Locke on Territorial Rights

Bibliographic Data

ID6344129
AuthorsBas Van Der Vossen (0000-0002-1036-6087, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume63
Issue3
Pages713-728
Publication date2015-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1467-9248.12106
OpenAlexW2147396336
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited19

Most treatments of territorial rights include a discussion (and rejection) of Locke. There is a remarkable consensus about what Locke's views were. For him, states obtain territorial rights as the result of partial transfers of people's property rights. In this article, I reject this reading. I argue that (a) for Locke, transfers of property rights were neither necessary nor sufficient for territorial rights and that (b) Locke in fact held a two-part theory of territorial rights. I support this reading by appealing to textual and contextual evidence. I conclude by drawing a lesson from Locke's views for current debates on territorial rights

Epistemology · Fundamental rights · Human rights · Law and economics · Political science · Property (philosophy · Property rights · Reading (process · Right to property · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought