HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · natural rights · natural law and higher law · intellectual cowardice · first principles
Usually: argument (1) · indignation (1) · skepticism (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
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…