Name: ____________________________
Enlightenment Philosophers
AIM: What was so “enlightened” about the Enlightenment philosophers?
“Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”
- Voltaire
Interpret and evaluate the above quote.
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Instructions
Below is a collection of quotations taken from the written works of 18th century “Enlightenment Philosophers.” Read each quote and then translate it
so it retains its basic meaning but is more easily understood.
Philosopher
Montesquieu
(1689-1755)
Quotes
#1 “The advancement of religion is different from a due
attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfill its
behests (commands), it is not necessary to hate and
persecute (punish) those who are opposed to it.”
#2 “When the legislative (lawmaking) and executive
(enforcement of laws) powers are united in the same
person, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions
(fears) may arise that the same monarch or senate should
enact (create and enforce) tyrannical (abusive) laws, to
execute (enforce) them in a tyrannical manner.”
Your interpretation
Class interpretation
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Jean Jacques
Rousseau
(1712-1778)
#1 “The Sovereign (ruler) cannot act save when the people
is assembled. Every law the people have not ratified
(approved) in person is null and void — is, in fact, not a
law. The legislative power belongs to the people, and can
belong to it alone.”
#2 No man should be put to death, even as an example, if
he can be left to live without danger to society.”
#3 “…the social state is advantageous to men only when
all possess something and none has too much….The
greatest enemies of freedom are the extremely rich and the
extremely poor because one is willing to buy it and the
other is willing to sell it.”
Cesare
Baccaria
(1738-1794)
#4 “Thus the whole education of women ought to be
relative (connected) to men. To please them, to be useful to
them, to make themselves loved and honored by them, to
educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to
council them, to console them, and to make life agreeable
and sweet to them—these are the duties of women at all
times, and should be taught to them from their infancy.”
#1 “The torture of a criminal, during the course of his trial,
is a cruelty consecrated (made holy) by custom in most
nations. It is used with an intent … to make him confess his
crime…No man can be judged a criminal until he be found
guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection,
until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions
on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of
power, can authorize the punishment of a citizen, so long
as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is
frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he
should only suffer the punishment ordained (ordered) by
the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is
unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent;
for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent, whose
crime has not been proved.”
#2 “Punishment [by] death is deadly to society”
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Voltaire
(1694-1778)
#1 “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to
the death your right to say it…To announce truths is an
infallible (perfect) receipt for being persecuted….It is
dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
#2 “The best government is an Enlightened Despot (fair
ruler) tempered (softened) by an occasional assassination.
The public is a ferocious beast. One must either chain it up
or flee from it.”
#3 "We should regard all men as our brothers. What? The
Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew?
Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same
father and creatures of the same God?... Tolerance
(acceptance of differences) has never brought civil war;
intolerance has covered the earth with carnage
(destruction). Is each citizen to be permitted to believe
and to think that which his reason rightly or wrongly
dictates? He should indeed, provided that he does not
disturb the public order; if it is a crime not to believe in the
dominant religion, you accuse then yourself, the first
Christians, your ancestors, and you justify (proved
correct) those whom you accuse of having martyred
(killed) them. …Christianity is without a doubt the most
ridiculous, the most absurd, and the most bloody religion to
ever infect the world."
Mary
Wollstonecraft
(1759-1797)
#1 The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of
kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be
contested (challenged) without danger.
#2 Women ought to have representatives, instead of being
arbitrarily (randomly) governed without any direct share
allowed them in the deliberations (debates) of government.
#3 Women are systematically degraded (disrespected) by
receiving the trivial (meaningless) attentions which men
think it manly to pay to the sex, when in fact, men are
insultingly supporting their own superiority.
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1. Specifically citing philosophers and their ideas, identify common overarching ideas or themes among these thinkers.
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2. Specifically citing philosophers and their ideas, identify one contradiction (opposing idea) amongst the philosophers. With which of the opposing
views do you agree more? Why?
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3. Select two of the Enlightenment philosophers and evaluate if their ideas are beneficial or harmful to a society. (Remember an evaluation requires
supporting details and/or argumentation)
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4. Of the five philosophers quoted, who do you feel was most “enlightened” for their time? Why? Are there any “Enlightenment” philosophers who
you feel shouldn’t be considered “enlightened?”
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