Locke's Notion of Reason and Limited Government

Locke's Notion of Reason and Limited Government

According to Locke, Reason is an objective and universal notion that guides all human being to behave in accordance with God's will. This notion of reason is fundamental to Locke's ideas of equality, freedom, self and political society. Reason is not only the basis for the natural equality of all men but also a moral law that says that all men have natural freedom to do whatever they want without encroaching upon the freedom of others. In addition, Reason is consistent with God's command for mankind to be industrious and productive. Locke posits that an individual in the state of nature enters a political society to protect his property by giving consent to abide by the law. The government's job then is limited to regulation for the preservation of its subjects and order, leaving things like moral issues and religious beliefs in the private realm. Therefore, Locke's ideas of the government's interference with what seem to be private matters in Poor Law seems incompatible with, if not contradictory to, his ideas of limited government and the negative notion of freedom. This paper attempts to reconcile the two contrasting scopes of government and concludes that although they may be reconcilable, there is no guarantee that limited government will be the end.

In the State of Nature, everyone is equal in that "all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another" (8). Everyone has the same law, Natural Law, or Reason. Natural Law is intelligible and plain to a rational creature because it is more sensible than "fancies and intricate contrivances of men" (12). Locke believes that Reason teaches all mankind that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions (9). Accordingly, there is no subordination among people in the state of nature. Although Locke admits that age, virtue, or alliance may place some people above others, all men have equal right to natural freedom without being subjected to the will or authority of another man (31).

According to Locke, law of reason provides a moral guide for people to behave with their natural freedom: it tells not what we will do, but what we ought to do. The law of nature teaches that man has unlimited liberty to dispose of his possessions, yet he has not the liberty to destroy himself, or any creature in his possession. People should preserve themselves, and when their own survival is not at stake, behave in order to preserve the rest of mankind (9). Locke's notion of reason provides ethical constraint not to commit suicide or sell ourselves into slavery as well as not to harm others except in self-defense. In this sense, Locke would view doctors who use euthanasia in some parts of the world today, and patients who willingly request for the termination of their lives, as people who do not live fully up to law of Reason.

Locke believes that people with the notion of reason will make rational choices to be productive and industrious. God gives earth to the industrious and rational, not to the covetous or lazy, and "God and his reason commanded him [all men] to subdue the earth, i. e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was his own, his labour" (21). Therefore, being productive is fulfilling God's command, the command of Reason. As all men are "the workmanship of God" (9), and as God commands our Reason, industriousness and productivity become crucial to our relationship to God and reason. It becomes essential to Locke's idea of the self: We are industrious and rational producers.

The law of reason is common and easily interpretable to rational men, but even rational men are biased when dealing with their own cases. As a result, natural rights to property get encroached upon by the misinterpretation of the law of reason, or "corruption and viciousness of degenerate men" (67). Having concluded that the state of nature is "unsafe and uneasy" (68), Locke points out three things wanting in the state of nature: (1) settled, known law, (2) known and indifferent judge as arbiter, and (3) sufficient, reliable enforcement power (66).

Consequently, Locke views that people form a political society in order to satisfy these needs so that they can better protect their propertyÐ'--life, liberty, and estate. The consent of free men initiates and constitutes any political society since nothing except his own consent would make any naturally free man be subject to the laws of any government (53). Therefore, political societies begin from a voluntary and mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of their governors, and forms of government (55). For Locke, it is rational people with the notion of reason who choose their government, not the government which chooses its people. Locke adds that owning property and enjoying protection of any government is tacit consent, thus also obliging them to obedience to the laws of that government (64).

Locke's idea of political society implies that when an individual chooses to enter a political society, he is giving up the power of execution and liberty to do whatever he wants within limits of law of nature. He gives natural freedom up to civil law, which is based on reason, for reason is pre-political as it is established prior to politics. Civil law is "conformable to the law of nature, to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind" (71). Even if people leave the state of nature and enter a political society, Reason as the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. Therefore, Reason remains to govern people in a political society as it is written out in civil law just as it did in the state of nature.

Once individuals give up executive power and natural freedom to form a political society, to what extent does the state have power over people? Locke argues that government has a power to do anything but only in order to preserve its subjects, otherwise it must leave them at liberty to believe what they want (Toleration 136). This idea of limited government leaves many things such as family, religion, and way we deal with private property open for discussion in private realms. Anything besides securing the civil peace and propriety of his subjects is thus outside of government's dominion. Things like religious beliefs and what is moral and immoral are left to people's opinions in private realm.

However, Locke's idea of government's role in Poor Law seems incompatible with his idea of limited government. Locke suggests in Poor Law that the state should have legitimate

...