Three Versions of the Politics of Conscience: Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke

The organizers of this symposium have posed the question: is the idea of conscience fundamentally rooted in religious commitments? This question inevitably draws us back to the seventeenth century, for that is when the discourse of conscience ultimately originated. And when we consult the most important sources from that epoch, we get, I believe a clear answer to the question, although it may not be the answer that the organizers of the symposium anticipated when they conceived the theme of this gathering.