 17 th C, a Century of Genius  Consequences of the Scientific Revolution  -Changed the size of populations  -Changed the use of raw materials  -revolutionized production, transportation,war

Science before the 17th  DaVinci – dissected human body  Knowledge of anatomy  Drew designs for submarines, airplanes  A lot of his work remained unpublished – he was an artist

 Europe beginning to be very thoughtful – on the other hand a great deal of skepiticism  Think back to Descartes and Bacon

Scientific Revolution  Conception of the Cosmos – Ptolemy  Universe made up of spheres – crystals  All revolved around the earth  Nearest the earth was the sphere of the moon  Beyond the sphere of fixed stars lay Empryean  Home of angels and immortal spirits

Nicolas Copernicus   “Revolution on the Heavenly Orbs”  Argues that the sun is the center of the Universe  All could be solved through mathematics

 Johannes Kepler  Carried the Copernican theory one step farther  He discovered the orbit of the planets  Elliptical

Galileo   1609 – he built a telescope  Observed the moon and argued it was not an orb  Looked to have a mountainous surface

 He also argued that the moon reflected the sun, different phases of reflection  Not itself a luminous object  Made up of earth like substance – and maybe all of the planets  Gravity test – 10 lbs ball and 1 lbs ball from leaning tower of Pisa

Achievements of Newton  Universal Gravitation  -tides could be understood and predicted  Naval and merchant ships could operate with more assurance  1 st time, accurate idea of shape and size of all the continents

 Developed ideas and calculus  -curves and trajectories  Lead to efficiency in artillery  Consequence- made military budgets increase  Lead to increased taxes  Increased firearms led to increased efficiency in insurrections  Led to increased strength of state

 This gave Europe an advantage over other nations  Development of Steam Engines  Led to increased industrial and agricultural production

 Another consequence – Everything seemed possible to humans  -they all continued to believe in the existence of God – but dependency on Divine Powers began to disappear  Greatly secularized European Society  New School of Political Thought develop – School of Natural thought and the Enlightenment

Political Theory  Cannot be treated as science  Science deals with what does exist, political theory deals with what OUGHT to exist  We always deal with what ought to happen

Machiavelli  Original thinker to propose what ought to exist  He separated himself from the moral and theological philosophy, and dealt with politics  He described how rulers and governments ought to actually behave  We saw this – wearing masks

 He separated himself from moral philosophy, and took a scientific approach to politics

Natural Right and Natural Law  Focused on the question of what is right?  Natural law – in the structure of the world, there is a law that distinguishes right from wrong.  Right is natural, not a human invention  This right is not determined, for any country, by its heritage, traditions, or customs  Not determined either by actual laws (positive laws)

 Positive laws can potentially be unfair or unjust  We compare positive laws with what we know about natural laws  Ie, we know cannibalism is bad, and forcing orphaned children to work in mines is unjust

 Natural law is not determined by one person, a king cannot determine what is right or wrong  They are universal, the same for all

How do we discover natural law?  We discover it by reason  People argue that all people are rational  Idea of natural law and faith in human reason go hand in hand  Good example of this is international law, which argues that all countries should work together for a common good

Hobbes and Locke  Natural law has been used to justify both constitutionalism and absolutist governments  These forms of government were found to be a means to an end  How to best obtain natural laws  Hobbes – absolute monarch  Locke -Constitutionalism

Hobbes  Argued that human beings have no capacity for self government  View of human nature low  State of nature – quarrelsome and turbulent  “life in the state of nature was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”  From fear of each other, and to obtain order, people came to form a contract

 Individuals surrender their freedom of action into the hands of a ruler  This ruler must have unconditional and absolute power  This to maintain order

 No one can question the government, this would open the door for chaos again  Leviathan  Absolutism would produce civil peace, individual security, and the rule of law  This was the only way to achieve natural law

John Locke  Government develops because humans are rational  Government also based on a contract  Better view of human nature  In the state of nature, people were reasonable and well behaved  Willing to get along with eachother

 They also had a general idea of certain rights, life, liberty and property  Problem in the state of nature is people cannot protect all of their natural rights, specifically property  Set up government to protect this

 Contract not absolute – people must be reasonable, and the government cannot break the contract  You have the right to rebel against it

Influences  Hobbes – absolute monarchs in France  Locke – American and French Revolution  Slavery