PRESENT LAWS CANNOT CONTROL FUTURE GENERATIONS

PRESENT LAWS CANNOT CONTROL FUTURE GENERATIONS

1. PRESENT LAWS CANNOT BIND FUTURE GENERATIONS FROM EXERCISING FREEDOM

Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953, p. 76.

There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the “end of time,” or of commanding forever how the world shall be governed or who shall govern it, and therefore all such clauses, acts, or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and voice. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generation which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.

Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953, p. 77.

Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever, than the Parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind, or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence.
3. PRESENT GOVERNMENT CANNOT HOLD AUTHORITY OVER FUTURE GOVERNMENTS Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953,

p. 77.

RIGHTS OF MAN EXISTED AT TIME OF CREATION

1. RIGHTS OF MAN WERE ESTABLISHED AT TIME OF CREATION

Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953,

p. 81.

The fact is that portions of antiquity, by proving everything, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our inquiries find a resting place and our reason finds a home.
2. ANTIQUITY DOES NOT PROVIDE PRECEDENT FOR RIGHTS OF MAN

Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953,

p. 81.

The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go me whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stags of a hundred or a thousand years and produce what was then done as a rule for the present day. This is no authority at all.

3. RIGHTS OF MAN SHOULD BE TRACED TO CREATION OF MAN

Thomas Paine, Political Propagandist, COMMON SENSE AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS, 1953,

p. 82.

Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet, it may be worth observing that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam. Why they not trace the tights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the question. Because there have been upstart governments thrusting themselves between the presumptuously working to unmake man.

H.A. PRICHARD

BACKGROUND

H. A. Prichard was part of a group of British philosophers known as Moral Intuitionists. This group also included G.E. Moore, W.D. Ross, H.W.B Joseph, E.F. Carritt, R.G. Collingwood, and John Cook Wilson. Prichard spent most of his life teaching at Oxford University, and was most famous for his general rejection of moral theory altogether, something he derived from a lack of feasible answers to the “moral question” proposed by contemporary theorists.

For a long time, Prichard was heavily involved in active discussion of ethical theory with his colleagues at the so called “Philosophers’ Teas”. As Jim MacAdam notes, Prichard’s conclusions were largely rejected by both his colleagues and critics alike. However, he was nonetheless celebrated as, “the ablest philosopher of his generation and representative of what it is to live philosophy as a profession.” Controversial as his theories were, Prichard was well respected and has made many contributions to philosophy.
Another important fact to take into account is the effect Prichard had on the students that he lectured to during his tenure at Oxford. These included some of the 20^th centuries most noted thinkers, including Urmson, Hart, A.J. Ayer, Mabbott, Ryle, Raphael, Austin, Berlin, Hart, Hampshire, and Nowell-Smith.
Jim MacAdam continues to point out that although the students largely disagreed with Prichard’s opinions, they enjoyed his teaching. The structure and dynamic additions that made his philosophy unique was his ability to set himself apart. His students had a large impact on the development of his theory, and were therefore invaluable to his development as a thinker.
In addition to his general seat at Oxford, Prichard also held fellowships at Hertford College and Trinity. He was elected White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, was a fellow of Corpus Christi College, and was even given an honorary degree by the University of Aberdeen. His initial studies were done at New College and Clifton in Oxford, but he branched out from there in order to expand his experiences and influence his thinking. Throughout his tenures in the various positions, Prichard was often referred to as the “personification of philosophy.”

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