19세기 영국 철학에 있어서의 국가와 개인

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how two points of view concerning the relationship between the state and the individual-laissez-fairism and etatism-interact with each other and with the forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century England to produce modern liberal democratic philosophy. This attempt is carried out by examining the problems faced by, and the philosophical synthesis forged by a succession of English social philosophers-John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Edmund Burke, }.S. Mill and finally T.H. Green. Locke sets the stage for the dialectics between the state and the individual by tracing the origin of political authority not to the divine rights but to the social compact amongst free and equal individuals endowed with natural rights to life, liberty and property. In order to circumvent the tendency toward a free for all due to inherent greed and partiality in men, individuals enter into a social compact to create a government with legislative and executive powers subject to the principle of majority rule. Here the tension between individualism and rejection of anarchism inherent in individualism which characterized English liberalism comes to surface. 'As a IS-century social philosophers concerned with abolition of absolutism, however, Locke gave clear philosophical priority to individual rights. He sought the philosophical fonndation for these rights in natural law. Such a view however was clearly in conflict with Locke's epistemology, according to which experience was the sole source of knowledge and truth. As the 18th century advanced, it was clear that Locke's individualism needed to be provided with a better philosophical foundation.