more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth. Freedom is not (as Filmer suggests) doing what you please while not tied by any laws.
Gist of Idea
Freedom is not absence of laws, but living under laws arrived at by consent
Source
John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 022)
Book Ref
Locke,John: 'Two Treatises of Government' [Everyman 1988], p.127
A Reaction
That sounds plausible if the consent is unanimous, but a minority is not free if the laws made by a large majority are a sort of persecution.
| 20092 | One principle of liberty is to take turns ruling and being ruled [Aristotle] |
| 19924 | The freest state is a rational one, where people can submit themselves to reason [Spinoza] |
| 19871 | Freedom is not absence of laws, but living under laws arrived at by consent [Locke] |
| 5621 | The existence of reason depends on the freedom of citizens to agree, doubt and veto ideas [Kant] |
| 22085 | Freedom requires us to submit to a family, or a corporation, or a state [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 23818 | We have liberty in the space between nature and accepted authority [Weil] |
| 21017 | Political freedom is an incoherent project, because some freedoms limit other freedoms [Nussbaum] |
| 18661 | Ancient freedom was free participation in politics, not private independence of life [Kymlicka] |