Question

A French philosopher that believed in the goodness of human nature. He was a champion of freedom and once wrote that “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” and He agreed with many thinkers of the Enlightenment in celebrating liberty and condemning tyranny. Unlike most Enlightenment thinkers he did not embrace reason because he felt that it made them cold and unsympathetic to others. He felt that we should follow our emotions rather than reason to solve human problems. He also stressed the importance of following nature. His ideas about the goodness of nature and the evil of society became the central assumption of Romanticism. Answer Options 1. Mary Shelley 2.Jean-Jacques Rousseau 4. George Gordon Byron 5.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Answer 1

The correct answer is: "Rousseau"

The Enlighment movement emerged in Europe and was constituted by philosophers that promoted freedom and reason over medieval superstition and religious dogmas, and the establishment of democratic societies where the power resided on its people, and not in absolute monarchs or tyrant rulers "appointed by God". The resulting states that emerged based on the principles of this movement, enacted bills of civil rights for the first time in history, and implemented principles such as the division of powers or the social contract, through which citizens elected their governors by suffrage.

The principle of the social contract was developed by Rousseau. He promoted democratic freedoms and rights for citizens in opposition to tyrant monarchs that occupied most goverments at the time. But he did not support the predominance of reason. Instead he prefered to enhance decision making methods that included feelings and emotions, and not only scientific laws.