Portfolio: Essay 1 --Mid-Term

Paul Headman

Frame I


Reason is a trait inherent to all human beings. It is one of the most important traits that helps to make decisions. Such decisions can be good or bad depending on one’s sense of reason. Will depends upon the reason one has. Without reason, one cannot act. The passage from John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government confirms this. It discusses how mans actions are affected by reason.

Locke describes mans actions and how they are based on man having reason. He says that reason instructs man on how to govern themselves. This helps man to know how much freedom he has over his own will. I believe Locke added this part into a piece on government because mans reason can affect government. Reason leads to action which determines how a government is run and what happens in that government.

I personally, find much of this to be quite true. Man does seem to act based on their reason. I know this because many if not all of my actions and decisions have been based on my reason, and not my gut feeling. Once specifically, I was debating on whether or not to do an assignment. This happened to be the first time that I seriously considered not doing my homework. I quickly decided that getting a good grade was more important than being able to slack off for a night.

As I said before, reason affects much of what humans do. Without reason, one cannot know how to act. I would say John Locke believed this to some extent. Humans govern themselves, individually, based on their reason. Freedom is based on ones will, which is based on reason. Because of this, I believe reason to be one of the most important human traits.