Voltaire's Liberty And Fundamental Laws, 1764

Liberty and Fundamental Laws, 1764 In this document, Voltaire focuses even more strongly on religion and goes as far to claim that religion is damaging and dangerous to society. It was written during the Enlightenment and became very popular because of Voltaire’s rational thought. He writes this as a conversation between three people and uses them as examples of hypocrisy of religion. Because of Henry IV’s varying religious beliefs, according to French fundamental law, he should not have been eligible for kingship. He makes a valid point that fundamental law is just law based on convention and ancient usage/practices. He further supports his argument by giving the example of the Ancient Roman Republic. They do not still follow the same laws
because times have changed, and many rules are not even applicable. He also showed the injustice in fundamental law when he alludes to Francis I having violated his promise to give up his territory. The hypocrisy is illustrated when Voltaire says that there was essentially a loop-hole in this and had it been Charles V that had violated his promise, then it would have then the land in question could have been taken away. The idea of fundamental law is based on natural law and the principle that man is born free. He is confident that although man’s nature is to be cowardly, that man is also ready to accept that law should govern and be supreme. Voltaire argues for a rational society rather than one that was indoctrinated by religious principles. Overall, he hopes that the people of France will stand up and realize that they are being taken advantage of. He wants the people to think reasonably, and claims that when they do, they will seek public good which will lead to the liberated society that he hopes for.

Nature and Civilization, 1762 Rosseau makes the argument that everything is made good by its creator, presumably God, however, man always seems to destroy everything good.
In his opinion, man is destructive and ruins everything. The source of this problem is that man always wants more than what is given causing him to overuse his resources. This document was written in the same year as The Social Contract. He reiterates in Emile the idea that man is born free but very quickly becomes a slave to society and his environment. His goal with this document is to expand and maximize the education of man so that he may be equipped to survive and create a better civilization. He believes that man should seek out nature and follow its path. He repeatedly refers to the training of man, presumably the education of man, and this is significant to the French Revolution because out of it came a modernized education system in France. In the latter years of the Enlightenment, education became extremely important to philosophers and they advocated for a system based on absolutism. In Emile, he attempted to explain how man should be educated and described a reformed system of which traces can be seen in many modern-day education systems. He imagines a system where man is educated presumably from birth in order to live in natural order. In the brief excerpt, it does not seem as if Rousseau’s definition of education is what we think when we think about pedagogy, rather he sees it as being trained to learn to live a virtuous
and moral life whilst in what he describes as a vicious social institution.

First Discourse, 1750 In this document, Rousseau aims to answer the question of whether or not the resurgence of the arts and sciences have had a positive or negative effect on morality. Although he admits that his view is inconsistent and unexpected, he believes that learning has damaged morals and virtue. He hopes that the audience, distinguished professors at the Dijon Academy, will understand his point of view. Rousseau alludes to all of the negative outcomes of the Enlightenment to further support his case. He points out that people would rather be ignorant than think for themselves and that all it takes to convince the people of a phenomena is fancy words that they do not understand. He states that the mere idea of virtue is the very thing keeping people from actually having it. The arts and sciences along with the government have managed to take away liberty from man by making him believe that it is something positive when in contrary, it has induced man into loving his own slavery. Man is fettered by civilization and but does not realize it because he is falsely convinced that art and science is virtuous.
Rousseau’s idea of what man sees as virtue is a façade which we use to hide our true manners and customs.
Man is no longer himself rather he has conformed to society which he has described as a powerful and restrictive system. Rousseau believes that is man would have never gained knowledge from the arts and sciences, then they would not have the false values and motives or behave in such barbaric ways. He especially focuses on the idea of politeness. He claims that this is merely a societal norm because behind it, people are actually just lying frauds and that arts and science is to blame because it has corrupted out minds. He positively correlates the knowledge of the arts and sciences with the corruption of
mind.
Rousseau provides that the solution to attain true virtue is to return to nature and its simplicity. Thinking is useless to him and he thinks that ignorance would be more beneficial to society. He alludes to the Peloponnesian War because although Athens had advanced intelligence and society, they ultimately were defeated by the simplicity of the virtuous Spartans. In the same way, man will meet his defeat if he does not return to nature. He adds credibility to his idea by mentioning that Socrates, one of the most renowned philosophers, agrees that ignorance is better than having extensive amounts of knowledge. Man is protected by nature from the evils of the world, but knowledge separates them from that and although man has become perverse and dangerous, it would have been much worse had he been born with the knowledge that he has acquired thus far.
In part two of the document, Rousseau claims that knowledge comes from human wickedness. He says that man attempted to explain his origins which is what led them further from the actual truth because the arts and sciences come from human evil. The more man tries to gain knowledge, the more he sets himself up for failure because he will end up destroying society by demeaning the values that really matter such as patriotism and religion rather than wasting his time trying to learn about useless matters. He makes a striking point that in contemporary societies, learning is valued over virtue because we would rather have the idea of a clever man rather than one who is of good morals. Overall, Rousseau prefers that man rids himself of the arts and sciences, because they cause trouble by tarnishing the heart and that instead of worrying about knowledge, we should examine ourselves and learn to become content with a simple life if we want to find true virtue.