Liberalism, Republicanism and the Politics of Therapy: John Locke's Legacy of Medicine and Reform

Abstract

The current historiographical debate over the relation of John Locke's philosophy to the republican political tradition has ignored the medical orientation which Locke brought to his political writings. Recognizing that Locke wrote within a medical paradigm, which he derived from Calvinist religious thought, permits us to see that Locke was working within a variation of republicanism and not in opposition to it. Locke attempted to “cure” political corruption, much as Puritans had tried to cure their society of sin's corruption. The failure of Locke's therapeutic approach to political virtue has provided the basis for recent criticisms of liberalism and a challenge to the convention that Locke was an original and central figure in creating Anglo-American political culture.