5/19/2023 0 Comments Locke & Key, Vol. 2 by Joe HillWaldron was on sabbatical this year at Oxford University’s Christ College, where he immersed himself in Locke’s lesser-known “First Treatise,” published as a companion to the famous second. The talk, which drew roughly 100 listeners to the Radcliffe Gymnasium, was the third in a 2008-09 Dean’s Lecture Series sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The title was drawn from the 17th century philosopher’s own words, “The mother too hath her title.” Waldron outlined his arguments this week (April 27) in a lecture on Locke, motherhood, and equality. Jeremy Waldron, a scholar of law and philosophy at New York University, asks us to reconsider this view of Locke, and understand him as an early champion of women’s rights. For one, some feminist writers aver that he helped perpetuate a tradition of ideas dating back to Aristotle and used for ages to subjugate women. Locke was also an inspiration to the generations of liberal thinkers whose ideas now underpin ideals of Western political thought.īut Locke’s place in the Western canon is also controversial. Whole passages from his epically radical “Second Treatise” (1689) are used almost verbatim in the Declaration of Independence. English political philosopher John Locke died nearly a century before the American Revolution, and in his time parliamentary democracy was in its infancy.īut his Enlightenment ideas - including the right to life, liberty, and property - went on to inspire American revolutionaries.
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