Enlightenment Philosophers

Human Nature and the Social Contract

• Human Nature: How human beings actually behave

• Social Contract: An agreement by which people in society give up the state of nature for an organized society.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Wrote Leviathan in 1651

• English political philosopher

• Very pessimistic view of human nature.

• Believed that society and political systems exist to maintain order among highly competitive and selfish human beings.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Man was incapable of controlling and ruling himself.

• Only an absolute authoritarian government was capable of controlling society providing order and security.

• Without order maintained by an effective political system, Hobbes believed that life for man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke (1632-1704)

• Wrote his Two Treatises on Government in 1689

• Believed man to be rather decent, inclined towards society, and more governed by reason.

• Locke formulated Newton’s concept of natural laws into a political system.

• Political system was based on the assumption that people are born in a state of nature with the natural (inalienable) rights for individuals to life, liberty, and property.

John Locke (1632-1704)

• In a state of nature with no government everyone was free to pursue their own self-interest (property) and justice could not prevail.

• Government was instituted to provide justice.

• What kind of government? A moral government which was legitimate must be designed to protect the natural rights possessed by all men in a state of nature.

John Locke (1632-1704)

• This could only be done through:

1. Known and established laws which applied equally to all

2. Known and unbiased judges to administer justice

3. An executive with power to enforce the laws

Political power would be balanced as gravity balances the forces of the physical universe.

John Locke (1632-1704)

• Separation of powers ensures government by law which would give equal justice and treatment to all citizens by ensuring that the power to make, interpret, and enforce the laws does not fall into the hands of one individual or tyrant.

• Political power is then balanced as gravity balances the forces of the physical universe.

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

• Wrote The Spirit of the Laws (1748). • Respect for the role of history and climate in shaping a

nation's political structure. • The best government would be one in which power was

balanced among three groups of officials. • He thought England - which divided power between the

king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this.

• This "separation of powers" was the best way to protect liberty.

The Philosophes

• “lovers of wisdom”

• Originally French Enlightenment thinkers that believed that the use of reason could lead to reforms of government, law and society.

Voltaire (1694-1778) Francois Marie Arouet (Philosophe)

Voltaire (1694-1778)

• One of France's greatest writers and philosophers. • A “freethinker”• Outspoken about an unjust legal system, censorship,

power, and the intolerance of the Catholic Church.• Constantly got him in trouble with authorities. Spent

many years either in prison or in exile.• Voltaire produced a constant flow of books, plays and

other publications. • He emphatically defended his ability to think and speak

freely.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) (Philosophe)

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

• French philosopher • Chief editor of the L'Encyclopédie, (The Encyclopedia)

one of the principal literary monuments of the Age of Enlightenment.

• The work took 26 years of Diderot's life. • Included articles by many of the Philosophes including

Montesquieu and Voltaire which denounced slavery, praised freedom of expression, and urged education for all.

• The French government and the Catholic Church attempted to ban The Encyclopedia as an attack on public morals.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) (Philosophe)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

• In their natural state, people were basically good. • This natural innocence was corrupted by the evils of

society, especially the unequal distribution of property. • 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité', inspired the French

Revolution. • Political society is seen as involving the total voluntary

subjection of every individual to the collective general will; this being both the sole source of legitimate sovereignty and something that cannot but be directed towards common good.

“Enlightened women”

• “Free and equal” did not apply to women.

• Women did not have “natural rights”

• Women’s rights were limited to home and family

• Germaine de Stael (France), Catherine Macauley (England), and Mary Wollstonecraft (England) among other women questioned whether women were inferior to men.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)

• Enlightenment ideals should include education for women.

• Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792),

• Called for equal education for girls and boys. Only education, she argued, could give women the tools they needed to participate equally with men in public life.

Physiocrats

• Physiocrats focused on economic reforms. Like the philosophes, the physiocrats looked for natural laws to define and explain rational economic thinking.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) (physiocrat)

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

• Wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776

• Established economics as an autonomous subject and launched the economic doctrine of free enterprise.

• Laissez faire - "the invisible hand," demonstrates how self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation's economy, with public welfare coming as a by-product.