Enlightenment: Liberalism and Rational Manner Essays

Enlightenment and the Founding of America
There are many people who have changed the United States; these are some philosophers that have impacted the United States Government in a good way. These people have been involved in wars or part of the Constitution. John Locke was an English philosopher who expressed the radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel. Locke believed rulers cannot legitimately do anything they want, because there are moral laws applying to everyone. Locke identified the basis of a legitimate government. According to Locke, a ruler gains authority through the consent of the governed.
Cesare Beccaria believed the duty of government is to protect the natural rights of the people. Those are that all individuals possess freewill, rational manner and manipulability. Beccaria, like all classical theorist, believe that all individuals have freewill and make choices on that freewill. His second theory was that rational manner means that all individuals rationally look out for their own personal satisfaction. This is key to the relationship between laws and crime. While individuals will rationally look for their best interest, and this might entail unusual acts and the law, which goal is to preserve the social contract, will try to stop deviant acts. This ends up with the individuals and the society rationally looking for satisfaction, and at times these interests clash. Beccaria’s third theory rest is manipulability; universally shared human motive of rational self-interest makes human action predictable, generalable and controllable. The job of the criminal justice system is to control all deviant acts that an individual with freewill and rational thought might do in the pursuit of personal pleasure. This is made easier by the fact that human actions are predictable and controllable. With the right punishment or threat the criminal justice system can control the free willed and rational human being. The problem the criminal

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Enlightenment: Liberalism and Rational Manner Essays

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