Jacques Cartier

Freedom and Security “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” This statement by Benjamin Franklin (1818), one of the founding fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, shows the sacred character of freedom which should not be altered for any reason. On the other hand, Rand Beers, the current Deputy Homeland Security Advisor of President Obama, thinks that the precondition to freedom is…

The State of Human Nature There is no other beast in this world, which has argued more over who is right. In our world, we amounted to heights of intelligence that have changed us from the levels of animal’s hierarchy. We’ve created ideas to create reason, civilizations for people to live together, and governments to establish rules to guide those civilizations. Some people believe that with the development of civilization, it had evolved us from a primitive side of our human nature,…

The crisis of modernity within political liberalism can be seen as a result of modern man slowly losing faith in reason and or as substantial factor to arguments that modern man will do anything he to achieve his vision of what greater human life is or can be. “As such, modern liberalism is predicted on the proposition that governments exist to maximize the liberty of their citizens to “pursue happiness,” in the words of Jefferson, or to satisfy their desires, as Hobbes would have it.” Where the…

Unlike Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophies on human nature and the state of nature can be compared easily to those of Locke. In Rousseau’s state of nature, he believed than man is born inherently good; it was the invention of private property, in his perspective, that ruined the state of nature. He thought that once man could claim something other than his own self, then the right to preservation would be extended to his property. It was this that led Rousseau to conclude that property…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an influential philosopher and writer during the enlightenment of the 18th century, explicitly expressed his view of slavery and alterity in two of his well-known works, The Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality. In The Social Contract, Rousseau supposes that man is born free, and no man should be able to rule over another , while simultaneously summarizing and refuting opposing claims made by relevant and significant philosophers before him. Jean-Jacques Rousseau…

human kind. There was a popular movement in the late 1820’s called Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the idea that at the core every human is inherently good and that society and institutions corrupt us and turn us evil. This belief was very popular and was found in many literature pieces during the time. Nathaniel Hawthorne was very involved in this movement. Turner writes, “It Becomes Clear that Hawthorne was at home with both transcendental thought and language, but he can by no means…

state), with the understanding that everyone else has to give up the same natural rights. This contract is meant to ensure to stability and social welfare of the people. In John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract and The Discourses they examine this social contract, but have different understands of the relationship with the state and the post perfect form of governance. The goal the social contract is to reaffirm the…

Journal entry #1 Chapter 24 “ The Promise of Reason” – “The time will… come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason.” Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet. Hobbes and Locke were influenced by Hugo Grotius Idea of a political contract based on the natural laws. Locke related human beings as free, equal, and able to separate good from bad. Hobbes on the other hand, view us humans as being greedy, selfish, and aggressive. He also thought that we were nasty, poor,…

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a renowned French philosopher and a great political thinker of the eighteenth century. He expressed his theory of Social Contract in his famous book- “Social Contract”. He was born in Geneva in 1712 and finally settled in Paris. He was deeply affected by the political situation in France. He was greatly influenced by Plato, Montesquieu and Cicero, etc. His own ideas deeply influenced Kant and Hegel, the well-known German philosopher. Initially his views and…

JOHN LOCKE 1. What does Locke mean when he refers to the laws of nature? Describe what rights and liberties man would have living in a state of nature. Be sure to include specific examples from the reading. (2 pts.) When Locke refers to the laws of nature, he is referring to the state of equality in which no one is superior or inferior, unless the lord puts one above another; and all have equal rights in the realm of what they wish to do. While living in a state of nature, one is granted the…