Edmund Burke

Question 1

What party did Burke represent in Parliament?

Answer 1

Whig

Question 2

What revolution was Burke a firm supporter of?

Answer 2

American Revolution

Question 3

Who did Burke defend Irish tenants from?

Answer 3

Extortionate landlords

Question 4

Who and why did Burke demand the impeachment for?

Answer 4

Governor General Of Bengal (Warren Hastings) for alleged cruelty towards Hindustani’s

Question 5

What Idea from Adam Smith did Burke advocate for?

Answer 5

Free trade

Question 6

What is Burke’s role in the development of conservatism?

Answer 6

The father of conservatism

Question 7

What is Burke’s most famous work?

Answer 7

‘Reflections On The Revolution In France’ (1790)

Question 8

In his most famous work what tenets did Burke define?

Answer 8

Human imperfection, empiricism, organicism, tradition, aristocracy and localism

Question 9

What was Burke’s view on human imperfection?

Answer 9

Mankind’s fallibility and its tendency to fail more than succeed

Question 10

Why did Burke denounce the French Revolution

Answer 10

Because of the idealistic society the French Revolution represented, claiming it was based on a utopia and an unrealistic of human nature

Question 11

What did Burke want change to be based on?

Answer 11

Empiricism and tradition (the basis of fact and experience)

Question 12

What did Burke call what the French Revolution was basing its idea of its new society on?

Answer 12

‘philosophical abstractions’

Question 13

What was Burke and other contemporary conservatives main criticism of the French Revolution?

Answer 13

It was disregarding what was know for something unknown with no experience of this new song

Question 14

What did Burke compare society and government?

Answer 14

A plant and said its not a machine

Question 15

Why was Burke fearful of change?

Answer 15

Because it has to be cautious and organic because of the mysterious dynamism of society and government that Burke said count be controlled and would grow mysteriously like a plant

Question 16

What did Burke not like about the French Revolutions take on equality?

Answer 16

Burke asserted in his work, that a ruling class was inevitable and desirable

Question 17

What was Burke view on the role of the ruling class?

Answer 17

This class had a clear obligation to govern in the interest of all, for Burke it was the French aristocracy’s failure to do this that led to the revolution

Question 18

Why did Burke not like the French Revolutions highly centralised structure?

Answer 18

That a society in Burkes view should have ‘little platoons’ which would ‘acknowledge, nurture and prune… the crooked timber of humanity’