Maximilien Robespierre
1758-1794 · French Enlightenment · Prominent
Robespierre was a French revolutionary who led the Jacobins. He took Rousseau's general will as literal instruction and fused it with an ideal of republican virtue: a selfless love of country should animate democratic government, and no private interest may outweigh the public one. In 1791 he stood in the French assembly and argued for abolishing the death penalty. By 1794 he was defending the Terror as virtue in action.
Signature
The position Robespierre is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Collectivism
- Highest Good
- Virtue
Positions on the 5 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (19 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (81 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly between Pacifism and Militarism (40 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
15 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Robespierre refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Deism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Direct Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Authority
- Collective Will
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?