“By resisting the power of habitual associations, such individuals exhibit a freedom “which few men have the notion of in themselves, and fewer are allowed the practice of by others.” (CU §41). Intellectual freedom, for Locke, involves contesting the empire of habit.”
“Yet, as John Baltes observes, Locke not only celebrates resistance to habit’s power, he also deploys that power for his own purposes.”
“In his writings on epistemology, education, and governance, Locke appeals to techniques of habituation in order to shape subjects who are disciplined in both thought and action. The central question of this study, then, is whether Locke’s commerce with the empire of habit cheapens his commitment to freedom. For Baltes, it would seem that the answer is yes.”
“Viewing Locke within an explicitly Foucauldian frame (my copy of the book has an image of Bentham’s panopticon on the cover), Baltes challenges “Locke’s commitment to liberty or freedom,” at least insofar as this commitment is defined by autonomy (90). He argues that the scholarly focus on Locke as a contract theorist has obscured the primary implication of his political thought, that his disciplinary practices serve to naturalize his moral obligations.”
“For Baltes, the Lockean (and by extension, the liberal) individual is “deeply disciplined and thoroughly normalized, and as a result, governed more by habitual virtues than by rational reflection or autonomous calculation” (43).”
“this volume covers quite a bit of ground. Baltes surveys Locke’s philosophical, educational, and political works with special attention to the way in which these works place the Lockean subject within structures of power.”
“He rejects the idea that Locke’s thought is animated by a commitment to the truth of natural law or to the self-determination of the individual. The political declarations of the Second Treatise, he argues, must be read in light of the philosophical concessions of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. By conceding that human nature is almost infinitely malleable, Locke opens the door for medical, penal, and religious techniques of social control.”
“In fact, throughout his writings Locke employs techniques of quarantine, surveillance, and correction to forge docile, industrious, and pious subjects capable of inhabiting a new, nominally liberal, empire of habit.”
“In the first chapter, Baltes presents Locke’s Essay as a work of radical deconstruction. He argues that Locke is not simply supplying grounds for assent or making space for a new science; he is disarming dangerous dogmatists. Locke attacks innatism primarily for political purposes, and replaces appeals to nature or revelation with a thoroughgoing conventionalism.”
“On Baltes’s reading of Locke, we do not arrive at moral truths by attuning ourselves to “the language of nature . . . We impose meaning through an effort of will, in the service of our goals and purposes” (27). Locke’s conception of morality, insofar as it rests on mixed modes, is “a mind-dependent construct” (28). We can be certain of a mixed mode only insofar as we have created it.”
“Having unsettled the moral order, Locke reestablishes it through discipline.”
“He posits the malleable subject and places it in the context of what James Tully has called a three-part “juridical apparatus,” governing over divine, political, and customary realms. The structures of law and punishment work together to project “a moral universe fashioned by the will of a benevolent, providential God” (38). In practice, however, the rewards and punishments of divine law and civil law are eclipsed by the rewards and punishments of the law of fashion.”
“In the end, Baltes argues, Locke’s epistemological engagements leave him with no other moral or political standard except that which can be generated by discipline, habit, and custom.”
“By insisting that ordinary Christians attend to their own salvation, the Reformation placed “the concept of God at the center of a panoptic complex of correction and social control” (77).”
“As ordinary labor takes on new significance, individuals internalize habits of devotion and self-discipline as a way to glorify God.”
“Through containment, surveillance, and correction, both the poor and the rich are taught thrift, morality, industry, and self-restraint.”
“In the final chapter, Baltes presents Locke as fundamentally elitist and inegalitarian. He argues that Locke views women, laborers, and rural poor as fundamentally incapable of participating in the polity on equal footing.”
“In the economic context of enclosure, Baltes argues, Locke’s defense of property rights is really an argument for aristocratic privilege.”
“Just as Baltes implies earlier in the book that habituation is incompatible with freedom, he declares here that the idea of a purposeful God is incompatible with human agency.”
“Without acknowledging the long tradition of theological and philosophical debates over this topic or even Locke’s own struggle to come to terms with divine sovereignty and human liberty, Baltes reduces Locke’s engagement with Christianity to what he calls an “unsatisfying argument-ender: ‘Because God says so’” (112).”
“John Baltes provides a valuable service to readers, introducing them to an especially thorny problem in Locke’s philosophical and political thought.”
“The puzzle at the center of this book, that resisting the tyranny of habitual thinking involves forming habits of resistance, is worth investigating.”
“The Foucauldian lens that Baltes employs helps to reveal the social forces and disciplinary techniques that sustain Lockean self-government. It shows how Locke’s malleable subject is first formed by norms and practices before it is capable of entering into a social contract and making the types of probable judgments that sustain civil government.”
“Yet Baltes’s Foucauldian lens also obscures important issues and limits crucial considerations. First, Foucault’s vocabulary permeates this study to such an extent that at times the distinction between Locke’s words and Foucault’s words seems to dissolve. This is exacerbated by the author’s habit of integrating quotations into his account without indicating who is speaking. Foucault’s description of Bentham’s panopticon or the Mettray Penal Colony is offered as an illustration of Locke’s approach to education or poverty without any explicit differentiation between the sources. Careful readers will find themselves flipping back and forth to the endnotes to be certain of the source.”
“Yet an even more unfortunate way in which the Foucauldian lens obscures instead of illuminates here is that it seems to restrict exploration of the crucial issue at stake. Baltes unmasks Locke’s appeal to habit and custom. Yet the crucial issue seems to be whether forming habits of self-regulation and self-government threaten individual liberty. This issue is left underexplored.”
“Occasionally Baltes hints at the possibility of a more complicated relationship between discipline and liberty. At one point he even writes that “deeply normalized subjects are capable of liberty” because they are “liberated from the need for a politics of constantly coercive violence, and willingly complicit in their habitual conduct” (44). If Locke is not promoting liberty as non-interference or self-creation, what sort of liberty is he promoting? Locke has much more to say than is included here. The Empire of Habit would have been more compelling had Baltes engaged Locke directly on the question of whether the self-governed and self-disciplined subject can experience liberty worth the name.”