The Enlightenment occurred between 1650-1800 and was known as the Age of Reason. Key thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu applied scientific reasoning to challenge traditional authority and institutions. They believed natural laws could be discovered through reason to improve life. Locke argued people had natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that governments derived power through the people's consent rather than being absolute. If a government violated people's rights, the people had a right to overthrow it.
2. 1. What does it mean to be enlightened?
2. What ideas might they be questioning?
3. How does this painting reflect the ideas of the Enlightenment?
3. Principal Ideas:
A. Applied Scientific Method towards correcting problems in society.
Challenged traditional practices/questioned authority.
B. Questioned divine right theory , hereditary privileges of nobility, and
power of the church.
C. Believed in natural laws , found by the use of reason to improve the
quality of life.
4. Key Thinkers of the Enlightenment:
A. Thomas Hobbes : Wrote Leviathan in 1651.
- Hobbes supported the absolute monarchs because he believed
that human beings in their pure state of nature, without any
controlling authority would fight, rob, and oppress one another. Life
would be “solitary, brutish, and short .”
- In order to prevent this “brutish” life, people entered into a “social
contract.” People would give up all their power and freedom for
an organized society run by an absolute monarch, a Leviathan.
Such a government would keep order and obedience in society.
5. B. John Locke: Wrote “Two Treatises of Government” in 1690.
- Locke supported the power of Parliament. He believed that human
beings in their pure state of nature were basically good, moral, and
reasonable . Also, he believed that all humans had “natural rights”
that they had since birth, which included the right to
______________________.
life, liberty, and property
- People would agree with each other in a social contract to set up a
government to protect their natural rights. People would give up
some rights but keep many others. The best government had
limited power and was accepted by all citizens .
6. Baron de Montesquieu
The powers of government should be separated into executive, legislative, and
judicial branches, to prevent any one group from gaining too much power.
Voltaire
Writer and orator who targeted corrupt officials and criticized inequality, and
superstition. Fought for freedom of speech by saying, “I disagree with what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Wollstonecraft
Questioned the notion that women were by nature inferior to men and argued
that women have been excluded from the social contract. Stated that a
women’s first duty was to be a good mother, but that a woman should be able
to have an education and equal rights of men.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - "Man is born free but everywhere is in chains."
Believed in the "social contract" in which government and authority are a mutual
contract between the authorities and the governed; this contract implies that the
governed agree to be ruled only so that their rights, property and happiness be
protected by their rulers. Once rulers cease to protect the ruled, the social contract is
broken and the governed are free to choose another set of governors or magistrates.
7. **Locke changed the world with the idea that government had an
obligation to those it governs. If it fails its obligations and violates
people’s natural rights, the people have the right to ____________ the
overthrow
government. For Locke, the power of the government was not
___________, the consent of the __________ was needed.
absolute people
