Do you remember learning about modern natural right
from Professor Baer before spring break?
Yes, a bit.
We studied Locke's state of nature and its connection
with natural right, if that's what you're talking about.
Professor Baer also made the case
that modern natural right is the basis for the American regime
and the reason for this country's success.
Good.
And yes, that is exactly what I mean.
It's great that you remember reading
Locke and about modern natural right
being the basis for the American regime.
Oh.
Hello, Professor Knowles.
What are you doing here?
I hope I'm not bothering you.
I heard that you were discussing modern natural right,
and I wanted to join.
Please do join us.
We were just starting on modern natural right.
So how does Locke view the problem of AI and bias?
Patch.
Locke would think it wrong because bias
violates your natural right.
Yes, I agree.
That sounds right, but I'm not sure
because we said that justice is more important than equality.
But it seems that equality is fundamental in Locke.
But then where is justice in Locke?
Let's take this step by step.
Does anyone remember the beginning?
But you said you were working on these questions
during spring break.
Alvis?
Well, we were discussing them, but we never actually went back
to the texts from class.
Yeah.
We just wanted to figure them out for ourselves.
I guess you disapprove, Professor Muller?
On the contrary.
You are a very impressive group to have
stayed here over spring break and investigated
these questions.
Any teacher would be thrilled to have even one student like you,
and I have five.
But you said that you got stuck.
What was your plan to get out of your impasse?
Well, your class, of course.
[LAUGHS]
Hush, Patch.
You seem not to realize that Professor Muller is
in a most mild way rebuking us for not
using the resources at hand.
Well, let's use them now.
Professor, please remind us of Locke's starting point.
Of course.
Let's turn to second treatise, chapter 1.
Professor Knowles, where do you think we should start?
I'd say the last section of paragraph one,
starting with "he that."
That is exactly what I was thinking.
Glenda, could you read the statement
starting with "he that?"
Of course.
He that will not give just occasion
to think that all government in the world
is the product of only force and violence
must of necessity find out another rise of government.
Good.
So Locke is giving us two options
of the origin of government, force or something else--
maybe something else based on reason
but not narrow or mathematical reason.
Yes, of course.
That is much better.
It would be terrible to think that politics is just
about force.
I agree.
It should be about allowing people
to be happy, as we said before.
But what does this alternative basis?
You can look at your books, you know.
Alvis.
It is the state of nature.
Good.
What is the state of nature?
Well, let's see.
I actually underlined this pretty extensively.
It is a state of perfect freedom and a state also of equality.
Yes.
I remember now.
But how can it be a state of perfect freedom
if anyone can take your stuff and it's only up to you
to protect it?
You don't remember?
That's the point.
There is no government, so we're all
perfectly free in that sense.
But life is not desirable since we're
all individually vulnerable.
That's why we form governments, for security.
Very good, Sophie, but you're moving too fast.
Remember Locke says but though this be a state of liberty,
yet it is not a state of license.
Do you recall why that is?
Oh, hold on.
I have it right here.
Because of a law of nature.
Yes, that's it.
Laws of nature are based on reason.
Yeah.
We talked about that before spring break.
Now I remember.
It's dumb to waste stuff, including your own life.
What about these people that waste their money
on luxuries, expensive cars and things?
Yeah.
I'd be content with a cheap rundown car.
Why should someone buy a Ferrari when most of us
can't afford an old Kia?
Does anyone recall Locke's answer to this?
Perhaps, once again, we are moving too fast.
Let's go step by step.
What is the state of nature like?
Alvis.
In addition to freedom and equality, there is a law.
Good.
What else?
There is punishment.
In paragraph seven, he says everyone has a right
to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree
as may hinder its violation.
Very good, Sophie.
I think we will see that our objection to bias
is itself based on a sense that there is a law of nature.
How does Locke characterize this statement?
He says in paragraph nine that this will seem a very strange
doctrine to some.
Excellent.
Does it seem strange to you?
Well, not any more strange than the state of nature.
Why is the state of nature strange?
So nature is what you experience when you go on a hike
or go camping.
What Locke is describing never really existed.
What do you think existed in its place?
So humans evolved from humanoids,
and they lived in tribes.
They weren't by themselves.
Right, Patch.
But what is the basis of the rule of the tribe leader?
Power.
But isn't this exactly what Locke said at the beginning?
We can have tribal rule based on power,
or we can have an alternative, which Locke provides.
Besides, don't you think human beings' natural state is
freedom and equality?
That all makes sense.
But then why does Locke call it a very strange doctrine?
To some.
See, I think that will find that what is required
is not so much a new doctrine, say a learned latent structure
for algorithmic bias mitigation or domain adaptation,
but a reflection on what doctrine
some find strange and others do not.
What's strange to us actually contradicts our own biases.
Psychologically, we tend to resist those things
because they point out our biases to ourselves.
Oh, I see.
What we find strange is an indication of our own bias.
That's what Locke is saying.
Thank you, Professor Knowles.
And I realize that he defends this doctrine
by arguing that governments can punish foreigners
who break a law, which is related
to the example in paragraph 14, when he says
that by the state of nature exists today, since all princes
and rulers of independent governments
all through the world are in a state of nature.
Very good, and then he brings in the next paragraph
the weight of the writings of Hooker, or shall
we say the judicious Hooker.
And he ends the chapter with the idea of consent.
So political society is made legitimate only by consent.