The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critical Analysis of Liberal Theory. By Carole Pateman. (New York: John Wiley, 1979. Pp. xi + 205. $21.95.) (original) (raw)
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By problematizing the ascendant academic tendency to isolate 'different' problems of social political thought from each other, the paper intends to critically examine John Locke's political liberalism with possible references to the systematic philosophy of mind and thought he developed in his famous opus, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It basically seeks out the traces of a certain ambiguity concerning the epistemological foundation of the nexuses of Locke's political philosophy which vary within the main themes that incrementally proceed from a particular natural law doctrine and bring to completion with the naturalization of unlimited capital accumulation. As an endeavour to uncover the epistemological relevance of Lockean political liberalism, the paper digs out the deadlocks and inner contradictions arising from the liberal strategies of moral reasoning that happen to naturalize private property, as well as a perpetuated form of bourgeoisie ethics based on the class-based formulation of rights and duties. The deadlocks and contradictions are predicated largely on two grounds: The first is his empiricist stance that substitutes the 'universal' moral law of nature (acquired by human reason) with the basic tenets of the individualist morality immanent to market society. The second is, on the other hand, the 'universalization' of a certain type of class reasoning which no longer provides empirical room for social transformation and political novelty.
15th Annual SC Upstate Research Symposium, 2019
This paper discusses seventeenth century philosopher John Locke’s life, works, and the inconsistencies within his philosophy. In addition, the ways in which the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the dawn of the Enlightenment influenced John Locke’s life and philosophy are explored. This paper chiefly examines the discrepancies within John Locke’s Two Tracts on Government, The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, A Letter Concerning Toleration, Two Treatises of Government, and Some Thoughts on Education — paying special attention to Locke’s positions on individual sovereignty, freedom of religion, and the inherited status of man.
Locke's Republican and Liberal Legacy
The Lockean Mind, ed. Gordon-Roth and Weinberg (Routledge), 2021
Many people today identify Locke's political legacy solely with right-leaning libertarianism. But the truth is more complicated. This chapter explores two strands of thought within Locke's 18th and 19th century reception. The 18th century liberal republican strand radicalized Locke's conceptions of consent, constitutionalism, and the role of the state, while the 19th century natural property rights strand, itself composed of a libertarian camp and an egalitarian camp, developed his conception of individual property rights to address the moral problems raised by industrial capitalism.
John Locke and the Fable of Liberalism
The Historical Journal
This article explores the ways in which John Locke was claimed by liberalism and refashioned in its image. It was Locke's fate to become the hero of what I term ‘the fable of liberalism’, the story liberalism recounts to itself about its origins and purposes. Locke is a pivotal figure – perhaps the pivotal figure – in this story, because he put into currency conceptions which contributed centrally to the emergence and spread of liberal ways of thinking about politics which continue to ramify. It was Locke who established that the legitimacy of a political authority was a necessary condition of obedience to it and that its legitimacy was a product of the consensual route by which it came into existence; it was Locke who established that the route by which it came into existence determined the ends for which it existed and, with these, the scope of its authority. All this was explained in an exemplary way by Locke (the story goes), and he remains the great exemplar for understandi...
Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie
Political Studies, 1965
i e k IT is a commonplace. but true, that the two terms on which Locke mts the greatest weight of doctrine in the Second Zkeutise arc 'coment' and 'property'. It is with the second of thesc terms that we are here concaned, and in partiwith the use which Locke makm of his doctrine that : 'The great and &fend therefore, of Mem uuitiq into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservution of their Property.'* There has been a good deal of criticism kvelled at W e ' s account of property from one direction or another. Complaints of wild and absurd individualism3 contrast with aswrtions of his collectivist leanings.4 complaints about his obsession with history that never happened5 contrast with assertions of his intense interest in, and the great importance to his theory of, sociology, history and anthropology,e in as genuine a form as the seventeenth century knew them. Here we shall concentrate on a Merent issue, namely on the extent to which it is true that Locke's account of property, and his resultant account of natural rights, political obligation, and the proper functions of government, form an ideology for a rising Capitalist class. My question is How far does what Locke says in the Second Treatise substantiate Macpherson's' thesis that he was providing-perhaps no more than half-conscious1y-a moral basis for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? One initial clarification of the scope of my discussion of this question is needed. Macpherson 1 I should like to say how much I owe to the late G. A. Paul in this paper; it amounts to a good deal as to doctrine, and all but everything as to method. a See 124, cf. 134. (all refs. to Lasktt edition). a Vaughan: S t d s in the History of Politid P h i h p h y. Kcndall : John M e and Mujority Ruk?.
Morality and politics of a modern self : a critical reconstruction of Lockean liberalism
1997
This thesis attempts to delineate the moral and political thought of John Locke as a philosophical narrative of liberalism. A central issue of the thesis is the idea of the liberal or modern self, but I do not interpret Locke's thought exclusively from this perspective. Rather, do I attempt to describe a moral vision that integrates Locke's ideas as a whole, in which his concept of the self is to be understood. The thesis shows that Locke's moral vision is a serious contribution to the liberal tradition, which gives us an insight into another, non-Kantian liberalism. After explaining the methodological nature of the thesis in the Introduction, I illustrate the development of Locke's early thought in chapters two and three. This reveals some theoretical problems imposed upon the intellectual effort of the mature Locke. The following three chapters deal with Locke's magnum opus. Essay concerning Human Understanding; they show that despite his failure to construct a...
Authority and Freedom in the Interpretation of Locke's Political Theory
Political Theory, 2011
This essay argues that many modern discussions of Locke’s political theory are unconsciously shaped by an imaginative picture of the world inherited from the past, on which authority and freedom are fundamentally antipathetic. The consequences of this picture may be seen in the distinction made customarily in Locke studies between the ‘authoritarian’ Locke of Two Tracts on Government, for whom authority descends from God, and the later, ‘liberal,’ Locke, for whom authority arises from the will and agreement of individuals, and felt in the emphases placed on consent and resistance in most interpretations of Lockean political thought. The essay examines the composition and contours of this picture and, by holding up a mirror to contemporary Locke scholarship, draws attention to some of the ways in which it unwittingly distorts Locke’s thinking.
Locke and the Nature of Political Authority
The Review of Politics 77, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 1-22.
This paper aims to illuminate the ongoing significance of Locke's political philosophy. It argues that the legitimacy of political authority lies, according to Locke, in the extent to which it collaborates with individuals so as to allow them to be themselves more effectively, and in its answerability to the consent such individuals should thereby give it. The first section discusses how the free will inevitably asserts its authority; the second shows the inevitability of the will's incorporation of authority as a kind of prosthesis, which in turn transforms the operation of the will; and the third treats the issue of consent, arguing that Locke is less interested in explicit acts of consent than in the norm of consent, in answerability to which structures of authority should be shaped so as to honor the beings whose capacity to consent is definitive for them.