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Why the Natural Right 'The Pursuit of Happiness' in the Declaration of Independence?

 

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 paragraph 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 always wondered what this ‘pursuit of happiness’ means.  I believe I now know, 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.  This, he says, 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. 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, he 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 happiness.  Indeed, a government that undermines virtue and allows, entices, or even requires people to pursue vices does not aim at human well-being.

See further, my essay, ‘Social Cohesion, Populism, and the Church's Prophetic Role in the State’: https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/04/social-cohesion-populism-and-churchs.html

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