HKB
4 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: rights and liberties · women excluded from citizenship · types of reconciliation supporters · treaties, truces, and peacemaking · temporary constitution · slavery and bondage · servants and force · reason virtue knowledge · reason and the intellect · posterity · political legitimacy and consent · natural law and higher law
Usually: argument (4) · indignation (3) · skepticism (2) · crisis of belief (1) · temptation (1) · the test or trial (1) · exhortation (1)
“In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason.” Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · precept
“I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! But who shall decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made?” John Adams, Novanglus, and Massachusettensis · precept
“To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent, was to suppose them ideots or madmen, whose acts were never binding.” John Adams, Novanglus, and Massachusettensis · insight
Paine says Britain’s rule is temporary and cannot be trusted for posterity, then lists types of reconciliation supporters as interested, weak, prejudiced, or overly moderate, warning they will cause calamities.
of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics. Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain. The next war may not turn out like th…
She urges returning to first principles to define human rights through reason, virtue, and knowledge, arguing that men use reason to rationalize inherited prejudices and that “prescription” cannot justify deprivation of natural rights.
THE RIGHTS AND INVOLVED DUTIES OF MANKIND CONSIDERED. In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when en…
Condorcet argues that custom has normalized denying women natural rights, especially equal participation in lawmaking, and concludes that voters must not abjure their own rights by opposing others’.
the same; and he or she who votes against the rights of another, whatever may be his or her religion, colour, or sex, has by that fact abjured his own. It would be difficult to prove that women are incapable of exercising the rights of citizenship. Although liable to become mothers of families, and exposed to other passing indispositions, why may they not exercise rights of which it has never been proposed to depriv…
Adams weighs whether human conflicts, including those involving servants and abolition of slavery, can be resolved gradually or only by force, and he outlines a natural-rights view where rights come from nature and bind no one without consent.
servants clash, and can be decided only by force? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! But who shall decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made? 3. From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say, that men were gregarious animals, like wild horses and wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social an…