...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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...still 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...
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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 was a Philosopher that was born in 1632. He was the son of a military captain with powers that got Locke a great education. He was elected one of the members of the Royal Society. He has written many works like “Two Treatises of Government” and “Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.” He has influenced many things in today’s world like constitutional law. John Locke was born August 29, 1632, in Wrington, England. Locke’s father was a lawyer and was a captain of the military in the English Civil War. Locke had a great education because his father had connection to the government. Locke was honored with the King’s Scholar at Westminster School in London. This award went only to a select number of students and helped...
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...11:00 – 11:50 Case Study #1 John Locke John Locke was more than just an ordinary man. He was the son of a country attorney and born on August 29, 1632. He grew up during the civil war and later entered the Church of Christ and remained there as a student and teacher for many years. With a wide variety of political and religious views, John expressed most of his personnel views on education, social, political and philosophies. Many of John’s views both political and religious were found to be famous though-out history in many countries. Locke was one of the first people who thought religion and state should be separated. Locke published anonymously the “Two Treaties of Government” and an essay “Concerning Human Understanding.” These writings were immediately successful and both influenced Rousseau and Voltaire along with many other scholars. John Locke’s Two Treatise of Government is a well-known and respected document. In the paper, John attacked the theory of the divine right of kings and maintained that all men are free and equal in the state of nature to posses certain rights. He did not believe that a king should become king because “God told him to,” but rather he was qualified for the position and the people felt he should be there. Locke argued that sovereignty did not reside in the state, but with the people and that, the state is supreme, but only if civil and “natural” law binds it. The task and duty of the government of any state was to protect mans...
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...| John Locke | The father of modern liberalism | | Cole Davis | 5/20/2012 | | Liberalism, a political ideology based on the belief that constant progress is achievable, the human race is composed of intrinsically good beings, and that these intrinsically good beings are and should be autonomous in nature, is an idea that made an incredible resurgence during the English enlightenment. As the belief of Liberalism gained popularity with the public it also developed an enormous following among European philosophers. John Locke, the individual responsible for the idea of natural rights as well as the social compact, helped mold this idea of Liberalism into its own unique philosophical tradition. Because of these great contributions, John Locke is considered as father of modern liberalism. Born August 29, 1632 at Wrington in Somerset, John Locke was the son of a lawyer and the oldest child of his Puritan household (Locke, Berkeley, Hume). While Locke was a child, his father closely monitored and guided his education. An incredibly educated individual, Locke first received a formal education at Westminster School eventually graduating to Christ Church, Oxford (Collinson). After receiving his bachelors of arts in 1656, Locke stayed at Oxford to earn his master’s degree. Locke became the censor of moral philosophy in 1664 and in 1675 when the Earl of Shaftesbury fell from power; Locke exiled himself to France to restore his health (Locke, Berkeley, Hume). After four...
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...The Key to Locke Born in 1632, John Locke is known as one of the most famous philosophers from the 17th century. Not only known as an esteemed philosopher, Locke was also a physician and political theorists. Locke believed in “The Enlightenment,” which is the theory that reason is more important than faith and science is more important than religion. Perhaps one of Locke’s most famous works was An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this essay, Locke began to analyze the human mind and how we acquire knowledge. Within this essay, Locke established the “Tabula Rasa” theory or “blank slate” theory, which is that every human is a “white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas.” (Locke 1). Published in 1690, “this paper considers...
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...fluidly today, it was not always like that. Before and even for a time after the Glorious Revolution, England’s Parliament and Crown had rocky patches. Power was split unevenly between the monarch and the parliament. The Parliament had two houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Lords were the clergy and the nobles and the Commons were everyone else. Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth Instrument of Government, John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, and the English Bill of Rights all have something to do on why England’s Parliament and Monarch work so well today. Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth Instrument of Government Cromwell’s Commonwealth Instrument of Government was a written constitution that Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector had written when he assumed office. It was a document that gave him executive power and gave the Parliament legislative power. By holding the executive power, Cromwell was able to deploy the military by both land and sea with the consent of the Parliament as well as the ability of being able to correspond with foreign royalty. In the Instrument of Government, the Lord Protector also states that the set laws “shall not be altered, suspended, abrogated, or repealed”....
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...“John Locke vs. Thomas Jefferson” John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence are two of the most significant texts of all time. Many countries around the world have used these texts as the foundation for their declaration of independence. These authors laid the base for the knowledge of the State of Natural Rights of human being which is the establishing bases of our government. We can understand that The Second Treatise of Government and the Declaration of Independence are very identical in their message, which clearly substantiate Locke's work influenced Jefferson. Unpredictably as it is, Jefferson has been suspect over the times for plagiarizing John Locke. The most significant similarity between both writings is that they are strongly focused on the belief that all men are created equal and have the right to be happy in their life. Locke enlightens us that humans have natural rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of property. Jefferson restates this claim as absolute rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Simply both documents mention that no person is above or superior to another person and that everyone is equal. The natural law of man is not under the authority of man, but ruled by the Natural Laws. Also they state that those natural rights...
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...Assignment ON Comparison and Contrast Between Two Political Thinkers: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke Abstract The Social Contract theory which dominated the European political thought in the eighteen century has played a very important part in the development of the modern political theory and practice. Being the most important of all the speculative theories, it came into being as a result of reaction against the theory of the Divine Origin. This theory was the first to denounce the influence of the church in the state affairs, provided an explanation for the origin of the state and shows the relationship between those who governs and those who are governed. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are the chief exponents of the Contract Theory. Both of them have established their thesis from the beginning of human habitation, though their ideas and opinions are quite distinct. Hobbes in his theory has only described one contract where Locke has described two. Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” and John Locke’s “Two Treaties on Civil Government” these books are considered as bibles in the evolution of modern states system. Though there are criticisms and debates regarding the social contract theory, but the modern political theories today have evolved from these contract theories which has no doubt. The aim of this assignment is to compare and contrast between Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and explore their contribution in the development of international relations according to the analysis...
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...Review “Second Treatise of Government” in Chapter 6. Please respond to the following: John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government were written to defend armed resistance to the English king by English subjects in the years preceding the Whig revolution, the Glorious Revolution of 1689 (as it’s called). Involved in plots, Locke fled from England to Holland in 1683 and stayed there until 1689. The First Treatise is an attack on the theory of absolute monarchy defended by Sir Robert Filmer. The Filmer theory traces the rights of the monarch to the establishment of monarchical power in Adam (the first man of the Bible) by God. This absolute authority to rule then gets passed along down to the present king of England. So the king is answerable only to God and the subjects are obligated to obey the king’s commands come what may, says Filmer. * Explain what, according to Locke, gives a person their right to property. As stated in the textbook, " everyman has a property in his own Person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labor something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men" (p.209, Halbert...
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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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...concepts and its prominent figures justified the American and French revolutions, but one of the revolutions took the concepts to a greater extreme. John Locke was a prominent figure is the philosophy of empiricism. John Locke’s philosophy and the aftermath of the “Glorious Revolution” influenced the American and French revolutions. After the “Glorious Revolution” in 1688, the English...
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...period. However, one of these philosophers in particular shaped a founder’s ideas more directly than the rest. Ultimately, John Locke directly and greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson’s political philosophy and agreed with the majority of his beliefs, which can be seen especially in the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental ideas each man emphasizes in his works. While there are a few small differences in their works, they are still so similar that Jefferson has even been accused of plagiarizing parts of Locke’s compositions....
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...During the Enlightenment, European government began to recognize that politics was greatly affected by the power of public opinion. It was the influence of this time that helped lay the foundations of the modern world in equality and democracy. Historically, governments have relied heavily on the writings of philosophers. As a British political theorist and philosopher, John Locke was one of the most influential thinkers of his time. He witnessed trials in government which led him to believe that people had a right to rebel against an unjust ruler. Two years later, in 1689, Locke published his ideas in the Two Treatises on Government which became the basis for many modern political ideas, but he never publically acknowledge it. Long after his death, Locke’s...
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