Some basic questions of political philosophy: Warmup 91

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Some basic questions of political philosophy
Warm-up 9/1

• 1. What is the origin of government?
• 2. What is the purpose of government?
• 3. What legitimates the power and authority of
  government?
• 4. What is the best form of government?

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The Birth of Modern Political Theory

• 1651-1789

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The Standard

• 10.2 Students compare and contrast the Glorious
  Revolution of England, the American Revolution,
  and the French Revolution and their enduring
  effects worldwide on the political expectations
  for self-government and individual liberty.
• 1. Compare the major ideas of philosophers and
  their effects on the democratic revolutions in
  England, the United States, France, and Latin
  America (e.g., John Locke, Charles-Louis
  Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Simón
  Bolívar, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison). 2.
  List the principles of the Magna Carta, the
  English Bill of Rights (1689), the American
  Declaration of Independence (1776), the French
  Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
  (1789), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791). 3.
  Understand the unique character of the American
  Revolution, its spread to other parts of the
  world, and its continuing significance to other
  nations. 4. Explain how the ideology of the
  French Revolution led France to develop from
  constitutional monarchy to democratic despotism
  to the Napoleonic empire. 5. Discuss how
  nationalism spread across Europe with Napoleon
  but was repressed for a generation under the
  Congress of Vienna and Concert of Europe until
  the Revolutions of 1848.

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Definitions

• Sovereign having supreme power within its own
  territory
• Absolutism the ruler holds complete authority
  over the government and the lives of the people

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The Experience of England in the 17th Century

• English political tradition
• The Magna Carta (1215)
• Parliament
• Common Law
• The English Civil War (1642-49)
• Influence on Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan (1651)
• The Glorious Revolution (1688)
• Influence on John Locke
• Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690)

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Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

• science of politics
• based on the strongest element in human
  nature-passion
• self-preservation
• basis of Hobbes thought

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
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• No arts, no letters, and which is worst of all,
  continual fear and danger of violent death, and
  the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
  and short.

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Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

• man against every man
• To secure peace est sovereign power not subject
  to civil law
• monarchy is the most effective in securing peace

Leviathan (1651)
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John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government
(1690)

• The state of nature is not a state of perpetual
  war
• All men are free and equal
• law of nature governs the state of nature
• Natural rights - Life, Liberty, and Estate
  (property)

John Locke (1632-1704)
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Hobbes vs. Locke essential concepts

• Concepts they share
• The State of Nature
• Natural Rights
• The Social Contract
• Where they differ
• What drives human behavior?
• Passion (Hobbes)
• Reason (Locke)
• What is the best form of government?
• Absolute monarchy (Hobbes)
• Constitutionalism (Locke)

Hobbes
Locke
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Homework

• Read Ch 5, Section 2
• (p 149- 153)
• Answer questions 6-9 on your advance organizer
  that you created yesterday.