The Politicization of Natural Law in the Axis of John Locke's Political Philosophy

This article discusses the English philosopher John Locke's approach to natural law in the axis of his political philosophy. Locke's arguments regarding to natural law as well as political philosophy cannot be isolated from the political economy of his period. Locke has revealed the main principles of the modern liberal state at a period when capitalist relations of production became the dominant mode of production before the Revolution of 1688. He had gotten into an argument with the royalists who defended the absolute monarchy based on the theory of the Divine rights of the king. He has featured the freedom of property and equal demand rights on power through the concept of state of nature and social contract. In this context, Locke has described the protection of property as the main task of political authority. In the axis of protection of property, he has placed the phenomenon of the construction of the legal order at the basis of the transition process from the state of nature to political society. Thus, the concept of law took its legitimacy from the state of nature and also became the constituent element of the new political structure that emerged after the social contract. In the article, it will be scrutinized how Locke shaped his natural law theory while creating his philosophical approach based on the stated points.