welcome back to history201 in this lecture we're going to be looking at a time period called the enlightenment and honestly this is one of the most important lectures that we will have in this entire class because as you'll notice the subtitle right here it's subtitled the philosophical foundation of the american revolution so it's ideas that come from this time period that really drive the colonists to war with britain now on the surface we think what they were paying taxes and they were mad at the taxes that's what the war was about well yes on the surface that's what it was about but uh it goes deeper than that there's been some new ideas floating around europe uh for a couple century world a century or so before the american revolution that made their way over to north america and the colonists kind of pick up on it and go to war so before we get into the time period let's think of that word enlightenment or enlightened what does it mean to be enlightened well it means to have a greater knowledge or understanding of something all right so now the question is a greater understanding of what let's put an official definition on this time period and it is a european movement of the 17th and 18th century that promoted reason philosophy and the scientific method so a few things we need to know from that definition number one um the word european yes most of this is going to occur over in europe but will make its way to north america and the 17th and 18th centuries remember that 1600s and 1700s so this is going on um during the time that the english are starting to found their colleagues remember jamestown was founded in 1607 um and then into the 1700s in which you know that we eventually declare independence from great britain in 1776. so there's many areas where we gained a greater understanding of our world in this time period there's great scientific advancements that were made in in medicine and all sorts of areas but we want to focus our discussion on the political side of the enlightenment ideas developed during this time that influence the founding of the united states and the government that we currently live under today what was the purpose of the enlightenment well it's simple to make life better for all people and that's pretty clear when we look at like scientific advancements and medical advancements how that can make life better for all people but how can political advancements make life better well i would argue as a whole the political advancements have made life better for a lot more people than even the scientific and the medical parts of the enlightenment so let's look at this political part of the enlightenment so it's during the 1600s and 1700s that many europeans begin questioning their absolute monarchs so we probably need to define what we mean by an absolute monarch an absolute monarch is just a king or a queen who holds complete power they're sort of like a dictator so this is how governments had been for a long time most uh countries and civilizations from the beginning of time had relied on monarchs kings and queens there are of course a few exceptions like an ancient greece and an ancient rome we had a republic but for the most part kings and queens rule most areas and also during this time period people started talking about having something called rots let's talk about that word what is a rot a lot of times we use words a lot and we don't really know what they mean um so think about that for a second pause the video and really think this lecture you're going to put your thinking cap on a lot and then this is better done in a discussion based format but obviously this being online we're limited in what we can do but pause the video and think to yourself what is a write all right i'm going to assume that you paused the video and you thought deeply about it what did you come up with well uh when you started thinking about it was probably pretty tough to define a rot without using the word right but maybe you've got something like this definition of a right is the entitlement to have something or act in a certain way so for example um you have here in the united states the right to worship or not worship um you have the right to free speech you can say pretty much whatever you want and you have the right to drive a car well that raises a bigger question where do rots come from who gives human beings rights again i'd urge you to pause the video and really think on this question all right let's come back so what did you come up with where do rots come from well one place they come from is um from the law these are called legal rights these are rights that are granted to you by the government for example the right to drive a car or the right to vote here's an interesting question though are legal rights universal by that i mean do all countries grant their citizens the same rights do citizens in north korea have the legal right to free speech do minors in the united states have the legal right to drink alcohol of course not legal rights vary from country to country um here's an even more interesting question i really want you to think on this one if rights come from the government let's say that one day the purge happens okay hopefully you've seen those movies before but if government doesn't exist and we entered the purge do your rights disappear do you now not have the right to free speech just because your government didn't give it to you because the government is gone well what about your right to life do you still have the right to live even though the government's gone or do you not have the right to live okay think about that real quick well there is another philosopher probably the most influential philosopher on um american government and his name is john locke he's an english philosopher and so he's going to argue that there's a second source of rot there's a second type of rot you have you have legal rights but you also have something called natural rots and what are natural rots here's the definition this is very important natural rods are rots all humans are born with government cannot grant you those rights and government cannot take those away you are you get them it's kind of like a participation trophy you have these rights just by being born and they're given to you by the creator right so according to john locke what are these natural rights that you have just for being born he's going to give us three life liberty and property those may those three may sound familiar hopefully they do they don't sound familiar right now keep those in your mind in a couple lectures from now uh you will be reminded of this okay well let's talk about these three rights in detail so life this one's pretty straightforward so lock's going to believe that the most basic human law of nature is the preservation of mankind you have the right to protect your life so just to preserve that purpose to serve that purpose any reason individuals have both a right and duty to preserve their own rights their own lives so here's a question so do you have the right to murder someone think on it it's pretty obvious and the answer would be no that violates their natural right you are taking away their right to live their right to life let's ask another question if someone tries to murder you do you have a right to kill them the answer here would be yes because you have the right of self-preservation you have the right to life if someone is threatening your natural right you have the duty uh and the right to protect your life okay so that's life pretty straightforward let's look at liberty again here's one of these terms that we use a lot uh but we don't really define so think on it what do you think liberty is pause the video here and think about it all right what did you come up with did you come up with we can do anything we want that's what it means we have the freedom to do anything we want well not quite here is the definition of liberty that is the state in which individuals can live how they want and here's the important part that's bolded and underlined as long as they don't violate the natural rights of others okay so you can't do anything you want you cannot take the life of someone unjustly but as long as you are not violating one of their natural rights and whatever you do well you're good so liberty is the second one the third one is property and this one's a little more complicated uh in the most basic sense john locke means that you have the right to the fruits of your labor to your material goods to the things that belong to you we won't go much more deeper into that if you want to know a little bit more about it i'll link the video right here you can click the link and um it'll it's a little cartoon video that explains what john locke exactly meant by the roch property all right so how today do we determine rights how did uh john locke come up with those three rights and how do we come up with the right to free speech and to petition the government and the right to bear arms and all these things i like that how do we how do we decide that well rights are based on morality every law that is made is based on the premise that it is the right or good thing to do right um so that raises a deeper question in is the right or good thing to do is that the same for everybody or does everybody have a different right or good thing based on their culture or or whatever it is do they have their truth and do we have our truth okay so we have to ask the question is there such thing as truth and we won't get into much i wish we could have this conversation uh in person but uh we can pretty much surmise that yes there is a such thing as truth because if you make the statement that there is no such thing as truth well that's a self-defeating claim because you are making a truth statement by by saying that there is no truth so it it just kind of turns around and bites itself in the button okay so there is truth all right so is it true that there is objective morality okay that's this question right here is morality objective or subjective it's right or wrong objective or subjective okay those are two words that you might not know what they mean so let's talk about it what's it mean to be subjective well a a subjective claim or subjective truth is something that is true in the subject so for example if i were to say that butter pecan is the best flavor of ice cream right that is subjectively true because it is true for me okay it's a preference it's an opinion um but it's not true for everyone else the truth of that is in the subject me all right so that's a subjective claim what is an objective claim okay an objective claim would be that uh this background is black okay that's true for everyone it's not just true for me it's true for you as well and everyone else on earth it is fact two plus two is four that is a fact that is objective so now we have to determine is morality objective is it true for everyone or is it subjective is it just true for some people and true for others so this is a very very deep thing to think on um we won't spend just too much time on it especially in this online format but you need to think about that because if morality is subjective if it varies from person to person can we really call anything wrong is what hitler did during the holocaust really wrong if morality is subjective okay if that's the case then he didn't do something objectively wrong he just did something that was against our opinion right so i think the case for objective morality is pretty good all right we also have to ask you know if morality is subjective can these rots that we're talking about even exist right in such a world so something to really chew on uh is the topic of objective or subjective morality go to youtube you can find all kinds of good videos on it but i encourage you to look into it and come up with your own answer now let's talk about the purpose of government what is the function of government so again think about this question real quick put your thinking cap on uh pause the video and come back when you have an answer i'm gonna assume you have something um we'll come back to it in just a second right come back to that question so during the enlightenment there was this new idea that comes about by several of these philosophers called the social contract all right before we get to what the social contract is let's talk about something called the state of nature what is the state of nature okay this is a term that the that these political philosophers during the enlightenment came up with and the state of nature is the condition of not having government so these philosophers argue that in their natural state people are completely free they can do pretty much anything that they want they have no government restricting their behavior so governments are in this way unnatural and people only agree to give up freedom they have in the state of nature if the government promises to protect them so imagine what society would be like with no government um some of you are thinking heck yeah that sounds great um but but really think about it and you know it's probably a dangerous world to live in if there's no authorities out there so the social contract theory is the theory that people agree to live under a government in exchange for it protecting their rights okay so they're going to give up that state of nature they're going to give up their complete freedom to a government in exchange for protecting their rights so for example in the state of nature let's say that someone comes and murders my wife well in the state of nature i have the freedom to go and punish the person who killed my wife however once we enter into the social contract once we live under a government we go we give up that right to punish people we give that right to the government so in today's world you know if if someone were to murder my wife i don't have the right to go punish that individual that is the government's job okay so you can see here how we give up some of our freedoms to the government but you know on the on the other hand uh the government has to hold up its side of the deal it has to protect my rights obviously uh this social contract we're talking about it's not a physical contract like you see here it's just a uh it's kind of an explanation for why governments emerged in the first place so the question becomes how much freedom should people give up because you can give up different amounts of freedom um under the social contract theory well let's go back to that question of the purpose of government and let's see what john locke says is the purpose of government he says the role of government is to protect your natural rights but not only that if it doesn't get rid of it get rid of that government so think about a contract okay it's not a one-way street it's a it's a two-sided thing both parties have to hold up their end of the deal so for example if you uh go to the bank and you take out a lawn you they they agree to give you the money and you agree to pay that money back with interest okay but if one side let's say that you stop paying that uh loan you stop paying them their money back well that contract that you sign becomes null and void okay they can get rid of it lock says the same thing is true here with this social contract if the government fails to protect your natural rights overthrow it this is going to be very very important when it comes time for the american revolution and the colonists are trying to justify their break from the uh from england so also according to locke the best kind of government is where the people give up as little freedom as necessary so here's a quote from him in one of his most famous works the second treatise on government and he said men all being naturally free equal and independent no one can be deprived of this freedom and subjected to the political power of someone else without his own consent the only way anyone can strip off his natural liberty and clothe himself with the bonds of civil society is for him to agree with other men to unite into a community so as to live together comfortably safely and peaceably so that's john locke on the social contract let's look at another philosopher from the enlightenment this is thomas hobbes he's also an english philosopher and he's also going to believe that uh the government's purpose is to protect your natural rights but he's going to have a different type of ruler in mind okay lock is very democratic hobbs not so much so let's talk about hobbs view on the state of nature the the condition of not having government so hobbes believes that humans are naturally evil if you left them to their own devices in the state of nature there was no government uh his quote is that life would be nasty brutish and short he says we just go around killing people killing each other all the time and thus we need someone to protect us from ourselves okay laws are made to protect us from each other this is why we enter into a government john locke on the other hand uh lock's gonna believe that people are born as a tabula rasa okay to translate that that means a blank slate uh so he says people this is this is john locke he says that people are born neither good nor bad uh they're they're born neutral and their lives and attitudes are shaped by their experiences so what kind of government does hobbs think there should be well hobbs is going to argue that in order to protect your natural rights you need to give power to a strong absolute monarch to protect you okay so he's going to kind of make an argument for keeping kings and queens his book that he writes is called leviathan and the title of that book is very important it kind of tells you the thesis of his book okay if you've heard of the word levathan before you've probably heard it from the bible in the book of job okay job writes about this sea creature that no one can challenge and he has these thick scales and you can't spear him you can't hurt him um well hobbes titles his work that because he says that's what your ruler should be like he should be untouchable he should wield absolute power this is uh an illustration uh from hobbs illustrating the levatin ruler okay and he's made up of the people now let's talk about government legitimacy like think of the word legitimate okay legitimate means rightful or or correct um or justified so how is a ruler or a government legitimate what makes what compels us to follow the rules of our government think about that question real quick well before the enlightenment many people believe in something called divine right theory we need to define that that's an important term divine rot theory is the theory that god chose the king and the king got his authority from god so if you have this attitude and you're a religious person well you're probably going to be all right with the king ruling over you because to question the king would be to question god himself but once we get into the enlightenment people are starting to kind of rethink that we're going to see some pretty tyrannical kings and queens in the you know from the 1400s onward so people begin to doubt the divine right theory so locke on the other hand he says in order for a government to be legitimate to be to be justified um you have to get the consent of the governed and let's break that term down consent means to give permission and the governed okay that's going to be like the citizens so a lot believed that you had to get the permission of the citizens for in order for you to rule over them okay so this is not the case in in dictatorships or in monarchies okay no one gave them permission to do that here in the united states we have a government built on the consent of the government so how do we give our consent to be governed well we give our consent by voting okay this is a very important concept that's going to show up later in the declaration of independence all right now let's look at a few more of these prominent thinkers of the enlightenment another one the next one is a frenchman named um montesquiou and all these that we're going to talk about they contribute more than what i have here on the slides but for the sake of time we're condensing down to the most important ideas from them so montesquieu is going to write on a principle called the separation of powers which is dividing governing roles among different branches so we have this obviously in the united states we have three branches of government we have the judicial branch which is our court system we have the executive branch which is the president and the bureaucracy and we have the legislative branch which is congress that makes the laws it's important to separate powers because if you don't and power is concentrated into one person or one branch then then that's going to lead to some corruption and we really don't want that if you spread that power out it's a lot less likely to become corrupt if you've ever heard the saying um you're playing judge jury and executioner that's a similar idea okay if you if you judge the person um you know you you administer the trial and then you decide they're guilty or innocent and you execute them well you're doing things that three different people should do okay there's conflict of interest there it's a very important um concept we'll come back to it later on next guy is voltaire and he's gonna write heavily on freedom of thought speech and expression um so here in the united states obviously we have uh freedom of speech thought and expression all wrapped up in the first amendment right he's also going to promote tolerance of people with differing views differing religions different philosophies and we also typically have that in the united states as well we have it in uh in law for the most part we're seeing some changes in that it seems one of the famous quotes by volteer voltaire is i disapprove of what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it so what's he saying right there he's saying well you know we should be able to tolerate people who disagree with us you may completely disagree with uh what another person says but just because you disagree with it and you think it's wrong they should still have the right to say it they should still have the right to be wrong so if we put voltaire in a time machine and we took them to today what do you think voltaire would think about cancel culture well he wouldn't like it he would say look we can we should just put up with what people say so this is an important topic in today's world think about questions like should the government put limitations on speech certain kinds of speech and we already do this a little bit we'll talk about how we do it later but there's been some talk about you know putting limitations on something called hate speech should we do that who determines what is hateful and what is not um countries like canada have laws like this something to think about and also to what extent should private companies be able to restrict speech and to censor people places like facebook twitter youtube a big debate going on right now about should they have the right as a private company to close people's accounts down or you know suspending their accounts or something like that so it would be interesting to get voltaire's take on the modern day one more philosopher and that is adam smith um and he's going to write a book in 1776 called the wealth of nations now if you take economics you're probably going to talk about this guy because he is going to critique mercantilism which remember was the economic system that was used by britain and every other major power at the time where you are trying to export more than you import okay a favorable balance of trade and he's going to defend something called capitalism which is an economic system uh that we use primarily here in the united we're we're a mixed economy every economy is a mixed economy but we are primarily a capitalistic economy there's a word that you might have heard many times before but not know exactly what it means um well here's a few tenets of capitalism first capitalism relies on free unregulated markets well how is this different from mercantilism well you might remember uh the navigation acts that the british passed in the 1600s which limited how and who the colonists in the americas could trade with it like no they wouldn't allow them to buy things from friends even though the goods might have been cheaper or something like that okay well capitalism allows for the most part free unregulated markets it's also based on the idea of competition so in the view of capitalism competition is a good thing when you have two companies who manufacture the same good let's say like ford and chevy if if you allow two companies to compete with one another well that's going to lead to a couple of positives number one prices are going to come down because they both want to sell their product and most people are going to go with the cheaper product also it might lead to these companies creating better products so if you can't make your product cheaper but you can make it better people might buy from you then okay so capitalism or competition is a good thing and then finally private property protection things like patents and copyright and things like that and this goes back to john locke's idea of property