HUM-1155: Ethics and the Age of Enlightenment

Social Contract Theory

A contract between ourselves and a political leader. It outlines the rights and duties of individuals and the government, establishing the moral and political obligations between them. Reducing ethics to contracts either formal or informal.

Age of Enlightenment

Rationality is the key to any ethical, scientific, and political thought. Opposed theories that believed in blind obedience.

Thomas Hobbes

• Social contract theory

• Contractarianism

• Leviathan

  • a sea monster from the old testament

  • believed political leaders needed to act like a leviathan (dictator)

Natural Rights Theory

Individuals have inherent rights such as life, liberty, and property; these are universal and cannot be taken away.

John Locke

• Two Treatises on Government

• Humans are innately good

• Life, Liberty, and Property

• also a big advocate for slavery… yikes

Thomas Jefferson

• Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness

• Declaration of Independence

• also involved in the slave trade

Human Rights Inflation

the expansion of rights can result in the dilution of the most crucial human rights such as the right to life.

Human rights are difficult to define

there are many contradictions within human rights. ex. abortion.

Human rights are difficult to categorize

Whether or not a right is alienable or inalienable depends on the local laws. ex. death penalty