The Enlightenment

1600's and 1700's

They questioned ideas about government.

Authority, rights, and responsibility.

the Enlightenment

The English monarch clashed with Parliament leaders.

The English Civil War caused many people to question the role of government, which sparked the imagination of Enlightenment thinkers.

A system of government in which a ruler holds total power.

Absolutism

The Leviathan

People are naturally selfish and violent.

He believed that people had the natural ability to govern their own affairs and to look after the welfare of society. He favored the idea of self government.

People are naturally reasonable.

Hobbes believed life without government was difficult, while Locke believed people have the right to rebel.

A French political philosopher whose major work, The Spirit of Laws, was a major contribution to political theory.

He wanted to create checks and balances.

They are ways to make sure no one has too much power.

He was an Enlightenment thinker who wrote The Social Contract which said that government is a contract between rulers and the people.

Governments create unequal societies.

The English Civil War comes to an end. Locke builds on the ideas of Hobbes. Montesquieu publishes Spirit of Laws. Rousseau publishes The Social Contract.

Salons

There was a rise in support for representative government.

Some monarchs embraced new ideas from the movement.

The founding documents for the United States.