From Individual to Citizen

Enhancing the Bonds of Citizenship Through Religion in Locke’s Political Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID6356146
AuthorsElissa B Alzate (Winona State University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume46
Issue2
Pages211-232
Publication date2014-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-3497 • E-ISSN: 1744-1684
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1057/pol.2014.2
OpenAlexW1965654292
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited8

This paper examines how Locke employed the notion of religion to answer two questions: What binds citizens together into a community? How are individuals transformed into citizens? In the Two Treatises, Locke creates, through a political contract, a community that proves fragile. The bonds necessary for a civil society are unnatural; they go against the very self-interest that gave rise to a civil society. According to Locke, for a political community to simultaneously appeal to and overcome self-interest, the state must provide an institutional place for religion. To be sure, Locke defends extensive liberty of conscience in A Letter Concerning Toleration. He nonetheless retains a clear role for religion within the state and, furthermore, requires that all citizens in political society belong to some religious society. Locke’s carefully designed argument merges community interest with self-interest, while being built on individual consent

Appeal · Argument (complex analysis · Citizenship · Civil disobedience · Civil society · Conscience · Law and economics · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · State of nature · Toleration · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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