Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy: Volume 29, Part 2

Download or read book Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy: Volume 29, Part 2 written by Ellen Frankel Paul and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1776, the American Declaration of Independence appealed to "the Laws of nature and of Nature's God" and affirmed "these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness . . . ." In 1935, John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia University, declared, "Natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology." These opposing pronouncements on natural rights represent two separate and antithetical American political traditions: natural rights individualism, the original Lockean tradition of the Founding; and Progressivism, the collectivist reaction to individualism which arose initially in the newly established universities in the decades following the Civil War"--