CRM 1301 Lecture 2: Lect. 2 - John Locke

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 1301
• Professor: Prashan Ranasinghe

Document Summary

Locke is considered the founder of modern day liberalism. He is writing roughly 40 years after hobbes, but he wrote in england as well. During both hobbes"s and locke"s time, a licence was required from the king in order to publish something. Since hobbes was writing for the monarchy, this didn"t prove to be a problem. For locke, however, his writings were most likely more muted than he would have liked because he was going against the king in second treatise of government. The starting point for locke is political power, whereas hobbes ended with that and began with the state of nature. Political power is a right and the ability to govern is a right that is given by the people. Hobbes believed that a right is an excessive power. Locke states that this right is not absolute; the government has particular rights and duties towards its citizens.