All Posts Tagged With: "Thomas Hobbes"
Did Locke Really Justify Limited Government?
John Locke (1632–1704) was a physician, statesman, and political philosopher, filling that last office in a dry, “empirical,” and militantly antipoetic English mode. Locke’s stock has risen and fallen over the years. Contemporaries called him a Socinian (a precursor of Unitarianism), a deist, a Muslim, and an opportunist. Later critics have seen Locke as the [...]
24Feb2010 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 15 comments | ContinuedCan We Be Free If Reason Is the Slave of the Passions?
The writings of David Hume (1711–1776) are a treasure trove for those eager to find pithy, polished memorable quotes to bolster their arguments in favor of freedom, justice, and against the arrogance and follies of governments. It is difficult to resist the youthful élan of his major philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), [...]
1Oct2007 | Frank van Dun | 0 comments | ContinuedThe State Is the Source of Rights?
In 1776 a reliable indicator of an American’s opinion of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence was his attitude toward the 1649 execution of England’s King Charles I. Liberals, who shared Jefferson’s principles, believed Charles to have been a tyrant and hence most deserving of losing his head. Conservatives, resisting the call to [...]
1Dec2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 2 comments | ContinuedAtomistic Individualism: Anatomy of a Smear
Contributing Editor Tibor Machan is a professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. For more than two centuries classical liberalism has irked thinkers both right and left. Hegel, Rousseau, Comte, and of course Karl Marx did a great deal of pen-wielding to combat it, and one of their most potent [...]
1Oct2003 | Tibor R. Machan | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Efficiency of Natural Rights
The Hobbesian contention that an almost biological conflict of interest exists between human beings, who must compete for scarce necessities, is a stumbling block for those who espouse natural rights. Certainly, it is a common avenue of attack used by critics of natural law. They demand to know how, in a Hobbesian state of nature, [...]
1Dec1997 | Wendy McElroy | 1 comment | Continued-
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