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• Wollstonecraft = women’s education
  
  

• de Gouges = women’s political rights
  
  

• Machiavelli = power, feared > loved
  
  

Tocqueville = democracy & majority danger

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• Locke = rights / overthrow bad gov.
  
  

• Hobbes = humans bad → strong ruler
  
  

• Montesquieu = split powers
  
  

• Voltaire = freedom of speech/religion
  
  

John Locke (1632–1704)

• Natural rights: life, liberty, property
  
  

• Government protects rights; if not, people can overthrow
  
  

Ideas influenced Declaration of Independence

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

• Humans = naturally selfish & violent
  
  

• Without government → “state of nature” = chaos, “war of all against all”
  
  

• Solution: absolute monarchy / strong ruler for peace & order
  
  

Book: Leviathan

Charles Montesquieu (1689–1755)

• Separation of powers: executive, legislative, judicial
  
  

• Checks and balances prevent tyranny
  
  

Influenced U.S. Constitution

Voltaire (1694–1778)

• Advocate of freedom of speech & religion
  
  

• Criticized Church & absolute monarchy
  
  

• “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (famous quote attributed)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

• Early feminist thinker
  
  

• Advocated education for women
  
  

• Book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
  
  

• Women should have equality in marriage, politics, society

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793)

• French Revolution feminist
  
  

• Wrote Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen
  
  

• Demanded political rights & equality for women
  
  

Executed by guillotine

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

• Book: The Prince
  
  

• Politics = realism, not morality
  
  

• Ruler should be feared rather than loved (but not hated)
  
  

• “The ends justify the means” (famous summary of his ideas

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

• Book: Democracy in America
  
  

• Praised U.S. democracy but warned of “tyranny of the majority”
  
  

• Emphasized importance of civil society & associations in democracy
  
  

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

Who he was

• French-speaking philosopher from Geneva.

• Major figure of the Enlightenment.

• His ideas influenced democracy, the French Revolution, and modern political thought