1. Enlightenment Thinkers

3. The Reformation and Scientific Revolution conditioned scholars to
Remember…
The Reformation and Scientific Revolution
conditioned scholars to
Assume nothing
and
Question Everything

4. Motto of the Enlightenment
Have the courage to use your own understanding

6. Key Term Enlightenment
European intellectual movement (1600s & 1700s) in which thinkers tried to apply reason to society
* Enlightenment philosophers wanted to use the ideas and reason of the Scientific Revolution for problems in government and society.

7. Know These!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Social Contract: an agreement between people and their government, in which people give up some things in return for the benefit of having government.
Natural laws: Truths discovered through reason
Natural rights: rights that people have simply for being human.
Bill of rights: a list of basic rights a government must protect.
Constitutional Monarchy: a form of government in which the king’s power is limited by a basic set of laws, or Constitution.

10. Thomas Hobbes English- 1651 -The Leviathan
Social Contract: people give up some rights to a strong ruler in order to gain law and order
Ideal Government: absolute monarchy
Reason: people are selfish, wicked creatures who must be controlled
Hobbes believed people are naturally selfish, cruel, and greedy.
Without laws, people would always be in conflict.
In such a “state of nature”, life would be “nasty, brutish, and short.”

12. Thomas Hobbes

13. John Locke English-Two Treatises of Government in 1690.
Natural Rights: life, liberty, and property
Ideal Government: government limited by law
Reason: government is supposed to protect people’s rights; if it doesn’t, the people should be able to overthrow it

14. John Locke
In exchange protection, people gave government the power to rule on their behalf. We call this idea the “consent of the governed.”
Lasting Impact: the idea that government could be overthrown if it failed to respect people’s rights had wide influence and was ultimately echoed in the American Declaration of Independence.

15. Locke Got His Wish!
Locke was in favor of constitutional monarchies. Limit the King!!!
In 1689, the English set down a new set of rules called the English Bill of Rights. This strengthened the power of the people and their representatives in Parliament

16. Key Term
Philosophe
a French Enlightenment thinker who supports the use of reason, as well as the pursuit of progress, happiness, and liberty

18. Baron de Montesquieu
Like Locke, Montesquieu was concerned with how to protect liberty from a bad government.
He Wrote The Spirit of Laws in In this book, he described how governments should be organized.
His idea: The separation of powers: By dividing different powers among more than one branch of government, no one group in the government could grow too powerful.

19. Separation of powers
Checks and balances
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person…, there can be no liberty.”

20. Montesquieu’s Legacy
Lasting Impact: He greatly influenced the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution. We now have a separate legislative (Congress), judicial (courts), and executive (President) branch.

22. Voltaire
Fun Fact: Voltaire never actually said this, but it is attributed to him nonetheless. He would agree with the sentiment.
French
Freedoms of religion and speech
Tolerance
“I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

23. Bite Your Toungue! Wrote under a pen name
He was imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year. 
 April 1726, he was arrested for planning to duel an aristocrat that had insulted and beaten him. To escape further jail time, he voluntarily exiled himself to England, where he remained for nearly three years.
He became hugely wealthy by exploiting a flaw in the French lottery. 

24. Voltaire
 18 hours a day writing or dictating to secretaries, often while still in bed. He may have also been fueled by heroic amounts of caffeine—according to some sources, he drank as many as 40 cups a day.
Many of his most famous works were banned.
He had a brief career as a spy for the French government. 
Visited and stayed in many European courts. Frederick the Great pen pal with Catherine the Great

25. Rousseau French 1762 Treatise on the Social Contract Believes in:
Personal freedom and democracy
UNLIKE Hobbes:
People aren’t evil at birth
Social contracts are made among individuals (not between people and government)
Popular sovereignty
LIKE Locke: Rousseau believes in government with limits

29. Ceasar Beccaria Beccaria (Italian)
Get rid of torture & cruel and unusual punishment (especially capital punishment)

31. Diderot

32. Denis Diderot A French philosopher, art critic, and writer.
promoted intellectual discussion and opposed intolerance and abuses in Church and state. 
He is also best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie, 21 volume set of writings of various subjects and authors
Imprisoned in France for two years

33. Mary Wollstonecraft Wollstonecraft (English)
Women should be educated and involved in politics and medicine

37. Who Wrote these?
1. A Vindication of the Rights of Women 2. The Social Contract
3. The Spirit of Laws
4. On Crimes and Punishments
5. Second Treatise, On Civil Government
6. The Leviathan
7. Wealth of Nations
8. The Encyclopedie’

38. Let’s Review
1. Believed in popular sovereignty and democracy. Government only existed for the needs of the people
2. Believed that an absolute “Enlightened” Monarch was best. People made a social contract with the government for safety
3. Believed in freedom of speech, press, and religion. Major influence of the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
4. Believed that government served to protect peoples life, liberty, and property. Government should be limited by law.

39. 5. His beliefs consisted of banning torture or unreasonable punishments. His writings led to our 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
6. Believed that the best government was one in which the power was separated into three branches. Each could “check and balance” the other.
7. Believed that the government should have little or no control over the economy.
8. Argued that women deserved same opportunities as men pertaining to education.