Enlightenment

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Enlightenment

• An Age of Reason

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The Enlightenment

• A term used to describe a movement among European
  intellectuals in the 18th century who sought to
  make progress toward a better society than the
  one they inherited.
• The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it
  was a set of attitudes. At its core was
  criticism, a questioning of traditional ideas,
  institutions, customs, and morals.

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The Enlightenment

• They believed that all systems of thought and
  institutions were subject to the rational,
  scientific way of thinking, if people would only
  free themselves from the past, worthless
  traditions, especially religious ones.
• Reason, hope, natural law and progress were all
  words common to Enlightenment thinkers.

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Sources of the Enlightenment

• Renaissance Humanism
• Growing secularism
• Travel Literature
• The work of John Locke
• Heavily influenced by the Scientific Revolution
• The work of Isaac Newton

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The Philosophes

• Intellectuals of the Enlightenment, predominately
  French
• Defined by one as One who applies himself to
  the study of society with the purpose of making
  his kind better and happier.
• Reason was to be applied, in the form of the
  scientific method, to all aspects of society. A
  spirit of criticism prevailed and was applied to
  everything, but especially politics and religion

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Voltaire

• Voltaire was the pen name of Francois Marie
  Arouet
• Known for his wit biting sarcasm, he is known
  for his writings including Candide and A
  Treatise on Tolerance
• Remains one of the most celebrated Frenchmen of
  all time

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Voltaire

• His argument is simple the most inhuman of
  crimes perpetrated by humanity in its history
  have been committed in the name of religion
• The most vicious have been those committed by
  Christians against other Christians.

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Voltaire

• His conclusion was religious toleration.
• Governments should remain strictly separate from
  religion and impose no national religion.
• Secular values should take precedence over
  religious values.

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Deism

• The emphasis of the philosophes on reason
  toleration led to the development of Deism.
• Religion should be reasonable and result in moral
  behavior.
• The knowledge of the natural world had nothing to
  do with religion
• God was seen as a creator, not a redeemer.

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The baron de Montesquieu

• Dealt solely with political theory, his Spirit of
  the Laws (1748) sought to explain how different
  groups of people ended up with different and
  varying forms of government.
• His studies also led him to conclude that there
  was a single best form of government.

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Montesquieu

• A great admirer of the English political system
  after the Glorious Revolution
• English constitution separated powers into three
  independent branches executive, legislative and
  judicial
• Since no one person was in charge, the maximum
  amount of political and economic freedom resulted
• He called this a system of checks balances

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Cesare Beccaria

• An Italian, he was perhaps the most influential
  of all the philosophes
• His book, On Crimes and Punishments, radically
  changed the European outlook on prisons and
  justice

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Cesare Beccaria

• Argued that judicial punishment should be used to
  protect society, not as retribution
• Putting criminals in jail protected society and
  they could be reformed while there
• All other forms of punishment in particular
  torture and the death penalty were excessive
• Punishment should be prompt and linked to the
  severity of the crime
• All trials should be open and public

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Denis Diderot

• Author and editor of the Encyclopedia
• An attempt to systemize and organize the sum
  total of all knowledge
• Collective effort of over 100 French thinkers

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Encyclopedia

• The central purpose of the work was to secularize
  learning
• Other major goal was to assist in the promotion
  of knowledge
• Ultimately responsible for the division of
  knowledge into natural sciences and social
  sciences

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Published in 1762, his work The Social Contract
  is one of the most influential books of political
  philosophy in the Western tradition
• Heavily influenced the authors of the Declaration
  of Independence

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Rousseau

• At the heart of his thinking is the notion that
  all sovereignty lies in the hands of the people
• In order to protect themselves, they join a
  society a social contract in order to protect
  their rights
• Government is just an expression of the general
  will of the people
• Government should be a reflection of that general
  will and, if it fails at that, can be overthrown
  the social contract is broken

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Rousseau

• Considered the thinker behind majority rule and
  participatory democracy Rousseau felt that all
  should participate in societys decisions
• Everyone was bound to society that way you had
  rights because society decided you had them