18th Century Enlightenment

The 18th century Enlightenment period was undeniably a historical viewpoint that advocated for greater decency in society. During its beginnings, many intellectuals referred as the “philosophes” emerged in France, and used the ideas of the Scientific Revolution to reconsider all aspects of society. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined the Enlightenment as “a man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity” (What Is Enlightenment?). Kant even proclaimed as the maxim of the Enlightenment: “Dare to Know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!” For most philosophes, the concept of the Enlightenment, meant freeing oneself from old notions and pointless traditions, which were often seen in organized religion at that time, particularly Christianity.
By the 18th century, especially in England, torture remained exclusive in obtaining evidence before a trial. Lower-class criminals were often the ones tortured. In addition, public executions were seen necessary to impose fear on anyone who wanted to commit a crime since the police forces were too weak to safeguard the capture of criminals. Disturbed by the state’s injustice and cruel punishments, Beccaria wrote an essay in 1764 titled On Crimes and Punishments, where he argues that punishments should not serve as exercises in barbarity: “Such punishments...ought to be chosen as will make the strongest and most lasting impression on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal.” Beccaria was also opposed to the use of capital punishment, which he acknowledged was dramatic, but it wasn’t effective enough in stopping people from committing crimes, however, imprisoning criminals made a far more lasting impact. He further argues that capital punishment was dangerous in that it could desensitized society to brutality: “Is it not absurd that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?” Consequently, by the end of the century, a growing awareness against public executions and torture led to a decline of cruel and unusual punishment. Instead,
Essentially, Rousseau was from Geneva, Switzerland but made his way to Paris, France where he was introduced into the Enlightenment movement. Withal, Rousseau had trouble with the way society and government cooperated, which convinced him to publish his first major political work in 1755 titled Discourse on the Origins of the Inequality of Mankind. In his work, Rousseau began with humans in their primitive “state of nature”, who he argues for, were innocent and did not necessarily need a government to regulate them. Yet, this state of nature was ruined by “the first man, who having enclosed a piece of ground, thought of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.” By stating this, Rousseau reveals his standpoint of humanity that they were essentially not selfish, but has now gone to adopting laws and governors to preserve their private property, since civilized humans could “no longer subsist on plants or acorns or live without laws or magistrates.”As a result, Rousseau views private property rights as slavery rather than individual liberty, yet he still upholds government as a “necessary evil”. But in 1762, we see Rousseau reconciling individual liberty with the government in his treatise The Social Contract. According to the treatise, the “social contract” was an agreement between an