Liberty: The Great American Virtue

America is called “The land of the free and home of the brave” and promises “liberty and justice for all.” But what do these phrases mean? How did they become part of American culture? What is liberty, where does it come from, and is it good for society? Can nations really live freely? What are the challenges to liberty? What are the alternatives to liberty? In this course, we will discuss all of these questions and more, beginning with the historical arguments for liberty, and then consider the pros and cons of liberalism from primary sources. Throughout this course, students will become familiar with some of America’s founding arguments for liberalism as well as consider some examples of the literature, music, stories, and films inspired by the American virtue of liberty.

Course Objectives:

1. To become proficient in the conversational approach to learning: close readings, interpretive questions, and dialogical discussions of the texts.
2. To gain a grasp of the major figures and writers who inspired American liberalism.
3. To cultivate an appetite for learning as a way of life (the life of the mind).
4. To cultivate a desire to pursue the highest things in opposition to the modernist worldview.
5. To be able to think Christianly about liberalism.
6. To be able to argue both the pros and cons of liberalism and discuss liberalism’s challenges.
7. To be proficient in writing the persuasive essay.

Texts:

(This is a sample of the overall texts. All reading will be provided by the instructor, so no texts will need to be purchased. Many of the readings are only sections of the larger work. A full reading list available in the course syllabus along with links to websites, pdfs, or docs of the required texts)

• The Declaration of Independence
• The United States Constitution
• The Republic by Plato
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
• The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Of Self-Love by David Hume
• On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
• A World Split Apart by Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn
• The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality by Ludwig von Mises
• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
• Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition by Ludwig von Mises
• Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
• Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts by Karl Marx
• The Road to Serfdom by Fredrich Hayek
• Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel