Why Did Locke Defend Individual Rights in Front of the King?

Detail

Author

Eric Mack

Eric Mack is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on classical liberal and libertarian political philosophers such as John Locke, Friedrich A. Hayek, and Robert Nozick. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Tulane University and has published numerous scholarly articles on natural rights theory and Locke’s political thought in leading academic references and outlets, including the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and major research publications in political philosophy.

As a member of the Department of Philosophy and the Murphy Institute of Political Economy at Tulane University, he taught courses in ethics, philosophy of law, political economy, political philosophy, and the history of political thought. His primary scholarly focus has been refining and expanding the doctrine of natural rights advocated by Locke in his political writings.

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Table of Contents

• Translator’s Preface

• Foreword

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Chapter 1. The State of Nature and Natural Law

1. When Money Accumulates, Does It Become Capital?

2. The One and Only Legitimate Purpose

3. Is the Monarch the Law?

4. Why Must We Keep Our Promises?

5. The State of Nature Is Not a State of Moral Disorder

Chapter 2. Natural Freedom

1. Freedom Means Not Being Subject to Another’s Will

2. Where There Is No Law, There Is No Freedom

3. Freedom: The First Seed of Peace

Chapter 3. Natural Rights

1. Everyone Pursues Happiness

2. The Generalization Argument

3. The “God’s Masterpiece” Argument

4. The Argument That No One Is Born for Another’s Purposes

5. The Same-Reason Argument

6. Self-Defense as the Means to Protect Rights

Chapter 4. Property Rights

1. Rights Arising from the Mixing of Labor

2. Why Use Money?

3. On the Emergence of Money

4. Conditions for the Introduction of Money

5. Better Prosperity with Differences Than Equal Poverty

6. Property Rights and Money: Making Everyone Better Off

Chapter 5. The Inconveniences of the State of Nature and Their Solution

1. Why Greater Prosperity Made Things More Complicated

2. In Reality, There Was No Judiciary

3. No One Is Exempt from the Law

4. All Are Equal Before the Law

Chapter 6. Natural Law and Positive Law: Where Is Our Consent?

1. The Consent-Based Explanation

2. Explicit Consent and Tacit Consent

3. Consent Is Not What Ultimately Matters

4. The Explanation Based on Natural Obligation

5. The Complexity of Taxation

Chapter 7. Toleration

1. Why Religious Beliefs Cannot Be Punished

2. What It Takes for Religious Freedom to Be Respected

3. What We Must Remember About Freedom and Toleration

4. Belief Must Not Be Coerced

5. Salvation Cannot Be Entrusted to Others

Chapter 8. Resistance to Unjust Power

1. The Individual’s Right to Resist the State

2. Why Taking Up Arms Recklessly Must Be Avoided

3. The Responsibility of Resistance

4. Is the Monarch Above Accountability?

5. The People Above the Monarch—and the Individual Within the People

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• References

• Further Recommended Reading

• About the Author

• Acknowledgements