Suchergebnisse

The Enlightenment and the Declaration of Independence -- Declaring the laws of nature -- Self-evident truths -- Equality -- Equality and slavery -- The nature of rights -- Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- The consent of the governed -- Consent and the just powers of government -- Revolution -- Rebels with a cause -- Has America lost its American mind?

AbstractThis article examines the moral theory of the American Revolutionary and Founding periods by focusing on two key concepts of that doctrine: the moral laws and the moral rights of nature. In particular, the article will examine several important questions from the perspective of America's Revolutionary generation: What are the moral laws and rights of nature? What is the difference between a law and a right of nature, and how are the laws and rights of nature related to each other? Are nature's moral laws and rights descriptive, prescriptive, or both? What are the attributes and sanctions of nature's laws and rights, and how are they promulgated? What is the source of nature's laws and rights? And finally, how did America's founding fathers use the laws and rights of nature to establish their political institutions? In order to answer these questions, the article focuses on the core text universally recognized as the symbol of America's revolutionary mind and moral theory: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration's deepest philosophic meaning is herein illuminated by also examining the broader, extant literature of the period.

John Adams was unique among the Founding Fathers in that he actually read and took seriously Machiavelli's ideas. In his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States, Adams quoted extensively from Machiavelli and he openly acknowledged an intellectual debt to the Florentine statesman. Adams praised Machiavelli for having been "the first" to have "revived the ancient politics" and he insisted that the "world" was much indebted to Machiavelli for "the revival of reason in matters of government." What could Adams have meant by these extraordinary statements? The following article examines the Machiavellian ideas and principles Adams incorporated into his political thought as well as those that he rejected. Drawing upon evidence found in an unpublished fragment, Part one argues that the political epistemology that Adams employed in the Defence can be traced to Machiavelli's new modes and orders. Part two presents Adams's critique of Machiavelli's constitutionalism.