Antonia LoLordo, associate professor of philosophy in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia, recently published “Locke’s Moral Man,” with Oxford University Press.

English philosopher John Locke is regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. In his ethical and political work, Locke assumes that there is a sharp distinction between moral agents and other beings. He thus needs to be able to delineate the set of moral agents precisely, without relying on the sort of metaphysical and physical facts his predecessors appealed to. LoLordo argues that for Locke, to be a moral agent is simply to be free, rational and a person. Interpreting the Lockean metaphysics of moral agency in this way helps readers to understand both Locke’s overarching philosophical project and the details of his accounts of liberty, personhood and rationality.

The publisher writes, “LoLordo presents an original interpretation of Locke’s conception of moral agency – one that has implications both for his metaphysics and for the foundations of his political theory.”

LoLordo is the author of “Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy” and various articles on other modern philosophers. She earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers University.