John Locke: Natural Rights and Public Reason

This analysis explores how Locke connected individual rights with how societies make political decisions. Looking at his ideas about natural law and tolerance shows us something interesting about political power - it's not just about what governments can do but about how regular people judge whether those actions are legitimate. By examining how Locke thought about revolution and public judgment, we can better understand his view that political decisions need to make sense to the people affected by them. While his ideas came from the 17th century, they help us think about how citizens and governments should relate to each other even today.

Natural Rights and Public Reason

When looking at natural rights, we can see how Locke tries to connect individual freedoms with political power. This brings up questions about what makes laws legitimate - not just historically, but in how people actually judge and accept them. The way natural rights work in his theory isn't just about listing what rights we have but about how regular people use these ideas to figure out what's politically right or wrong. This analysis examines how the theory of tolerance and public reasoning intersects with John Locke's natural rights philosophy, particularly focusing on the role of public judgment in political legitimacy. While some scholars suggest that Locke gets half the story right on the issue of tolerance, the arguments for and against tolerance are based on the beliefs and opinions of the citizens who are supposed to live within these regulations. In the case of toleration, however, not only did Locke himself reject divisive scriptural interpretations, but because of their fair discord, he argued that they had no place in public debates. In the event of intolerance, he calls for the broadest and most general defense of exclusion to use secular arguments. Why is that barely halfway? Not only does public reason involve arguments that attempt to appeal broadly, but it also constitutes public reasoning. Public reasons are not only public reasoning. These matters are not to be determined by the government. In only one situation, the public plays an active part in building public reason: the revolution.

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The tension between tolerance and public reason leads us to a deeper question concerning natural rights that is, how do we balance the individual's judgment over collective standards? In cases where a person uses his or her reason to judge public matters, he or she is thereby not only applying a set of abstract rules but is also actively involved in formulating an understanding of these rights. This understanding of public reason and natural law forms the cornerstone of Locke's broader political philosophy.

In Locke, natural law determines the content of public reason. This means there are moral boundaries to which public policy is acceptable. Now, you might like to take this to mean that the principle of Locke's common purpose is not created by the public but rather contained in natural law. However, the doctrine of resistance is that it is private citizens who judge when natural laws are infringed, acting as public raisonneurs. Although Locke believes that we all have access to similar, very common public-good intuitions, they can not, therefore, be applied globally without public opinion that can argue from the public perspective.

Having established the theoretical foundation, we must now examine how these principles operate in practice.

State of Nature

To fully grasp Locke's conception of natural rights and public reason, we must examine his view of the state of nature. Looking at what Locke says about nature helps us understand where these ideas come from. The state of Locke's nature works through natural laws that everyone can figure out. Even when people disagree, they're not just making up rules - they're trying to understand the same natural laws in their own way. When individuals make moral choices, they're not just doing whatever they want. They're attempting to follow what they think is right based on natural law, even if they sometimes get it wrong. This is important because it shows how Locke thinks about individual judgment - it's not random or completely personal but tied to trying to understand universal principles.

Think about how natural law actually works in practice - it basically tells us not to harm others in their life, freedom, or property. But here's the interesting part: even though Locke thinks everyone can understand this basic idea, he doesn't trust that they'll always follow it properly. People still argue about what counts as harm or what's fair. That's why we need someone to help sort out these disagreements, which is where government comes in. We created governments to handle these natural laws better than we could on our own. But there's a catch - we only trust the government as long as it does its job properly. If it breaks this trust, people have a right to push back. When things get really bad, and the government totally loses people's trust, the whole system can fall apart. Then, people get to start over with a new system. But that raises some rather difficult questions--how in the world do people rebuild it all? What signals the moment when they feel the starting-over impulse? This is the situation in which the theory demonstrates its strength: it is the understanding of the way in which politics normally works. However, the real test of Locke's theory is in its crisis application or application to particular extraordinary events.

So, what happens when things start falling apart? Unlike Hobbes, Locke really struggles with the question of who gets to decide when the government has gone too far. This was a huge debate in the 17th century. While monarchists argued that only the king could judge political matters, religious leaders claimed moral authority and philosophers like Locke tried to find a different way. You can't just appoint someone to judge the government - they'd either have to be above the government (which doesn't make sense) or below it (which doesn't help). This is where Locke comes up with an interesting solution. He talks about an "appeal to heaven," but he's not really talking about God stepping in to fix things. While Locke uses religious language, his argument is actually quite practical - he's saying we need some standard beyond just what the government declares. He's talking about people using their moral judgment instead of just following laws. When he says, "the people shall judge," he's putting a lot of trust in regular people to figure out when the government has broken their trust. But this brings up some real questions - how do regular people actually make these big decisions? And if people are the ones judging, why does Locke still talk about appealing to heaven?

Here's how Locke thinks it works in practice: each person has to use their own judgment about whether the government has broken its promises. But - and this is important - they can't just think about what they personally want. They have to think about what's good for everyone. Even in the state of nature, Locke believes people can and should work together for the common good. When society breaks down, it's not like a company going bankrupt where everyone just walks away. The power people gave to society when they joined it stays with the community - it doesn't go back to individuals. This means that even when there's no government left, people have to use their own judgment to think about what's best for everyone, kind of like they're taking part in writing a new constitution during a crisis.

When Locke asks, "Who shall judge?" he's working through a puzzle. He's saying we can't just throw up our hands and say there's no judge at all. Sure, when there's no one on Earth who can settle these big disagreements between people, you could say God is the final judge of what's right. But in practice, each person has to figure out for themselves whether things have gotten so bad that they're basically in a state of war with the government. They have to decide if it's time to make that appeal to a higher authority.

So we're back to the big question - how do people actually make these decisions about revolution? Shapiro thinks it's simple: when enough people rise up against a tyrant, that's your answer right there. Some people think Locke agrees with this - that if most people want revolution, that makes it right. But that's not really what Locke is saying. When people said his ideas would lead to constant revolutions, he pointed out something interesting - people actually hate the idea of revolution and only do it when things get really bad. But even if that's true, Locke doesn't think that just having a majority ready to revolt makes it right. There needs to be more to it than just numbers.

Just saying, "Well, most people want it," feels too simple - kind of like how Hobbes just trusts whatever the government does. Locke is really careful about this. He says you can only fight back against the government in specific situations when they've actually broken their promises. Yes, people get to decide when this happens, but they can be wrong, too. Even without anyone above us to judge, there are still good and bad reasons to overthrow a government. That's why Locke talks about conscience - each person has to really think about whether their reasons for resistance make sense. And here's what matters: these reasons have to be about what's good for everyone, not just personal complaints. Even if you could get most people to support a revolution, that doesn't make it right if you're doing it for the wrong reasons. The key isn't how many people you can convince - it's why you're resisting in the first place.

To understand how these theoretical principles translate into historical reality, we can examine a key historical example.

Right of Resistance

This is the case, indeed, for the example of the American Revolution as the practical outcome of Locke's thinking. The colonials did not solely revolt due to anger-provoking taxes; rather, they strengthened their case by careful construction through natural rights and the common good, describing how the trust in the people was broken by the British government. The Declaration of Independence reads almost like a checklist of Locke's conditions for legitimate resistance - listing specific violations of rights, showing how peaceful attempts to fix things failed, and explaining why revolution served the public good, not just private interests. This shows how Locke's ideas about public reason and resistance aren't just theory - they've actually shaped how people think about and justify political change.

Sure, we might not always agree on what's good for everyone. And yeah, there's no perfect way to check if our reasons are right - we have to figure it out ourselves. That's why when Locke talks about appealing to heaven, he's not really talking about God stepping in - he's talking about people trying their best to think about what's right for everyone. His big idea about revolution shows something important: when people try to think from the community's perspective, their judgments actually mean something. Even though people often disagree about natural law, Locke thinks we can still try to look at things from a public point of view. And since people are making these decisions outside of any government structure, they need to focus on reasons that make sense to everyone.

Conclusion

Looking at how Hobbes and Locke think about public reason shows us something interesting about political ideas. They both see that we need shared ways to talk about and justify political decisions, but they approach it differently. Hobbes worries that without some common way to talk about right and wrong, people will just rely on their own opinions and never agree. Locke takes this further - he sees public reason as something separate from state power, something that can actually challenge the government when needed.

What's really important here is that public justification isn't just about finding reasons everyone already agrees with. People might deeply disagree, be biased, or even be wrong. Sometimes, we might not find any public reason that works for everyone - Locke thought this was true for most religious arguments. But he believed we could still find public reasons for the big questions about how we govern ourselves. These reasons don't just appear, though - they need to be found, explained, and defended through public discussion.

For Locke, natural law guides us to what's right, but only if we're willing to think it through carefully. While citizens use natural law to argue for resistance, they also have to make these arguments work for everyone else since the people are the final judges. But - and this is key - people only really act as judges during serious political crises. That's when everyone has to think about what's best for the whole community. These moments of crisis are when "the people" really exist - when everyone tries to think and talk about what's best for everyone, not just themselves. This connection between natural law and public reason is what makes Locke's theory still valuable today. He shows how universal principles can work through public discussion, not just abstract philosophy.

In the end, while we now have better ways to limit government power than Hobbes and Locke could imagine, we still face their basic question: "Who should judge?" And their answer still matters - it has to be the people themselves. This understanding of public reason continues to shape how we think about political legitimacy today.

Today's debates about judicial review, civil disobedience, and the limits of government power show how Locke's questions about public judgment are still relevant. When people protest against governments or challenge laws in court, they're using a form of public reason that Locke would recognize.

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