Pirates, Kings and Reasons to Act: Moral Motivation and the Role of Sanctions in Locke’s Moral Theory

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1):35-48 (2007)
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Abstract

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties.

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Patricia Sheridan
University of Guelph

Citations of this work

Punishment and Disagreement in the State of Nature.Jacob Barrett - 2020 - Economics and Philosophy 36 (3):334-354.
Locke's Moral Psychology.Ruth Boeker - 2021 - In Jessica Gordon-Roth & Shelley Weinberg (eds.), The Lockean Mind. New York, NY: Routledge.
Locke on the guise of the good.Antonia LoLordo - 2021 - Philosophical Explorations 24 (1):21-33.

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References found in this work

John Locke.[author unknown] - 1956 - Philosophy 31 (116):93-93.

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