tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8585732092994259978.post5500282337637807526..comments2024-02-26T19:22:15.069-06:00Comments on Lex Christianorum: Pursuit of Happiness: Cicero and the Declaration of Independence, Part 1Andrew M. Greenwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17242573723573203387noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8585732092994259978.post-72558284655178261972012-10-05T06:23:18.926-05:002012-10-05T06:23:18.926-05:00To equate the Law of Nature as used in the Declara...To equate the Law of Nature as used in the Declaration of Independence with "atomism" is just plain ignorant. The Law of Nature was a fundamental part of English (and colonial American) legal thought, so we should read the legal and philosophical classics that the American founders studied. I actually did that for my master's thesis, "Happiness, Natural Law, and the Declaration of Independence," which is online here: http://gradworks.umi.com/14/56/1456018.html<br /><br />The definition of "happiness," as used in the Declaration, is "internal peace, virtue, and good order." John Adams wrote this definition, which Congress approved in the original declaration of independence -- the resolution of May 10 and 15, 1776, authorizing the suppression of royal government. This definition of happiness encapsulates Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. The three elements of this definition - "internal peace" and "virtue" and "good order" - all appear in English jurisprudence, in Cumberland's Treatise of the Laws of Nature, and in Burlamaqui's Principles of Natural and Politic Law, which developed Leibniz's seminal 1693 association of happiness with natural right.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817848846695549612noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8585732092994259978.post-49919938190314962542011-05-10T12:11:57.447-05:002011-05-10T12:11:57.447-05:00The "law of nature" referred to in the D...The "law of nature" referred to in the Declaration of Independence is """"ATOMISM"""". The "natural law" of the Enlightenment was atomism. As soon as the Doric Greeks discovered the real natural law---because the Dorians wrote nothing down---was soon lost. Democritius invented atomism which Thomas Cudworth traced to Moses. It is called Mosaic atomism. Many people in the Enlightenment took atomism as proving Judaism right and Christianity as an error because the Trinitarian Christianity did not match Atomism. Atomism was the Natural Law. <br /><br />The Enlightenment notion of the natural law had nothing to do with Plato or Aristotle but with Democritus and his atomism. <br /><br />This "inclinations have to be trained, molded, righted by these certain modes which we learn are the virtues." HAS NEVER been done in America! Traning in Virtue? How many libertarians would allow a school to do this? Furthermore, there is no tied religion to America so how can there be a single moral code that virtue would follow? If Virtue lies in the Golden Mean, and democracy is an excess (i.e. democracy does NOT lie in the Golden mean), how can you have Virtue and democracy? This is an oxymoron. Democracy understands no proportion, undertakes no limits.WLindsayWheelernoreply@blogger.com