The healing philosopher: John Locke's 'Medical Ethics'.

• Author: Short, Bradford William

ABSTRACT: This article examines a heretofore unexplored facet of John Locke's philosophy. Locke was a medical doctor and he also wrote about medical issues that are controversial today. Despite this, Locke's medical ethics has yet to be studied. An analysis of Locke's education and his teachers and colleagues in the medical profession, of the 17th century Hippocratic Oath, and of the reaction to the last recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague in London, shines some light on the subject of Locke's medical ethics. The study of Locke's medical ethics confirms that he was a deontologist who opposed all suicide and abortion through much of pregnancy.

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The works of John Locke remain widely read in the 21st century. As we enter into the tercentennial of Locke's death, we can safely conclude that his works have deserved their three centuries of fame and import. (1) The existence of modern democracy itself is largely a testament to the success of Locke's theories. With this background in mind, it is puzzling that a very important part of Locke's life and thought has received almost no in depth analysis. That aspect of Locke's life is his medical practice. (2) It is even more puzzling in light of the fact that over the last few decades the study of bioethics has been on the rise in America. (3) John Locke opposed suicide and defended liberty and autonomy on philosophical grounds. (4) John Locke practiced medicine. That Locke's medical ethics is worth studying seems clear from these facts. And yet, several of America's most prominent bioethicists have ignored John Locke's medical practice in their writings. (5) As a result, we may have an incomplete view of Locke to this very day.

This article is intended as the first step towards remedying this problem. Although a review of Locke's medical journals, his letters to fellow doctors and his letters to friends in general, do not disclose much that obviously deals with today's questions in medical ethics, (6) that does not mean that no indirect evidence of Locke's views on these subjects can be gleaned from his medical writings. In fact, an analysis of the medical community--including its view of the Hippocratic Oath--that Locke entered upon his graduation from Oxford with a medical degree in 1675, and of the reaction to the great outbreak of the bubonic plague in London in 1665, together shed some light on John Locke's medical ethics. With the benefit of this light we can obtain an even clearer image of John Locke, the healing philosopher. But before we begin on this trek, I must first give a short, somewhat biographical account of Locke's education and of the network of friends and professional associates that he acquired in the medico-scientific community of Restoration England.

1. The Education of John Locke

   John Locke began his undergraduate studies at Oxford University in the autumn of 1652. (7) His college in the University was Christ Church. (8) He proceeded to begin the curriculum of what we would call a Classics major. (9) We know on the authority of Maurice Cranston that:

   The days were busy. Five o'clock was the undergraduates' hour for rising to attend morning chapel. Breakfast was at six. Four hours' work was done before dinner in Hall at noon. Two hours' work came after dinner, and supper was at seven. The three and a half years' preparation for the B.A. degree were mainly given to logic and metaphysics and the classical languages. Conversation with tutors, or even between undergraduates in Hall, was always in Latin. (10) in his celebrated Essay [Concerning Human Understanding], whilst ignoring his long experience of medicine and science which provided a constant focus for the growth of his empiricism." DEWHURST, supra note 2, at viii (emphasis added). The implication that these writings have for Locke's moral philosophy are far more subtle.

   I can now also prove--to almost apodictic certainty--that Locke knew the rest of the "six" languages. First, as to Locke's knowledge of Greek, let us again look to Cranston:

   An account of daily life at Westminster School at the time can be read in a document written by an unnamed boy who was there under Busby a few years before Locke arrived: [At] 5.15 a.m. called up by a monitor, and after Latin Prayers, wash. Between 6 and 8 repeat grammar--Lily for Latin, Camden for Greek--fourteen or fifteen [boys] being selected and called out to stand in a semi-circle before the Master. CRANSTON, supra note 7, at 20 (emphasis added, words in brackets in Cranston's original, citations omitted). Next, let us turn to Locke's knowledge of Hebrew. Locke wrote this letter to Jean Le Clerc on July 30, 1688:

   Your discourse of the Hebrew Poetry I have read with mighty satisfaction, and am so far from having anything to say against your hypothesis that it seems to me as clear as any demonstration can be concerning such matters for so I call such evident probabilities as arising from the things themselves leave no counterbalance on the other side.... If it were necessary to add anything to that full proof you have given of the Hebrew Verses being in rhyme, I think one might say that the other by measure is unnatural.... JOHN LOCKE, SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE 128 (Mark Goldie ed., 2002) (emphases in original) (hereinafter "JOHN LOCKE, SELECTED").

   When it comes to Locke's knowledge of French, the evidence is everywhere. I point out in History "Lite" that "Locke must have known French since he spent four years in France from 1675 to 1679." Short, supra note 4, at 55 n.55. "Locke made the acquaintance early in i678 of Nicholas Thoynard, who remained his lifelong friend and his most assiduous correspondent." CRANSTON, supra note 7, at 174 (citation omitted). On May 2, 1679, when Locke began his voyage back to England, he "wrote to Thoynard 'Aujourd'hui,je crois il sacrifiera au Neptune du fond de son Coeur ou estomac.'" Id. at 180 (citation omitted). This sentence is, to borrow Locke's phrase, "englished" as such: "Today, I believe he [Olaf Romer] will make a sacrifice to Neptune [of me, Locke] in the bottom of his [Neptune's] heart or stomach." Olaf Romer, the man in charge of the vessel Locke was traveling to England on, "was a bad sailor," and apparently Locke worried about sinking (i.e. ending up in "Neptune's stomach"). Id. But, as if this was not enough evidence, Cranston's footnote to this sentence reads as follows: "Professor Ollion, who edited for publication Locke's letters to Thoynard, wrote: 'Locke sut assurement assez le francais pour l'ecrire convenablement.'" Id. This may be translated as: "Locke assuredly knew enough French to write it suitably" Thanks to Martin Flaherty for help in translating this passage.

   I have asserted that the sixth language might be either Dutch or German. "The fact that Locke also had been appointed 'secretary to a diplomatic mission to Brandenburg [the future Kingdom of Prussia] in 1665' also speaks to his knowing German." Short, supra note 4, at 55 n.55 (citing website entitled John Locke: Biography (Oct. 12, 1998), http://www.anova.org/locke.html). I did not know then that:

   In November 1665 Sir Walter Vane was sent on a diplomatic mission to Frederick William of Hohenzollern, elector of Brandenburg.... who was then at Cleves, and Locke accompanied him as secretary The Hohenzollerns had acquired the duchy of Cleves ... in 1609 ... The duchy was remarkable in the Europe of this time for the freedom of worship enjoyed by members of the ... Lutheran ... Calvinist.... and Roman Catholic churches ... The town of Cleves is situated on a high bank overlooking the flat ground of the lower Rhineland.... The inhabitants spoke Dutch. Esmond S. De Beer, Commentary in JOHN LOCKE, 1 THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN LOCKE 225-27 (Esmond S. De Beer ed., 1976) (emphasis added, citations omitted). Thus, John Locke did go to meet with the future Imperial House of Germany, but he went to the West of Germany, not to the East (i.e. Prussia). Cleves is to this day not a part of the Netherlands, and it is a part of Germany, but it is very close to the border. The Netherlands in 16 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA 256, 258, 264 (1969). It is natural that this German city spoke Dutch, for Dutch and German were once the same language. See R. R. PALMER & JOEL COLTON, A HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD 107 (1967). NOW, what did Locke write in his letter to Robert Boyle from this little Germanic city? He wrote of his interactions with the people of Cleves and thereby implied that he spoke to them in their native Dutch:

   The town is little, and not very strong or handsome; the buildings and streets irregular; nor is there a greater uniformity in their religion, three professions [of faith] being publicly allowed: the Calvinists are more than the Lutherans, and the Catholics more than both (but no papist bears any office) ... They quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven; for I cannot observe any quarrels or animosities amongst them upon the account of religion. This good correspondence is owing partly to the power of the magistrate, and partly to the prudence and good nature of the people, who (as I find by enquiry) entertain different opinions, without any secret hatred or rancor. JOHN LOCKE, 1 THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN LOCKE 228 (Esmond S. De Beer ed., 1976) (emphases added). Also, Locke was in exile in the Netherlands from 1683 to 1689, during which time he and his manservant, Sylvanus Brownover, traveled through much of the country. CRANSTON, supra note 7, at 178,231-8, 311. Also, Locke's friend, Damaris Cudworth (the future Lady Masham) wrote to Locke on June 16, 1684, asking him to "inform ... [her] a little about your neighbors in Friesland, the L'abadies." Damaris Cudworth, Letter in JOHN LOCKE, SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE 98 (Mark Goldie ed., 2002). Cudworth was looking for "a better sort of people than those where I am." Id. "The L'abadists [were] ... a Quaker-like quietist and communistic community in...