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Locke's Moral Man

Online ISBN:
9780191745478
Print ISBN:
9780199652778
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Locke's Moral Man

Antonia LoLordo
Antonia LoLordo
University of Virginia
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Published online:
24 January 2013
Published in print:
4 October 2012
Online ISBN:
9780191745478
Print ISBN:
9780199652778
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Locke denies that species boundaries exist independently of human convention, holds that the human mind may be either an immaterial substance or a material one to which God has superadded the power of thought, and insists that animals possess the ability to perceive, will, and even reason—indeed, in some cases to reason better than humans. Thus he eliminates any sharp distinction between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. However, in his ethical and political work Locke assumes that there is a sharp distinction between moral agents and other beings. He thus needs to be able to delineate the set of moral agents precisely, without relying on the sort of metaphysical and physical facts his predecessors appealed to. This book shows that for Locke, to be a moral agent is simply to be free, rational, and a person. Interpreting the Lockean metaphysics of moral agency in this way helps us to understand both Locke’s over-arching philosophical project and the details of his accounts of liberty, personhood, and rationality.

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