Human Rights Dbq

Our rights as a civilization has grown ever since its first ideas of rights. In the eighteenth century, many of today's modern rights were not even thought of. People like as the enlightenment philosophers such John Locke, Adam Smith, Voltaire and May Wollstonecraft were the ones to start questioning why everyone should be capable of having the same rights. Ideas such as the rights of men, how the people should be the ones to choose for the economy, the right to choose the religion you want, and equality for women were the main ideas that Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft had stood for.
John Locke was an early philosopher that had believed that all men had a right to be free. Locke stated “There [is] nothing more evident, the same
He had thought if more people were able to pursue what they had wanted, then the economy would be able to grow. “By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more [effectively] than when he really intends to promote it”. Smith understood the importance of being able to choose your own career to be able to boost the economy.
As for Voltaire, he had supported the idea of having a variety of religion. ”If one religion where allowed is England, the government would very possibly become arbitrary [unrestrained]; if there were but two, The people what cut one another's throats; but because they're such multitude they all live happy and in peace”. Voltaire wanted to expand the variety of religion so the idea of them would not be so narrowed.
Just like the other Enlightenment philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft believed in natural right, but she had stood for the natural rights of woman. “ Women must be allowed to find their virtue on knowledge, which is scarcely possible unless they educate the same pursuits [studies] as men”. Wollstonecraft believed that the only reason men were inferior to women was mainly because, men never women a many chance to prove themselves