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Edmund Burke's Objections to Revolution

As a member of the House of Parliament, and heir to the traditions of English Common Law, Edmund Burke (1729-1793) may have seen the French Revolution as an alien and indifferent political force moving his times, disrupting what he knew to be a sure and comforting way of life. It is not odd that the language used in Reflections on the Revolution in France is full of pleas for sane behavior and references to English Parliamentary procedure, being connected to ancient and correct institutions. This paper shall illustrate Edmund Burke's objections to the French Revolution, and hence the limitations of all revolution that is not somehow linked with traditional rule (Beatty & Johnson, 1995).

Edmund Burke was not heartless about the situation of the French people. In fact, in Reflections he defines the point at which a change in government, not revolution, would be allowed:

The Speculative line of demarcation, where obedience might end, and resistance might begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single event, which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. (Burke, 1790. p. 133)

Speaking from his perspective, Burke was defending the social order that he was a part of. The reasoning used by the revolutionaries, the principals of enlightenment, ran contrary to Edmund Burkes' experience in founding and keeping a working government system.

In the first place the natural rights philosophy, an important idea in both the American and French Revolutions, assumed that individuals had unalienable rights. According to Burke's political philosophy individuals did not possess rights by nature, but rather had rights and obligations placed on them by long standing tradition and custom. Secondly, the French revolutionaries took reason as a basis for ordering their society, in...

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Edmund Burke's Objections to Revolution. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:33, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692215.html