John Locke, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine: The Quest for Liberty

6 JANUARY 2025 · 1 HOUR 19 MINUTES · POLITICAL THOUGHT · Season 2, Episode 29

Three rival accounts of liberty, property and revolution reveal how Locke, Burke and Paine shaped the English-speaking world’s arguments about political change.

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Episode summary

The episode begins with Locke’s account of natural rights, consent and legitimate resistance in the Two Treatises of Government. It follows the radical possibilities of that argument into Paine’s attacks on monarchy and hereditary privilege.

Burke provides the counterpoint. His criticism of abstract reconstruction stresses inheritance, prudence and the accumulated knowledge embedded in institutions. Comparing the three thinkers makes it possible to ask whether revolutionary liberty fulfils the social-contract tradition or breaks with it.

Questions explored

• What makes political authority legitimate for Locke?
• Does Paine extend Locke’s argument or radicalise it beyond recognition?
• Why did Burke distrust political programmes built from abstract rights?
• Can a constitution be deliberately remade without destroying valuable inheritance?

Participants

• Samuel Woodall: intellectual historian and co-host of Beyond the Text.
• Jack Thomson: philosopher and co-host of Beyond the Text.

Sources and further reading

• John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689).
• Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776).
• Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791–92).

A complete transcript is available from the original Buzzsprout episode page where provided.