Of course, our founding fathers did their homework! Here are the 4 main philosophers that were considered when the face of the American government was first painted. *What did our founding fathers want our government to look like? What is government?
Imagine that all the students in your school were transported to a place with enough natural resources for you to live well, but where no one had lived before. When you arrive, you have no means of communicating with people in other parts of the world. With this imaginary situation in mind, answer the following questions: 1.) Upon arrival would there be any government or laws to control how you live? Explain. 2.) Would you have any rights? What would they be? 3.) What might life be like for everyone in this place?
One of the first to theorize on the social contract. Social contract is by contract people gave up to the state the power needed to maintain order. The state, in turn, agreed to protect the citizens. Famous book: Leviathan (ancient Greek sea monster) He talks about the “state of nature” – what life would be like without government.
The state of nature inevitably leads to conflict, a "war of all against all" and thus lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". To escape this state of war, men agree to a social contract. All individuals in that society give up their natural rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace. THERE ARE NO MORALS or RIGHT/WRONG He rejects the doctrine of separation of powers - (Unlimited government) The sovereign (king) must control civil, military, and judicial powers.
Famous book: Two Treatises of Government The Second Treatise is a response to Hobbes and outlines a theory of political or civil society based on natural rights and social contract theory. His provisions leads to a limited government Unlike Hobbes, people are born with a “clean slate” not naturally evil. John Locke
John Locke took social contract a step further. In the state of nature, people were endowed with the right of life, liberty, and property. To keep these rights, they willingly contracted to give power to a governing authority. When government failed to preserve the rights of the people, the people had the right to break the contract aka rebel What document did his ideas most influence?
Mid 18 th Century / France The Spirit of Laws was published anonymously Montesquieu stressed the separation of powers, the abolition of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties, the rule of law, and the idea that politics and laws should reflect the social and geographical character of each particular community. Had the idea of checks and balances Named the branches of government Believed in elections
8 Concerned with the relationship of the state and the individual. Believes that society is based upon some implicit contract. The contract implies that the ruler is the people’s agent, not their master.
9 “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” Turned the Hobbesian and Lockean “state of nature” upside down: Humans were better off back then! Man is naturally good, society and technology has corrupted people. A “social contract” must be developed to take man back to the “state of nature” (or at least as close as possible) Government should promote individualism and protect individual rights, since people in the state of nature had unlimited rights.
10 The contract does not change people or their rights, but rather it offers guarantees. It guarantees “individualism” by prohibiting excessive individualism or self-interest. To Hobbes and Locke, political institutions are a necessary evil; to Rousseau they are a blessing.
Anarchy (literal meaning): the state of affairs in which there is no government, i.e., no (man-made) law governing human affairs and, more specifically no legislature to make laws; no executive to execute laws; No judicial court system to apply laws Anarchy (common connotation): social chaos, disorder, violence, etc.
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