You are here

FAU Collections » FAU Research Repository » FAU Theses and Dissertations

very strange doctrine: The natural right of resistance in John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government"

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
1998
Summary:
Within his own intellectual context, John Locke's argument for the people's natural right of resistance in the Second Treatise of Government was profoundly original. But he derived its conceptual foundation and rhetorical ornament from the six political texts immediately available to him when he wrote the Second Treatise in 1681-82. Locke based his "very Strange Doctrine" of popular resistance to political tyranny upon the natural right of rational individuals to judge and punish criminals in the state of nature. Textual analysis demonstrates that none of his six texts presented this argument. Locke did, however base his resistance theory upon such moral concepts as natural law, natural equality, and natural liberty, which--as textual analysis further indicates--he derived from texts by Samuel von Pufendorf and Richard Hooker. Locke's radical argument further benefited from Ciceronian and Biblical rhetoric. He intended this rhetoric to be comfortingly familiar to his intended readers, the English gentry of the 1680s, and therefore effective in persuading them to resist the invasion of their rights by King Charles II in 1681-82.
Title: A very strange doctrine: The natural right of resistance in John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government".
1310 views
208 downloads
Name(s): Mullins, John Patrick.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Lowe, Ben, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1998
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 117 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Within his own intellectual context, John Locke's argument for the people's natural right of resistance in the Second Treatise of Government was profoundly original. But he derived its conceptual foundation and rhetorical ornament from the six political texts immediately available to him when he wrote the Second Treatise in 1681-82. Locke based his "very Strange Doctrine" of popular resistance to political tyranny upon the natural right of rational individuals to judge and punish criminals in the state of nature. Textual analysis demonstrates that none of his six texts presented this argument. Locke did, however base his resistance theory upon such moral concepts as natural law, natural equality, and natural liberty, which--as textual analysis further indicates--he derived from texts by Samuel von Pufendorf and Richard Hooker. Locke's radical argument further benefited from Ciceronian and Biblical rhetoric. He intended this rhetoric to be comfortingly familiar to his intended readers, the English gentry of the 1680s, and therefore effective in persuading them to resist the invasion of their rights by King Charles II in 1681-82.
Identifier: 9780591929966 (isbn), 15579 (digitool), FADT15579 (IID), fau:12339 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1998.
Subject(s): Locke, John,--1632-1704--Second treatise of government
Government, Resistance to
Natural law
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15579
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.