Political Theory of Absolutism
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Absolutism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a political theory suited to the absolutist monarchies which had been coming into existence since the Reformation. As a theory, perhaps best personified in the work of Hobbes, absolutism justifies the absolute and organic rule of all aspects of society through a monarchy. It is a doctrine of the absolute right of the ruler; in other words, the affirmation that the ruler is not bound by any kind of moral or legal limitation. Instead, the philosophy of absolutism rested heavily upon conceptions of natural law--an interpretation of right and wrong based on a belief in the absolute Truths inherent in nature. One of these absolute Truths of natural law would later become known as the ôdivine right of kings,ö a belief that the monarchy is the natural order of society and thus stands above all human conceptions of morality or law. In the four centuries preceding the Protestant Reformation, various natural law theories predominated, of which that of the thirteenth-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) eventually became the best known. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Thomist natural law theory was challenged by those who, like William of Ockham, believed in the priority of will over reason, both at the divine and human levels, as well as those who, like Marsilius of Padua, and later Machiavelli, believed in the quintessentially coercive character of all government and law. In the sixteenth century, Luthe
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t adopted by these states. In each of them, the monarchies had employed a version of natural law to justify their absolute authority over the church, the nobility, and every other major segment of society. The monarchies had become absolute in every sense of the word, with their authorities over society supported by the absolutist notions of natural law (Sommerville 249-255).
The distinguishing characteristic of these new nation-states was their relationship to law. The monarch was above positive law but subject to the law of nature. This law of nature was conceived as something fundamental and unalterable, even by God, on the acceptance of which all society depended. When the new legal movement reach maturity in Hobbes, the laws of nature were reduced to mere rules of expediency--with the far reaching consequence that conceptions of social relations and the state are not dependent on law but rather law is dependent upon the wishes of the state.
From this new conception of law all absolutism follows. If the natural law requires an a priori relation of obeying the state, then authority is the primary purpose of the state. Limitations to the authority of the state are unjustified, because any such limitation were run counter to
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1595
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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