Locke’s Critique of Moral Enthusiasm

Résumé

Enthusiasm is a pejorative label John Locke applies to the Quaker practice of immediate divine inspiration. Locke holds that enthusiasts are guilty of an epistemic violation owing to their lack of grounds for regarding their inspirations as having come from God. Moral enthusiasm is a species of this purportedly irrational practice, pertaining to moral judgments formed on the basis of such inspirations. It is plausibly this species of enthusiasm that Locke viewed as most dangerous, and in pressing need of censure. I examine the practice in among its most conspicuous expressions – the founder of Quakerism, George Fox. I close by grappling with three difficulties with Locke’s critique of moral enthusiasm, as it applies to Quakerism: the corroborative miracles that Fox purportedly performed, the remarkable moral innovations enacted by the Quakers, and complications with Locke’s physiological criticism of altered states of mind.