History of Political Thought 35 (1):50-69 (2014)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
Recent legal opinions and scholarly works invoke the political philosophy of John Locke, and his claim that there is a natural right of self-defense, to support the view that the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms is so fundamental that no state may disarm the people. I challenge this use of Locke. For Locke, we have a right of self-defense in a state of nature. But once we join society we no longer may take whatever measures that seem reasonable to us to defend ourselves: we are bound to the law duly enacted according to the original Constitution to which we consented. For Locke, how best to avoid dissolution of government and preserve individual liberty is for the people to judge collectively, unconstrained by natural proscriptions on gun regulations, limited only by the demands that government not be arbitrary and that it serve the public good.
|
Keywords | Locke natural rights |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
Introduction.James S. Fishkin & Peter Laslett - 2002 - Journal of Political Philosophy 10 (2):125–128.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Natural Law, Religion, and Rights: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Natural Law and Natural Rights, with Special Emphasis on the Teachings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.Henrik Syse - 2007 - St. Augustine's Press.
The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the 'Two Treatises of Government'.John Dunn - 1969 - London: Cambridge University Press.
John Locke: Essays on the Law of Nature: The Latin Text with a Translation, Introduction, and Notes ; Together with Transcripts of Locke's Shorthand in His Journal for 1676.John Locke - 2002 - Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press ;.
John Locke, Natural Law and Colonialism.Barbara Arneil - 1992 - History of Political Thought 13 (4):587-603.
Toward a Theory of Empirical Natural Rights.John Hasnas - 2005 - Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (1):111-147.
Locke’s Tracts and the Anarchy of the Religious Conscience.Paul Bou-Habib - 2015 - European Journal of Political Theory 14 (1):3-18.
The Utopianism of John Locke's Natural Learning.Zelia Gregoriou & Marianna Papastephanou - 2013 - Ethics and Education 8 (1):18 - 30.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2014-01-12
Total views
327 ( #31,759 of 2,504,868 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
84 ( #9,209 of 2,504,868 )
2014-01-12
Total views
327 ( #31,759 of 2,504,868 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
84 ( #9,209 of 2,504,868 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads