The philosophes led the way to revolutionizing ideas that fueled the advancement to the French Enlightenment era, with a focus on criticisms of the Ancien Régime, religion, forms of government, etc. From Diderot, Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Jacques-Andre Naigeon (Llewellyn et al). Jean Jacques Rousseau is not the only enlightenment philosopher, or philosophe to contribute to the critique of other philosophers regarding the inherent nature of people. Of these philosophes, the one whose ideas I will delve deeper into is that of Montesquieu regarding their stances on natural law and the role of government has in a society of people.
Aside from having their works on a banned list of prohibited books despite its popularity, both Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau came to the same conclusion that they went against the premise of other 17th century philosophers regarding the law of nature and how humans acted. Living in the same era, it goes without saying that there was bound to be overlap of ideas and thoughts among these two philosophers. Having anonymously published his De l’Esprit des Lois in 1748, the discussion regarding the role of government in people helped set the stage in determining the optimal state of government for society (Bok). This was from the stance of the government that does the most good. He also dabbles a little with this idea from a stance of religion; protestantism being better apt for a society which would yield with the most good, not about the truth or consistencies of the branch of such Abrahamic religion. Regardless of stances in religion, both seem to reach to the conclusion that laws have a role shaping or maintaining the good of society.
Differences: Jean Jacques Rousseau and his stance regarding the innate nature of people has always been that people are not evil, rather it is society that corrupts the good nature of man and therefore needs laws that help society by giving up natural rights to do whatever the heart desires in exchange for lawful rights that protect members in a society, allowing for the stage to be set for equality (Bok). This is much different than that of Montesquieu because he goes in the direction of government types that are more optimal for society regarding the outcome of the greater good. Montesquieu compares government types: democratic, monarchs and despotic states. Describing the three governments, and giving some background, he then turns to describe what is the ideal criteria of government, mainly being the ability for the government to have checks and balances since giving all citizens power is bound to lead to corruption (Bok). This is clearly different from what Rousseau has to say in his Second Discourse because with Montesquieu imploring governments to have checks and balances, can be interpreted as power from society having a negative effect on the nature of man. This opposes Rousseau because Rousseau implores that laws and the installation of government can only supplement the good of human nature when there is an implication of a social contract in favor of laws.
With diverging thoughts but similar pathways, these two philosophes helped move the conversation, or at least start it up to fuel the French Revolution and getting away from monarchies and transitioning into a state of government with laws to ensure equality for its citizens, courtesy of Maximillian Robespierre and friends. Montesquieu walked so Rousseau could run.
(New) Work cited
Bok, Hilary, “Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/montesquieu/>