Lesson 2 - Enlightenment Political Philosophy
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The Enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As we have seen one of the most important features of the Enlightenment was the Scientific Revolution, it emphasised reason, logic, criticism and freedom of thought over faith and superstition.
But the Enlightenment wasn't limited to science. Having seen the benefits of applying the scientific method to the natural world (natural philosophy), what happened next was the result of applying the same techniques to the social world (political philosophy). |
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What is political philosophy?
Political philosophers seek to establish basic principles that will, for example, justify a particular form of state, show that individuals have certain rights, or tell us how a society's wealth should be shared among its members. They question how the human world - society, government, economy - is organised and asked difficult questions such as, is monarchy the most efficient form of government? is social inequality natural? what is human nature? must we always obey our leaders?
Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life through our political institutions: laws, monarchy, parliament etc. Some political philosophers have tried to justify current political institutions (conservatives); others have painted pictures of an ideal state that is very different from anything we have so far experienced (radicals). It's also quite cool that a couple of the most important of these philosophers had a significant local connection which we will be exploring during the year.
Political philosophers seek to establish basic principles that will, for example, justify a particular form of state, show that individuals have certain rights, or tell us how a society's wealth should be shared among its members. They question how the human world - society, government, economy - is organised and asked difficult questions such as, is monarchy the most efficient form of government? is social inequality natural? what is human nature? must we always obey our leaders?
Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life through our political institutions: laws, monarchy, parliament etc. Some political philosophers have tried to justify current political institutions (conservatives); others have painted pictures of an ideal state that is very different from anything we have so far experienced (radicals). It's also quite cool that a couple of the most important of these philosophers had a significant local connection which we will be exploring during the year.
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More on thinking philosophically Two outstanding books are Sophie's World available in whatever language you speak and the Philosophy Files a cartoon illustrated introduction to Philosophy. These books will also help you with your IB TOK thinking, so get started early. From Philosophy magazine are these Philosophy experiments: Is torture ever justified?, Would you eat your cat? Should you kill the backpacker? etc. They are all interesting. Choose one or two and have a go and think for yourself. |
The Political Philosophers of the Enlightenment.
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Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was technically not part of the Enlightenment and is rather associated with the Renaissance. However, most histories of modern political philosophy begin with Machiavelli who was a diplomat for 14 years in Italy's Florentine Republic.
His most famous work ‘The Prince’ is a handbook for politicians that rejected the traditional view that a ruler should be virtuous. The word Machiavellian is now shorthand to describe politicians and their actions that are only concerned with getting and exercising power. A successful politician must be amoral, ruthless and feared because ‘Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.’ |
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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher.
In his book Leviathan (1651) – by the way a Leviathan is a sea monster - Hobbes is famous for saying that man’s life without strong government would be naturally “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Hobbes saw man as naturally selfish and immoral. Because of fear of death the individual will give away his rights to a king. The important point is that kings grew powerful not by divine right (the medieval concept) but by force. A king’s power came not from above but from below, from his subjects. Since the king got his power from the people, the people had the right to overthrow him. |
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John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher who thought that the human mind at birth was a tabula rasa (blank tablet) that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge comes from experience derived from sense perception.
His most important political book was Two Treatises on Government (1689). Locke argues men are born free and equal in rights. Government derives its authority from the agreement of the governed to be governed through a ‘social contract’. Powers of government are limited and maybe removed if poorly exercised. John Locke is considered to be the father of modern liberalism and was very influential on the American revolutionaries. |
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Montesquieu (1689- 1755) Charles-Louis de Secondat, was a French philosopher.
Montesquieu's most influential work L'esprit des lois (1748) argued for the separation of powers in government. That a government’s powers should be divided between the legislature (law maker), the executive (law enforcer), and the judiciary (law interpreter). These should be separate from and dependent upon each other so that the influence of any one power would not be able to exceed that of the other two. This was radical because it completely ignored the three Estates structure of the French Monarchy: the clergy, the aristocracy, and the common people, the essence of feudalism. |
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Voltaire (1694 –1778)
François-Marie Arouet, a French writer and philosopher, as Voltaire he is remembered as a courageous polemicist who fought for toleration, civil rights – the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion – and someone who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ancien régime. The ancien régime involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobles), and the Third Estate (the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes). His famous defence of the right to free speech is often quoted: ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. |
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 –1778) a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer.
The complete opposite of Hobbes, Rousseau argued that man is naturally good but is corrupted by bad society ‘Man was/is born free; and everywhere he is in chains’ Social Contract (1762). Good government for Rousseau will be that which is of the greatest benefit to society as a whole. Rather than have a government which protects the wealth and the rights of the powerful few, government should be fundamentally based on the rights and equality of everyone, the ‘General Will’. If any form of government does not look after the rights, liberty, and equality of everyone, then that government should be overthrown. |
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Diderot (1713 – 1784) and D'Alembert (1717 – 1783) – Les Encyclopédistes.
The Encyclopedia (between 1751 and 1772) was a series of books based on the collective effort of over one hundred French thinkers. The central purpose of the work was to take learning away from the influence of the Church. For the Encyclopédistes, human improvement was not a religious issue, but simply a matter of mastering the natural world through science and technology and mastering human behaviour through an understanding of how individuals and societies work. |
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Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
Born in England, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contribution was the pamphlet Common Sense (1776), arguing for colonial America's independence from Great Britain. He also wrote the Rights of Man (1791) in which he argued for political rights for all men because of their natural equality and against all forms of hereditary government. Only a democratic republic could be trusted to protect the equal political rights of all men. |
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Activity - Qui est-ce ?
Learn 'who is who' of all the Enlightenment thinkers - scientists and philosophers - by playing the fling the teacher quiz below or by learning the game cards. We will then be playing a game in class that will 'test' your knowledge of them all. The Monty Python extract is simply there because, after all these years, it still makes me laugh.
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The test on who's who in the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment.
Extension materials and extras
K Clark's classic Civilisation television documentary series examines the impact of the Enlightenment.
The Scottish Enlightenment - BBC Scotland.
Links: Wikipedia, Philosopher.org on the Enlightenment, History World.
See Tom Richey's videos and notes on the Enlightenment. https://www.tomrichey.net/enlightenment.html