The Place of Cicero in Locke’s Moral Theology

Abstract

Locke’s published and unpublished works disclose a marked contempt for classical moral philosophy, with one signal exception: Cicero. This chapter reconstructs Locke’s interpretation of Cicero, to explain why he was held to be an exception to Locke’s more general disdain for ancient ethical theories. This approach also illuminates our understanding of the relationship between Locke’s moral theory, political philosophy, writings of Christian apologetic, and theory of toleration. It suggests that Locke’s moral philosophy is decidedly more complex, and richer, than is often recognized: pregnant with naturalistic impulses that were nonetheless subordinated to a grounding of morality in the authority, will, and command of a divine legislator. These aspects of Locke’s moral theory proved to be immensely stimulating to later British philosophers such as Hume, even if they sought systematically to decouple moral philosophy from Christian theology.