Locke o revoluci

• Authors: Jiří Chotaš

Title variants

EN

Locke on revolution

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The author argues that Locke’s theory of revolution in his Two Treatises of Government and in the first Letter on Toleration is written in support of the people’s struggle against their rulers for civil and religious liberty. To this end he gives an interpretation of Locke’s argument, which can be broken down into two distinct claims. Firstly, that the power of rulers (and of government) may be understood in three different ways. Two of these are illegitimate, because they do not respect the freedoms of individuals and their private property. Secondly, that the contractual agreement between people and rulers is void if the rulers act in conflict with the trust placed in them. People recover the moral right of armed resistance against rulers in order to re-establish a political order which has been lost. This reading of Locke’s view of the right to revolution challenges criticism of Locke’s political theory put forward by, for example, C. B. Macpherson in his book The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Macpherson understands Locke’s first claim in a narrower sense as the defence of the private property of the bourgeoisie. It is argued that if Locke’s first claim is understood in a wider sense as the defence of political and religious freedom, then Locke’s political theory describes the general conditions for the emancipation of civil society.

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-98
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Jiří Chotaš

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic