Abstract
This essay argues that John Locke’s thought has been a significant influence on how Americans understand public life and that this remains true despite contemporary conservative arguments that Progressivism is ascendant while our Lockean founding is in retreat. Many of the things conservatives bemoan—same-sex marriage, for example—can be understood in Lockean terms. Moreover, Lockean individualism can be consistent with a robust sense of community. Yet it is striking that a most Lockean virtue—responsibility—is altogether missing from critical accounts of Locke’s influence on American politics and culture.
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Further Reading
Blitz, M. 2005. Duty Bound: Responsibility and American Public Life. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
Galston, W. A. 1988. Liberal Virtues. American Political Science Review, 82(4), 1279.
Hartz, L. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America (p. 9). New York: Harcourt Brace and Co.
Kloppenberg, J. T. 2011. Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lawler, P. A. 2004. Religion, Philosophy, and the American Founding. In T. S. Engeman & M. P. Zuckerts (Eds.), Protestantism and the American Founding. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.
Lepore, J. 2010. The Whites of Their Eyes (p. 157). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Moiser, R. D. 1947. Making the American Mind: Social and Moral Ideas in the McGuffey Readers (p. 5). New York: Kings Crown Press.
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Thomas, G. John Locke’s America. Soc 50, 464–467 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9690-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9690-9