Property and the Pursuit of Happiness

Property and the Pursuit of Happiness PDF Author: Edward J. Erler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538130874
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
In this book, Edward Erler brings a lifetime of study of political philosophy, the American founding, and the US constitution to the central role of property in American constitutional thought. Erler argues that the Founders considered the natural right to property as the comprehensive right that included every other right. In this sense they followed political philosopher John Locke, but at the same time made significant improvements on Locke, making it moral and political, something they called the “pursuit of happiness.” In the past century, this understanding of the right to property—derived from the principles of the Declaration of Independence—has been challenged by the rise of progressivism, which places promoting community welfare above the protection of individual rights as the central role of government. This has led to the administrative state’s unrelenting attacks on the right to private property, which have effectively ended the right to property as it was understood by the founders. Property and the Pursuit of Happiness offers a learned and wide-ranging discussion of the values at the core of America’s founding that will be of interest to all readers seeking to understand the founders’ vision and the profound challenges to it today.

Property and the Pursuit of Happiness

Property and the Pursuit of Happiness PDF Author: Edward J. Erler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538130874
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
In this book, Edward Erler brings a lifetime of study of political philosophy, the American founding, and the US constitution to the central role of property in American constitutional thought. Erler argues that the Founders considered the natural right to property as the comprehensive right that included every other right. In this sense they followed political philosopher John Locke, but at the same time made significant improvements on Locke, making it moral and political, something they called the “pursuit of happiness.” In the past century, this understanding of the right to property—derived from the principles of the Declaration of Independence—has been challenged by the rise of progressivism, which places promoting community welfare above the protection of individual rights as the central role of government. This has led to the administrative state’s unrelenting attacks on the right to private property, which have effectively ended the right to property as it was understood by the founders. Property and the Pursuit of Happiness offers a learned and wide-ranging discussion of the values at the core of America’s founding that will be of interest to all readers seeking to understand the founders’ vision and the profound challenges to it today.

The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era

The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era PDF Author: Carli N. Conklin
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826274277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Scholars have long debated the meaning of the pursuit of happiness, yet have tended to define it narrowly, focusing on a single intellectual tradition, and on the use of the term within a single text, the Declaration of Independence. In this insightful volume, Carli Conklin considers the pursuit of happiness across a variety of intellectual traditions, and explores its usage in two key legal texts of the Founding Era, the Declaration and William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. For Blackstone, the pursuit of happiness was a science of jurisprudence, by which his students could know, and then rightly apply, the first principles of the Common Law. For the founders, the pursuit of happiness was the individual right to pursue a life lived in harmony with the law of nature and a public duty to govern in accordance with that law. Both applications suggest we consider anew how the phrase, and its underlying legal philosophies, were understood in the founding era. With this work, Conklin makes important contributions to the fields of early American intellectual and legal history.

Declaring Independence

Declaring Independence PDF Author: Jay Fliegelman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804720762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Preoccupied with the spectacle of sincerity, the quest for a natural language led paradoxically to a greater theatricalization of public speaking as well as to a new social dramaturgy and a deeply self-conscious performative understanding of selfhood. Concerned with recovering what was assumed but not spoken in the realm of eighteenth-century speech and action, the book treats Jefferson (whose fascination with Homer, Ossian, Patrick Henry, and music theory all relate to the new oratorical ideal) as a conflicted participant in the new rhetoric and a witness to its social costs and benefits

In Pursuit

In Pursuit PDF Author: Charles A. Murray
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780671611002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A modern classic--back in print and available again. Originally published in 1988, this book draws on advances in psychology and sociology to explore the fundamental questions of what is meant by "success". Rich in fascinating case studies. Line drawings, graphs and tables.

Pilgrim Pursuit of Happiness

Pilgrim Pursuit of Happiness PDF Author: Leo Martin
Publisher: Legends Library Press
ISBN: 9781937735555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
The Declaration of Independence states that one of our unalienable rights is the pursuit of happiness. It is clear from the records of both Virginia and Massachusetts at the time that this phrase meant the right to privately own property. However, what is also clear is that the unalienable right we have is to pursue happiness and not obtain happiness. Today Americans often mistake the meaning of this phrase and think that their government owes them happiness in all flavors, to be claimed by them at any time. What Leo Martin has done is to clearly articulate the meaning of this phrase by going to the root of our country, the Pilgrims. No other people at the time of our nation's initial development portray, as families and a migrating Church, the meaning of pursuing happiness under the Hand of a Sovereign God better than this tiny band! Though never in a majority and never wealthy; they considered themselves to be rich in spiritual treasure. Though they sought no shrine to honor themselves, a nation has honored them as the root of its liberty though in our day they have been largely forgotten. It is time we returned to what truly made America great. It is time we remembered the nature of the liberties brought by the Pilgrims in their simple faith, heart-felt devotion and iron-clad character. Though the seeds planted by them eventually grew into a tree much larger and with leaves a bit different in color than they may have anticipated, their love of family, their stand for freedom, and their faith in God stand tall and point in the direction toward which our nation can recover from her amnesia. Let this little book be read and re-read to your children and grandchildren, that the stories of our past may come alive again.-Dr. Paul JehleExecutive Director -Plymouth Rock Foundation

Property and Freedom

Property and Freedom PDF Author: Richard Pipes
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307427358
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"A superb book about a topic that should be front and center in the American political debate" (National Review), from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and historian of the Russian Revolution An exploration of a wide range of national and political systems to demonstrate persuasively that private ownership has served over the centuries to limit the power of the state and enable democratic institutions to evolve and thrive in the Western world. Beginning with Greece and Rome, where the concept of private property as we understand it first developed, Richard Pipes then shows us how, in the late medieval period, the idea matured with the expansion of commerce and the rise of cities. He contrasts England, a country where property rights and parliamentary government advanced hand-in-hand, with Russia, where restrictions on ownership have for centuries consistently abetted authoritarian regimes; finally he provides reflections on current and future trends in the United States. Property and Freedom is a brilliant contribution to political thought and an essential work on a subject of vital importance.

And the Pursuit of Happiness

And the Pursuit of Happiness PDF Author: Maira Kalman
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0143122037
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Energized and inspired by the 2008 elections, celebrated illustrator Maira Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a year-long investigation of American democracy and its workings. The result is an artist’s idiosyncratic vision of history and contemporary politics. Whether returning to America’s historical roots at the Lincoln archive and Jefferson’s Monticello, or taking the pulse of the present day at a town hall meeting in Vermont, an Army base in Kentucky, and the inner chambers of the Supreme Court, Kalman finds evidence of democracy at work all around us. Her route is always one of fascinating indirection, but one that captures and shares in hundreds of beautiful, colorful reasons why we are proud to be Americans.

Economics and Ethics of Private Property

Economics and Ethics of Private Property PDF Author: Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN: 1610164687
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description


The Catholic Thing

The Catholic Thing PDF Author: Robert Royal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781587311055
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Catholic "thing" - the concrete historical reality of Catholicism as a presence in human history - is the richest cultural tradition in the world. It values both faith and reason, and therefore has a great deal to say about politics and economics, war and peace, manners and morals, children and families, careers and vocations, and many other perennial and contemporary questions. In addition, it has inspired some of the greatest art, music, and architecture, while offering unparalleled human solidarity to tens of millions through hospitals, soup kitchens, schools, universities, and relief services. This volume brings together some of the very best commentary on a wide range of recent events and controversies by some of the very best Catholic writers in the English language: Ralph McInerny, Michael Novak, Fr. James V. Schall, Hadley Arkes, Robert Royal, Anthony Esolen, Brad Miner, George Marlin, David Warren, Austin Ruse, Francis Beckwith, and many others. Their contributions cover large Catholic subjects such as philosophy and theology, liturgy and Church dogma, postmodern culture, the Church and modern politics, literature, and music. But they also look into specific contemporary problems such as religious liberty, the role of Catholic officials in public life, growing moral hazards in bio-medical advances, and such like. The Catholic Thing is a virtual encyclopedia of Catholic thought about modern life.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment PDF Author: Ritchie Robertson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062410679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1008

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Book Description
A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness. One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessarily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was “the best of all possible worlds”. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long eighteenth century,” from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about. Robertson returns to the era’s original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness – in this world rather than the next – by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. In answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?' in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to “have the courage to use your own intellect”. Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.