[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"archetype-name-map":3,"thinker-claude-adrien-helvetius":100,"$fjikmYCOgYJ9g1ckOaA1h57urdYZBEgxeKLSHO6Yn3JI":297},[4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61,64,67,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97],{"slug":5,"name":6},"anarcho-capitalist","Anarcho-Capitalist",{"slug":8,"name":9},"establishment-progressive","Establishment Progressive",{"slug":11,"name":12},"progressive-activist","Progressive Activist",{"slug":14,"name":15},"techno-progressive","Techno-Progressive",{"slug":17,"name":18},"patriotic-progressive","Patriotic Progressive",{"slug":20,"name":21},"conservative-democrat","Conservative Democrat",{"slug":23,"name":24},"moderate-conservative","Moderate Conservative",{"slug":26,"name":27},"reform-conservative","Reform Conservative",{"slug":29,"name":30},"religious-conservative","Religious Conservative",{"slug":32,"name":33},"traditionalist","Traditionalist",{"slug":35,"name":36},"national-populist","National Populist",{"slug":38,"name":39},"left-nationalist","Left Nationalist",{"slug":41,"name":42},"moderate-liberal","Moderate Liberal",{"slug":44,"name":45},"pragmatic-centrist","Pragmatic Centrist",{"slug":47,"name":48},"authoritarian-left","Authoritarian Left",{"slug":50,"name":51},"authoritarian-right","Authoritarian Right",{"slug":53,"name":54},"welfare-nationalist","Welfare Nationalist",{"slug":56,"name":57},"democratic-socialist","Democratic Socialist",{"slug":59,"name":60},"christian-socialist","Christian Socialist",{"slug":62,"name":63},"market-socialist","Market Socialist",{"slug":65,"name":66},"trad-socialist","Trad Socialist",{"slug":68,"name":69},"civil-libertarian","Civil Libertarian",{"slug":71,"name":72},"compassionate-libertarian","Compassionate Libertarian",{"slug":74,"name":75},"left-libertarian","Left Libertarian",{"slug":77,"name":78},"traditional-libertarian","Traditional Libertarian",{"slug":80,"name":81},"classical-liberal","Classical Liberal",{"slug":83,"name":84},"social-liberal","Social Liberal",{"slug":86,"name":87},"national-conservative","National Conservative",{"slug":89,"name":90},"neoconservative","Neoconservative",{"slug":92,"name":93},"techno-authoritarian","Techno-Authoritarian",{"slug":95,"name":96},"market-liberal","Market Liberal",{"slug":98,"name":99},"independent-thinker","Independent Thinker",{"thinker":101,"archetypes":113,"traditions":114,"traditionLinks":134,"homeOut":135,"homeIn":149,"works":175,"homeTradition":117,"siblings":188},{"id":102,"slug":103,"name":104,"one_line":105,"bio":106,"birth_year":107,"death_year":108,"nationality":109,"primary_role":110,"era":111,"portrait_url":112,"figure_class":112},1187,"claude-adrien-helvetius","Claude Adrien Helvétius","The tax farmer turned philosopher who argued that all men are born equal in capacity, that education makes the difference, and that legislation should engineer interest into virtue.","Claude Adrien Helvétius made a fortune as a farmer-general of taxes, retired at thirty-six, and published De l'Esprit in 1758. The book was condemned by the Sorbonne, the Parlement of Paris and the pope, burned publicly, and forced its author into two humiliating retractions. The scandal was so large that it brought down the censor and led directly to the suspension of the Encyclopédie.\n\nIts argument starts from sensationalism. If all ideas come from sensation, as Locke had said, then all men who are not physically defective begin with the same faculties, and the enormous differences between them must be produced by circumstance: education, chance, the accidents of what one is exposed to and rewarded for. Genius is not innate. L'esprit is the product of conditions, and the differences between a peasant and a philosopher are differences of education rather than of nature.\n\nThe second premise is that self-interest governs everything, including apparent altruism, and is not to be deplored but used. If men necessarily pursue their own pleasure, then virtue cannot be produced by exhortation; it can only be produced by arranging institutions so that the interest of the individual coincides with the interest of the public. Good legislation is therefore the whole of moral science, and the legislator's art is to attach pleasure to what is socially useful and pain to what is not.\n\nPut together, these give a programme: since character is made by circumstance and circumstance can be designed, there is no limit in principle to what education and law can do. Helvétius held that a well-constructed system of laws could make a people virtuous, and that existing vice is evidence of bad legislation rather than of fallen nature.\n\nBentham is explicit about the debt. He said that Helvétius taught him that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the object of legislation, and that what Bacon was to the physical world Helvétius was to the moral. Through Bentham the argument reaches James Mill, who applied it to education with severity, and John Stuart Mill, who was the experiment. Diderot wrote a detailed refutation, objecting that organisation does differ between individuals; Rousseau, characteristically, could not bear the book at all.",1715,1771,"French","philosopher","Enlightenment",null,[],[115,122,128],{"is_primary":116,"traditions":117},false,{"id":118,"name":119,"slug":120,"short_description":121},44,"Enlightenment Philosophy","enlightenment-philosophy","The 18th century intellectual movement committed to reason, individual rights, equality, and the critical examination of inherited authority.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":123},{"id":124,"name":125,"slug":126,"short_description":127},38,"Materialism","materialism","The philosophical view that everything that exists is ultimately physical matter in motion, with no separate spiritual or immaterial realm.",{"is_primary":116,"traditions":129},{"id":130,"name":131,"slug":132,"short_description":133},2,"Utilitarianism","utilitarianism","The ethical view that actions should be evaluated by their consequences for overall human happiness.",[],[136,141,145],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":138},"descends_from",{"name":139,"slug":140},"Rationalism","rationalism",{"relation_type":137,"traditions":142},{"name":143,"slug":144},"Empiricism","empiricism",{"relation_type":137,"traditions":146},{"name":147,"slug":148},"Skepticism","skepticism",[150,154,158,163,167,171],{"relation_type":137,"traditions":151},{"name":152,"slug":153},"Deontological Ethics","deontological-ethics",{"relation_type":137,"traditions":155},{"name":156,"slug":157},"German Idealism","german-idealism",{"relation_type":159,"traditions":160},"reacts_against",{"name":161,"slug":162},"Conservatism","conservatism",{"relation_type":159,"traditions":164},{"name":165,"slug":166},"Romantic Political Thought","romantic-political-thought",{"relation_type":159,"traditions":168},{"name":169,"slug":170},"Critique of Modernity","critique-of-modernity",{"relation_type":159,"traditions":172},{"name":173,"slug":174},"Political Theology","political-theology",[176,183],{"title":177,"year":178,"year_display":179,"description":180,"kind":181,"sort_order":182},"De l'Esprit",1758,"1758","All men begin with the same faculties and are made by circumstance; good legislation is the whole of moral science. Condemned and burned, and it brought down the Encyclopédie's licence.","work",1,{"title":184,"year":185,"year_display":186,"description":187,"kind":181,"sort_order":130},"De l'Homme",1773,"published 1773","The posthumous restatement, pressing the claim that education can do anything and that existing vice is evidence of bad law rather than fallen nature.",[189,193,197,201,205,209,213,216,220,224,228,232,233,237,241,245,249,253,256,260,264,268,272,275,279,283,286,290,294],{"name":190,"slug":191,"birth_year":192},"Hugo Grotius","hugo-grotius",1583,{"name":194,"slug":195,"birth_year":196},"René Descartes","rene-descartes",1596,{"name":198,"slug":199,"birth_year":200},"Baruch Spinoza","baruch-spinoza",1632,{"name":202,"slug":203,"birth_year":204},"Christian Wolff","christian-wolff",1679,{"name":206,"slug":207,"birth_year":208},"Charles de Montesquieu","charles-de-montesquieu",1689,{"name":210,"slug":211,"birth_year":212},"Voltaire","voltaire",1694,{"name":214,"slug":215,"birth_year":212},"François Quesnay","francois-quesnay",{"name":217,"slug":218,"birth_year":219},"Benjamin Franklin","benjamin-franklin",1706,{"name":221,"slug":222,"birth_year":223},"Julien Offray de La Mettrie","julien-offray-de-la-mettrie",1709,{"name":225,"slug":226,"birth_year":227},"Frederick the Great","frederick-the-great",1712,{"name":229,"slug":230,"birth_year":231},"Denis Diderot","denis-diderot",1713,{"name":104,"slug":103,"birth_year":107},{"name":234,"slug":235,"birth_year":236},"Jean le Rond d'Alembert","jean-le-rond-dalembert",1717,{"name":238,"slug":239,"birth_year":240},"Baron d'Holbach","baron-dholbach",1723,{"name":242,"slug":243,"birth_year":244},"Immanuel Kant","immanuel-kant",1724,{"name":246,"slug":247,"birth_year":248},"Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot","anne-robert-jacques-turgot",1727,{"name":250,"slug":251,"birth_year":252},"Catherine the Great","catherine-the-great",1729,{"name":254,"slug":255,"birth_year":252},"Gotthold Ephraim Lessing","gotthold-ephraim-lessing",{"name":257,"slug":258,"birth_year":259},"John Adams","john-adams",1735,{"name":261,"slug":262,"birth_year":263},"Thomas Paine","thomas-paine",1737,{"name":265,"slug":266,"birth_year":267},"Cesare Beccaria","cesare-beccaria",1738,{"name":269,"slug":270,"birth_year":271},"Marquis de Condorcet","marquis-de-condorcet",1743,{"name":273,"slug":274,"birth_year":271},"Thomas Jefferson","thomas-jefferson",{"name":276,"slug":277,"birth_year":278},"James Madison","james-madison",1751,{"name":280,"slug":281,"birth_year":282},"William Godwin","william-godwin",1756,{"name":284,"slug":285,"birth_year":178},"Maximilien Robespierre","maximilien-robespierre",{"name":287,"slug":288,"birth_year":289},"Mary Wollstonecraft","mary-wollstonecraft",1759,{"name":291,"slug":292,"birth_year":293},"Steven Pinker","steven-pinker",1954,{"name":295,"slug":296,"birth_year":112},"Carl Sagan","carl-sagan",{"cards":298,"influenced":305,"shapedBy":310,"outbound":182},[299],{"slug":300,"name":301,"type":302,"strength":303,"description":304},"john-locke","John Locke","influenced","foundational","If all ideas come from sensation then all men begin alike, and the differences between them are made by education and circumstance rather than by nature.",[306,307],{"slug":230,"name":229},{"slug":308,"name":309},"jeremy-bentham","Jeremy Bentham",[]]