Day 62 Enlightenment in Europe

•Warm Up: Symphony No. 40 • Objective: Understand the development of Western political thought•Standard: 10:2.1•Homework: Reading 195-201

Hobbes

• Leviathan (1651)• English civil war –

without government “war of every man against every man”

• Social Contract- People give up their rights for safety and security.

• People are evil and therefore need to be controlled

Locke• People learn from experience, and

are reasoning• Natural Rights- Life, liberty,

property• Govt. purpose is to protect these

rights and a ruler must rule with the consent of people or should face being overthrow

• Two Treaties of Govt. (1690)• People are born as a Tabula Rasa

(Blank Slate) and through knowledge they could gain understanding and wisdom

Virginia Declaration of Rights 1776

"...all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

Reason and Politics

Philosophes- Social critics in France that felt that reason could be applied to every aspect of Life

• Reason- without bigotry logical thinking• Nature- Humans are born with• Happiness- The possibility of well being• Progress- perfection of human society through

science• Liberty- freedom of society

Voltaire• Francois Marie Arout• Angered aristocracy by

writing in satire- using irony, sarcasm and wit to attack folly, vice and stupidity

• Center stones of government should be tolerance, reason, religious freedom and freedom of speech

• Intolerance, superstition and prejudice are the evil things in government and life

Voltaire

“Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to…Whosover in authority exceeds the power given him by law and makes use of the force he has under his command…may be opposed”

Baron de Montesquieu

• Rome collapsed because of political liberties

• Separation of power- Executive, Legislative, Judicial

• Checks and balances- Make the Laws, Enforce the Law, Interpret the law

• “Power should be a check to power”

Montesquieu- The Spirit of Laws

“ It is true that in democracies the people seem to act as they please; but political liberty does not consist in an unlimited freedom…We must have continually present to our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would be no longer possessed of liberty, because all his fellow citizens would have the same power.”

Montesquie’s influence on the US Government

Jean Jacques Rousseau• People are naturally good but

are then corrupted• Govt. should be freely

formed by people and guided by general will

• Rousseau’s social contract- free individuals create a society

• Nobility should be abolished

Rousseau – The Social Contract

“ I…therefore give the name “Republic” to every state that is governed by laws, no matter what the form of administration may be: for only in such a case does the public interest govern, and the res republica rank as a reality…Laws are, properly speaking, only the conditions of civil associations. The people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their author: the condition of the society ought to be regulated…by those who come together to form it.”

Becarria• Laws exist to preserve

social order not to avenge crimes

• Abuses: Torturing, Cruel and Arbitrary punishments, slow trials, capital punishment

Economics

• French Phsyocrats create the concept of Laissez-Faire (“Let Do”)

• Adam Smith uses idea to form concept that there are only 3 reasons to tax – 1) army for protection 2) police for protection 3) maintaining public works

Mary Wollstonecraft- A Vindication of the Rights of Women

• Push for equality in marriage and education

• Disagreed with Rousseau saying that women’s education should be secondary

• The need for education to be virtues and useful

• Urged women to enter the fields of politics and medicine

Impact

• Belief in humanistic progress

• Secularism as an outlook

• Importance of the individual

Study Questions

1) Who wrote in a vindication of the rights of women that women should be equal in marriage and education?

2) Which philosopher argued against the torture of prisoners?3) Which philosopher proposed the separation of powers in On the spirit of Laws?4) Who argued for reason, science and law, but felt that society corrupted people?5) Who wrote in the satirical form to support ideas of reason, liberty and religious

freedom?6) Who believed that rulers rule with the consent of the people and that if

government did not support citizens natural rights that it was their responsibility to overthrow the government?

7) Who believed that people were naturally wicked so peoples responsibility to give up rights in order to preserve law and order?

8) What are the three branches of government that Montesquieu proposed what does each branch do?

Extra Credit

Book Report:

Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan

Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

Research

• Is the Age of Reason an appropriate name for the period between 1600 and 1700’s