Political Theory: The School of Natural law

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Section 7.35

• Political Theory The School of Natural law

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Scientific Revolution
Glorious Revolution
Newtons Principia
Bacons Novorum Organum
Hobbes Leviathan
1543 1620 1649 1651 1687 1688/1690
Copernicus On the Revolutions of Heavenly Orbs
(1543)
Charles I Executed
Lockes Second Treatise on Government
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Newton and Natural Rights

• Newtons Principia (1687)
• Universe operates according to universal laws
• Laws of nature
• Knowable through reason
• Concept of Natural laws was applied to all facets
  of society
• Government and society
• Natural Law
• supersedes all manmade law
• Universal
• Applies to all people
• cannibalism is bad
• forced labor is bad

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How do we discover natural law?

• Reason
• Human mind can rationally determine and find
  natural law
• Via education
• Universal
• All people will arrive at the same understanding
  independent of cultural background
• Sigmund Freud
• Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
• Rejected reason
• human mind is not rational, it is motivated by
  drives, urges, instincts

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Hobbes and Locke

• Natural Law
• Used to justify absolutism and constitutionalism
• Absolutism (justified by Hobbes)
• constitutionalism (justified by Locke)
• Neither satisfactorily answered the question of
  legitimacy

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Leviathan (1651)
• Secular argument for absolutism
• A materialistic and atheistic philosophical
  system
• A reaction to the violence and disorder of the
  English Revolution
• favored the king over the parliament (1640s)
• Humans have no capacity for self government
• Life in the state of nature was solitary, nasty,
  brutish, and short
• out of fear from each other, people surrendered
  freedoms and formed a contract with a ruler

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• People contract with the government to prevent
  disorder
• Ruler has unrestricted or absolute power
• Ruled must have stability and effective
  institutions
• Government is a device created by man not from
  Gods dispensation (secular view)
• Absolute power was to be used to promote
  individual welfare
• Hobbes did not support totalitarianism

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John Locke (1632-1704)

• Secular view of government
• Rejects Absolutism
• Rejects Divine Right
• Contract Theory of Government
• Mutual obligations
• Government must protect rights
• Governed must support the government
• Two Treatises of Government(1690)
• In a state of nature people were reasonable and
  moral
• Tabula Rasa
• Natural Rights
• life, liberty and property
• Can not be denied by any government
• Purpose of governments is to protect these
  natural rights
• Especially emphasized property

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John Locke (1632-1704)

• Right of Rebellion
• If natural rights are violated governed had the
  right to rebel
• IE. The Glorious Revolution was justified
• Parliament had done right to eject James II
• placed the whole revolution on a level of reason,
  natural right
• gave prestige to constitutionalism and individual
  liberty

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John Locke (1632-1704)

• Slavery
• Using Locke it was argued that certain races
  lacked the capacity to benefit from education
• Later Locke was used to effectively challenge
  slavery
• Property of self
• Limiting the power of a monarch was deemed modern
  and forward looking
• Checked the power of absolutists
• Constitutional government is not the will of God
• rested on the natural law of individual rights
• Locke launches into the modern world the
  tradition of constitutional government

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By 1700Europe has

• Faith in science
• Faith in human reason
• Faith in the existence of natural human rights
• Faith in progress