The propriety of liberty and the quality of responsible agency

Abstract

It is an exceptionally difficult task to be clear about the legacy of John Locke's political theory. Indeed, there is a well-established disagreement between those who wish to claim that the centrality of theology to his work makes it historically limited, and those who wish to press into service for contemporary political theory broadly Lockean style arguments about liberty and self-ownership. That Locke himself recognised but failed to resolve something like this tension, between a belief in free human agency and a belief in divine omnipotence, would seem to offer little hope for a satisfactory resolution to the problem from within his own work. However, by tracing some of the ways in which Locke attempted to think through the implications of his analysis of responsible agency under legitimate government it might be possible to better appreciate the character and the quality of his arguments. Moreover, this might in fact provide us with some foundations for a clearly useable Lockean legacy that nevertheless remains historically sensitive to the nuances of his position. In particular by focusing on the analysis of self-government through internal control of the passions, and external prudence in the sphere of public and political judgement, we can see the importance of two major intellectual influences upon Locke's political theory. The first refers to the still relatively under appreciated impact of Pierre Nicole, whilst the second is more mainstream in its presentation of a broadly Ciceronian style of politics and political liberty. When these two features are combined in Locke, the distinctive cast of his political theory of liberty as a form of propriety becomes clearer. It is a type of liberty grounded in the idea of responsible action for which one is answerable as a person both in and through time.