JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) Flashcards
came before and remained despite the
disagreements
Community of human beings
He becomes an individual through his
assumption of… and it is not the individual who sustains the political community but rather the political community that sustains the individual
civic responsibility
no conception of rights can survive unless
it relies on a… for sustaining them
common responsibility
are meaningless without a community that is prepared to defend them
Rights
individual emerges. he begins to
act socially
-insisted that the sovereign must
ultimately be subordinate to the
social compact
John Locke
central principle of Locke’s political
thought
Royal Absolutism
The danger of an unlimited assertion
of rights arose from monarchical
claims of standing outside…
community law
This is an order of mutual obligation
Reciprocal relationship
-sees sovereign as outside the
covenant by which civil society is
instituted
Thomas Hobbes
-there can be no agreement
without an absolute power capable
of enforcing it
Thomas Hobbes
-places power firmly in the
foreground
Thomas Hobbes
-only an agreement that includes
the absolute power is worthy of
the consent of free people
John Locke
more constitionalist leanings
prefer power to recede into the
background
John Locke
is concerned with making
government responsible, not with the
question of the existence of a
government
John Locke
addressed the question of the origin of government and form a unity
Two Treatises of Government
Alternative position of the two treaties of john locke?
divine right of kings
Such derivation is unworkable and Locke’s emphasizes that each human being is born into the world with the same authority
divine right of kings
The authority of kings and princes must be derived from the
CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED
Every Man being, as had been shown
naturally free, and nothing being able to put
him into subjection to any Earthly Power, but
only his own Consent; it is to be considered,
what shall be understood to be a sufficient
Declaration of a Man’s consent, to make him
subject to the Laws of any government
tacit consent
the condition of human beings without any superior
to settle their differences
State of Nature
is essentially state of community
without government to act on its behalf
is unreliable, filled with inconveniences of ineffective administration of
justice
State of Nature
lacks any visible manifestation
is carried within each individual member, and from that mutual trust and recognition the compact to form civil society eventually emerges
Prepolitical community
Everyone must be a judge in his own case, and no
one can call on effective means of punishing
wrongdoers
State of Nature
Bonds of mutual obligation remain even in the absence of an effective means of enforcing them
State of Nature