News & Publications
Annapolis
Lecture at St. John’s Explores Locke’s View of Money and Morality
FOR RELEASE: March 28, 2011
CONTACT: Patricia Dempsey, 410-626-2539
Patricia.dempsey@sjca.edu
Professor Doug Casson of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. will give a lecture titled “Stabilizing Currency: Locke on Money, Morality, and Natural Law” at St. John’s College. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be held in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium on Friday, April 1, at 8:15 p.m.
According to Casson in Locke’s view “the money used to enable commerce is analogous to the language used to form and sustain communities. The tools that human beings employ, whether they be coins or words, are uniquely capable of binding people together and improving their lives. Yet they are also uniquely vulnerable to manipulation and abuse. Locke's famous appeal to natural law can be understood as an attempt to stabilize the linguistic currency necessary to sustain liberal self-government.”
Casson received his doctorate from Duke University. He has taught at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He is currently assistant professor of political science at St. Olaf College.
See the lecture schedule for 2010-2011
Back to Annapolis Press Releases