Locke on Territorial Rights

Political Studies 63 (3):713-728 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Most treatments of territorial rights include a discussion (and rejection) of Locke. There is a remarkable consensus about what Locke’s views were. For him, states obtain territorial rights as the result of partial transfers of people’s property rights. In this article, I reject this reading. I argue that (a) for Locke, transfers of property rights were neither necessary nor sufficient for territorial rights and that (b) Locke in fact held a two-part theory of territorial rights. I support this reading by appealing to textual and contextual evidence. I conclude by drawing a lesson from Locke’s views for current debates on territorial rights.

Author's Profile

Bas Van Der Vossen
Chapman University

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-11

Downloads
1,682 (#5,187)

6 months
101 (#33,962)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?