Introduction

Abstract The introduction explains why Locke needs a new account of the metaphysics of moral agency and outlines the basic elements of his ethics. Three issues are central: the content of natural law and its relationship to the divine will, how knowledge of natural law is acquired, and what our reasons for obeying natural law consist in. Locke holds that only those beings who are capable of knowing the natural law and who have reason to obey it are bound by natural law. Thus the introduction outlines how knowledge of natural law is available through the use of reason, what motivates our obedience to natural law, and what grounds our obligations under natural law.