POL 118B Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Latte, Lockean Proviso, Fairy
28 Feb 2017
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C. b. macpherson has argued in his classic text the political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to locke (cid:894)(cid:1005)9(cid:1010)(cid:1006)(cid:895) that lo(cid:272)ke"s theo(cid:396)(cid:455) of p(cid:396)ope(cid:396)t(cid:455) allo(cid:449)s, a(cid:374)d e(cid:448)e(cid:374) e(cid:374)(cid:272)ou(cid:396)ages, the unlimited accumulation of wealth unlimited, that is, by any (enforceable) obligations of mutual aid. Macpherson views locke as an apologist for an emergent capitalist class and a closet hobbist, arguing his theory is based solely upon the premise of self-preservation. Similar claims have been made by leo strauss in natural right and history. In the following lecture, i will call into question the aptness of this description of locke and suggest that it is a better description of robert nozick, a devotee of locke. Nozick offers another good example of bad locke interpretation. Lo(cid:272)ke"s theo(cid:396)(cid:455) of p(cid:396)ope(cid:396)t(cid:455) is laid out i(cid:374) chapte(cid:396) (cid:1009) of the second treatise. According to locke, god gave the world to man in common and ordered him to improve it for the support of human life (2t. 25-6):
