History of feminism Instruction, over-tops many grave Grown-Men," and considered her a prime example of what women could become through education. The Age of Enlightenment was characterized by secular intellectual reasoning and a flowering of philosophical writing. Many Enlightenment philosophers defended the rights of women, including Jeremy Bentham (1781), Marquis de Condorcet (1790), and Mary Wollstonecraft (1792). Other important writers of the time that expressed feminist views included Abigail Adams, Catharine Macaulay, and Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht. The English utilitarian and classical liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham said that it was the placing of women in a legally inferior position that made him choose the
Legal positivism it attempts to interpret the nature of reality beyond the physical and experiential. Thomas Hobbes and "Leviathan" Thomas Hobbes, in his seminal work "Leviathan", postulated the first clear notion of law based on the notion of sovereign power. As Hampton writes, "law is understood [by Hobbes] to depend on the sovereign's will. No matter what a law's content, no matter how unjust it seems, if it has been commanded by the sovereign, then and only then is it law.' There is, however, debate surrounding Hobbes's status as a legal positivist. Jeremy Bentham The English jurist and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, is