Brief History of Liberalism

Reformation

• Religious movement n Europe against Catholicism

• Religious protesters e.g. Martin Luther argued that individuals seeking to communicate with God no longer had to rely on Priests, popes or other intermediaries

• Christianity could be more individualist

• Men and women undertaking their own private communication with God

Enlightenment

• Intellectual movement

• Also known as the Age of Reason

• Started in the 17th Century

• Promoted the idea that humans could be improved by rational thinking

• John Locke - People have free will and are the best judge of our own interests

How did Liberalism go against the ideas of the C16th and C17th?

• Went against the idea that we should be told how to live by the Church and/or powerful monarchs

• Society was hierarchical and everyone had their place in society

• Everyone should follow the orders of the priest and of their monarch

• Monarch believed to have been put in their position by God

• ‘Divine right’ meant the monarch could not be challenged

• Both the American and French revolutions were inspired by Liberal beliefs

Ideas put forward by Philosophers during the Enlightenment

• Thomas Hobbes - Kings have no power from God but power from the people

• Rene Descartes - Doubt all knowledge - question everything

• John Locke - Men are all born free and equal

• Charles-Louis Montesquieu - Government power should be divided and not held by one person

• Francois Voltaire - Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to a fair trial

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Government should ensure liberty and equality of all people

• Diderot and D’Alembert - Wrote Encyclopaedia so knowledge not controlled by religion

• Thomas Paine - Governments should be elected and no monarchy