Locke on Active Power, Freedom, and Moral Agency

Abstract

There is little agreement among scholars about how best to understand Locke's theory of moral agency, and his account of freedom in particular. Although some (e.g., Rickless and Garrett) think that Locke adopts a Hobbesian theory of freedom of action, as the ability to do or not do as one wills, while jettisoning the Hobbesian conception of the will as the faculty of desire, a growing number of commentators (e.g., Chappell, LoLordo, Lowe, Stuart, and Yaffe) believe that Locke departs more radically from Hobbes by supplementing a Hobbesian (or quasi-Hobbesian) conception of free action with an account of "full-fledged" free agency grounded in the very particular ability to suspend the prosecution of our desires. The most recent sustained effort in this direction has been very ably defended by Antonia LoLordo, and my aim in this paper is to examine and criticize her case for the "supplementarian" conception of free agency in Locke's Moral Man.