1. Cat Schmidt
History 102
The enlightenment,Pacific Islanders, and noble savages
1) Diderots idealization of the culture of the Pacific Islanders challenged traditional Christianity
because Christians believed that people are naturally bad due to the belief that all people are in
a state of original sin. Diderot believed savage people are naturally good and that civilizing them
would only make the bad.
2) A person who did not subscribe to the ideas of the enlightenment might have criticized Diderots
argument regarding the noble savage because they took the savages and tried to civilized them.
They used the savages so that the people who were already civilized could determine who they
were by observing who they were not.
A case of infanticide in the age of enlightenment
1)If I were the prosecutor for Marie-Jeanne Barronnet I would have badgered her about how
she didn’t know that she had just had her baby. Like how could you have not felt a living
breathing human being come out of her body? If I was her defendant I would have brought up
the point that she was only seven months along and her labor was short she was probably in
shock.
2)Beccaria recommended that punishments be determined strictly in accordance with the social
damage committed by the crime .Beccaria would have probably been pretty upset by Marie-
Jeanne Barronnets sentenced. Sentenced to death is the original punishment. Marie-Jeanne
Barronnets punishment was so much more lax than death, she had to undergo a public

2. whipping, she was banished from the parliament of Paris, and her property was confiscated. Her
child didn’t get such a small consequence.