John Locke: Property Rights
John Locke: Property Rights
Perhaps one of, if not the, most historically influential political thinkers of the western world was John Locke. John Locke, the man who initiated what is now known as British Empiricism, is also considered highly influential in establishing grounds, theoretically at least, for the constitution of the
United States of America. The basis for understanding Locke is that he sees all people as having natural God given rights. As God's creations, this denotes a certain equality, at least in an abstract sense. This religious back drop acts as a the foundation for all of Locke's theories, including his theories of individuality, private property, and the state. The reader will be shown how and why people have a natural right to property and the impact this has on the sovereign, as well as the extent of this impact. Locke was a micro based ideologist. He believed that humans were autonomous individuals who, although lived in a social setting, could not be articulated as a herd or social animal. Locke believed person to stand for, "... a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places, which it only does by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking." This ability to reflect, think, and reason intelligibly is one of the many gifts from God and is that gift which separates us from the realm of the beast. The ability to reason and reflect, although universal, acts as an explanation for individuality. All reason and reflection is based on personal experience and reference. Personal experience must be completely individual as no one can experience anything quite the same as another. This leads to determining why Locke theorized that all humans, speaking patriarchially with respect to the time "why all men," have a natural right to property. Every man is a creation of God's, and as such is endowed with
Perhaps one of, if not the, most historically influential political thinkers of the western world was John Locke. John Locke, the man who initiated what is now known as British Empiricism, is also considered highly influential in establishing grounds, theoretically at least, for the constitution of the
United States of America. The basis for understanding Locke is that he sees all people as having natural God given rights. As God's creations, this denotes a certain equality, at least in an abstract sense. This religious back drop acts as a the foundation for all of Locke's theories, including his theories of individuality, private property, and the state. The reader will be shown how and why people have a natural right to property and the impact this has on the sovereign, as well as the extent of this impact. Locke was a micro based ideologist. He believed that humans were autonomous individuals who, although lived in a social setting, could not be articulated as a herd or social animal. Locke believed person to stand for, "... a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places, which it only does by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking." This ability to reflect, think, and reason intelligibly is one of the many gifts from God and is that gift which separates us from the realm of the beast. The ability to reason and reflect, although universal, acts as an explanation for individuality. All reason and reflection is based on personal experience and reference. Personal experience must be completely individual as no one can experience anything quite the same as another. This leads to determining why Locke theorized that all humans, speaking patriarchially with respect to the time "why all men," have a natural right to property. Every man is a creation of God's, and as such is endowed with
Bibliography: Aaron, Richard, John Locke, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 1963. Bowie, James, Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, MacMillan Publishing, New York, 1964. Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Oxford University Press, London, 1975. Magill, Frank, Masterpieces of World Philosophy, Harper and Row, New York, 1961. O 'Connor, D.J., John Locke, Pelican Books, London, 1952. Squadrito, Kathleen, Locke 's Theory of Sensitive Knowledge, University Press of America, Washington, 1978. Yolton, J.W., Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970.