...Locke - A Letter Concerning Toleration John Locke published, A Letter Concerning Toleration, during a time in history when opposing the church wasn’t the most advantageous thing for one to do. Locke developed his own account for toleration, specifically religious toleration in which he establishes how the church and state should be separated. This essay will give a background of Locke’s world when he published the letter, what religion is, a reconstruction of his argument on why there should be religious toleration and a separation of Church and State as well as critique the definitions, assumptions, benefits and limitations of Locke’s argument. Brief Historical and Political Climate of Locke’s Time Church and State were intertwined in a...
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...works today** John Locke’s Influence on American Democracy John Locke (1632–1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic, and political activist. Locke is referred to by many American political philosophers as one of the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. His ideologies and beliefs in regards to politics, religion, and the relationship between a country’s citizens and its government are heavily referenced within some of the United States’ most important documents. Locke’s association with Anthony Ashley Cooper led him to become a successful government official, an economic and political writer, an opposition political activist, and finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately prevailed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (Woolhouse, 2007). John Locke’s many writings and speeches on the importance of the freedom of man from a totalitarian government has influenced American politics dating back to the early days of the Continental Congress and the drafting of the United States Declaration of Independence. Perhaps the most central concept in Locke's political philosophy that influenced American political thought is his theory of natural law and natural rights. Among Locke's political works, he is most famous for the Two Treatise of Government in which he argues that sovereignty resides in the people and explains that man has fundamental natural rights as a human that should not be regulated by an omnipresent government (1689). Locke used the claim...
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...John Locke looked at the world to gain knowledge and wrote books to show the empiricism in philosophy. John Locke wrote many books and essays to show his beliefs and views. John Locke’s A letter Concerning Toleration with the concerning the true extant and end of civil government was written in 1689 in Gouda, Holland. His beliefs and views shaped the world as it is today. John Locke start off his essay with writing about political power. He states, “Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property,” John Locke defines political power as the right to make certain laws to protect and regulate property. These laws are put...
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...John Locke's contributions in Philosophy and political views are followed and practiced even to this day. Locke’s ideas influenced religion, economics, political change, theories of knowledge and the human understanding that led to governmental and social improvements. John Locke believed in political reform. John Locke is one of the most influential authors and political philosophers in history. His ideas and views have influenced such momentous commodity such as the American constitution. Many of Locke’s ideas were used in the creation of the United States Constitution. John Locke was a British philosopher and medical researcher. Locke was born to Agnes Keene and John Locke on August 29, 1632, in Somerset, England. His father was a Puritan lawyer, who served as a Captain during the English civil war. Locke’s schooling began at Westminster School in 1647. He earned the title of King’s Scholar, which prepared him for the next phase of his education at the Christ Church in Oxford in 1652. He studied literature, physical science, medicine, politics, and natural philosophy. In 1656 he continued for his Master of Arts degree. In 1665 at Oxford, Locke encountered Lord Ashley, a notable statesman looking for medical treatment. After a friendship formed, Ashley invited Locke to join him in London as his personal physician. Locke agreed and left for London in 1667, where he lived for the next eight years. This was the beginning of Locke’s deep political interests, which was...
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...John Locke John locke was a English liberalist, believing that no man is without liberty or equality. He also supported the rights to which a man could have. His philosophy was to believe that man could not be controlled by another man; only you can control yourself and the power of nature. Locke was born in august 29, 1632. In 1647, he attended the Westminster school of London, later earning his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. In oxford he had earned a bachelor of medicine in 1674. One day a man named Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury to get his liver treated. He apparently met Locke and was thoroughly impressed at his skill in medicine, asking John to later become an attendant for the earl, earning his right to be called a doctor of sorts to Cooper. Later Locke had performed surgery with several others and saved Cooper from a life-threatening liver infection. This later influenced his life as “thinker”. Shaftesbury later became lord chancellor in 1672, After that John Locke spent a lot of years traveling around Europe and came back to England in 1679, and having written the Two Treatises of government, which argued that absolute monarchy is unjust and wrong, but these views and ideas of his proved to be revolutionary. Later being spied and questioned for the assassination attempt of the current king – King Charles II of England, he fled to the Netherlands in 1683 and then continued his writings and revised quite a large sum of it, including the letter...
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...John Locke And His Writing Research Paper By: Brianna Lewis Honors English III Ms. Laroche March 28-2015 John Locke was an influential English philosopher during the enlightenment age. John Locke was born August 29 1632 in wrington Somerset England. His parents were puritan which lead him to grown up in a puritan household. His father was a country lawyer who also served in the military, which lead him to have the best of education. He attended Westminster school in London in 1647 then he attended Christ church in Oxford. He had trouble following the curriculum that was being taught to him which lead him to wonder off and stray into modern philosophy instead of the original curriculum he was suppose to learn. One of his friends that were taking medicine introduced him to it then he found his newfound passion. He begins living though just his mind. He was the very first person back then to identify them though consciousness. He then went to university of Oxford and study medicine and lectured on Greek, moral and rhetoric, which lead to a lot of his writing and his outlook on political disputes. Locke became friends with English statesman Anthony Cooper, Shaftesbury who was his adviser and physician. He became a very influential English philosopher with his writing topics being political philosophy, epistemology and also education. He founded the school of empiricism. Locke's Theory of empiricism emphasized the importance of experience...
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...John Locke's Contributions John Locke's contributions to the enlightenment had a great deal to do with the inspiration of America today. He was a philosopher who developed the philosophy that there were no legitimate government under the rights of kings theory. The king's theory is that god chooses the rulers and when the ruler is being challenged you are challenging god. Locke didn't think this was right so he wrote his own theory to challenge it. One idea in his theory was the power to be a governor to be granted by the people, maybe through voting. This is the basic formula for the political philosophy of liberalism- Locke's philosophy. Locke speaks of a state of nature where men are free, equal, and independent. He champions the social contract and government by consent. He goes even farther than Hobbes in arguing that the government must respect the rights of individuals. It was Locke's formula for limited government, more than Hobbes's, that inspired the Amercian Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, speak of both natural laws and natural rights. Locke does likewise. Natural right and natural law may be combined, but if they are, one must take precedence over the other. Either the individual's right, or his duty to moral law, must come first. Equality is the driving force of Locke's political theory because it is the basis for our consensual participation in society, a requisite...
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...Those who possess these freedoms do not realize just how fortunate they are to have the right to speak their minds. However, the question is, how and when did the idea of freedom come to be? Who created this idea of individuality and freedom? The Age of Enlightenment was a time of new revolutionary ideas, and during this period, many philosophers, or thinkers, formed ideas that were never spoken of before. They went against common beliefs and created ideas that were evidently disapproved by society. So what was the main idea of these Enlightenment philosophers? The main idea of the Enlightenment philosophers was freedom, as supported by the works of John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Firstly, John Smith’s work, Second Treatise on Civil Government, demonstrated the idea of freedom immensely. In Document A, Locke stated that “all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom… within the bounds of the law of nature,” specifying men’s right to freedom. Furthermore, he stated his beliefs about human equality. He believed that all mankind should be “equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection…” (Document A). Locke’s beliefs were based on human rights and society; however, all of these focuses link to his main idea, which was freedom. Voltaire was also very big on the topic of freedom. He believed in having multitudes of religion, as it creates a better chance of remaining peace. Like Voltaire stated in Document B, “If one religion...
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...“Whatever we learn, according to empiricists, we learn through perception” (“Empiricism”- Theory). This quote is a basic definition of what empiricists believe in and how they perceive the world through their own minds. The true definition of empiricism is that “all concepts originate in experience...or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience” (“Empiricism”- Britannica). Although empiricism isn’t a well-known philosophy as of today, it flourished during the Renaissance and during British colonization in the Americas. Empiricism is a very interesting philosophy which has even helped to form some major changing points within the world. The term Empiricism comes from empeiria, an ancient Greek word which means experience. Empiricists learn most of their knowledge from experience, sensory being one of the most common ways for them to learn. They usually do experiments to help answer their theories, and let the world itself test their hypotheses, rather than it be only relied on reasoning. Empiricism has always been heavily contrasted with Rationalism, which is gaining knowledge through reasoning. Empiricism has been known to be influenced by Aristotle’s idea of a tabula rasa, which means “clean slate” or “blank tablet”. This idea was further developed by philosophers such as Avicenna, who explained that the tabula rasa is something that is formed through education...
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...John Locke - Biography John Locke (1632-1704) John Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in Warington, a village in Somerset, England. In 1646 he went to Westminster school, and in 1652 to Christ Church in Oxford. In 1659 he was elected to a senior studentship, and tutored at the college for a number of years. Still, contrary to the curriculum, he complained that he would rather be studying Descartes than Aristotle. In 1666 he declined an offer of preferment, although he thought at one time of taking up clerical work. In 1668 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1674 he finally graduated as a bachelor of medicine. In 1675 he was appointed to a medical studentship at the college. He owned a home in Oxford until 1684, until his studentship was taken from him by royal mandate. Locke's mentor was Robert Boyle, the leader of the Oxford scientific group. Boyle's mechanical philosophy saw the world as reducible to matter in motion. Locke learned about atomism and took the terms "primary and secondary qualities" from Boyle. Both Boyle and Locke, along with Newton, were members of the English Royal Society. Locke became friends with Newton in 1688 after he had studied Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. It was Locke's work with the Oxford scientists that gave him a critical perspective when reading Descartes. Locke admired Descartes as an alternative to the Aristotelianism dominant at Oxford. Descartes' "way of ideas" was a major influence on Locke's...
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...In John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration, he contends that government has no authority over people who neglect their souls, health, and estate (406). From Locke's perspective, government's only aim is to protect one's property. By making laws that protect the property of the people from the harm of others, a government makes its citizens more autonomous. However, government's authority to establish laws comes from the consent of people who forfeit some of their natural rights (Locke, 304). In a sense, people have to give up some of their right in order to achieve greater autonomous. Because Locke believes that each person is his or her best judge of what he or she wants, as long as a person does not damage other's body or property, government should not interfere with his or her life. With regard to the relationship between government and religion, Locke states that "the care of souls does not belong to the magistrate" (Locke, 405). Put simply, government should not coerce anyone into a certain religion or belief because the purpose of government is to protect people's property. Even though the only authority that religious groups have is to care for one's soul, religious groups should not force other people to believe in their doctrines because each individual has the freedom to choose his belief. Although Locke admits that there is only "one true way to eternal happiness," he believes that no man knows which path is right(Locke, 407). As the result, no one, not even...
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...Notes: John Locke, 1632-1704, Essay on Human Understanding • a British philosopher • Oxford academic and medical researcher • his association with Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to become o a government official charged with collecting information about trade and colonies, o An economic writer, opposition political activist, and o finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately triumphed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. • Much of his work is characterized by opposition to authoritarianism. • This opposition is both on the level of the individual person and on the level of institutions such as government and church. • Locke's monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to God, the self, natural kinds and artifacts, as well as a variety of different kinds of ideas. • It thus tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim to know and what one cannot. • Locke also wrote a variety of important political, religious and educational works including the Two Treatises of Government, the Letters Concerning Toleration, The Reasonableness of Christianity and Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Essay on Human Understanding • Locke is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). • This reputation rests on An Essay Concerning...
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...and pluralistic. The pillars on which liberalism was built on suggest that the protection of human rights as well as the promotion of constitutional reform is both intrinsic in liberal aims and ideology. Liberals championed the idea of constitutional reform links to Constitutionalism which refers to the practice of limited government brought about by the existence of a constitution that aims to protect individuals from the threat of tyrannical government. It aims to protect liberty through the establishment of internal and external checks on government power. Liberals place great weight on constitutionalism and it could be argued to be one of the pillars of the whole political ideology, upon which all other fundamental tenets such as toleration, pluralism and justice, lie. Without constitutionalism, it would be difficult to guarantee these other doctrines. The Government within the UK exercises great power which results in the constant threat of tyranny, which liberalism as a political concept is aware of. Liberals believe that any entity is likely to be self-regarding/serving if they are left to their own devices and not regulated in any way. Liberals fear arbitrary government and governments in possession of power are likely to pander to Lord Acton’s maxim that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thus the concept of limited government is both necessary to ensure...
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...and the pursuit of happiness. However once these basic rights, have been tampered with, humans have a duty and right to revolt against terrene. In “The Two Treatises of Government”, John Locke made the claim that “men are by nature free and equal against claims that god had made all people naturally subject to a monarch.” (Locke, 2012) Locke uses that claim as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transferred some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable, enjoyment of...
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...An Ethical Look at the Way Pork is Being Produced By J.B.Nelson I believe that something is ethically wrong with the new trend in pork production. It is creating excess waste, degrading the value of the land it utilizes, as well as polluting water and air miles away from its plant locations, causing unjust costs to the public and environment. The big problem is that the new method of producing pork in factory rather than farm settings creates a buildup of waste material. Each pig produces two to four times as much fecal matter as a person, and the factory setting allows this waste to seep into rivers, lakes, and oceans – killing wildlife and creating pollution (Foer 13). On the other hand, an appropriate number of animals raised through traditional farming methods allow manure to go back into the soil as fertilizer for the crops that will become the pigs’ feed (Foer 11). In addition the factory farms have caused an estimated $26 billion dollars in degradation to American land (Foer 12). Pork companies, lead by the Smithfield company which has had sales of $12 billion in 2007 (Foer 14), would say that there is not a problem with the way they produce pork, because it is what people want. The entire food industry is ultimately driven and determined by the decisions people make about what to eat and unless we make new choices the industry will have no reason to stop the growing trend away from traditional farming into the mass-production which has been encouraged by American’s...
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