Abstract

In the Essay, John Locke articulates a theory of the origin and governance of knowledge and belief that serves the needs of science on the one hand and our moral lives on the other. This chapter places more emphasis on the moral dimensions of Locke's epistemology than on its scientific dimensions. Locke's epistemology of science has received rather more scholarly attention than his moral epistemology. For another, his contributions to moral epistemology are more original and more significant than his contributions to the epistemology of science. Things are quite different when it comes to the sort of assent that constitutes probability, for Locke's account of probability is fully saturated with ethical considerations. By treating moral beliefs and knowledge as acquired through experience and reasoning about it, Locke sets forth a notion of morality as something that can and indeed must be debated and investigated rather than simply taken for granted.