ROBERT FILMER’S THEORY OF THE DIVINE RIGHTS OF KINGS

The issues such as legitimacy, justification, obligation, the source of the power/sovereignty are the fundamental problems of political philosophy. Today’s dominant tradition which is liberalism has overshadowed other worldwievs and philosophers that provide different explainations concerning these fundamentals. Robert Filmer who held a theory known as the divine rights of kings and the holist tradition in which he developed his ideas are among the systems and thinkers with different approaches. He, in his Patriarcha, put forward some ideas that were distinct opposite to the contractarian traditon, which Locke attacked in Two Treaties on Government. The Idea of Divine Rights holds that kings received their authority by a celestial command and, therefore, are not subject to any temporal and earthly power. This approach to authority finds similarity between the rule of fathers over their families and that of kings over their subjects. According to this point ow view, political power only comes from the right to rule God gave Adam. Although Filmer's thouhts are different from today's main ideas, his criticisms about social contract tradition are recently believed to be very powerfull ones. So, here I will discuss Filmer’s perception of the divine right of kings and criticisms in question.

Keywords

Filmer, Locke, Divine Rights, Holism, Conractarianism, Individualism