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The Ticking Time Bomb of Autonomy

But the Founders failed to see that they were setting a time bomb.  To begin with the autonomous individual and his rights is to open up a dynamic process, that of the sovereignty of the individual, in which the rights of man break every bond with nature.  It is to open the way to what […]

But the Founders failed to see that they were setting a time bomb.  To begin with the autonomous individual and his rights is to open up a dynamic process, that of the sovereignty of the individual, in which the rights of man break every bond with nature.  It is to open the way to what was to come, to the results we see today.  Whereas Christian thought said, “Here are your duties, and may God help you,” contemporary thought declares, “Here are your rights, and to hell with you.” ~Philippe Beneton, Equality by Default

Prof. Beneton’s conclusions are very good, though I am not convinced that the Founders understood the rights they were defending as “the rights of man” in this sense or that they were “beginning with the autonomous individual.”  For them, constitutional rights came from the traditional inheritance of Englishmen in relationship with their past and with one another.  That their language of chartered liberties was then hijacked and appropriated into the language of the rights of the autonomous individual was a different, later process that now obscures the fundamentally historical and traditional understanding of legal rights that was decisive for the Founders.  More important for them than theoretical natural rights were the actual rights guaranteed them as part of the English constitutional tradition.

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