Pratique du Shadowing: Law and Justice - Stoics and Epicureans in the Enlightenment - 19.3 The Scottish Enlightenment - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube
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The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that has its roots in the second half of the 17th century,
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The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that has its roots in the second half of the 17th century,
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especially in the thought of Thomas Hobbes,
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John Locke, and Isaac Newton,
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and that would stretch across the 18th century.
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A European-wide phenomenon that would include thinkers in Britain, France, Germany, and beyond.
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The age of reason, the age when thinkers would use their own minds to their fullest abilities,
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free of prejudice and superstition in the pursuit of truth.
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The Age of Enlightenment also saw the revival of interest in the Stoics
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and the Epicureans and their rival accounts of what the meaning of happiness was.
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This debate was stirred by the thought of Hobbes and Locke
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and it was particularly provoked by the work of Bernard Mandeville and his challenge to the idea of virtue,
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and it would rage across the 18th century.
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In our study of law and justice,
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we can look at two of the extreme poles of the Enlightenment,
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one deeply indebted to Stoicism,
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the other deeply indebted to Epicureanism,
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that would draw from and in many ways transform these ancient traditions of thought about the nature of human happiness,
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the purpose of life.
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And in this lesson we turn to the Scottish Enlightenment,
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the Enlightenment as it unravels in Scotland.
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Scotland was to be one of the primary centers,
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one of the most extraordinary centers of the Enlightenment,
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giving rise to figures like Adam Smith and David Hume.
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But the fountain of the Scottish Enlightenment.
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The first great figure of the Scottish Enlightenment was in fact from Ireland,
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a man named Francis Hutcheson.
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Hutcheson's thought is crucial for the development of 18th century thinking,
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especially about the nature of justice.
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Hutcheson's thinking would have tremendous influence on the Scottish thinkers after him and indeed would deeply influence 18th century America.
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Hutchison is indebted to the Stoic tradition.
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He reads the ancient Stoics.
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In fact, he was a translator of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations,
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the extraordinary diary kept by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius,
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which is one of the great texts of Stoicism.
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The epigraphs to Hutcheson's works,
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like his fundamentally significant work of 1725,
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An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue,
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carries an epigram that is a quote from Cicero.
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And Hutcheson belongs to the tradition that says that happiness is virtue.
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Hutchison's philosophy is an effort to defend the view that happiness is somehow fundamentally moral,
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that happiness is grounded in virtue,
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that happiness isn't simply pleasure simply pleasure.
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Now the possibility that happiness was no more than physical pleasure
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is deeply indebted to Thomas Hobbes and his view of humankind as a desirous creature that cannot be satiated.
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It's deeply indebted to the scientific vision of Isaac Newton,
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classical mechanics that says that things in nature don't have a natural telos.
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So Hutchison's effort to resurrect the idea that happiness is virtue must do
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so in a world that is very different from that of the ancient Stoics.
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It must do it in a world that has seen Hobbes and Locke and Newton.
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And his 1725 inquiry is his most important attempt to do so.
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Hutchison attempt to do so.
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Hutchison wants to say that happiness is virtue,
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and in doing so he offers an extraordinary vision of what the human being is.
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Now, Hutchison builds on Locke.
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Although the whole work is an effort to respond to a problem that comes out of Locke's philosophy,
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it is nevertheless through and through indebted to Locke's view of humanity,
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especially in his essay concerning human understanding,
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his empirical account of human knowledge as the result of the sum of our sensory perceptions.
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In the essay concerning human understanding,
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Locke says that humans have five senses.
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Hutchison wants to argue that virtue is real that virtue is natural.
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And so to do so he creates in fact a sixth and a seventh sense.
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And that's one way to think in shorthand about how Hutchison would defend the idea
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that virtue is a genuine kind of benevolence,
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not a kind of self-interest in disguise.
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And Hutchison is writing explicitly against Mandeville because he realizes
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that those who would argue that virtue is nothing but a form of self-interest in disguise that include Hobbes and Locke
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and more cynically, Mandeville, Hutcheson realizes that this is a profound problem
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and he wants to find a way of making virtue something more than just self-interest.
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And so to do so he invents a sixth and a seventh sense.
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The sixth sense is a perception of beauty.
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And he wants to say that we have some kind of faculty within us that perceives beauty,
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that is somehow innately part of our individual architecture as a human being
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and that leads us to appreciate beauty for its own sake.
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Even more important for a philosophy of justice is his seventh sense,
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what he would famously call the moral sense.
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And the idea of a moral sense would be fundamental to one strand of the Enlightenment
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that runs through the rest of the Scottish thinkers that is very important for thinkers like Thomas Jefferson.
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The idea of a moral sense.
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Hutchison thinks that human beings have a kind of natural morality that is in fact part of our makeup to be moral.
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And it's be moral.
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And it's different from Aristotle's idea that we are naturally moral.
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For Hutchison, it is a moral sense.
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And one of the remarkable features of Hutchison's 1725 inquiry is the way that he thinks about stories,
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about the power of narrative for human beings,
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and in and in a few ways.
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He says first think about the fact that human beings deeply care about stories.
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So he says imagine the Iliad,
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imagine any story, imagine Superman.
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We care, we get engaged.
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There's something natural, there's something innate about our ability to engage with stories.
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Now, why this works for Hutcheson,
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why this is so powerful,
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is because stories, fictional ones especially,
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don't have any impact on our material well-being.
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So when you go to a movie and you watch Superman,
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which this hadn't been invented in 18th century Scotland,
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but Hutcheson would like the example,
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everybody in the theater, who do they root for.
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They root for Superman.
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You don't root for Lex Luthor unless you're a sociopath.
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You root for the good guy.
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Why do you root for the good guy?
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Hutchison asks.
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Is it because of self-interest?
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Is it some kind of disguised self-interest?
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Is it somehow really out of your own self-love?
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Are you somehow benefiting from rooting for the good guys?
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No. That is your moral sense.
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He considers this a kind of true benevolence.
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It is a kind of love for the well-being of others.
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And in this he's deeply embedded to Christian thought as well.
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Jesus said, love your neighbor.
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And for Hutchison that is a deep idea,
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not just an emotion that I feel love,
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that I feel pleasure, but that I actually will for the well-being for the well-being of other human beings.
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That's what causes you to root for the good guy in a story, your moral sense.
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And he says look at children from the time they're tiny.
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They love stories.
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And you can sit down with a two-year-old,
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a three-year-old, and they can begin to perceive that there are good characters and eventually bad characters there's something natural,
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simply native, that makes them root for the good guys.
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That is the moral sense.
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And Hutchison argues that happiness isn't simply pleasure,
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that happiness isn't simply the sum of a kind of positive physical sensation.
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Happiness also includes the senses that we get from moral well-being or reactions to beauty.
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And so Hutchison begins to differentiate between different kinds of good,
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a kind of utility, self-interest,
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but also a kind of benevolence that activates our moral sense,
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or a kind of beauty that activates our aesthetic sensibilities.
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And for Hutchison, happiness is virtue,
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because happiness is a kind of deep,
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rich happiness that calls upon our moral sensibilities.
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Again, turning to narratives, he sees that happiness is a kind of life that requires a kind of achievement.
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And so Hutchison's philosophy would defend the idea that there is a virtue,
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there is a morality in and of itself that can be cultivated in human beings.
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And Hutchison's political thought is equally built on Locke's view of government.
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He believes that governments are created in a social contract to protect individual rights like life,
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liberty, and
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property and that the purpose of the state is the protection of these and that it's a fundamentally moral kind of purpose.
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Hutchison in his inquiry offers a statement that would offers a statement that would have a tremendous afterlife.
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He's the first person to articulate a formula.
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He says that act is moral which promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
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And as we'll see in future lessons,
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that slogan would be the core of a utilitarian outlook.
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But for Hutcheson, at the beginnings of the Scottish Enlightenment,
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his view of what happiness is isn't simply a kind of sum of pleasures.
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It is instead deeply rooted to a view of humanity as a kind of naturally moral creature.
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This video provides an excellent opportunity to learn English with YouTube while exploring the fascinating topic of the Scottish Enlightenment and philosophical debates surrounding law and justice. By engaging with the content, you'll enhance your speaking skills in a meaningful context that combines historical analysis and moral philosophy. Discussing complex themes like virtue and happiness offers a chance to practice articulating your thoughts clearly and confidently.
By using a shadowing app, you can mimic the speaker's intonation and rhythm, facilitating retention and providing a robust framework for expressing complex ideas in English. This practice promotes not only vocabulary acquisition but also the ability to form nuanced arguments, which is essential for advanced English proficiency.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
- Use of the subjunctive mood: The video frequently uses phrases such as "would have tremendous influence" and "must do so," illustrating how the subjunctive mood describes hypothetical or contrary-to-fact situations. Practicing these constructions will help you sound more sophisticated in discussions.
- Complex sentence structures: Sentences like "Hutcheson's thinking would have tremendous influence on the Scottish thinkers after him" exemplify advanced structuring, which can be imitated through shadowspeak. This will help you convey intricate ideas effectively.
- Conditional statements: Phrases like "if Hutcheson is correct, then..." guide listeners through logical progressions, which is a vital skill for persuasive speaking. Mastering this will enable you to present arguments with greater clarity in your discussions.
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While exploring the video, you may encounter some tricky words and phrases that could pose challenges. Words such as "Hutcheson," "Cicero," and "benevolence" require careful pronunciation to ensure clarity. Additionally, the speaker's native accent may introduce pronunciation nuances that are essential for effective comprehension. Practice these troubling pronunciations using the shadowing technique, emphasizing the rhythm and stress patterns from the speaker.
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