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REASON AND RIGHT TO RESIST IN LOCKE
Abstract
Social Contract theorists begin the historical process with the state of nature. The state of nature corresponds, first and foremost, to a period when natural law prevailed and all people lived freely. Locke envisioned this period as a period in which people, using their own reason as a basis, both functioned within the era itself and achieved the opportunity to live in peace and tranquility. This is because each person, through reciprocity, must also consider the interests of others in order to pursue their own interests. However, despite this right-wing conception of the state of nature, there are also justifications for the transition to a social contract. Because humans are also emotional beings, natural law, while simultaneously rational, is insufficient for maintaining a healthy relationship with others. Locke attributes this transition to humans' emotional nature, and he attributes the contract to increasing the likelihood of revealing the good aspects of humans, who already possess both good and bad qualities, and to maintaining proportionality in the punishment of criminals. In the social contract, which establishes justice and therefore ensures the functioning of reason, the righteousness of human beings, who are inherently self-interested and therefore prone to injustice, is ultimately protected by the principle we refer to as the right to resist. Because humans are predisposed to prioritize themselves both emotionally and rationally, potential erroneous actions by governments require monitoring by citizens' right to resist. In this context, this study will argue that the right to resist for the sake of justice, by virtue of the nature of lawmaking and its implementation—the necessity for inductive and deductive reasoning to be incompletely aligned—always requires caution in the individual situation in question.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
Turkish
Subjects
Modern Philosophy
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
December 20, 2025
Submission Date
September 4, 2025
Acceptance Date
October 25, 2025
Published in Issue
Year 1970 Number: 42