The Second Treatise of Civil Government, (Paperback)

from Adrianmb

When you examine the "axioms" of his doctrine, it is very difficult to take his posterior developments very seriously as political theory. What if access to land is limited?

from stillatim

Yikes- I'd thought that, since so many liberals (or what in America are called, bizarrely enough, conservatives) take this as a kind of ur-text, it'd be, you know, good. My bad. I should have realized that quality of argument is totally superfluous in political matters. Whatever he meant to say, ...

from HistReader

Thankfully, we don't analogize the United States government as our parents. Parenthood implies a duty to guide and hold authority over its citizens. However, it was aptly utilized by John Locke to explain how minors are protected in their decision making by those God placed as their guardians, bu...

from Tullius22

Locke is boring. And I won't back down from that. The ideas in the book, however, are sound, at least along all the main lines of argument. And it is historically important, shaping influence, etc., and, actually, I think, much more so than certain other so-called Cornerstones of Western Civi...

from aitastaes

In this, the second of his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke examines humankind's transition from its original state of nature to a civil society. According to Locke, legitimate government arises to enforce the natural law and the property rights of individuals; when a government fails to d...