Chapter 6 PreviewYou are familiar with the phrase “the last straw”. Describe a situation where this applied to you. Draw a simple picture (use captions/bubbles to help explain).

How did the colonists get from Monarchy to democracy?

The Enlightenment: What Was it and why was it important?

Movement from Religion providing ALL of the answers, to people using reason and science.

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Man vs. Nature

• Before society we were in the State of Nature.

• An individual dictated what he/she could/could not do.

• Survival of the Fittest• Murder Example…

People come together….

Social Contract Theory

• The Social Contract is a theory that explains why governments were created and why people join into a society.

Social Contract Theory

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

-John F. Kennedy

Philosophers

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)• John Locke (1632-1704)• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Thomas Hobbes

• Believed that life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"

• His most famous work is Leviathan.

Thomas Hobbes• Believed that humans are inherently bad

because everyone is self-interested.• Hobbs felt it was best to submit to the will of a

Sovereign without question.

Thomas Hobbes

• Man entered into government for Safety.

• The main role of government is to protect its citizens.

• Rights and liberty always come after safety and protection.

• Never overthrow the government because doing so creates anarchy and then there is no safety.

John Locke

• Wrote Two Treatises on Government.• The first treatise (formal written paper) is

concerned almost exclusively with refuting, the idea that political authority was derived from religious authority, also known by the description of the Divine Right of Kings.

• The second treatise contains Locke’s own constructive view of the aims and justification for civil government.

John Locke

• Believed that people entered into society to protect their “life, liberty, and property”.

• Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, admired Locke.

John Locke

• The government’s main job is to protect the citizen’s property.

• If they government is not providing you with protection for your property you have the right to revolt.

• Justified the American Revolution

Social Contract Theory

• When we came into contact with other people we entered a Society.

• When we created government we entered a Social Contract.

• If you are born into a governmental system you are born into the Social Contract.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.“

• His most famous works are Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (AKA The Second Discourse) & The Social Contract.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau• Believed that humans are

born inherently good. He coined the term “Nobel Savage”.

• However, once the idea of private property was introduced mankind experienced a “fall from grace”.

• Individuals with many possessions saw that it would be in their best interest to create a government to protect their possessions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau• How can we be free and live together?

Or, put another way, how can we live together without succumbing to the force and coercion of others?

• We can do so, Rousseau maintains, by submitting our individual wills to the collective or general will, created through agreement with other free and equal persons.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau• All men are made by

nature to be equals, therefore no one has a natural right to govern others, and therefore the only justified authority is the authority that is generated out of agreements or covenants.

• Rousseau advocates the strictest form of Direct Democracy.

Social Contract Theory

• Essentially, Social Contract Theory is about protection – protection of oneself or protection of one’s property. Without that inherent human need government would not exist.

Social Contract Theory

Thomas Paine

• Poorly educated

• Unsuccessful at most of his jobs

• After being fired as a tax collector he moved to Philadelphia (the birthplace of our nation)

• How can someone with these qualities influence the people of America?

• Unlike John Locke and Montesquieu, Paine was not a philosopher

• He put the ideas everyone was feeling into a 47 page pamphlet (small book)

• It sold ½ million copies!

• It made a powerful argument for independence from Great Britain

What did it say?• Biggest aspect of this pamphlet…it was

written in a style for common people to understand

• Even if Britain were the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally

• It called the King “a royal brute”

• Stated that a continent should not be controlled by an “island”

• America would be dragged into “unnecessary” European Wars

• The distance was too great. For the colonies to send a petition to Parliament it would take a year for a response

• He even had a layout for the Constitution of America