Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
How Philosophy Shaped a Nation: The Enlightenment's Fingerprints on American Democracy
America's political philosophy emerged from a complex interplay of Enlightenment thought, with both radical and moderate strands shaping our founding documents and constitutional system.
• Multiple influences shaped American political thought—biblical Christianity, English common law, classical philosophy, and the Enlightenment
• The Enlightenment had two main strands influencing America: radical (emphasizing new ideas) and moderate (blending modern thought with tradition)
• Three key Enlightenment influences were John Locke, Montesquieu, and the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers
• The Declaration of Independence balances radical Enlightenment ideas (natural rights) with moderate elements (references to divinity and sacred honor)
• The Constitution reflects Montesquieu's moderate Enlightenment philosophy through separation of powers and complex institutional design
• America's constitutional system deliberately combines republican elements with democratic ones to create sustainable liberty
Understanding America's founding requires studying both the radical and moderate philosophical traditions that shaped our political system.
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School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
All right, welcome back everyone we are actually kind of ending our founding era, if you will, to get a little Taylor Swift, because she's been in the news quite a bit. So we're going to talk about how Enlightenment thinkers shaped the American political philosophy and we have again one of our key guests, dr Carice, back with us. Dr Carice, thank you so much. So again, the question today is how did the Enlightenment thinkers shape American political philosophy?
Speaker 1:Thank you, liz. Yet again, an important question. One way to think about America's political philosophy from the founding period, let's say the 1770s forward, is to be aware of multiple influences from traditions or schools of thought. America is a complicated story. Use whatever metaphor you want, you know, a mosaic or just think, more than one idea needing to blend and balance with others, and the Americans wanted to do this. So one thing to remember. And Alexis de Tocqueville, this great French jurist and scholar who comes to visit a half century after the founding in the 1830s, he says that America is a very religious, biblical Christian country. So we shouldn't forget that. We don't think of that as a philosophy or school of thought, but that's deeply shaping American thinking about politics and justice. And then we've talked about this in other episodes the common law tradition, the English mode of thinking about the law and courts and judges, and even, in a bigger sense, a constitution of government. The common law tradition that's an important influence. The colleges that are in America at the middle of the 18th century, so young men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, et cetera, and the name of the book goes on. You know they are studying classical and some medieval philosophy, a liberal arts education in the colleges. So those are all influences on the men who are debating ideas at the First Continental Congress, the Second Continental Congress, about the Declaration leading to the Declaration, then the framing of the Articles of Confederation, the framing of the Constitution, right. But now your question right, what about this mode of philosophy or thinking called the Enlightenment, this modern way of thinking? Yes, very important. So I'm trying to be very American in saying both and right, which is more important than the other? And my answer is yes, right. So it's a great ongoing debate among scholars which of these modes of thinking, sources of thinking, is most important. So the Enlightenment is important to understand Modern philosophers, let's say roughly from the late 17th century. I'm going to say John Locke is on the early side of the Enlightenment. Okay, not the earliest, but early side of the Enlightenment. Modern philosophers, on political and social thought, they eventually start to refer to themselves, or this is an idea, enlightenment, and these are Enlightenment philosophers, right? So very important.
Speaker 1:And now I'm going to make a second suggestion. There are two main strands to think about influencing the American founders, two strands of the Enlightenment. Scholars refer to them as the radical Enlightenment and the moderate Enlightenment. One way to think about this, not to confuse things too much, is think about the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. One revolution, the American Revolution, retains basically the common law, common law, constitutionalism, practices of self-government, institutions of self-government that the American economists are taking from Britain. A moderate revolution it's not radical to the Latin root there, it's to the root. It's not overthrowing everything and starting from fresh. The French Revolution starts moderate and goes radical. The more radical ideas of the Enlightenment dominate in the French Revolution. Radical and moderate is a way that scholars think about the Enlightenment philosophers. Which sort of flavor is this? What strand is it? And my way of defining the moderate Enlightenment and I'm not alone in this is this idea of blending the moderate Enlightenment philosophers.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pick Montesquieu as the most prominent modern Enlightenment philosopher, writing in the middle of the 18th century his big book the Spirit of Law, as we've talked about him before. He blends modern ideas, his awareness of other Enlightenment philosophers, including John Locke, with some classical and medieval Christian philosophy, greek and Roman, medieval Christian philosophy, greek and Roman and Christian philosophy blended in with modern ideas and blends in the common law, the branch of it, that's on the continent, so to speak, in Europe and France and in England. All that in a blend. That's the moderation part. Moderation meaning avoiding extremes by blending and balancing principles. Okay, all right. And then just one other point. I would say the three most important Enlightenment philosophers for the American founding or modes of Enlightenment thinking most important. I mentioned Locke already. John Locke, and we'll talk more about him. I mentioned Montesquieu, french philosopher, so we've got anke already John Locke, and we'll talk more about him. I mentioned Montesquieu, french philosopher, so we've got an English philosopher, john Locke, french philosopher, montesquieu. And now I'm going to mention a third, and it's more than one Enlightenment thinker, the Scottish Enlightenment. It's called Philosophers in Scotland. Probably the best known to our audience of listeners would be Adam Smith, who we think of as an economist. He's a professor of moral philosophy, economist, david Hume. And a third it's a group of them a common sense school of philosophy. Maybe the most famous one is Reed, and the phrase in the Declaration of Independence about self-evident truths comes from this school of common sense philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment. Those are three.
Speaker 1:Locke, I think, is more on the radical side. He's not as radical as, say, a figure like Spinoza or an earlier modern philosopher, locke has some pretty radical ideas. What do I mean by that? Emphasis on new ideas, new philosophy, new thinking. Think of the social contract. Right, that's an emphasis on the new making of a social order based on his new principles of individual natural rights. Right, it's not explicitly anti-tradition, it's not explicitly calling for a revolution against the English form of government, but it leans toward the radical side. Don't be simply trusting of traditional thought, of classical thought, of medieval Christian thought. Beware of this new power that philosophers have to think new thoughts about what is justice and what's required of justice. So there's a big argument for you that America's take our two most important documents, the Declaration and the Constitution, and thinking about the relationship between them, we need to be aware of these more moderate Enlightenment elements and the radical Enlightenment elements informing them. And then the story, of course, doesn't stop there. It goes on for 200 plus years afterward.
Speaker 2:So, dr Kreis, you and I have talked a lot about the Declaration of Independence. So, looking at that declaration, how do you see both the radical and the moderate strands of the Enlightenment philosophy within the document?
Speaker 1:Great and we've suggested to listeners always have your pocket constitution handy with your copy of the Declaration. So if you have your copy of the Declaration in front of you in a pocket constitution, it's only five or six pages or something like that. The bulk of the document is the English common law way of thinking about not just law in a narrow sense but larger ideas of a constitution, of free government and principles of law. I mean the separation of powers is embedded in there, in all those charges. So that's a sign of the moderate enlightenment. Because there are radical enlightenment dimensions, obviously, and those are now the most famous parts of the Declaration the phrase I was just mentioning, the second paragraph. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Well, that's Scottish enlightenment. But then the Lockean parts all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That secure these rights. Governments established and hey, you've got not just a right but a duty to revolt against the government. That you've proven over time, it's proven over time. It's not securing these rights, it's not abiding by these rights. So there's a radical, you know, enlightenment idea right at the beginning. But the bulk of the document shows the moderate enlightenment influence. We're going to mix traditional common law ideas going back hundreds of years with these new lock-in radical enlightenment ideas.
Speaker 1:And then two other points Right there at the beginning. The life, liberty and pursuit of happiness shows, I think, a moderate Enlightenment dimension, because it's not Locke's phrasing life, liberty, property as the three individual, and there are more than those rights. But among these three right, pursuit of happiness is a more classical idea. It's still used by Enlightenment philosophers but more emphatically used by the more moderate Enlightenment philosophers. This is the point of government for people, for a just form of government. Government is meant to just provide the security of the foundations for life beyond government. Pursuit of happiness in this part of sense, Okay.
Speaker 1:And then a final point the references to a divinity, and I'm going to say there are four references to vinnie and there's a four and four point five, okay. So there are four, literally four references endowed by the creator, capital. C is the first one, then three others laws of nature and nature's god, in the first paragraph, okay. And then two in the paragraph appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectory of our intentions, appealing to the protection of divine providence okay, 4.5 is the very last two words of the Declaration sacred honor. So there's the moderate enlightenment. You have references to divinity in an active way.
Speaker 1:This is not just some abstract, deist idea of we find laws of nature out there by reason. This is a God who cares, a person, a being who cares, and you could appeal to this God for the rectitude of our intentions and protection of divine providence. Right, and then to have the word honor in there is not a radical enlightenment idea. It's not a modern, radical, new, cutting-edge idea. It's an old idea, it's a classical idea. It's a medieval idea Monarchy, aristocracy and certain kinds of republic. To say it's a matter of sacred honor to stand for these principles right. We mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes. Those are material right. We mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes. Those are material right. But the lives are actually metaphysical because they're involved with sacred honor. There's complexity for you. If there's several ideas, we've got to figure out how to blend and balance them together. That's the moderate Enlightenment influence.
Speaker 2:So then, looking at the Constitution, how do you see Montesquieu's philosophy and the moderate strand of the Enlightenment philosophy becoming more predominant?
Speaker 1:So this blend of modern philosophy and law with the more classical and medieval ideas, yes, yes, the Constitution is most influenced by Montesquieu and I'll call him a protégé of Montesquieu's an English jurist named Blackstone, william Blackstone, who cites Montesquieu when Blackstone writes his four-volume work Commentaries on the Laws of England, on the laws of England. And we know, scholars know that if you think about all the references to Enlightenment or modern philosophers in the period from the 1770s to 1800, montesquieu's referred to more than any other single philosopher, from the period of the Declaration through to the Constitution, through the ratification of the Bill of Rights. And then these main principles of Montesquieu's view of a moderate he uses the phrase a moderate government that will protect people to be free and secure. It could be a constitutional monarchy, it could be a kind of republic he's not strict about that but his big principles are the big principles of our Constitution separation of powers and federalism, especially for federalism, for republics. And it's the three-part separation of powers legislative power and executive power. Now Locke has those in his philosophy. But then an independent judiciary, which Locke does not have in the second treatise of government. And then another thing that Locke doesn't have this principle of complexity and balancing and trying to avoid extremes.
Speaker 1:Montesquieu says the English will come up with a wise idea. You have a separate legislature and you split it in two. You have an upper house and a lower house, right? So in a way, with the modern Enlightenment, the more complicated the better. That's going a little too far. But they like this idea, with ideas and with institutions, to have complexity. And again, you know, tocqueville can see when he comes in rights and democracy in America in the 1830s, that the Americans have a complex constitutional form of government, federalism and separation of powers, and they have this complex moral, intellectual culture that's informing this and he refers to the title of the book is Democracy in America. But he really argues we are a constitutional republic with a democratic spirit to it.
Speaker 1:But we've talked about this before. America is a constitutional, democratic republic, right. That whole complex package and the complexity of our constitution, federalism and separation of powers is very Montesquieu and very moderate enlightenment. And here's Tocqueville, after the enlightenment, looking back and saying this is good, this is successful. He has some worries about it, but America being a republic with a democratic spirit, he really likes that, america having a strong constitutionalism. And here I should say this is coming from Montesquieu, it's accurate to call us a republic.
Speaker 1:We've talked about this because think of offices like the Senate, which is not directly elected by the people in the original version and has special powers right. The single executive president. The judges who aren't elected at all in special powers right, the single executive president. The judges who aren't elected at all in any way right, they're selected by the non-elected Senate and the non-elected, non-democratically elected Senate, non-democratic president, right. So Tocqueville looks at this after 50 years as this good idea to have these Republican, high Republican offices blended with a more Democratic office institution like the House, blended with the state governments which are more small-D, democratic government, close to the people, and all of that blend, that complex constitutionalism. Tocqueville likes it. That's going to get you a better guarantee of sustainable government that provides for liberty with enough order, provides for a principle of equality, but with still some order and room for expertise and rational argument. So that's the moderate enlightenment showing up in the Constitution and our complex constitutional order.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is enlightenment thinkers did shape the American political philosophy in many different ways. Like it's not as linear as we would like it to be. I mean it's complicated, but there are so many both radical and moderate strands of those Enlightenment philosophies and thinkers within the Declaration and the Constitution.
Speaker 1:That's right. And a background thought here to close. If you are disposed to be proud of, happy with grateful for, the American founding and its principles in our constitutionalism, great. If you're disposed to be critical, it's flawed, it's fraudulent, fine Either way. In this sense, either way, you've got thinking to do, because we know that there were these complicated ways of putting together different influences of thought and there's a very serious philosophy, classical and medieval and modern, being read, and so, whether you like it or you don't like it, the American founding and our Constitution, either way, you have some studying to do.
Speaker 2:Dr Preece, as always. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
