Turn on your reason light, let is shine let it shine! The Enlightenment! Turn on your reason light, let is shine let it shine!

Scientific Revolution Sparks the “Enlightenment.” The Scientific Revolution changed the way people looked at the world. Educated Europeans became very interested in the ability of man to “reason” or think on his own. The idea of “Natural Law” states that humans can use their reason to discover things like gravity.

The Social Contract: Two Conflicting Views Thomas Hobbes believed that people were naturally evil, and needed a very strong government to keep them in order. He believed that people entered into a “Social Contract” with their government. The people give up many of their basic freedoms and in return the government provides order and security. He believed the best government was an Absolute Monarchy.

John Locke Locke was more optimistic than Hobbes, and believed that man was essentially good. He believed we had “natural rights” or rights that ALL humans had just by being born. These rights included life, liberty, and property.

Locke and the Social Contract. Locke believed that a limited government was best He believed that the job of the government was to protect the people’s natural rights. If the government failed to do so, the people had the right to overthrow the government

These were French philosophers during the Enlightenment. The Philosophes These were French philosophers during the Enlightenment. They believed that through using reason, man could improve society.

Montesquieu Baron de Montesquieu studied the history of governments from the Ancient Greeks, to the Chinese, to the Native Americans He believed that the best government was one that distributed power into three “branches” rather than have one person/branch with ALL the power. He also believed that each branch should operate as a “check” on the other branches so that no one branch could become too powerful.

Voltaire He is best known for attacking the French government’s abuse of power, as well as the corruption in the French Catholic Church.

Diderot Denis Diderot published a set of books called the Encyclopedia (not like Wikipedia) In the books were essays by prominent philosophes that challenged the divine-right theory of kings and traditional religious practices.

Rousseau Jean Jacques Rousseau came up with the idea of the “social contract.” He believed that the general will of the people should be placed above individualism. He was another sharp critic of the divine-right theory, the French government, and the Catholic Church.

7. What is Constitutionalism?

Who should agree upon the laws?

What right did people have if their government was “corrupt?”

State of Nature This is state of man without any government. In other words, what are we “naturally?” What would life be like if there were no governments.

Social Contract. The agreement between the people and whomever is governing them that both the people AND the government have responsibilities to each other.

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Hobbes View Hobbes believed that humans were naturally bad. He believed that if we did not have a strong government then we would all just kill each other. He believed this because when people both want the same thing, and there is only one of those things, then they will fight. We need a government to make sure that we are not always fighting.

Locke’s view Locke believed human beings are essentially good. We need government, however, to survive. He believed in the social contract, that BOTH the people and the government must have responsibilities and must respect each other. He believed that if a government abused its power then the people had the right to overthrow that government.

Rousseau He believed that man was essentially good, but society corrupted us. He believes that people should write the laws- This will make them happy to follow them. We says that when left to ourselves we always desire good things, but sometimes we don’t know how to do it. That’s why we need government.

Montesquieu He doesn’t say too much about human nature, other than we want to feel safe. He believes that the best government is one that is divided. For example: Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. That way no one branch can have too much power.

Poster Activity Picture of your guy in the middle. Their view on human nature and government on the left. You may need to look that up on the google. Pictures of each one of your ideas. You need at least 4 ideas.