Chapter 19 The Age of Reason John Locke

Men Whose Ideas Changed the Face of Governement Thomas Hobbes (England) John Locke(England) Baron de Montesquieu (France) Jean Jacques Rousseau (France) See pages 465-471

He promoted a separation of powers in government Make a chart with four boxes for Thomas Hobbes (England), John Locke(England), Baron de Montesquieu (France) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (France). Complete by matching (writing in) the following to the thinker to which it corresponds: He promoted a separation of powers in government He promoted the right to life, property and liberty He said that people need to give up freedon to a ruler in exchange for safety He supported absolute power He said that all people are born with equal rights Government is a contract between people and its leaders He promoted elections He said that people make a contract with EACH OTHER, not the government. Locke states the existence of a "Natural Law" that transcends any man-made law. Simply put all citizens have a right to "life, liberty and property." Furthermore Locke states that a legitimate government can only obtain its legitimacy from the consent of those whom it governs. Consent is necessary because for any government to exist individuals must voluntarily surrender some of the freedom they would possess if they existed in "a state of nature." Theoretically this "consent of the governed" should mean that all citizens agree with the actions of the government at all times. Locke, as a pragmatic matter, realized that this is impossible in any society of size so he relied on the idea of a "general will" as expressed by the majority. Likewise government is also a contract between the government and its citizens. Citizens will surrender some liberty to create a government that allows them to prosper. The clear implication is that citizens have the right to abolish governments that do not benefit their citizens. Locke's contract theories as well as his philosophy of tabula rasa attacked the then current powers of state established churches and monarchs who practiced absolutism. Locke would be a leading influence on future writers; perhaps most notably Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence. Walter Judd Clark Advanced Learning Center Stuart, Fl Montesquieu (born Jan. 18, 1689, Château La Brède, near Bordeaux, France — died Feb. 10, 1755, Paris) French philosophe and satirist. Born into a noble family, he held public office in Bordeaux from 1714. His satirical Persian Letters (1721) was hugely successful. From 1726 he traveled widely to study social and political institutions. His magnum opus, the enormous The Spirit of the Laws (1750), contained an original classification of governments by their manner of conducting policy, an argument for the separation of the legislative, judicial, and executive powers, and a celebrated but less influential theory of the political influence of climate. The work profoundly influenced European and American political thought and was relied on by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. His other works include Causes of the Greatness and Decadence of the Romans (1734). Rousseau (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switz. — died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France) Swiss-French philosopher. At age 16 he fled Geneva to Savoy, where he became the steward and later the lover of the baronne de Warens. At age 30, having furthered his education and social position under her influence, he moved to Paris, where he joined Denis Diderot at the centre of the philosophes; he wrote on music and economics for Diderot's Encyclopédie. His first major work, the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), argued that man is good by nature but has been corrupted by society and civilization; Rousseau's belief in the natural goodness of man set him apart from Roman Catholic writers who, like him, were hostile to the idea of progress. He also wrote music; his light opera The Cunning-Man (1752) was widely admired. In 1752 he became involved in an influential dispute with Jean-Philippe Rameau over the relative merits of French and Italian music; Rousseau championed the latter. In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1754), he argued against Thomas Hobbes that human life before the formation of societies was healthy, happy, and free and that vice arose as the result of social organization and especially the introduction of private property. Civil society, he held, comes into being only to ensure peace and to protect property, which not everyone has; it thus represents a fraudulent social contract that reinforces inequality. In the Social Contract (1762), which begins with the memorable line, "Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains," Rousseau argues that a civil society based on a genuine social contract rather than a fraudulent one would provide people with a better kind of freedom in exchange for their natural independence, namely, political liberty, which he understands as obedience to a self-imposed law created by the "general will." In 1762 the publication of Émile, a treatise on education, produced outrage, and Rousseau was forced to flee to Switzerland. He began showing signs of mental instability c. 1767, and he died insane. His Confessions (1781 – 88), which he modeled on the work of the same title by St. Augustine, is among the most famous autobiographies.

Pg. 469—What was the Enlightenment? Pg. 471 –Describe Diderot’s Encyclopedia. Define “Baroque” music. Pg. 474 How is Classical music different from “Baroque?”

Chart answers Thomas Hobbes (England) He supported absolute power He said that people need to give up freedon to a ruler in exchange for safety John Locke(England) Government is a contract between people and its leaders He promoted the right to life, property and liberty

Chart answers Baron de Montesquieu (France) He promoted elections He promoted a separation of powers in government Jean Jacques Rousseau (France) He said that all people are born with equal rights He said that people make a contract with EACH OTHER, not the government.