WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS AND LIMITS OF POLITICAL POWER / TUTORIALOUTLET WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS AND LIMITS OF POLITICAL POW | Page 6

natural law theory that predates Locke, the so-called “voluntarism-
intellectualism,” or “voluntaristrationalist” debate. At its simplest, the
voluntarist declares that right and wrong are determined by God's
will and that we are obliged to obey the will of God simply because it
is the will of God. Unless these
positions are maintained, the voluntarist argues, God becomes
superfluous to morality since both the
content and the binding force of morality can be explained without
reference to God. The intellectualist
replies that this understanding makes morality arbitrary and fails to
explain why we have an obligation to
obey God.
With respect to the grounds and content of natural law, Locke is not
completely clear. On the one hand,
there are many instances where he makes statements that sound
voluntarist to the effect that law requires a
law giver with authority (Essay 1.3.6, 4.10.7). Locke also repeatedly
insists in the Essays on the Law of
Nature that created beings have an obligation to obey their creator
(ELN 6). On the other hand there are
statements that seem to imply an external moral standard to which
God must conform (Two Treatises
2.195; Works 7:6). Locke clearly wants to avoid the implication that
the content of natural law is arbitrary.
Several solutions have been proposed. One solution suggested by
Herzog makes Locke an intellectualist by
grounding our obligation to obey God on a prior duty of gratitude that
exists independent of God. A second
option, suggested by Simmons, is simply to take Locke as a
voluntarist since that is where the
preponderance of his statements point. A third option, suggested by
Tuckness (and implied by Grant), is to
treat the question of voluntarism as having two different parts,
grounds and content. On this view, Locke
was indeed a voluntarist with respect to the question “why should we
obey the law of nature?” Locke
thought that reason, apart from the will of a superior, could only be