take the same time to fly from New York to London as it did 50 or more years ago? Such abuses of individual sovereignty, can easily and unjustly, slow down progress in society and can therefore be seen as violating other citizens’ natural rights.

While Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan gives reason for the need of government to remove us from the state of nature, the combined accounts of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government and John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty, give us the strong foundations for how a government should ideally operate with respect to an individual’s rights and sovereignty, in concert with the individual’s obligation to the government in exchange for the protection granted from the state of war, which can so easily occur in the state of nature. We have seen the necessity for government as argued by Hobbes and we have seen the justifications by Locke and Mill for how government should be run in respect to the balance of power between the state and the individual. As long as this balance of power is maintained and not abused by either party, it can be safely said that the best possible government can exist without becoming a worse situation than the original state of nature.