‘We hold 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.’
The
Declaration of Independence of the thirteen united States of America, July
4, 1776
In light of
July, 2026 being a celebration of 250 years of American independence—really, a
celebration of the end of the claim that the king, claiming a divine right to
rule, was the law—I would like to offer a few paragraphs on the meaning of
the Declaration of Independence’s (1776) phrase that people
have natural rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. I have often wondered what this ‘pursuit of happiness’
means. I believe I now know the source and direction of thought in
this phrase, and to that end I have updated my essay, ‘Social Cohesion,
Populism, and the Church’s Prophetic Role in the State’. The following
paragraph has been added to that essay:
Aristotle is, in my view, likely
the source for the surprising claim in America’s Declaration of
Independence about the ‘pursuit of happiness’. It reads, ‘We
hold 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.’ John Locke, whose
philosophical ideas were foundational for the Americans, had written that
natural rights included life, liberty, and possessions: ‘The state of nature
has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is
that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal
and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or
possessions’ (Second Treatise on Government chapter II, section
6). He even said that ‘government has no other end than the preservation
of property’ (Second Treatise on Government chapter 7, section
94, cf. sect. 124, etc.). Marcus Tullius Cicero had also said that
government’s purpose is to secure property rights (De Officiis 2.73).
Why, then, did the Declaration substitute ‘pursuit of happiness’? In the
seventh book of Politics, Aristotle says that the best form of
constitution will be that which offers the most desirable form of life. He
writes,
The student who
is going to make a suitable investigation of the best form of constitution must
necessarily decide first of all what is the most desirable mode of life. For
while this is uncertain it is also bound to be uncertain what is the best
constitution, since it is to be expected that the people that have the best
form of government available under their given conditions will fare the best,
exceptional circumstances apart (Politics 7.1323a).
This, he continues, has less to
do with external goods and more to do with virtue and wisdom (7.1323a-b).
In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out the goal of
life as happiness (eudaimonia), meaning well-being, and virtues as the
means by which one attains this. Happiness is meant in an ethical sense,
as here in Politics when speaking of the end for government. The
Declaration claims that this, like other natural rights endowed by the Creator,
are not to be obstructed by government. Thomas
Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration, acknowledged that the sources of
the Declaration included Aristotle: ‘All its authority rests then on the
harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in
letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as
Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.’ (Letter to Henry Lee, May
8, 1825). If Aristotle is the source of Jefferson’s emendation of Locke, Jefferson
is following Aristotle’s diminution of externals—property—and claiming that the
end or purpose of virtue is happiness. The constitution of a government
must aim to establish the natural rights of life, liberty, and virtues that aim
at well-being. Indeed, a government that undermines virtue and allows,
entices, or even requires people to pursue vices does not aim at human
well-being, and its interference in individuals’ pursuits of virtue is a
usurpation of natural rights. One does
not need to speculate about what ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’
meant as the litany of grievances that follow in the Declaration provide ample
examples, although not organized into three categories as these overlap. The final examples of King George III’s
usurpation of these natural rights clearly demonstrate how he obstructed the
colonists’ ‘pursuit of happiness’ both in terms of living well and living
virtuously:
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large
Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens
taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become
the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Jefferson’s
replacing of Locke’s ‘property’ with ‘the pursuit of happiness’ was necessary,
therefore, because the grievances were farther reaching than property seizures. They had to do with the King’s (and Britain’s)
injustices against the colonists, his inciting others to do injustice against
them, and his forcing them to do injustice against themselves. The pursuit of happiness was not about the
prosperous or joyful life but about living well and virtuously. Aristotle continues his discourse about the pursuit
of happiness for both the individual and the State, but the Declaration needed
no further philosophical discussion as the exigencies of the colonists’
situation were in clear focus.
