CCC Enlightenment Philosophers Essential Concerns Essay

Overview: The following sources are influenced by the European Enlightenment era. The sources cover topics from the ideal form of government, slavery, and education. Other topics not included here were religion and economics. As you read the sources, look for how these philosophers are trying to change their society, to improve it and how their society has influenced their ideas.

Primary Source Analysis (PSA) #3

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PSA #3: The Enlightenment

Directions: 

Use the lecture, readings, and videos to help you understand the historical context (the time and place of these events) of the primary sources, but base your prompt answer/argument and the bulk of your paper on information found in the required primary sources.
• Make sure to cite the primary sources using in-text citations, (Doc 1) for Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan” and (Doc 2) for Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” and (Doc 3) for Jean Jacques Rousseau: “The Social Contract”

Consider the following questions when you are writing your essay. Who wrote the primary source and how did their social location (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) influence their writing and the argument they made in the primary source. There is always an argument of some kind in primary sources; some are more obvious than others.
• Make sure the paper submission is 2 pages in long (250 word count) and double-spaced.
• This is not a research paper, so no work cited page is needed and what is really important is your own analysis of the three primary sources.

So, deep breath and put on our detective hat and squeeze as much information out of the sources as possible. You got this! 

If you need a quick refresher on the Enlightenment, watch this short video clip. Start at 1:30 https://youtu.be/1Ef0erm_KQI?si=8ctABxRYsIYeExHXLinks to an external site.

The Enlightenment

Prompt: What issues mattered for these Enlightenment philosophers?

SBE submissions should have the following:

The main argument that answers the prompt question and that which you underline or highlight once in the introduction.

Use all 3 required primary sources.

Lecture PPT, video clips, and readings should be included.

Parenthetical citation for lecture PPT: (Mod. #) and for the required primary sources, use their Doc number in parenthetical citation, for example (Doc 1).

Have an introduction (which includes answer to the prompt), body paragraphs (analysis of the sources with support from the lecture PPT, readings, and videos), and a conclusion (which is just rewording your answer to the prompt and wrapping up the main ideas.

Required Primary Sources:

Doc 1: Thomas Hobbes, excerpt from The Leviathan

For Hobbes, the English Civil War significantly shaped his worldview. In response, he developed a political philosophy that emphasized three key concepts: The natural state of mankind (the “state of nature”) is a state of war of one man against another, as man is selfish and brutish. The way out of the “state of nature” is a “social contract,” to be agreed upon by the people to be governed and the government. The ideal form that government should take is an absolute monarchy that has maximum authority, subverting mankind’s natural state and creating societal order in the process.

The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name…

And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent chapter) is a condition of war of every one against everyone, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves.

Doc 2: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published by the English writer and reformer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792, is one of the earliest feminist essays. According to this excerpt, how did Wollstonecraft feel about the education of women?

I Have sighed when obliged to confess that either nature has made a great difference between man and man or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?—a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; . . . the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect. . . . 

Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality or inferiority of the sex; but . . . I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated [abolished] in favor of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied— and it is a noble prerogative [right]! But not content with this natural preeminence, men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, . . . do not seek to obtain a durable interest in [men’s] hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society. 

I am aware of an obvious inference: from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by this appellation [name] men mean to inveigh [protest] against their ardor in hunting, shooting, and gam ing, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind; all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me that they may every day grow more and more masculine. 

from Barbara H. Solomon and Paula S. Berggren, eds., A Mary Wollstonecraft Reader (New York: New American Library, 1983), 267–269. 

Doc 3: Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract, 1762

Chapter IV: Slavery

Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men…

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right. …

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts. …

Grotius [17th c. Dutch philosopher] and the rest find in war another origin for the so- called right of slavery. The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties.

But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of war. Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies. War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of the laws. Individual combats, duels and encounters, are acts which cannot constitute a state; while the private wars, authorised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King of France, and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of feudalism, in itself an absurd system if ever there was one, and contrary to the principles of natural right and to all good polity.

War then is a relation, not between man and man but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation. …

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death?

Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody, I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered people, is under no obligation to a master, except to obey him as far as he is compelled to do so. By taking an equivalent for his life, the victor has not done him a favour; instead of killing his without profit, he has killed him usefully. So far then is he from acquiring over him any authority in addition to that of force, that the state of war continues to subsist between them: their mutual relation is the effect of it, and the usage of the right of war does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has indeed been made; but this convention, so far from destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuance.

So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: “I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like.”