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15 Cards in this Set
- Front
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Enlightenment/Age of Reason
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-move away from knowledge of authority towards courage to think for themselves
-Knowledge comes from reason +want to create utopia using laws of nature |
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Immanuel Kant
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-"Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intellegence without the guidence of another...have the courage to use your own intellegence is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
-"All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particualarly the least harmful of all that may be called freedrom, namely, the freedrom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters." |
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Thinkers of Enlightenment
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-known as philosophes
-rejected beliefs and traditions that seemed to conflict with reason, and attacked clerical and political authorities for interfering with free use of intellect -Influences: +Greek Rationalism: emphasis on using reason to understand world +Greek Stoicism: emphasis on natural law-cosmic plan-that applies to all things +Christianity: notion that all humans are equal in God's eyes +Renaissance Humanism: emphasis on human accomplishment and potential +Scientific Revolution: laws govern entire physical universe +Rene Descartes: mind is self-sufficent in discovering truth; authority and revelation are unnecessary |
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What Philosophes tried to do
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-apply scientific method (reason) to society and social institutions (education, religon, politcs), arguing that institutions that didn't meet standards of reason should be reformed or dispensed with. Through reason, society can be comprehended and reformed (Utiopian Thinking)
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What Philosophes believed
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-evil derived from faulty institutions rather than a defective human nature.
-Basic principals: +confidence in self-sufficiency of human mind +Humans possess natural rights that shouldn't be violated by government +Society should be reformed according to rational principales -Assembly of Philosophes: +Voltaire +D'Alembert +Condorcret +Diderot |
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Thomas Hubbes
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-lived the bulk of his life during English Civil Wars which reached a climax on Jan. 30, 1649 with the execution of Charles I by Oliver Cromwell and his army of Roundheads
+Key issues of English civil wars: =religious liberty Henry VIII's Church of England was seen as state religion and was too close to Catholisism =Constitutional issues (source of soverienty role of Parliment-god, genes, force) =Socical and economic issues (should economic leaders be part of "ruling class") +It was in this climate that he wrote The Leviathiatin (the people) =Men are created with equal natural rights and are by natruarl selfish, acting in their own interest =In a state of nature (no laws or social conventions) each person has right to whatever they deserve. Passion, not reason, governs our behavior. In this state of nature, there is perpetual chaos because competing desires will always result in open conflict =In the state of nature, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." =Society created to end perpetual state of war that existed in state of nature. Society is an agreement (covenant) among people. In order to achieve peace and safety, the ultimate purusit of desires is abandondon +central question of social Contract theory: how do we find the balance between social order and individual freedom =covenant is only effective if enforced and enforcer has absolute power. This person is called Sovereign. |
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Definition of Absolute Political Power
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-Sovereign isn't part of covenant and isn't bound by laws of compromise. He is law and therefore can't violate it-he is above the law
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Sovereign
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-Should be an individual to avoid the possiblitly of conflict among a group with sovereign power
-Sovereign is only as rich as the country, he will only act for the public welfare since it's equivalent to his own welfare -People give up nearly all power and control to Sorereigner -grants people a few "liberties": +Subject may refuse the sovereign when to obey would place his life in danger +Subject may refuse when sovereign orders him to harm himself or not resist an attacker +Subject may refuse to testify against himself +Subject may refuse military service (unless it is to protect nation from an aggressor) +Sovereign can only be overthrown if he is no longer able to protect subjects (thus breaking covenant) |
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John Locke
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-British statesman (diplomat), philospher, and political theorist
-He was advocate of religious toleration, reliance on experience as source of knowledge, and concern for liberty -He was an empirilcist who held that our understanding of reality ultimately derived from what we experienced through sense -regarded people as essentially good and humane +developed conception of the state differing fudamentally with that of Hobbes +felt life in state of nature was more rational, tolerant, and cooperative +human beings are born with natural rights of life, liberty, and property -His Second Treastise on government contends that power exercised by civil officals can't be absolute or arbitrary -Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) nothing is good or bad, experience makes it so |
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Basics of Locke's Argument
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-life in state of nature is basically peaceful; men are not wholly selfish, and often work for good of others and in cooperation because it's in their best interest to do so
-Problems occur when individuals behave egotistically, breaking laws of nature which are essentially that no one should harm another's life, health, liberty, or possessions (inclusion of property is key to his theory) -There are "rights" which lie beyond scope of gov. intereference-our right to own private property. Property, is the result of individual's labor; an assault upon property is an assualt on the person and therefore in conflict with natural law. He maintained that anything one invests his labor in is his property (by natural law). Hobbes believed that there were no property except that given by soverign. -When laws of nature broken, injured party has right to punish aggressor. Problem occurs in applying punishments because individuals can make biased judgements. We need to ensure that punishments for same crime will be same for all. -When governments were established, people never agreed to surrender their natural rights to any state authority. -We enter into society (form a social content) in order to deal with these occassional inconvenices. The society should have a judiciary to adminster law objectively an executive to enforce law and a legislature to write uniform and consistent laws. This is voluntary agreement between citizens to set up these institutions. -He claims that Hobbe's state of nature is really a state of war where one group seeks absolute domination over the other without a "common judge" Government must be based on laws, not force. It must be end product of long deliberation and education -He believed that people would basically be friends in state of nature -government appointed by people and therefore responsible to the people. Government's role is to protect property and protect from external threat. we give the government power to do things we find inconvienent or impossible to do ourselves. Sovereingly comes from the people, and the people can eliminate the government if it violates our trust. Government power is fiduciary (delegated temporarily) in his's system (as opposed to permanent as Hobbes system) -"Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by legislative power erected in it." -John Locke, Second Treastie, ch. 4 |
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Locke's Tripartite System
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-Executive, Leglislative, Federatire includes checks and balances and limits the power of any one branch
+has both executive and judical powers together +Executive: power to enforce law +Judicial: make sure laws are fair +Legislative: makes laws and is more representative of the people +Federative: State department, national defence, diplomacy, foreign affairs |
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Thomas Pain
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-"He who would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression. For if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
+if you believe in liberty, you fight for the freedom of all -"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -Considered himself a deist, view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God +Deists: reject both orgnaized and revealed religion and maintain that reason is the essential element in all knowledge -Book, Common Sense +Influenced American independence movement +Advocated a liberal world view considered radical +Dismissed Monarchy and viewed all government as a necessary evil +Oppossed slavery -One of the earliest proponets of: +Social Security +Universal, free public education +guaranteed minium wage (income) |
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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-The Social Contract
+"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" +"The sovereignty of the people is individual liberty with issue of political obligation" +Security shouldn't be brought at expense of liberty. By giving oneself to all, one gives himself to no one in particular -3 Forms of Liberty +Natural Liberty: in state of nature, unlimited right to everything one can get, it's not truly liberty since one is a slave to uncontrolled appetites(desires) =freedom equals slavery +Civil Liberty: one acts freely in society within laws based on justice, morality and property rights =more free in society because it avoids natural liberty +Moral Liberty: obediance to laws we prescribed to ourselves, the only way we are free in relation to ourselves, we make laws and hold ourselves to them =follow rules given to ourselves equals total freedom +Solution to problem of social order and individual freedom: achievement of moral liberty by members of society -Given solution:sovereign of society is the General Will of People +General Will of People is collective benevolence =aims at general good =come from all and apply to all +It's not sum of individual wills (the will of all) nor is it necessarily will of majority. Based on rational principales but can't be defined by representives because they will be inclined to obey their individual wills +good government is agent of the General Will and obeying General Will is highest form of moral liberty =not good Will of People: Jim Crow Laws b/c it's not for everyone -Popular Sovereignty: soverignty of people is inalienable and indivisible -Right of Peptual Revolution: the idea that people may end gov. any time it goes against the General Will -Believed in economic equality to the extent that no one should have enough wealth to own or dominate another and no one should be poor enough to be forced to sell himself (he ses the potential of property to become a form of domination) +property is not a good thing because other people dominate over you |
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Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
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-"God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
-one of the leaders of the French Enlightment, his works influenced the French Revolution. He considered England progressive while France was reactionary -A wit and defender of civil liberties including freedom of religion and right to fair trail -His writing to be satirical polemics, criticizing church dogma and social institutions of the day (Polemics: art of inciting controversy) +had problems with idea's that are censored |
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Denis Diderot
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-Was the principal editor of the 38 volume Encyclopedia, whose 150 or more contributors including leading Enlightenment thinkers. Its purpose was to bring together all human knowledge and to propagate Enlightenment ideas
+Encyclopedia was condemned by Pope Clement XIII for having "scandalous doctrines (and) inducing scorn for religion." It was also denounounced by French authorities for work containing "maxims that would tend to destroy royal authority, foment a spirit of independence and revolt, and lay the foundations for the corruption of morals and religion =He wrote about passions as people need to invest passion into thing or the passion for ideas can't be spread =He hated priests, and kings =He felt it was best to enlighten people rather than constrict them |
