Berkeley on Political Obligation

Abstract

Abstract Berkeley’s doctrine of passive obedience supports a principle of nonresistance. It insists that political subjects have a duty to obey the commands of political authority. In advancing this position, Berkeley is at odds with the social contract tradition, and in particular with Locke, who insisted on a right of political resistance. What Berkeley objects to in Locke’s philosophy is not the idea that the duty to obey the law is limited. In fact, Berkeley agrees with that claim. Instead, he objects to Locke’s insistence that transactional consent is what does the work in limiting political obligation. Berkeley’s arguments for passive obedience are examined alongside those advanced by Mary Astell, another Anglican Tory thinker of the early eighteenth century who championed the doctrine of passive obedience, in order to illuminate his rejection of Locke’s transactional theory of political obligation.