Locke: Political Philosophy, Misc

Le relazioni dell'individuo, già nel pensiero di Locke - uno dei padri dell'individualismo metodologico -, da un lato costituiscono il singolo, dall’altro lo limitano. Questa dialettica di costituzione-limitazione fa sì che l’individuo debba intendersi più che come un "dato" originario come una "costruzione" e che, in secondo luogo, il limite alla sua azione sia posto non solo dall’esterno, ossia dalla presenza di altri individui, ma anche dall’interno, ossia dalla sua stessa costituzione ontologica.

Many years ago, professors used to teach their students that Locke wrote the Two Treatises of Government to refute Hobbes. The demolition of this thesis by Peter Laslett and others had one curious result: scholars ceased to pay much attention to the relationship between the two greatest English philosophers of the seventeenth century. This trend was perhaps reinforced by an understandable suspicion of Leo Strauss’s thesis that Locke was really a closet Hobbesian. It thus came to be accepted that it (...) was somehow intellectually disreputable to suppose that there was any meaningful dialogue between Locke and the author of Leviathan.A serious reassessment of the relationship between the two philosophers is long overdue... (shrink)

This article revisits long-standing questions about consent, membership and emigration in Locke’s thought. Commentators such as A John Simmons have argued that Locke opens political membership to both express consenters and some kind of tacit consenters, and not just to the former, as some have suggested. Simmons’s reading seems to render Locke more sensible in that it does not exclude large numbers of people from membership or burden the few members with all the civic duties, and also in that it (...) allows at least tacit-consenting members the right to relocate, while this right is denied to express-consenting members. Against this reading, the article shows, by resolving seemingly conflicting claims in the text, that people become members only by express consent. It also responds to the criticism that the express-consent-only reading would limit membership to a few and so would render Locke’s account implausible from a practical point of view. The article then addresses the purported restriction Locke imposes on express consenters’ right to emigrate, arguing that the restriction concerns the change of membership and not the right to relocate. (shrink)

This article presents a reinterpretation of John Locke's contribution to debates about the interest rate in the seventeenth century. It suggests that his argument that England should maintain the ‘natural’ rate, rather than impose a lower rate, was motivated by his theological, moral, and social conceptions of credit and its dependence on trust. In order to solve the endemic shortage of metal coin limiting the growth of monetary exchange in England, Locke stressed that the higher, ‘natural’ rate of interest would (...) facilitate interpersonal borrowing and lending among neighbours, allowing currency to flow more freely around the country. By contrast, while he acknowledged that institutional creditors such as goldsmith-bankers could quicken the circulation of money by issuing debt instruments like bills of exchange, he saw institutional credit as a threat to the moral community. Not only did he question how people could rationally trust financiers without any epistemic apprehension of their personal probity, but he moreover doubted whether individuals accumulating so much money were likely to act trustworthily. Finally, using an otherwise unstudied dialogue about the Bank of England, this article argues Locke extended his criticisms about the threats posed by private banks to the country's nascent system of public credit. (shrink)

The doctrine of the image of God is often regarded as grounding human dignity in something permanent and unchanging that transcends our attitudes and behaviors. Yet we persistently encounter the argument that particular human individuals or groups have acted so as to forfeit their moral standing as fellow humans. They are bestialized, categorized as non-human animals, lifting ordinary restraints on punishment. I examine the logic of this argument in John Locke, Thomas Aquinas, and contemporary felony disenfranchisement, showing how it involves (...) slippage between the unobjectionable notion that specific rights may in particular circumstances be forfeited, and the deeply troubling claim that one’s moral standing as human can as such be forfeited. I argue that an apparently similar rhetoric of dehumanization employed by Frederick Douglass, in contrast, refrains from stripping the opponent of moral considerability. (shrink)

This article examines John Locke’s theory of subjectivity to challenge the recent critical tendency to associate biopolitics and empiricism. Michel Foucault, most notably among modern theorists of biopolitics, proposes that the Lockean man, or an interest-seeking animal, constitutes the paradigm of a person that remains subject to biopower. Such understanding of empiricism by biopolitical theorists is, however, reductive because Locke’s view of human subjectivity is fundamentally equivocal. As I demonstrate by analyzing his discussion of freedom, action, and desire in An (...) Essay Concerning Human Understanding and other writings, Locke admits the possibility for a human being to think and to act freely, although in the process of restricting the capacity for free action. Hence, the theorists’ simplistic view of Locke rather reflects the limits of their own conception of subjectivity, especially their behavioristic premises. As they consider a person as a mere machine of survival without agency and initiative, they preclude the possibility of overcoming biopower at the fundamental level. In demonstrating contradictions and tensions within Locke’s empiricism, this article then proposes the ways in which Locke can show a way beyond the critical impasse in political theory in elucidating the power of acting against the chain of causality. (shrink)

Dem Liberalismus wird gerne vorgeworfen, etwa von Carl Schmitt, dass er keinen Inhalt habe, sondern sich an andere politische Strömungen anlehnen müsse, um politische Substanz zu gewinnen. Er sei zunächst bürgerlich gewesen, dann national, dann sozial, dann neoliberal oder ultrakapitalistisch. Selbst sei er aber nichts. Man könnte Ähnliches freilich ebenso gut vom Konservatismus oder anderen modernen politischen Strömungen behaupten. Auch der Konservatismus hat viele Arten. Es gibt ihn als liberalen, romantischen, sozialen, ja in den 1920er Jahren, sogar als revolutionären. Politische (...) Sammelbegriffe können spannungsreich sein und irgendwann einmal sogar implodieren. (shrink)

The Problem of Thought Posed by the Creation of the Bank of England -- The Theory of Interest and the Natural Right -- From Savings to Financial Regulation -- Excursus - From the Credit Function to the Institution of Money -- Money, Pledge and Natural Right -- The Par Value and The Monetary and Financial System -- Conclusion. The First Step Towards Democracy.

Locke scholarship has been flourishing in Japan for several decades, but its output is largely unknown to the West. This collection makes available in English for the first time the fruits of recent Japanese research, opening up the possibility of advancing Locke studies on an international scale. Covering three important areas of Locke's philosophical thought – knowledge and experimental method, law and politics, and religion and toleration – this volume criticizes established interpretations and replaces them with novel alternatives, breaking away (...) from standard narratives and providing fresh ways of looking at Locke's relationship with philosophers such as Boyle, Berkeley and Hume. The specific topics that have been selected are ones that continue to have important contemporary moral and political implications, from constitutionalism and toleration to marriage and the death penalty. Applying Locke's views to 21st-century questions, this collection presents provocative readings of the defining aspects of Locke's philosophical thought, stimulating current debates and heralding a new era of collaborative work for Locke scholars around the world. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sit together in the canon of political thought but are rarely treated in common historical accounts. This book narrates their intertwined careers during the Restoration period, when the two men found themselves in close proximity and entangled in many of the same political conflicts. Bringing new source material to bear, In the Shadow of Leviathan establishes the influence of Hobbesian thought over Locke, particularly in relation to the preeminent question of religious toleration. Excavating Hobbes's now (...) forgotten case for a prudent, politique toleration gifted by sovereign power, Jeffrey R. Collins argues that modern, liberal thinking about toleration was transformed by Locke's gradual emancipation from this Hobbesian mode of thought. This book investigates those landmark events - the civil war, Restoration, the popish plot, the Revolution of 1688 - which eventually forced Locke to confront the limits of politique toleration, and to devise an account of religious freedom as an inalienable right. (shrink)

During the Coinage Crisis of 1695, John Locke successfully advocated a full recoinage without devaluation by insisting on silver money's “intrinsick value.” The Great Recoinage has ever since been seen as a crucial step toward the Financial Revolution and it was long regarded as Locke's most consequential achievement. This article places Locke's intervention in the context of the postrevolutionary English state at war and reads his monetary pamphlets as an integral, if largely neglected, part of his political philosophy. Instead of (...) taking Locke's insistence on “intrinsick value” itself at face value, I argue that it was precisely money's fragile conventionality that threatened its role as a societal bond of trust. In response to this fragility and corruptibility, Locke tied money by fiat to an initially arbitrary but unalterable quantity of metal. While Locke's argument contributed to the modern naturalization of money, it arose from a paradoxical political act of monetary depoliticization. (shrink)

The article presents a basic perception regarding social contract theory which is considered to be one of the most well-known and influential theories in western political philosophy. By exploring the concepts of social contract theory suggested by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, an attempt is made to reveal various features and characteristics of the natural state. The article discusses the general description of the state of nature as well as the process of establishing a social contract as a means of (...) formation of civil society. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 230-252, April 2022. The apparent inconsistency between Locke’s commitment to legalism and his explicit endorsement of the extra-legal power of prerogative has confounded many readers. Among those who don’t ignore or dismiss it, the common approach is to qualify the role or scope of prerogative. The article advocates the opposite approach. It argues that Locke’s legalism should be understood within the context of his oft neglected conception of political liberty in (...) terms of self-government. This not only allows for the reconciliation of Locke’s legalism with his endorsement of extra-legal powers, but also provides a fuller, more accurate account of the role of law and of political liberty in Locke’s theory. (shrink)

La relación entre patrimonio y derechos políticos en la obra de John Locke ha sido ampliamente discutida. Por un lado, se encuentran posiciones como las de Kendall y Tully que atribuyen un carácter democrático a la concepción lockeana sobre la sociedad civil. Por otro, interpretaciones como las de Ashcraft que le asignan un sesgo revolucionario e igualitario, próximo a la concepción de los Levellers. Sin embargo, a la luz de una serie de documentos, es posible discutir estas interpretaciones, como ya (...) lo han hecho diversos intérpretes parcialmente. Se mostrará aquí que Locke supone que la discusión parlamentaria compete a quienes, representando a los diferentes sectores productivos, discuten la promoción de sus actividades y que los trabajadores, al no disponer de la formación necesaria para la discusión sobre los asuntos públicos, no son considerados para participar del ejercicio parlamentario sino sólo de una resistencia excepcional. (shrink)

The early paragraphs of John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government describe a poetic idyll of property acquisition widely supposed by contemporary theorists and historians to have cast the template for imperial possessions in the New World. This reading ignores the surprises lurking in Locke’s later chapters on conquest, usurpation, and tyranny, where he affirms that native rights to lands and possessions survive to succeeding generations. Locke warned his readers that this “will seem a strange doctrine, it being quite contrary to (...) the practice of the world.” His doctrine of native right is equally strange to recent scholars who see in Lockean theory the ideological prototype for England’s colonial expropriation in the “vacant lands” of North America. This interpretation, dignified by the elusive principle of vacuum domicilium, is considerably weakened when Locke’s arguments are placed in the historical context of the sixteenth and early seventeenth-century English colonial experience. Locke’s Second Treatise, with its literary flourish of a vast and idyllic state of nature, was written in the full appreciation of Amerindian agriculture, its established populations, the acknowledgement of native property rights, and the policy and practice of purchasing land from the native inhabitants. (shrink)

Freedom has no univocal meaning in Locke's work, despite its centrality. It is understood as a duty and right, but also as a power, or, as we will hold here, as a state. The successive modifications of the idea of freedom between An Essay concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, between the editions and in relation to early or later texts, such as The Reasonableness of Christianity, allow us to think of freedom as a problem, rather than as (...) an evidence. Freedom affirms itself as the most sublime characteristic of human nature, as well as the symptom of her precariousness and corruption. Freedom could be compared with reason, as Locke intends to investigate the limits of both, without ever thinking them as franchisable. (shrink)

John Locke's treatises on government make frequent reference to the Hebrew Bible, while references to the New Testament are almost completely absent. To date, scholarship has not addressed this surprising characteristic of the treatises. In this book, Yechiel Leiter offers a Hebraic reading of Locke's fundamental political text. In doing so, he formulates a new school of thought in Lockean political interpretation and challenges existing ones. He shows how a grasp of the Hebraic underpinnings of Locke's political theory resolves many (...) of the problems, as well as scholarly debates, that are inherent in reading Locke. More than a book about the political theory of John Locke, this volume is about the foundational ideas of western civilization. While focused on Locke's Hebraism, it demonstrates the persistent relevance of the biblical political narrative to modernity. It will generate interest among students of Locke and political theory; philosophy and early modern history; and within Bible study communities. (shrink)

Pretende-se abordar como os argumentos luteranos ─ de natureza constitucional das "magistraturas inferiores" e de direito privado ─ acerca do direito de resistência, desenvolvidos no final da década de 1520 e início de 1530, foram recepcionados no _Segundo Tratado Sobre o Governo Civil_, de John Locke, escrito no século XVII. O argumento de direito privado compreende que todo governante que abandona as boas ações e se dedica a cometer atos tirânicos se despoja de sua autoridade e, consequentemente, deve ser tratado (...) como uma pessoa privada, portanto, sujeita ao lícito revide, o que configura uma espécie de legítima defesa. O argumento constitucional das "magistraturas inferiores" afirma a possibilidade de órgãos intermediários entre o governante e o povo estarem legitimados para oferecer resistência às tiranias. Em John Locke, ambos os argumentos objetivam a solução do problema da tirania para se obter liberdade política e religiosa. (shrink)

In Locke’s economic and politic thinking is possible appraise some articulations that connect the teological, the economic and the politic. The humans work for divine decree and the labor is an economic concept inasmuch as it is the activity that yields private ownership, whose possession entails a natural right for all individuals. Safeguarding this right is liability of the government and of the state institutions. For Locke the market is previous to the civilian society, trade’s regulative structure sets the guidelines (...) of the governmental action, so that money’s circulation should not be interfered directly by the sovereign power neither leading it under particular politic interests. Thus, it is can find out an ontology of market in lockean thought, insomuch as trade space’s existence takes up the natural laws and project them in the space`s political. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é dar relevo à presença da argumentação histórica e antropológica nas obras publicadas por John Locke entre 1689 e 1695. Essa orientação defende a existência de uma diversidade de povos e costumes ao redor do mundo, tomando como base as comunidades longínquas descritas nos relatos de viagens. Entre os tipos de povos considerados por Locke, existem sociedades ateias, idólatras, de moral filosófica e, poder-se-ia dizer, culmina com a defesa do cristianismo como a religião mais apropriada para (...) educar os trabalhadores das sociedades de apropriação ampliada. (shrink)

Η παρούσα ανακοίνωση επικεντρώνεται στο έργο Δεύτερη πραγματεία περί κυβερνήσεως του John Locke και ερευνά τους δύο θεμελιακούς άξονες της Δεύτερης πραγματείας, οι οποίοι εκφράζουν το σύνολο της πολιτικής θεωρίας του Locke. Αρχικά γίνεται αναφορά στη θεωρία περί καταπιστεύματος που αποτελεί και τη βάση της πολιτικής θεωρίας του Lοcke. Οι άνθρωποι προκειμένου να διαφυλάξουν τα δικαιώματά τους με κορυφαίο εκείνο της ζωής, προχωρούν από την πρότερη φυσική κατάσταση στην ενοποιημένη ανθρώπινη κατάσταση, η οποία ονομάζεται κοινότητα. Κατά τη φάση της συγκροτήσεως (...) της κοινότητας, τα μέλη της εκλέγουν τους εκπροσώπους τους, οι οποίοι αναλαμβάνουν το έργο της υπεράσπισης του συνόλου των ανθρωπίνων αναγκών. Η μετάθεση των εξουσιών από την κοινότητα προς τους εκπροσώπους γίνεται βάσει μίας συμφωνίας, η οποία συνάπτεται ανάμεσα στα μέλη της κοινότητας και στους εκπροσώπους. Η συμφωνία αυτή ονομάζεται καταπίστευμα. Η τήρηση του καταπιστεύματος είναι υποχρεωτική και από τα δύο συμβαλλόμενα μέρη, δηλαδή και από την κοινότητα και από τους εκπροσώπους. Η μη σωστή τήρηση των κανόνων του καταπιστεύματος από τους εκπροσώπους της κοινότητας συνιστά αθέτηση της αρχικής συμφωνίας. Στην περίπτωση αυτή τα μέλη έχουν την δυνατότητα να καταφύγουν στο νόμιμο δικαίωμα της πολιτικής ανυπακοής. Μπορούν δηλαδή να αφαιρέσουν την εξουσία από τους εκπροσώπους τους και να εκλέξουν νέους. Η πολιτική θεωρία του Locke βασίζεται με σαφήνεια στην αρχή της πλειοψηφίας. Ο θεμελιακός παράγοντας για τις πολιτικές αποφάσεις είναι η γνώμη της πλειοψηφίας των πολιτών. Φθάνουμε τώρα στον δεύτερο σημαντικό πυλώνα που συγκροτεί την πολιτική θεωρία του Locke. Αναφέρομαι στο δικαίωμα της ατομικής ιδιοκτησίας και της υπεράσπισής του. Το πολιτικό σύστημα που προκύπτει μέσα από την θεωρία του Locke στηρίζεται κατά ένα μεγάλο μέρος στο δικαίωμα της ατομικής ιδιοκτησίας. Συγκεκριμένα ο φιλόσοφος υποστηρίζει πως από τη στιγμή που ο άνθρωπος εναποθέτει την προσωπική του εργασία σε ένα υλικό αγαθό για την παραγωγή και την απόκτηση του, τότε αυτό το αγαθό περνά δικαιωματικά στην ιδιοκτησία του ανθρώπου. Η ατομική ιδιοκτησία αποτελεί σημαντικό παράγοντα για την επιβίωση του ατόμου. Στην πρότερη φυσική κατάσταση απαγορευόταν να οικειοποιηθεί ο άνθρωπος ένα αγαθό, γιατί τα πάντα ανήκαν στους πάντες. Όμως, όταν αυτό το αγαθό είναι απαραίτητο για την επιβίωση του ανθρώπου, τότε το φαινόμενο της οικειοποίησης και περαιτέρω της ιδιοκτησίας κρίνεται ως αναγκαίο. Στην προκείμενη περίπτωση δεν χρειάζεται η συγκατάθεση ολόκληρης της κοινότητας, όπως συνέβαινε κατά τη φυσική κατάσταση. Παρά ταύτα το προνόμιο της ατομικής ιδιοκτησίας διέπεται από όρια. Σύμφωνα με τον Locke το μέγεθος της ατομικής ιδιοκτησίας πρέπει να είναι τέτοιο, ώστε να καλύπτεται το σύνολο των αναγκών του ανθρώπου. Το αυξημένο μέγεθος της ατομικής ιδιοκτησίας ενός ατόμου εγκυμονεί τον κίνδυνο της απειλής των δικαιωμάτων των υπολοίπων μελών της κοινότητας. Αυτό που ένας άνθρωπος έχει ως περίσσευμα, κάποιος άλλος το στερείται. Ο Locke στο πλαίσιο μίας κοινωνικά δίκαιης πολιτικής προτείνει την αναδιανομή του εισοδήματος με ένα δίκαιο φορολογικό σύστημα. Με τη φορολόγηση στο περίσσευμα των υψηλών εισοδημάτων επιτυγχάνεται η αναδιανομή του πλούτου και κυρίως η κάλυψη των αναγκών των οικονομικά ασθενέστερων. Ο Locke με αυτόν τον τρόπο γίνεται ο εμπνευστής του κοινωνικού κράτους. (shrink)

This book examines John Locke’s political thought and activity surrounding oceans with a focus on law and freedom at sea. By examining Locke’s Two Treatises of Government alongside his work on England’s Board of Trade, this book shows how his theoretical ideas were translated into laws and policies about issues such as piracy and slavery.

RESUMENEl presente trabajo discute aquellas interpretaciones de Locke como un continuador del radicalismo leveller y un partidario inequívoco de la igualdad política y la democracia. Sostiene que su obra y pensamiento político persigue más bien un retorno a «our ancient government» y «its original constitution», esto es, un modelo de «monarquía moderada» o «mixta» que no sólo representa un retroceso democrático respecto al «republicanismo popular» de los levellers sino también una forma de gobierno en la que los elementos democráticos e (...) igualitarios quedan debilitados. PALABRAS CLAVELOCKE, LIBERALISMO–IGUALDAD–DEMOCRACIA–MONARQUÍAABSTRACTThis paper questions those interpretations of Locke as a follower of leveller radicalism and an unequivocal supporter of political equality and democracy. It argues that his work and political thought seek mainly a return to «our ancient government» and «its original constitution», that is, a model of “moderate or mixed monarchy” which not only represents a democratic regression compared to the «popular republicanism» of the Levellers but also a form of government in which the democratic and egalitarian elements are weakened. KEY WORDSLOCKE–LIBERALISM–EQUALITY–DEMOCRACY–MONARCHY. (shrink)

Recent developments in our globalized world are beginning the scholarly world to answer the question pertaining to the relationship between Islam—a “faith”—and politics and governance. In order to understand the Islamic worldview from the perspective of Ibn Khaldun, with whom many modern Islamists would agree with, a comparison is made with early progenitors of liberalism and the social contract, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. By understanding the fundamental differences between the theorists, and how Ibn Khaldun’s is completely separate from the (...) western tradition, it becomes easier to understand exactly why Islamic models of governance are at direct odds with the west. The main difference between the two models of governance is the use of a fundamental criteria determining right from wrong, as opposed to Hobbes’ and Locke’s theories being based purely on assumption that the validity of their respective arguments is based upon the theory’s acceptance among the people. In other words, western political theorists lack the consistency and justification for their theories, at least from the Islamist point of view. (shrink)

A fin de especificar las formulaciones generales de T. T. acerca de los actores sociales y económicos, se analizarán aquí ciertas propuestas jurídicas y normativas de John Locke. La lectura de la propuesta de una nueva ley de pobres y de la desregulación de la tasa de interés , permitirá dar cuenta de la articulación que Locke establece por un lado entre dejar hacer a los agentes empresarios y proteger la balanza comercial y, por el otro, el disciplinamiento y la (...) regulación de los trabajadores. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we should look to Hobbes rather than to Locke as providing a philosophical forerunner of modern and current rights theories and further, that Hobbes’s theory has relevance to and ‘speaks to’ current philosophical and jurisprudential analysis of the foundations of rights, in a way that Locke’s theory cannot. First, I summarise the argument that Hobbes does have a substantive theory of individual rights. Second, I argue that the project undertaken by A. J. Simmons, to (...) ‘reconstruct’ Locke’s theory of rights without the theological premises, cannot succeed. Locke’s theory of natural rights is thoroughly dependent on its theological premises. Third, I argue that Hobbes’s theory of rights is not dependent on theological premises. Finally, I try to illustrate the ways in which Hobbes’s theory is still relevant and useful for current debates within rights theory. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Steven Forde argues that John Locke's devotion to modern science deeply shaped his moral and political philosophy. Beginning with an account of the classical approach to natural and moral philosophy, and of the medieval scholasticism that took these forward into early modernity, Forde explores why the modern scientific project of Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle and others required the rejection of the classical approach. Locke fully subscribed to this rejection, and took it upon himself to (...) provide a foundation for a compatible morality and politics. Forde shows that Locke's theory of moral 'mixed modes' owes much to Pufendorf, and is tailored to accommodate science. The theory requires a divine legislator, which in turn makes natural law the foundation of morality, rather than individual natural right. Forde shows the ways that Locke's approach modified his individualism, and colored his philosophy of property, politics and education. (shrink)

Locke’s Second Treatise of Government lays the foundation for a fully liberal order that includes representative and limited government, and that guarantees basic civil liberties. Though future thinkers filled in some gaps left in his doctrine, such as division of powers between executive and judicial branch of government, as well as fuller exposition of economic freedom and human rights, it is Locke, who paves the way for others. The article reviews the Treatise, paying particular attention to his ingenious way to (...) render absolute power illegitimate and to create an order that breeds citizens, not subject. In this, the article claims, Locke is a Whig rather than a continental liberal. He worries about state omnipotence and the threat it poses for citizens. Though resorting to an abstract construct—state of nature—he still is a common sense, English thinker, far from a continental reformer who would thoroughly redesign the existing order. (shrink)

John Locke's theory of toleration is generally seen as advocating the privatization of religion. This interpretation has become conventional wisdom: secularization is widely understood as entailing the privatization of religion, and the separation of religion from power. This book turns that conventional wisdom on its head and argues that Locke secularizes religion, that is, makes it worldly, public, and political. In the name of diverse citizenship, Locke reconstructs religion as persuasion, speech, and fashion. He insists on a consensus that human (...) rights are sacred insofar as humans are the creatures, and thus, the property of God. Drawing on a range of sources beyond Locke's own writings, Pritchard portrays the secular not as religion's separation from power, but rather as its affiliation with subtler, and sometimes insidious, forms of power. As a result, she captures the range of anxieties and conflicts attending religion's secularization: denunciations of promiscuous bodies freed from patriarchal religious and political formations, correlations between secular religion and colonialist education and conversion efforts, and more recently, condemnations of the coercive and injurious force of unrestricted religious speech. (shrink)

A “recent consensus” has emerged in Locke studies that has sought to place theology at the center of Locke's political philosophy, insisting that the validity and cogency of Locke's political conclusions cannot be substantiated independently of the theology that resides at their foundation. This paper argues for the need to distance Locke from God, claiming that not only can we “bracket” the normative conclusions of Locke's political philosophy from their theological foundations, but that this was in fact Locke's own intention, (...) intent as he was to justify these conclusions to a diverse political audience often divided by faith. In other words, this “recent consensus” in Locke studies is premised on an erroneous understanding of Locke's political philosophy, even as advanced by Locke himself. Locke's own philosophical discourse bears witness to the very “bracketing” of his political conclusions from their theological foundations that these Locke scholars claim is impossible. (shrink)

John Locke occupies a central place in the contemporary philosophical literature on parental authority, and his child-centered approach has inspired a number of recognizably Lockean theories of parenthood.2 But unlike the best historically informed scholarship on other aspects of Locke's thought, those interested in his account of parental rights have not yet tried to understand its connection to debates of the period or to Locke's broader theory of natural law. In particular, Locke's relation to the seventeenth-century conversation about the role (...) of generation in grounding 'paternal power' is not well-known. Understanding this background is interesting in itself, but more importantly, it can provide us with a .. (shrink)

Locke's political theory centres on juridical matters of law, right, consent and legitimacy. Despite his concern to differentiate politics from family and posit a free and equal post-familial individual as political subject, this apparently abstract political theory is itself conveyed through a narrative of family. Locke rejects patriarchal absolutism that casts the king as a patriarchal father by thinking politics through alternative conceptions of father, sons and brothers. As such, Locke did not in fact help muster liberalism by instantiating a (...) vivid public-private divide that insulated the political imagination from ideas of family. (shrink)

John Locke held that every person has a natural duty to use her property efficiently, and that consent is required for legitimate political power. On the face of it, these two positions seem to be in tension. This is because, (1) according to Locke, it is nearly impossible to use resources efficiently unless one lives within a political community, and (2)the waste restriction is enforceable. Consequently, it might seem that persons living outside civil society may be forced to submit to (...) civil power, in violation of the consent requirement. I argue that this tension is only apparent; although the waste restriction is enforceable, the consent requirement is safe. But in the course of resolving this difficulty, three significant, but little-noticed, features of Locke's doctrine of consent to government come to light: (A) consent is conceptually necessary, and not just morally required, for persons to be subject to political power; (B) most people living outside civil society have a moral obligation to enter civil society if they can; and (C) consent to government can bind under duress so long as the duress does not render anyone dependent on the arbitrary wills of others. (shrink)

Revisiting the successive steps that gave birth to the modern occidental subject and showing that it hasn't always existed in the way it does today is the aim of this work. Since the Pre-Socratic philosophers and Socrates, Plato and Saint Augustine, the gradual configuration of an inner space favors the formation of an autonomous subject, ontologically linked at birth. Its subsequent emancipation and transformation into a radical reflexivity during Modernity remains linked to the philosophy of Descartes, Locke, and Kant.

The paper is devoted to demonstrating the systematic value of the “Two Treatises of Government”. Even though their genesis is rooted in the political circumstances of Locke’s life-time, the “Treatises” are not simply a pamphlet designed to support the Whig cause, as Locke’s political ideas are derived from his theoretical philosophy and from his concept of natural law.

Even his peers called Locke's political philosophy “The ABC of Politics“: not only does he clarify why one should exit the state of nature (government guarantees protection of life, freedom, and wealth) but also what a good government has to provide. A government should protect individuals from assaults of fellow citizens, other countries, and itself. Locke also shows how to put limits to the power of political institutions: by division of powers, by law, by neutral judges, and by making people (...) trust their government -- and having the right to revolt when their trust is betrayed. This book provides a cooperative commentary to all important topics of Locke's "Two Treatises". With entries by Wolfgang von Leyden, Bernd Ludwig, Peter Niesen, Francis Oakley, Birger P. Priddat, Michaela Rehm, Michael Schefczyk, Ludwig Siep, A. John Simmons, und Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

Timothy Stanton is the latest in a line of Locke scholars who, in focusing on Locke's theological commitments, have sought to place these at the center of his political philosophy. Stanton insists that those who interpret Locke's political philosophy in more material terms, centered on individual liberty, government authority, and the need to reconcile both via consent, apply to it a misleading "picture" and fail to perceive its essentials. By showing that this is precisely how Locke himself intended his political (...) philosophy to be understood, with the theology substantially removed, this article shows how Stanton is profoundly mistaken in his interpretation of Locke. (shrink)