An OverviewEnlightenment Thinkers

WESTERN DEMOCRATIC LIBERALISM

• What was life like before the Enlightenment?

• During the 1700’s and 1800’s the royal families in Europe enjoyed absolute power and wealth.

• While the common person did not enjoy the same freedoms that you enjoy today...

EUROPEAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE

• What kind of social structure existed in Europe at the time of contact?

Monarch

Clergy

(Church)

Nobles

Peasants

FEUDALISM• Feudalism was a structure of society in medieval

Europe that flourished between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, which, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour, and ranked people based on power and authority in society.

FEUDALISM

• For Europeans, at the time, power and the right to rule were exclusive to royalty, nobility and the church.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

• A movement of intellectuals who were greatly impressed with the accomplishments of the Scientific Revolution.

• Advocated the application of the Scientific Method to the understanding of all life.

• That reason was the primary source of legitimacy for authority and understanding.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

• Intellectual and philosophical developments that aspired towards more freedom for common people based on self-governance, natural rights and natural law. Central emphasis was placed on liberty, individual rights and reason.

• A revolutionary departure from theocracy, autocracy, oligarchy, aristocracy and the divine right of kings.

ENLIGHTENMENT

• Enlightenment Thinkers

• Thomas Hobbes

• John Locke

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Baron de Montesquieu

THOMAS HOBBES

• After witnessing the upheavals of a civil war in England, he became convinced that if people were left alone they would constantly fight among themselves.

• In his writing he described a natural state in which people had no laws. He claimed such a life would be “nasty, brutish, and short.”

THOMAS HOBBES

• Argued that in order to escape their natural state people entered into a contract in which they agreed to give up some of their freedom to a ruler who ensured peace and order.

• Specifically, a ruler with absolute power.

• Therefore, Hobbes supported the rule of absolute monarchs.

JOHN LOCKE• A major source of inspiration for the

Enlightenment movement.

• Agreed with Hobbes in that the purpose of government was to establish order in society, but disagreed with Hobbes on several other aspects.• Locke had a more optimistic view of

humanity.

• Thought people were reasonable and would cooperate.

• Argued that rulers could only stay in power as long as they had the consent of those they governed.

JOHN LOCKE

• Believed people had natural rights, including right to life, liberty and property.

• Government was responsible for protecting these rights but its power should be limited.

• Idea of “tabula rasa” or blank slate.

ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

• Believed human nature was basically good, but that society corrupted people.

• Argued that people were equal and all titles of rank and nobility should be banished.

• “Man is born free and everywhere is in chains.”

• That people needed to enter into a “Social Contract” in which they made a contract with each other and not a ruler.

MONTESQUIEU (1689-1755)

• In The Spirit of the Laws he attempted to apply the scientific method to the social and political arena to ascertain the “natural laws” governing the social and political relationships of human beings.

• Distinguished three basic kinds of governments: Republics, Monarchies, and Despotism.

• Thought that government should be divided into several branches (legislature, executive, judiciary) and that the system should be carefully defined to provide a system of checks and balances.

ENLIGHTENMENT THINKERS

• Many of these thinkers were the philosophers who developed the idea of Laissez-Faire economics.

• What is Laissez-Faire economics and what does it stand for?

LAISSEZ-FAIRE

• “Leave people alone to do as they wish.”

• Definitive of capitalism at the time and referred to a reduction of government involvement in the economy.

• Emerged from the ideas of the physiocrats.

• Enlightenment philosophers in France who critiqued the economies of mercantilism.

• Physiocrats

• One group of philospohes concerned primarily with how natural laws can be used to explain economics.

• That people should be left free to govern their own economic self-interest.

• Favored a free market economy in which people could buy and sell without government intervention. (Laissez-faire)

PHYSIOCRATS

• Their notion of laissez-faire economics reflects the beliefs that:

• Individuals need to be given freedom to make their own decisions.

• An individuals selfishness and competitiveness will inadvertently improve their own societies.

WHAT DID THE ENLIGHTENMENT LEAD TO?

• French Revolution!• What happened?

FRENCH REVOLUTION

• Before the revolution, France was a society rooted in privilege and inequality.

• Three Estates

FRENCH REVOLUTION• When Louis XVI came to the throne in

1774, he recognized a need for economic reform.

• However, Louis XVI proved to be a weak ruler in that he was unprepared for the job and lacked motivation.

Meh.

We’re starving!

FRENCH REVOLUTION

FRENCH REVOLUTION

• Following the death of Louis XVI, there was a great deal of social change within France.

• Development of the French Republic.

• Destruction of the Three Estates.

FRENCH REVOLUTION AND LIBERALISM

• In what ways do you think the French Revolution was influenced by the Enlightenment?