Locke, Hegel, and the Economy

Peter Lawler’s insightful critique of American individualism offers many important lessons, but his diagnosis of our economic situation is overly optimistic. Indeed, “big government” is more of a problem than Lawler suggests. This essay draws on two central figures of Lawler’s analysis—Locke and Hegel—to explore the problems that individualism poses for modern political economy. Although individualism is unlikely to make the regulatory state or welfare state wither away, the psychology of individualism confirms the importance of cultivating forms of recognition beyond economic life.     

Locke, Sincerity and the Rationality of Persecution

According to the most influential contemporary reading of John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), his main argument against religious persecution is unsuccessful. That argument holds that coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling religious beliefs in its victims. I propose a different reading of the Letter . Locke's main consideration against persecution is not the unsuccessful belief-based argument just outlined, but what I call the sincerity argument . He believes that religious coercion is irrational because it is ineffective as a means of inculcating the right intentions in people. Once this alternative argument is placed at its centre, the Letter is seen to be a more fertile source of political argument than is suggested by alternative readings. In particular, the sincerity argument gives us a powerful reason for rejecting state moral paternalism, the doctrine that the state may use coercion to make people morally virtuous. If moral virtue depends upon people having the right intentions, and if coercion is ineffective as a means of instilling the right intentions in people, then state moral paternalism is ineffective and hence irrational.     

Locke, Darwin, and the American Science of Modern Virtue

American “progress” has typically been reconstructed in terms of the Lockean understanding of who we are. That “progress” is only ambiguously progress. It highlights the truth about our personal freedom, but at the expense of the truth about who we are as free and relational beings. So our Lockeanism receives and deserves Darwinian criticism—criticism from the point of view of the social animals evolutionary theory says we are. This article is a scientific prelude to our openness to a theory that incorporates what’s true about Locke, what’s true about Darwin, and more.     

Toleration,Skepticism, and Blasphemy: John Locke,Jonas Proast,and Charlie Hebdo

As the recent Charlie Hebdo, Copenhagen café, and Garland, Texas, shootings show, religion has recently reemerged as a source of violence within liberal democracies, particularly in those instances where cases of alleged blasphemy are involved. Although toleration arose, within the liberal tradition, as a means of dealing with such conflict, some individuals, possessed of devout religious belief, when confronted with beliefs or practices profoundly at odds with their faith, cannot conceive of toleration as a possibility. In such situations, the demand that these individuals tolerate that to which their faith is at odds is likely to run up against a more personal and, for its adherents, eternal agenda. This article considers a way in which those with devout religious beliefs might tolerate that which is profoundly at odds with their faith, thereby providing a means to avoid violent outcomes such as those in the “extreme cases” above.     

Locke on the Moral Basis of International Relations

This article aims to focus analysis of Locke's theory of international relations away from the familiar discourse of sovereignty and natural law and toward a different discourse involving self-government and international society. It argues that Locke's conception of international society balanced interrelated, overlapping, and even competing claims about sovereignty and natural law in a normative framework in which the right of self-government replaced the principle of sovereignty as the moral basis of international relations. Thus, for Locke the norms deduced from the law of nature govern the international state of nature even as independent societies remain the primary executors of the law of nature in international society. The article concludes by considering how Locke's reflections on international relations may contribute to our understanding of contemporary debates about sovereignty, the use of force, and the ethics of intervention.     

深化对劳动和劳动价值论的认识

在新的历史条件下 ,如何完善和发展马克思的劳动和劳动价值论 ,是摆在我们面前的一项艰巨任务。依据马克思《资本论》关于劳动和劳动价值论的论述 ,结合新时期出现的新情况和新问题 ,重点深化对科技工作者和经营管理者的劳动在生产发展中作用的认识 ,深化对我国收入分配制度改革的认识。     

Express Consent and Full Membership in Locke

It seems mysterious why Locke requird express consent as a condition of full membership of civil society. It is suggested this requirement be interpreted as a political programme. In a draft of a pamphlet of 1690 Locke criticizes the oath of allegiance required after the Glorious Revolution for not demanding the recognition of William and Mary de jure. So Perhaps he does not want to exclude the greater part of the natives from citizenship; he wants to establish William's throne on a full and universal recognition of his legitimacy.     

Locke and the Politics and Theology of Toleration

Locke's theory of toleration has been understood to rest on the claim that persecution was insufficient to instil either (i) true or (ii) sincere belief in people. Although Locke did indeed make both these claims, neither was fundamental to his theory. Locke was principally concerned to deny that persecution was necessary to instil true or sincere belief; its insufficiency to those ends he, and his contemporaries, took for granted. His denial of the necessity of persecution presupposed that human beings were, in principle, naturally adequate to the discovery of God's wants for them. The same presupposition, which derives from natural theology, underwrote the views in politics and revealed theology that complete his theory and supplied its moral content. Contemporary theories of toleration purposing to proceed on Lockean assumptions are morally and philosophically impoverished by their failure to see the requirements laid on an adequate theory of toleration by genuinely Lockean terms.     

Globalisation, Ecological Modernisation and New Labour

Ecological modernisation (EM) provides the principal framework within which environmental policy reform projects are understood. However, writers using the approach, neglect to explain the political contexts within which it is possible to pursue such projects. Specifically, they ignore how discourses of globalisation structure the attempts of states to introduce environmental policy measures consistent with EM agendas. Through an analysis of the UK government's attempts to introduce policies consistent with an EM approach, we show that New Labour's discourse of globalisation acts to create opportunities for EM in some policy arenas and hinder them in others. We examine the development of a renewable energy strategy, the case of genetically modified foods, and transport policy. By specifying conditions under which EM may be pursued, the analysis reveals the potential, but also the limits, of this approach, which attempts to ignore the deep political questions raised by environmental degradation.     

有关劳动和劳动价值论的两点思考

究竟是什么样的劳动在创造价值 ?作为生产要素应不应该参与价值分配 ?这是深化对劳动和劳动价值论的认识必须搞清楚的问题。有关这方面的探讨促进着理论的发展 ,更有着重要的现实意义。