1,262 research outputs found
Whose Fundamental Constitutions? Locke, Slavery, & Manuscript Evidence
No full textThis article uses the methods that Locke advocated in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding to evaluate manuscript evidence from five different schemes and two drafts of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, to thereby determine what role, if any, John Locke had in writing it, and in advocating for slavery and absolutism. It focuses on the influential claims put forward by David Armitage 20 years ago, that Locke was responsible for actively promoting slavery in Carolina’s Fundamental Constitutions. It enables the reader to view, and judge, the relevant evidence. The author concludes, and invites the reader to conclude, that Armitage’s main claims lack foundation in the manuscript evidence. That evidence instead points towards the legal power of those who owned Carolina, the Lords Proprietors, and to the crown, which granted Carolina’s charter, and to the logic of a different theory of government, patriarchalism, for the rationale behind both slavery and absolutism. The central ideas behind slavery and colonization were epitomized, as Locke understood, by Sir Robert Filmer, who wrote the book to which Locke responded in his Two Treatises of Government. Filmer’s ally, Sir Henry Spelman, like Filmer a deeply committed royalist who believed in the king’s unlimited prerogatives, composed the original 1629 Carolina charter that shaped the Fundamental Constitutions. Misattributing the authorship of particular clauses to Locke is a symptom of a larger failure to distinguish the impact of momentous debates over authority and race in the seventeenth century. Locke’s theories did, in practice as well as principle, reject the theory of domination put forward by Filmer, and argued instead for human rights and democracy that were inclusive and capacious. The manuscript evidence has the potential to reshape how modern democratic theory is understood in the present.https://doi.org/10.5206/ls.2024.1753
Whose Fundamental Constitutions? Locke, Slavery, and Manuscript Evidence
No full textThis article uses the methods that Locke advocated in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding to evaluate manuscript evidence from five different schemes and two drafts of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, to thereby determine what role, if any, John Locke had in writing it, and in advocating for slavery and absolutism. It focuses on the influential claims put forward by David Armitage 20 years ago, that Locke was responsible for actively promoting slavery in Carolina’s Fundamental Constitutions. It enables the reader to view, and judge, the relevant evidence. The author concludes, and invites the reader to conclude, that Armitage’s main claims lack foundation in the manuscript evidence. That evidence instead points towards the legal power of those who owned Carolina, the Lords Proprietors, and to the crown, which granted Carolina’s charter, and to the logic of a different theory of government, patriarchalism, for the rationale behind both slavery and absolutism. The central ideas behind slavery and colonization were epitomized, as Locke understood, by Sir Robert Filmer, who wrote the book to which Locke responded in his Two Treatises of Government. Filmer’s ally, Sir Henry Spelman, like Filmer a deeply committed royalist who believed in the king’s unlimited prerogatives, composed the original 1629 Carolina charter that shaped the Fundamental Constitutions. Misattributing the authorship of particular clauses to Locke is a symptom of a larger failure to distinguish the impact of momentous debates over authority and race in the seventeenth century. Locke’s theories did, in practice as well as principle, reject the theory of domination put forward by Filmer, and argued instead for human rights and democracy that were inclusive and capacious. The manuscript evidence has the potential to reshape how modern democratic theory is understood in the present
Shaftesbury, Locke, and Their Revolutionary Letter?
No full textA corrigendum for this article was published in vol. 18 of Locke Studies available here. Scholars are kindly asked to reference the corrigendum only and not this version of the article.
Late in 1675, the anonymous Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country was condemned in the House of Lords as a ‘dangerous Book’, indeed a ‘lying, scandalous, and seditious Book’. The Peers ordered it to be burned by the public hangman, and opened an investigation designed to discover its author, printer, and publisher. About this search and its success in tracking the author(s) down, very little is known. But as J. R. Milton and Philip Milton, who included the pamphlet in their Clarendon edition of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Toleration and his Other Writings on Law and Politics, 1667–1683, have pointed out, ‘no one has ever doubted that it was written by someone in Shaftesbury’s circle and for Shaftesbury’s purposes. John Locke, Shaftesbury’s secretary at the time, has long been a suspected collaborator in its production
Personal identity and human animals: a new history and theory
No full textThe contemporary personal identity debate has divided into two entrenched positions. One supports the supposedly naive and unpopular Bodily Criterion (the view that personal identity requires physical continuity). The other school is the Psychological Criterion (the view that personal identity requires psychological continuity). This has acquired the status of virtual orthodoxy. The British Empiricists, John Locke and David Hume, are both supposed to give historical weight to this orthodoxy. This thesis argues this is a dramatic misrepresentation of history. Locke is supposed to found the personal identity debate in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, arguing that personal identity is sameness of consciousness. It is argued that Locke in fact responds to a prevalent Cartesian View, called here the Compositional Account. The Compositional Account is the belief that a Human Being is composed of a Mind and a Body. Hume, in responding to Locke, is also responding to the Compositional Account. In opposition to widely established readings both philosophers are argued to be highly sympathetic to the Compositional Account. Chapter 1 establishes Descartes' version of the Compositional Account and explains why Descartes needs no philosophical treatment of personal identity. These problems emerge only for the Empiricists, Locke and Hume. Locke's sympathies for the Compositional Account are established in Chapter 2, drawing on material prior to the Essay and normally uncited passages in the Essay. Chapter 3 argues that Hume presumed the Compositional Account in his Treatise Concerning Human Nature. This is argued to explain Hume's famous later recantation of his theory. The thesis concludes by sketching a role for the Compositional Account in contemporary debate. The Compositional Account is argued to give strong support to a recently developed position known as Animalism. This provides the conceptual materials to move beyond the orthodox dichotomy between the Bodily Criterion and the Psychological Criterion
John Locke on Obligation: Sensation, Reflection, and the Natural Duty to Consent
No full textDISSERTATION ABSTRACT: John Locke on Obligation: Sensation, Reflection, and the Natural Duty to Consent By Emily Marie Crookston Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Washington University in St. Louis, 2009 Professor Larry May, Chairperson Locke\u27s theories of moral and political obligation are instructive both in their successes and in their failures. Writing during a time in which previous assumptions were being widely challenged, Locke judiciously accepts the wisdom of his predecessors as a firm foundation upon which to build his own arguments. Of course, Locke also was not immune to criticism. On the moral obligation side, Locke faces the charge of internal inconsistency: his theory of natural law cannot meet the standards set by his naturalist empiricism. On the political obligation side, critics complain that consent theory is descriptively inadequate: if citizens could consent to their governments, then they would be morally bound. The problem is that most citizens have never consented. So two of Locke\u27s crucial arguments seem to be in trouble. In my dissertation, I take another look at these criticisms. First, I argue that though Locke\u27s natural law theory is too vague to count as a decisive theory of moral obligation, he could enrich his account using features of a Kantian approach in order to develop a coherent and internally consistent theory of moral obligation. In the second half of the dissertation, I build upon this comprehensive theory of moral obligation in order to argue for a more charitable interpretation of Locke\u27s theory of political obligation. According to my view, although consent is necessary and sufficient for political obligation, there are nonetheless universal moral constraints upon the individual choice to consent. Thus, though it is true that individuals are bound to obey only those political institutions to which they have consented, there is a natural moral duty to consent when certain conditions are met. If I am correct, Locke comes closer to having a unified theory of obligation than most scholars give him credit for. By developing a credible theory of moral obligation, which Locke can then use to defend himself against critics of his consent theory of political obligation, I provide Locke with the tools to save both projects
Molyneux’s question and the phenomenology of shape
No full textWilliam Molyneux raised the following question: if a congenital blind person is
made to see, and is visually presented with a cube and a globe, would he be able to
call the shapes before him a cube and a globe before touching them? Locke,
Berkeley, Leibniz, and Reid presented their phenomenological view of shape
perception, i.e. their view as to what it is like to perceive shape by sight and touch, in
responding to Molyneux’s Question. The four philosophers shared the view that
visual perception delivers no solid shape. This view would provide a premise for an
argument for immaterial objects. The purpose of my thesis is to reject that argument.
Kant’s view and John Campbell’s externalist account offer a way to reject the
premise of the argument in question. However, my strategy is not to adopt their view.
I pursue Reichenbach’s view that the there is no congruence or incongruence
involved in the visual phenomenology. I develop his view, and propose the view that
visual perception delivers no flat or solid shape. Although my view endorses the
premise in question, I can offer a way to reject the argument. This is because my
view is compatible with a form of externalism about perception (which differs from
Campbell’s). My view can also do full justice to the phenomenological views
presented by the four philosophers
Women and Lockean Theory : John Locke, Rachel Speght, and Egalitarian Personhood
No full textLiberal political thought affirms the moral equality of all persons. The Lockean tradition within liberalism captures this equality by endowing people with equal natural rights. However, a powerful line of criticism holds that the theory fails to live up to its egalitarian billing by treating men and women differently. This article offers a rational reconstruction of the Lockean position on gender equality, and the rights of women in particular. We propose a novel interpretative method which puts Locke into conversation with a contemporary female author, Rachel Speght. In Speght, we find an interesting argument supporting an egalitarian Lockean view, grounded in familiar Lockean assumptions, using familiar Lockean arguments. Voices like Speght have long been unjustly neglected in the liberal tradition. By constructing this imagined conversation, we offer a stronger foundation for Lockean liberalism, and begin to incorporate excluded voices in the formulation of that tradition
Review of Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliott (Text Classics reprint)
No full textReview of Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliot
Review of Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliott (Text Classics reprint)
No full textReview of Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliot
Locke, providence, and the limits of natural philosophy
No full textJohn Locke's comments on experimental natural philosophy can plausibly be seen as a part of the physico-theological project of certain Christian virtuosi of the Royal Society to show that the workings of nature reveal the existence of a providential God. As I make clear, Locke thinks that God providentially designs us with limited epistemic capacities in order to check our pride and to motivate us to seek perfection in God. Locke maintains that a true science of nature is possible, but he is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing such a science, given our epistemic limitations. I argue that this seeming tension can be resolved by appreciating that the horizon for obtaining this science is eschatological. In other words, Locke thinks that we will have a true science of nature in a state of perfection, as God transforms the probable knowledge we have of bodies into certain and comprehensive knowledge.Peer reviewedFinal article published.John Lockenatural philosophyprovidenceGodphysico-theolog
- …
