WORLD HISTORY

HISTORY

ABSOLUTISM AND REVOLUTION

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
“People are sovereign and consent to government for protection of natural rights to life, liberty, and property.” Which Enlightenment thinker’s ideas about government are best summarized by the quote?
A
Thomas Hobbes
B
Voltaire
C
Montesquieu
D
John Locke
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -John Locke’s theory of natural rights consists of the rights to life, liberty, and property. Every human being has these rights in a state of nature, and they have to be preserved when people enter into a commonwealth.

Detailed explanation-2: -Locke thus stated one of the fundamental principles of political liberalism: that there can be no subjection to power without consent-though once political society has been founded, citizens are obligated to accept the decisions of a majority of their number.

Detailed explanation-3: -Enlightenment thinkers favored much more democratic forms of government in which the authority to rule stemmed from those who are ruled. Some of the most famous Enlightenment thinkers, including Locke and Rousseau, were social contract theorists.

Detailed explanation-4: -For Locke, the government must be a “neutral judge” of law with no right to interfere in the lives of the individual. The most radical idea to come from Locke’s pen was the idea of governmental legitimacy. Locke believed that a government should be beholden to the people rather than vice-versa.

Detailed explanation-5: -The English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704) laid much of the groundwork for the Enlightenment and made central contributions to the development of liberalism. Trained in medicine, he was a key advocate of the empirical approaches of the Scientific Revolution.

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