This thesis explores the idea of the Natural Law by looking at the ideas of three thinkers: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and John Locke. It answers the question of what the Natural Law is, and further explains the derivative of this Natural Law, Natural Right. It further substantiates a relationship between the two. Finally, the thesis observes the prevalence these terms have in the American context, both in the Declaration of Independence as well as contemporary manifestations.
This study utilized a modified survey instrument known as the Campus Expression Survey, a tool created by Heterodox Academy to gauge student perceptions of free speech and free expression within classroom environments. With a sample size of 366 ASU students across all four metropolitan campuses, students were asked a series of questions that included how comfortable they would be sharing their views on a controversial political issue as well as what consequences one might expect from other students and faculty members as a result of sharing one's views. Students were also asked about their ideological perceptions of their peers, faculty, and administrators.
Analysis of the responses found four primary conclusions. First, politically-oriented majors are significantly more comfortable expressing their views on both controversial and non-controversial issues. Furthermore, students are found to be significantly more comfortable when they believe other students and faculty members share their political beliefs. Third, students are more hesitant to speak up because of the perceived repercussions from their classmates rather than their professors. Lastly, students that identify as Republican, Independent, conservative, or moderate are far more likely to feel uncomfortable sharing their views than students that identify as Democrat or liberal.
Keywords: civic decline, civic literacy, civic engagement, contemporary, historical
When former President Donald Trump declared that the “American Dream is dead” during his campaign launch in June 2015, for many Americans, that was simply the case. Somehow, a multi-billionaire intuited a truth that the American elite had ignored for decades: certain places had flourished, giving their next generation ample opportunity to succeed and community life to flourish, while certain places had collapsed, leaving their next generation hollowed out neighborhoods, broken families, and despair. As civil society and community declined in the United States after a high in the mid-20th century, a new lower class began to form. This new lower class is deprived of the institutions of civil society which form people as self-governing creatures, leaving fewer and fewer mediating layers between man and state. This stratification of social capital along class lines and the social isolation it has wrought are among the chief threats to human flourishing in the United States in the twenty-first century, depriving people of authentic freedom and supplanting it with a base understanding of liberty-as-license. The alienation facing tens of millions of Americans, and impacting our entire society, was not caused by a singular economic, social, political, or technological innovation (though plenty of these changes have accelerated and accentuated this phenomena). At the base of community’s decline is a mismanaged individualism -- a term first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville -- which has warped our politics, and simultaneously empowered radical self-centeredness and government centralization. This thesis builds on a large body of work surrounding Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the role of civil society in America, and the stratification of community over the last half-century, drawing on the thought of Robert Putnam, Tim Carney, Yuval Levin, Patrick Deneen, Charles Murray, and Robert Nisbet -- among others -- to build an outline of the state of civil society and meaningful community in America today. It also charts a path forward for conceptualizing the American Dream in such a way that empowers rather than demotes the role of community in human life, arguing for a conscientious communitarianism. This revised definition of the American Dream relies upon a new concept -- authentic freedom -- that contradicts freedom-as-license. Analyzing diagnoses of our current situation and proposed solutions from the aforementioned thinkers, this thesis posits that Americans must organize and reinvigorate community on a local scale in order to confront these challenges. Ultimately, while community can only be formed productively at the local, human-scale, the long-term restoration of community and civil society in the United States will rely on political reform, framed after Yuval Levin’s modernized ethic of subsidiarity and Robert Nisbet’s conception of a new kind of state. The framework for renewal presented is not simply advocacy for a greater number of voluntary associations, but the formation and maintenance of particular sorts of associations: those which are purposeful about moral formation, the inculcation of the habits and mores necessary for a free people to flourish, and ultimately the proliferation of authentic freedom. While the conscientious communitarian advocates for a politics that prizes civil society broadly, they advocate for, create, and join institutions of this particular character. This is both an argument for a more robust and diverse civil society, and an affirmative case for particular institutions of civil society which form people towards authentic freedom.
This project examines both the left and right's strategies to remedy the American civic crisis. However, both sides have diverging views on American history, society, and ideals. Ultimately, the project determines that the Educating for American Democracy initiative offers the most feasible approach in addressing this national crisis.
The summer of protests which began with George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white police officer in May 2020 reignited a national reckoning with the complicated story of race in America. America’s history of and enduring manifestations of systemic racism clash with American foundational principles of freedom and equality. One way in which this reckoning has manifested is in increased attention to monuments honoring controversial historical figures, particularly those with records of racist beliefs, attitudes, and actions, including slavery. In this thesis, I propose a guiding system of inquiry by which a controversial statue may be comprehensively evaluated and thoughtfully addressed. It drives at the heart of the issue by identifying and categorizing the six most significant and relevant attributes of the statue, with the ultimate goal of properly contextualizing a proposal for action. In order to test the efficacy of this evaluative model, I have selected the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Missouri as a case study.