2009-08-01

Locke on conscience

He now thought that a law to which we conscientiously object is an imposition on our conscience and that we should disobey it. At the same time, however, we are bound "quietly to submit to the penalty the law inflicts".

Roger Woolhouse Locke: a Biography, p84

This is what contemporary "martyrs" don't understand, I think. "Quietly" need not mean "without protest", but certainly without the disingenuous claims that it is somehow immoral or outrageous that they should be subject to a law which goes against their conscience.

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