Customer Reviews

God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Waldron's work is an excellent philosophical analysis of Locke's argument regarding equality. Within the description of Locke as an egalitarian, Waldron develops and explicitly states his own opinion.

The third chapter presents one of the more surprising but most important elements on the foundation of equality in the creation of man by God. This chapters theme is extrapolated through the entirety of the book. In this chapter Waldron presents his case that Locke is an egalitarian who donated a basic level of equality to all people. The book reads well and the arguments are powerful, however Waldron does have an agenda in his work. Waldron wants to present Locke as a radical egalitarian, so when discussing Locke on Slavery, Women and the Poor, he somewhat ignores the negative writings of Locke. Waldron states that he is willing to let the seemingly contradictory views sit side by side and does not (likely because he cannot) reconcile egalitarianism with the entirety of Locke.

That being said, I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about Locke's philosophy, Christian egalitarianism and contemporary theories about equality. Certain issues mentioned are not argued to their logical end (with the theory presented in chapter one) but this is because of the constraints Waldron places upon himself to use Lockean theory. i.e. When Locke states that some group is inferior to another, Waldron does not manage to reconcile Locke and the idea, rather he lets Locke's theory speak for itself and let the reader take it to the logical conclusion (where Locke should have taken it had he not been writing in the late 17th century)

On p. 19, Jeremy Waldron states that: "My book is about the relation in Locke's thought between basic equality and religious doctrine--and that is exactly what the First Treatise is devoted to." Locke is often thought of as an implacable enemy of Christianity, but that was only true of the concept of divine right of kings, as embodied in the works of Robert Filmer. Locke wrote the Reasonableness of Christianity, which supports Christianity, though of course not to the extent of the desires of the orthodox.

On p. 142, Waldron quotes Locke that "[we] are [God's] property, whose Workmanship we are, made to last during his, not another's Pleasure, and that i am not made to last during my own pleasure, so that i do not have moral authority over my own life." On p. 163, Locke continues that "the Idea of a Supreme Being, . . whose Workmanship we are, and on whom we depend . . . the original and foundation of all Law is dependence. A dependent intelligent being is under the power & direction & domination of him on whom he depends . . if man were independent, he could have no law but his own will . . .he would be a god unto himself." These sentences alone radically remove Locke as a supporter of 20th and 21st century thin version of ethical liberalism, which caters to a radical agnostic autonomous individualism. On p. 145, Waldron shows that Locke approved of capital punishment under certain circumstances, another difference from contemporary liberalism.

On p. 187, Waldron quotes Locke as saying that "true and proper relief of the poor . . consists in finding work for them," a sentence more likely to be found in a republican than democratic platform.

Locke is thought of as a kind of 'apostle of toleration,' although he never tolerated atheists, and while his later, more refined thought tolerated Catholicism, in 1667, in his Essay on Toleration, he wrote (p. 222 of Waldron), that "Papists are not to enjoy the benefit of toleration."

All in all, Waldron does an excellent job of showing, perhaps to the dismay of 21st century agnostic secularists, that current enlightenment regimes, such as the USA, are mole hills built on the mountain of centuries of Christian thinking and writing.