![]() ![]() This permits us to correct a common misinterpretation of Locke: that he struggles in vain to avoid the conclusion that parents own their children because they made them. ![]() In this paper, I discuss the relation of Locke’s view to the seventeenth-century debate on paternal power and highlight the fundamental importance of the theological concept of creation to his natural law theory and, in particular, to his account of parental authority. In short, virtù refers to the courage and the moral capital that members of a society acquire thanks to the experiences they gain from action.ĭespite its prominence in recent work on the ethics of the family, Locke’s child-centered account of parental authority has not received the historically informed analysis which other aspects of his philosophy has received. More precisely, virtù stands for eucosmia, which revolves around the importance of memory. The latter points to the ancient Athenian polis or to the American council system of direct democracy. It reflects on Machiavelli’s notion of virtù (virtue) that we could think of it in relation to Arendt’s idea of action. Following Christopher Lasch’s path, it proposes a hopeful (or melioristic) view on politics, which (as opposed to the optimism of eighteenth century liberalism) does not propose endless and steady improvement or perfection. It traces the seeds of eighteenth century optimistic liberal ideologies (endorsed by thinkers decisively influenced by Locke and Adam Smith) in Hobbes’ pessimistic theories concerning his radical distrust of the capacities of the ‘common man and woman’ to build up democratic commonwealths. This study identifies a genealogy between Thomas Hobbes’ theory of absolute government and John Locke’s liberal worldview. ![]()
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