Who Is Voltaire's Rejection Of Social Inequality?

Another instance in the novel where Voltaire shows his rejection of social inequality (slavery) was when they arrived to Surinam with Cacambo, his loyal friend, and found “a negro lying on the ground wearing only half his clothes…this poor man had no left leg and no right hand” (Voltaire 62). Learning about the conditions of the poor slave Candide questioned his belief in optimism, which is to have a positive outlook on the future despite the current conditions. He believed the Negro slave had no reason to have a positive outlook on life after the treatment by his master. “And he shed tears as he looked at his Negro” (Voltaire 63). Voltaire rejected the idea of slavery because he felt that is was completely wrong and inhumane. To treat someone
One of them was Denis Diderot, who said, “slavery is one business that violates religion, morality, natural laws and all the rights of the human nature” (Perry 82). He supported the natural right of life for every man, which condemns them from being sold or bought as property for acquisition by wealthy masters because they are not “objects of commerce” (Perry 82). Another philosopher was Montesquieu who “refuted all jurisdictions for slavery” (Perry 82) because he believed slavery was due to “human desire to dominate and exploit other human beings” (Perry 82). Marquis de Condorcet, another philosopher describes the act of enslaving men, a crime deserving of the death penalty. He advocated abolishing slavery and in his defense his argument was that abolishing slavery would not harm the society in any form whether economic, political, or social “because it would not result in any decrease in cultivation” (Perry 83). All these self-minded intellectual people criticized social inequality and through their works sought for equality for all regardless of physical factors that would advance society towards values of enlightenment that would benefit the people of society and human
Voltaire wrote the entire story with Candide having that mindset which was instilled within him by Pangloss who said, “we live in the best of all possible worlds” (Voltaire 16). Candide believed everything that was happening to the characters, killing, raping, enslaving, cutting, was for the best. This he believed not because he thought this was true, but because of his lack of ability to reason for himself, a problem of pre-enlightenment. He shows Candide as a character who develops the ability to reason for himself through his experiences. By the end “Candide abandons the philosophy of optimism, declaring we must cultivate our gardens” (Perry 85). By this Voltaire meant, “we can never achieve utopia, but neither should we descend to the level of brutes” (Perry 85). From this we can interpret that Voltaire wanted to make the world a better place for societies to establish. He realized that we can’t achieve the perfect society for citizens, but through hard work and pursuit of enlightenment values, we can reasonably develop a society that is better and more suitable than the state of