Voltaire's Views On The Relation Between Crime And Punishment

Voltaire is considered as one of the greatest Enlightenment writers in France for his extensive use of literary elements to convey his message. Voltaire satirizes different aspects of society to expose their absurdity in most of his writings. In Candide, Voltaire, by employing situational irony, mocks the blindness of society, magnifying the narrow-minded human nature.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher in 1712-1778. He believed that all humans are born innocent and what corrupt them and makes evil is society. He believes that if there was no society it would not make human beings feel so judged, shy or depended on others. Without society people would feel more equal they would not want to compare themselves Humans would feel freer. Rousseau thought that society weakens humans that if someone were to grow up in a natural place and place far from society they would be stronger. Compared o the people that grow up in a society they weaken.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

Voltaire believed in God and that an afterlife was the most powerful force of moral constraint within society, but as a philosophe he believed in the modern view of deism.5 Through the socialization of deism, social religion was

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to death your right to say it,” were the famous words of Fracois Marie Arouet, more commonly known under the pen name of Voltaire. He was known for being very outspoken and rebellious, which got him into trouble with the authorities for most of his life. Voltaire advocated the French bourgeoisie as being ineffective, the aristocracy as being corrupt, and the commoners as being too superstitious. Voltaire’s beliefs on freedom and reason is what ultimately led to the French Revolution, the United States Bill of Rights, and the decrease in the power of the Catholic Church, which have all affected modern western society.

One of the most important writers of the Enlightenment was the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The work of Rousseau has influenced a generation and beyond and it is argued that the main ideals of the French and American revolutions arose from his works, for example The Discourse on Equality. The main concept of Rousseau's thought is that of 'liberty', and his belief that modern society forced humans to give up their independence, making everyday life corrupt and unfree. One of the central problems Rousseau confronted is best summed up in the first line of arguably his most important work, The Social Contract.

Rousseau thought that man was born weak and ignorant, but virtuous. It is only when man became sociable that they became wicked. (Cress, 80) Since civil society makes men corrupt, Rousseau advocated “general will”, more precisely the combined wills of each person, to decide public affairs. General will would become the sovereign and thus it would be impossible for its interests to conflict with the priorities of the citizens, since this would be doing harm to itself. Virtue came from the freedom of men to make decisions for the good of the

In order to determine what the law was in the Elizabethan Age for crime and punishment, you must research crime and punishment in that age, the laws and the acts. In the Elizabethan Age there were many different crimes. Each of those crimes had their own punishment or punishments. They were very strict about what they could and could not do in this age. If you have ever thought about planning a crime, you would have to really think about the punishment you would receive.

It is dangerous to be right in matters about which the established authorities are wrong.

Rousseau establishes the Social Contract (Compact) that will provide the solution for a protective community of free individuals, who submit their freedoms or duties to the betterment of the whole collective body. While the individual is still free to conduct his life in freedom, the same citizen has a requirement to conduct business and make decisions that will be what’s best for the body. If everyone in the body commits to the arrangements of the contract, then the general members will have no problems with compelling to the political structure (Rousseau pg. 11).

Locke and Rousseau present themselves as two very distinct thinkers. They both use similar terms, but conceptualize them differently to fulfill very different purposes. As such, one ought not be surprised that the two theorists do not understand liberty in the same way. Locke discusses liberty on an individual scale, with personal freedom being guaranteed by laws and institutions created in civil society. By comparison, Rousseau’s conception portrays liberty as an affair of the entire political community, and is best captured by the notion of self-rule. The distinctions, but also the similarities between Locke and Rousseau’s conceptions can be clarified by examining the role of liberty in each theorist’s proposed state of nature and

With this, all peoples are equal and completely free or, to put it more eloquently, “in giving himself to all, each person gives himself to no one” (Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Basic Political Writings. Hackett Pub. Co., 1987. p. 148). In this respect, Marx and Rousseau share common ground. They both believe that a community or state ruled by all needs to exist to ensure freedom for all. Marx and Rousseau agree that control that comes from above/without/utilizing force can never be rendered legitimate. Likewise to Rousseau, the core of Marx’s notion of freedom is epitomized in this phrase: “Liberty is, therefore, the right to do everything which does not harm others” (C., Tucker, Robert, and Engels, Friedrich. The Marx-Engels Reader, First Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. p. 40). The break between the two is most noticeable concerning Marx’s central idea that the procurement of the rights of production is the key to freedom. When human beings are estranged from their labor they are estranged from themselves, from each other, and, ultimately, made subjects because of it. Freedom necessarily means that human beings must have the right to produce freely as production is a natural extension of oneself. As we shall see, this problem is only exacerbated by civil society.

In contrast, Rousseau had a generally positive view on human nature though a rather negative view on modern society. He proposed that humans had once been solitary beings and had learned to be political. He believed that human nature was not fixed and was subject to changed. Likewise, he believed that man was good when in a state of nature, but was corrupted by society as shown in his quotation, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Also differentiating himself from other humanists, Rousseau taught that the sciences and the arts were not beneficial to man. Rousseau believed the general will must always be right and to obey the general will is to be free.

To better understand Rousseau’s thesis and social contract he proposed, we must first understand why Rousseau felt compelled to write and his main criticism of society during the 18th century. In sum, Rousseau argued that states (specifically France, though never explicitly stated) have not protected man’s right to freedom or equality. Rousseau began The Social Contract in dramatic fashion. He wrote, “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (1). This quote is still used today, and is a powerful description of Rousseau’s central issue with society. He believed that every man is “born” naturally free—he has full autonomy and can do what he chooses. However, Rousseau argued that man is bound to the injustices of society.

By joining civil society and becoming a part of the general will, man is enriching his actions with a morality and rationality that was previously lacking. As he states in Book I, Chapter VIII, “although in this state he deprives himself of several advantages given to him by nature, he gains such great ones…that changed him from a stupid, limited animal into an intelligent being and a man” (Rousseau 56). What man posses in nature is an unlimited physical freedom to pursue everything that tempts him, although this is viewed by Rousseau as almost an enslavement towards one’s own instincts. In a civil state man is benefited by “substituting justice for instinct in his behaviour and giving his actions the morality they previously lacked” (Rousseau 54). In acting in accordance with the general will man is granted the most important form of all freedoms, civil freedom.