https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh Enlightenment Philosophers en-us 2018-02-08 17:08:50 UTC 2018-02-12 17:08:52 UTC hello@padlet.com mvp_mick https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/229696754

]]> 2018-02-08 17:18:50 UTC https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/229696754 mvp_mick https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/229697535 Jean-Jacques was born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerland and died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France, Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the french revolution and the romantic generation.Rousseau begins the Social Contract with the most famous words he ever wrote: “Men are born free, yet everywhere are in chains.” From this provocative opening, Rousseau goes on to describe the myriad ways in which the “chains” of civil society suppress the natural birthright of man to physical freedom. He had an overwhelming impact on people's way of life, he taught parents to take a new interest in their children and to make sure they educated them differently.]]> 2018-02-08 17:20:06 UTC https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/229697535 mvp_mick https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/230693412 According to Rousseau, the state as it currently existed was corrupt and unjust, and was dominated by the rich and powerful who used it to further their own interests at the expense of the weak. He argued that the ideal state would be a genuine democracy, a moral association that bound people together in freedom, equality and civic devotion. In this ideal state each person would have to surrender unconditionally all his rights to the community as a whole and submit to its authority and the state would then be governed by the general will--not the majority, or unanimous vote--but rather by the plainly visible truth, easily discerned by common sense and by reason. Rousseau implied that people should be grateful that the government had not yet killed them. He vested in the state more power over the lives of the citizens than many Southern states in the United States vested in slaveowners. It was a crime for a slaveowner to wrongfully kill one of his slaves, though such killings were not often punished. He based his political philosophy on his own peculiar version of the Social Contract: “The State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights.”]]> 2018-02-12 16:52:35 UTC https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/230693412 mvp_mick https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/230697912 The sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members…. The sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be.

Rousseau’s doctrine of the “general will” also created the perfect pretext to pretend that government is not coercive: the people were willing, whatever government did to them. Rousseau recommended that a lawgiver “ought to feel himself capable … of changing human nature, of transforming each individual … into part of a greater whole from which he in a manner receives his life and being.”]]> 2018-02-12 16:59:34 UTC https://padlet.com/mvp_mick/lpv3ylztcibh/wish/230697912