SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Egotism, Moral Panic, Age Of Enlightenment
28 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
It was believed that criminal behaviour was caused by evil : this was strongly based on the power of religion at the time. Could range from evil spirits to an evil force to being possessed by the devil. Intellectual movement that occurred in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Established basic civil liberties (like judicial rights, protection from illegitimate imprisonment, and basic land rights: prevented the king from having absolute power, doing whatever he wanted. Foundation of modern english law, and continues to be the foundation of law in all. British colonies: foundation of the canadian legal system. In the natural state, humans" lives are nasty, brutish, and short . Egoism is the cause of all self conflict. Without a state (the state of nature), society would be unbearably violent. Challenged conventional wisdom of the time by arguing that people are born blank slates : we were not born with a preconceived idea of who we are.
