QUESTIONS ON ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
& Hunt, INVENTING HUMAN RIGHTS
(Homework 16)

(1) assignments appear in the syllabus on the day assigned, not the day due

(2) You must submit your written work by blackboard

(3) BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE (5% penalty if you do not).

All files should be saved on your computer as: your last name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the first two letters of your first name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the assignment number. So if a student named Saddam Hussein were to submit assignment number 15, the file name would be:

hussein_sa_16.doc

THIS IS ASSIGNMENT 16

 

Short Answer Questions on The Enlightenment and Human Rights

1) What were the two sources of thought that converged in the Declaration of the Rights of Man?

2) What distinguishes the vision of rights advocated by the French revolutionaries from previous expressions of rights?

3) For Rousseau, what was the proper basis for sovereignty (sov·er·eign·ty noun:political authority)? What was NOT a proper basis?

4) As the notion of rights began to spread before the Revolution, rights for which group received the most attention? Who had been persecuting the group?

5) Upon what basis or justification did most Enlightenment thinkers rely in arguing women should not have the same rights as men?

Short Answer Questions on Hunt, Inventing Human Rights

6) Why was "sameness" important for the Enligthenment vision of right?

7) Keeping in mind your reading byTignor from last class abour the nature of the Enligthenment thought, why might it have become (as Hunt writes) "increasingly difficult to simply reassert differences on the basis of tradition, custom, or history"?

8) What about the Enligthenment required biological explanations of difference? Be sure to use your own words so that I know (and you know) that you know what you are talking about. Might require 3 sentences to answer.

9) How did the BASIS for the hatred of blacks change in a way that became more "poisonous"? Again, be sure to use your own words so that I know (and you know) that you know what you are talking about.