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John Locke and Two Legacies for Contemporary Liberalism
Jennings, Eliška ; Jirsa, Jakub (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee)
This thesis examines the political philosophy of John Locke, with his Two Treatises of Government at its forefront. It focuses primarily on the question of the law of nature, its status in Locke's political theory and in the context of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and explores the political content of the law of nature: the fundamental values of liberty and equality, and their implications for human societies and political governments. The final part then traces these two core liberal elements within two modern conceptions of American-type liberalism: the libertarianism of Robert Nozick, with its emphasis on liberty, and the egalitarian liberalism of John Rawls, with its emphasis on equality. The aim of this paper, then, is to present an interpretation of John Locke's political philosophy and then trace its legacies in two modern conceptions of liberalism, located on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
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