Just as there are no limits to man’s knowledge, many [Enlightenment era]
thinkers held, so there are no limits to man’s moral improvement. If man is
not yet perfect, they held, he is at least perfectible. Just as there are
objective, natural laws in science, so there are objective, natural laws in
ethics; and man is capable of discovering such laws and of acting in accordance
with them. He is capable not only of developing his intellect, but also of
living by its guidance. (This, at least, was the Enlightenment’s ethical
program and promise.)
Whatever the vacillations or doubts of particular thinkers, the dominant trend
represented a new vision and estimate of man: man as a self-sufficient,
rational being and, therefore, as basically good, as potentially noble, as a
value.