Locke S Moral Political And Legal Philosophy

This is part of a series which aims to make available essays in the history of philosophy. The book presents a collection of essays which explore John Locke's moral, political and legal philosophy.

Examines the moral and political philosophies of John Locke in comparison with his predecessors and contemporaries such as Hobbes and Filman.

John Locke's political theory has been the subject of many detailed treatments by philosophers and political scientists. But The Lockean Theory of Rights is the first systematic, full-length study of Locke's theory of rights and of its potential for making genuine contributions to contemporary debates about rights and their place in political philosophy. Given that the rights of persons are the central moral concept at work in Locke's and Lockean political philosophy, such a study is long overdue.

Written before his better-known philosophical works, these essays fully explain how natural law is known and to what extent it is binding.

John Locke's account of natural law, which forms the very basis of his political philosophy, has troubled many critics over time. The two works that shed light on Locke's theory are the early Essays on the Law of Nature and the Second Treatise of Government, published over 20 years later. Many critics have assumed that the early work presents a voluntarist approach to natural law and the second a rationalist approach, but the present analysis in this book shows that Locke's theory is consistent. Both works present a concept of the law of nature that must be placed between voluntarism and rationalism. (Series: Polyptoton. Munster Collection, Academic Writings / Polyptoton. Munsteraner Sammlung Akademischer Schriften - Vol. 3)

John Locke's political theory has been the subject of many detailed treatments by philosophers and political scientists. But The Lockean Theory of Rights is the first systematic, full-length study of Locke's theory of rights and of its potential for making genuine contributions to contemporary debates about rights and their place in political philosophy. Given that the rights of persons are the central moral concept at work in Locke's and Lockean political philosophy, such a study is long overdue. The book refers extensively to Locke's published and unpublished works, arguing that they reveal a coherent and sophisticated theory of rights that relies far less directly on his theological foundations than is commonly supposed. In the process, A. John Simmons reconstructs a plausible and interesting Lockean theory of rights and shows how it illuminates many issues in contemporary moral and political philosophy, including the justification of punishment, problems concerning ethical impartialism and familial morality, the basis and extent of property rights, and rights and duties of justice and charity. Simmons takes Locke seriously as a philosopher, examining and responding to his arguments in a philosophically sensitive fashion, and developing and adding to them to produce a body of theory that can satisfy current standards of philosophical rigor and clarity.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ...a general moral theory. The epistemological method is the same. Ideas are in each case instruments which reveal external things, and not mixed modes arbitrarily created. But while the moral rules in the Treatises were propositions which did not happen to depend on the idea of God as one of their elements, yet Locke maintained in the Essay that no general ethical theory could be stated unless the idea of God were included as the most important constituent. Consequently it might be inferred that though some rules, as those in the Treatises, were attainable without a consideration of God, most moral rules would be more closely connected with religion and the nature of God. 31 Of Government, 67. 32 Civil Government, 4. Also cf. 87, 95. 33 Idem, 25. 34 Idem, 135. 35 Idem, 25 ff. 86 Idem, 14. Works, Vol. VII, p. 133. Essay, IV, 10, . Cf. also Works, Vol. VII, p. 161. Locke sometimes used the religious sanction for morality in a way which, as will be shown in the next chapter, involved a break with his rationalistic ethics; that is, he made moral rules follow from God's arbitrary commands with rewards and punishments attached thereto. But there was no need for departing from the rationalistic position just because the idea of God was introduced. And he often utilized the idea of God, as he used the ideas of man, labor, equality, etc., simply as part of the material upon which reason is to operate. Reason cannot properly understand the relationships between objects, and consequently the true nature of morality, without taking into account the greatest and most powerful being in the world. From the idea of God as from other ideas, reason discovers moral principles. In 1681 Locke wrote in his journal that whoever "has a true idea of...

John Locke's untitled manuscript "Questions Concerning the Law of Nature" (1664) was his only work focused on the subject of natural law, a circumstance that is especially surprising since his published writings touch on the subject frequently, if inconclusively. Containing a substantial apparatus criticus, this new edition of Locke's manuscript is faithful to Locke's original intentions.