Reason What Is the Raison D'etat ( Essay

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What is the raison d'etat ( reason for the existence of the state)? Compare and contrast the views presented by theorists on the purpose, role, and existence of governments: Jean Bodin, Jacques Bossuet, James II, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. Discuss how political views reflected evolving views on human nature, humanity's place, and the Glorious Revolution.

The concept of human liberty and the purpose of the state in Western Civilization have evolved over time. Jean Bodin, the French philosopher and jurist, was one of the first philosophers to advance the idea that as well as the loyalty the populace owed to the sovereign, the sovereign likewise had an obligation to educate the population in kind. Bodin wrote in his Six Books of the Commonwealth (Republique): "those who have written on the duties of magistrates and other similar books are wrong to support the idea that the Estates of the People [Estates General] are more important than the prince. Such ideas make obedient subjects revolt when they should obey their sovereign prince […] These notions are absurd (absurdes) and incompatible (incompatibles) (translated by Tuchetti 2010). Bodin opposed the idea that armed revolt was justified, although he did state that resistance was acceptable when the people were faced with an unjust authority, and his language in Six Books suggests that resistance to the sovereign is based upon the fault of the prince.

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This moderate view stands in stark contrast to Jacques Bossuet's philosophy and its advocacy of the divine right of kings. To resist the sovereign was to resist God as well as the ruler, according to Bossuet. The reason for the state's existence was to mirror the relationship between God and humanity in the earthly relationship between the king and humanity.

Not all advocates of strong monarchical authority were advocates of divine right, however. Thomas Hobbes took a very practical and deflationary view of religion. Hobbes denied that human beings had free will, for example, which was an important part of religious orthodoxy at the time. He believed that reason for the existence of the state was to promote social order. Life in the absence of state control, would be nasty, brutish and short. Even if monarchs might be tyrants, their reign was better than the alternative, which would be chaos (Duncan 2009).

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