Modern European Philosophy: Week 5

This class was not as interesting as I had hoped because we spent most of the time listening to the Prof read out selections from Locke and Rousseau and then explain them. Unfortunately, a lot of this had already been explained to me in high school and even middle school, seeing as how Locke and Rousseau both had a huge influence on the US Constitution and the formation of our government, what with "Life, liberty and property" (later changed to "the pursuit of happiness") and checks and balances and all that.  I hate to say it, but I find the random "discussions" of weeks past to be greatly preferable to just having passages read out loud. There were, however, a few interesting and new tidbits brought to light.

• Locke included property in his unalienable rights because the concept was important to him. He believed that a person could only claim as his own things that were an extension of his person, which leads to the concept of labor and working for things. He believes that no one has the right to another's labor, which means, of course, that he was against slavery.

• Locke drew much inspiration from the classical philosophers, which brought up the topic of the fact that in Athens, the entire population acted as the legislative branch of the government. The professor put forth the idea that today's technology, with Twitter and other crowd-sourcing technologies, has made it so that we could have the "real" democracy of Athens and Rome. If people could somehow vote through technology, then more people would have their say, rather than just the 40% or whatever that happen to go to the polls.

• Rousseau was against individualism and private property. He thought that private property led to the need for government, which then inevitably led to war. His Social Contract puts forth that only laws that serve the people should be passed in the interest of the General Will. The term General Will is deceptive because it is not necessarily that which the people want, but instead it is what is best for the people, whether they know it or not.

Next week: more enlightenment.