An Analysis Of John Locke S Two Treatises Of Government

John Locke’s 1689 Two Treatises of Government is a key text in the history of political theory – one whose influence remains marked on modern politics, the American Constitution and beyond. Two Treatises is more than a seminal work on the nature and legitimacy of government. It is also a masterclass in two key critical thinking skills: evaluation and reasoning. Evaluation is all about judging and assessing arguments – asking how relevant, adequate and convincing they are. And, at its heart, the first of Locke’s two treatises is pure evaluation: a long and incisive dissection of a treatise on the arguments in Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha. Filmer’s book had defended the doctrine that kings were absolute rulers whose legitimacy came directly from God (the so-called “divine right of kings”), basing his arguments on Biblical explanations and evidence. Locke carefully rebutted Filmer’s arguments, on their own terms, by reference to both the Bible and to recorded history. Finding Filmer’s evidence either to be insufficient or unacceptable, Locke concluded that his argument for patriarchy was weak to the point of invalidity. In the second of Locke’s treatises, the author goes on to construct his own argument concerning the sources of legitimate power, and the nature of that power. Carefully building his own argument from a logical consideration of man in “the state of nature”, Locke creates a convincing argument that civilised society should be based on natural human rights and the social contract.

The past thirty years have witnessed a renaissance in Lockean scholarship. New work and new thinking has now recast our most basic comprehension of John Locke (1623-1704) as a political theorist, and of Locke's Two Treatises of Government as a historical document. This collection of essays investigates the implications of the new scholarship for our understanding of Locke's political thought and its impact upon the liberal tradition. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government has long been recognized as one of the great works of political philosophy. Three centuries after it was written, students and scholars continue to study it for insights into the intellectual origins of the modern world and for a better understanding of such fundamental concepts as natural rights, social contract, limited government, and the rule of law. The seven essays in this volume explore various dimensions of Locke's Two Treatises. The introductory essay places the new scholarship in a historical context. The next four essays show how this recent literature has affected our view of particular aspects of the Two Treatises: its theory of politics, its religious underpinnings, its theory of rationality, and its conception of the relationship between politics and economics. The final two essays discuss how the new scholarship has changed our understanding of the impact of the Two Treatises upon political thought in the eighteenth and late-twentieth centuries. Included at the end of the text is an extended secondary bibliography on John Locke's Two Treaties. These essays do not seek closure. Nor do they set forth a single "correct" interpretation. Instead they offer readers a deeper appreciation of how our view of Locke's Two Treatises has changed over the last three decades and the importance of those changes in understanding of the liberal tradition. "A solid contribution to the literature, bringing together some of the best new scholarship on Locke and reflecting the diversity, breadth, and depth of the current debate on both Locke and early liberalism. The editor's selection clearly demonstrates there is no single orthodox reading of Locke and conveys the intellectually lively debate that pervades the field today."—Ronald J. Terchek, author of Locke, Smith, Mill and the Liberal Concept of Agency.

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Richard Ashcraft offers a new interpretation of the political thought of John Locke by viewing his ideas, especially those in the Two Treatises of Government, in the context of his political activity. Linking the implications of Locke's political theory with his practical politics, Professor Ashcraft focuses on Locke's involvement with the radical Whigs, who challenged the established order in England from the 1670s to the 1690s. An equally important aim of the author is to provide a case study of a revolutionary movement that includes a discussion of its organization, ideology, socio-economic composition, and political activities. Based upon a detailed examination of manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and newspapers, Professor Ashcraft presents a wealth of new historical evidence on the political life of Restoration England. This study represents an example of an approach to political theory that stresses the importance of authorial intentions and of the political, social, and economic influences that structure a particular political debate.

This is the revised version of Peter Laslett's acclaimed edition of Two Treatises of Government, which is widely recognised as one of the classic pieces of recent scholarship in the history of ideas, read and used by students of political theory throughout the world. This 1988 edition revises Dr Laslett's second edition (1970) and includes an updated bibliography, a guide to further reading and a fully reset and revised introduction which surveys advances in Locke scholarship since publication of the second edition. In the introduction, Dr Laslett shows that the Two Treatises were not a rationalisation of the events of 1688 but rather a call for a revolution yet to come.

This study provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of the meaning of Locke's political thought. John Dunn restores Locke's ideas to their exact context, and so stresses the historical question of what Locke in the Two Treatises of Government was intending to claim. By adopting this approach, he reveals the predominantly theological character of all Locke's thinking about politics and provides a convincing analysis of the development of Locke's thought. In a polemical concluding section, John Dunn argues that liberal and Marxist interpretations of Locke's politics have failed to grasp his meaning. Locke emerges as not merely a contributor to the development of English constitutional thought, or as a reflector of socio-economic change in seventeenth-century England, but as essentially a Calvinist natural theologian.

The classic 1690 book is one of the most important and influential works on government ever published. The first part demolishes the main authoritarian/totalitarian ideology of its day: the doctrine of the divine right of kings to absolute arbitrary power over their subjects. The second sets out the real social origins, functions, and limits of government. Locke demonstrates that far from God and natural law ordaining all-powerful hereditary dictatorship, the only legitimate form of government is one established by the consent of the people and committed to upholding their fundamental human rights to life, liberty, and property. The book justified the Glorious Revolution establishing parliamentary government in England and was an inspiration behind the American Declaration of Independence a century later. Around the world, it continues to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law. However, the book is now well over 300 years old and present-day readers find its language difficult to follow and understand in places. This version translates the work into current English and seeks to make its substantive content clearer. Literalness and original word order and grammar are retained as far as possible. Nonetheless, the primary objective has been to improve the readability of the text in order to better convey its meaning. The considerable distance in time between the two documents has inevitably meant a considerable difference in conventional writing styles. In addition, much of the analysis in the original is intrinsically highly complex and subtle. Thus, this new version diverges significantly from the latter throughout. Contents: TREATISE 1 THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS: A REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF SIR ROBERT FILMER & HIS FOLLOWERS TREATISE 2 THE REAL ORIGINS, FUNCTIONS & LIMITS OF GOVERNMENT