The Analyses Of The Liberty Thought Of Constant

Liberalism is the core spirit of ancient western civilization. Since the 18th century, especially after the French Revolution, the conflict between liberty and equality, freedom and democracy have become an increasing concern of scholars, the most prominent thinker is the French liberalist -- Benjamin Constant who have the persistent pursuit of freedom. Constant believed that the political fanaticism for political freedom had led to violations of individual freedom during the French Revolution, a new definition for the relationship between individual freedom and political freedom based on this background should be made.The first part of this article analyze the totalitarianism which have deep impact on liberty thought of Constant from his life background of Constant--the French Revolution and Napoleonic era. We can see that the loss of individual freedom during this period let constant insist on the views that "the individual freedom is of most importance"; the Napoleon's dictatorship is substantial source material for his criticism to the totalitarianism. On the other side, Constant's liberalism is influenced by two major trends of academic thinking. One is the Scottish Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers believe that" limited rationalism, a respect for individual freedom" which benefit Constant a lot at his early learning period ; during the mature period of his thinking , Lockerbie-style liberalism has a great influence on his liberty thought and his important thinking of the separation of power; Rousseau-style liberalism is the source of his criticism of Rousseau's theory" popular sovereignty ".The second part focus on the main idea of Constant 's liberty thought. First of all, it emphasized that the spirit of conquest and authoritarianism are two main disasters of modern civilization, so he called for the establishment of the government which guarantee individual freedom, and the establishment of political system which adapt to the spirit of modern commercial society. Through comparison with the history and analyses of the Napoleonic Empire, he claim that freedom spirit based on the modern society is the major idea of Europe, and the subjugation and dictatorship will inevitably lead to failure. The most important thought of Constant is "Two kinds of freedom ": the ancient freedom and modern freedom. Ancient freedom is a kind of political freedom, the modern freedom is a kind of individual freedom, the conflict between two kinds of freedom can't be ignored, he criticize the theory of Rousseau's "popular sovereignty ", for if the sovereignty is unrestricted, it will inevitably lead to the violations of individual freedom, so Constant put forward his own theory of "popular sovereignty". Finally, he held that institutional system is essential for reconciling the conflict between individual freedom and political freedom. On the one hand, he held that we should share public power through the representative system that is the realization of political freedom. On the other hand, he considered that civil rights should be the fundamental limitation of political power, and the government should control and balance power through the constitutional system in order to protect the individual rights of citizens from the abuse of public power, that is to realize the individual freedom. The last part of the article focus on the reflection of Constant's liberty thought based on history and reality . Overall, his liberty thought have far-reaching inspiration on the China's political system.