PHIL 2035: Voltaire

1
PHIL 2035 Voltaire

• Another Plea for Toleration
• Lecture 2

2
Locke, Voltaire and Toleration

• Whats at stake?
• The theological problem.

3
Salvation Faith vs Works

• Roman Catholicism
• Doctrine of Free Will
• Salvation by Gods grace, e.g. sacraments
• Transubstantiation
• Salvation by good works
• Helping poor
• Endowing charities
• Faith becoming important
• Lutheran influence
• Council of Trent (16th cent.)
• Word of God in Bible.

• Lutheranism (founded by Martin Luther, 16th
  cent.)
• Justification by Faith alone (St. Paul)
• Undermines doctrine of Free Will
• Works and grace dont matter to salvation
• You should do them anyway if you are a good
  person
• Priests no longer special just another social
  role
• Communion just a reminder of Jesus sacrifice on
  the Cross, not a literal sacrifice as in RC.

4
Calvinism

• Calvinism, founded by John Calvin (1509-64)
• Calvinism goes under many names
• Dissenters (ie dissent from Church of England),
• Nonconformists (ie not conforming to C of E)
• Puritans (seek purification of religious
  belief/practice) some founded Massachusetts Bay
  Colony, 1620
• Presbyterians (Scotland)
• Congregationalists (North America)
• Dutch Reformed

5
Calvinist Theology

• Predestination
• Grace is granted, not earned
• God has already decided if you are saved or not
  (i.e. whether you will go to Heaven or Hell)
• You cannot do anything for your own salvation
• All you can do is have faith and try to be a good
  person
• Associated with Protestant Work Ethic.

6
Voltaires satirical viewpoint(see handout)

• The Chinese Mandarin and the Europeans
• (What is a Mandarin?)
• The Europeans are all Christians
• But one is a Jesuit (Catholic), one is a Dane
  (Lutheran) and one is a Dutchman (Calvinist)
• So they can never agree on way to salvation.

7
Other cases of toleration

• Ottoman empire tolerated 20 religions
• India, Persia (Iran), and China
• Carolina (North American British colony) followed
  Lockes precepts on toleration
• Only 7 heads of families needed to form a
  religion
• No religious warfare.

8
Quakers

• Voltaire fascinated by this PACIFIST sect writes
  about them in Philosophical Letters
• whose customs are perhaps ridiculous
• but whose virtuous behaviour has shown the rest
  of the world, useless as it turns out, the
  meaning of Peace? (TT, 29)
• They refuse to serve in armed forces
• No buttons since buttons are a military
  invention
• Founded colony (later state) of Pennsylvania.

9
Civil Disobedience

• Quakers are prime example for Locke
• B/c they refuse to render obligatory military
  service for purposes of defense
• Conscription falls w/n purview of Magistrate b/c
  defense protects life, liberty and properties
• So Magistrate is entitled to imprison Quakers for
  not serving in armed forces
• BUT Magistrate not justified to enforce laws that
  have nothing to with purposes of State, e.g. that
  children be washed for religious reasons
  (baptism).

10
The Calas Affair 1761-63

• A son of Jean Calas, a respected Protestant
  merchant of Toulouse, commits suicide (1761)
• Calas is accused of killing his son to prevent
  his conversion to Roman Catholicism
• Tortured to obtain a confession,
• Executed by being broken on a wheela horrible
  and unbelievably painful death (1762).

11
Calas, cont.

• Voltaire makes the case a cause célèbre
• Assists the Calas family financially
• Brings the case to the Kings Great Council
  (final court of appeal) in Versailles
• The verdict against Calas is reversed on
  procedural grounds (1763)
• Not the same as a proclamation of innocence, but
  a great victory against intolerance nonetheless.

12
Voltaires Satires

• Manifestos against irrational hatred, religious
  hypocrisy and intolerance.

13
Candide

• Leibnizian philosophy of Optimism
• what is, is for the best
• this is the best of all possible worlds.
• Voltaire shows that it is anything but that!

14
Some evils V. attacks

• False elitism Candide is not allowed to marry
  Cunégonde b/c he does not have enough quarterings
  on family crest
• Nationalism Bulgars vs Abars
• Wanton, senseless violence against innocent
  non-combatants
• cf. today Darfur, Balkans, Iraq
• Military drill symbolic of this mentality,
  invented by Martinet, court of Louis XIV.

15
The names

• Candide candid, honest, open-minded
• Pangloss interpreting everything, in this case
  according to the optimistic philosophy
• Ingenu innocent
• He just listens to the simple voice of nature.

16
Religious intolerance

• Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh as armed Jesuit
• Inquisition, auto-da-fé after earthquakewhy?
• Jacques the Anabaptist (ch. 3) hes not supposed
  to be virtuous b/c he is not baptized!
• Eldorado has no religious intolerancewhy?
• All are priests and give thanks constantly!
• No churches, seminaries, hierarchy to prescribe
  beliefs
• No link b/w regime legitimacy and religion (cf.
  divine rt of kings).

17
Ingenu, set in 1689(four yrs after Rev. of Edict
of Nantes)

• Kerkabons do not believe English are baptized
• Hurons idea of marriage in accordance with
  natural law a physical act, no legalities, no
  State or Church
• 500-600,000 Protestants had already fled France
• Ingenu does not understand why he may not marry
  his godmother
• Imprisoned with a Jansenist, Gordon
• Jesuits consider Jansenists more dangerous than
  Protestants or atheists! (ch. 13) Why?
• The Jansenist eventually learns about love, and
  becomes human V. shows extremism of each side.

18
Religious hypocrisy

• Hypocrisy
• Ingenu follows Bible literally baptism in river,
  wants to be circumcised tries to force priest to
  confess as in NT
• Churchmen at Versailles in private audiences with
  women (V. suggests they are violating their vow
  of celibacy)
• Jesuits casuistry, e.g. re Mlle de Saint-Yvess
  seduction by M. de Saint-Pouange.

19
Disputes within Roman Catholic Church

• Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
• Founded 16th cent.
• By St. Ignatius Loyola
• Intellectual vanguard of Church active in
  dispute w/ Galileo
• Used casuistry to justify immoral acts, e.g.
  Mlle de Saint-Yves seduction
• Clever, often specious, reasoning.

• Jansenists
• Followers of Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638),
  17th cent. Theologian
• Advocated inward conversion, not outward
  observance
• Rejected Pope as head of Church
• Moral austerity
• Grace is given, not earned predestinarian.

20
Science in Candide

• Mocks false science what is real science?
• Eldorados engineers, Hall of Science
• Pococurante all the writings (memoirs) of the
  academies of science not worth one entry on
  pin-making (Epingle) in the Encyclopédie
• Entry was basis for analysis of division of labor
  in Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations (1776)
• Practical and applied, vs theoretical science
• Mocks Cartesian physics plenum and materia
  subtilis
• Champion of Newtons laws of gravity and motion.

21
Medicine

• Death of Ingenus beloved at hands of physicians
  
• Panglosss miscarried death and resurrection by
  the barber-surgeon (who has surgical skill)
• Role of dissection of criminals in anatomy
• Miraculous cures using traditional herbal
  remedies
• the ointment the old woman rubs on Candide,
• the cure of the Baron-Jesuit by the apothecary
  (pharmacist) monk.

22
Bad Medicine Death of Mlle de Saint-Yves

• He was one of those doctors who visit their
  patients in a rush, confuse the illness they have
  just seen with the one they are currently
  attending.In his haste to prescribe a remedy
  which was then in fashion, he made the illness
  twice as bad (Ingenu, ch. 19).
• The next doctor was solely concerned to do down
  discredit his colleague (ch. 20).
• Recall Bacon and Descartes on medical science
  major concern of Enlightenment.

23
Todays Question

• This satire suggests that there is no point in
  having a perfect society if people are going to
  choose to behave imperfectly. Candide does not
  seem to be satisfied with what he has and this
  shows that human beings are very hard to please.
• Does this mean that human beings can never reach
  a point where they are satisfied in life?
• Can greed, vanity and discrimination be easily
  reversed?