Talk:Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Claim
A particular claim made on this page is that the 3 part phrase is comparable other nations' slogans. This seems like the kind of thing that is original research/ personal opinion. Is there any published source making such a claim? I fully intend to remove that section if not. i kan reed 05:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I dispute the claim made here that Thomas Jefferson considered property antithetical to liberty. Can I get a citation on that? My understanding has always been that Jefferson saw the phrase "pursuit of happiness" as including property, but also expanding on it. I doubt that the man who built Monticello would have anything but the highest regard for the right of property, and I've never seen anything in his writings, which I have read extensively, to lead me to believe otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.214.240.202 (talk • contribs)
 * I had heard it was due to his not wanting slaves to have the right to property. Askbros 07:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hilarious, you made this comment just yesterday and today I'm rummaging around Google to find reasons for the change. I have not found anything to support that statement. I think a friend told me the same thing once (angrily, in my response to an idealistic use of the phrase), but it's probably a myth, since some published sources I'm finding say they can only speculate. Web sources say the same thing: Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 01:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree strongly with the anon, though. Jefferson may or may not have been trying to include property rights in his change but he wasn't being anti-property because Marx hadn't been born yet, and indeed the Constitution respects property rights fully. This article shouldn't try to interpret an 18th-century decision in terms of 19th-century politics; that's speculation at best. I rewrote it. Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 01:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I dispute Wills interpretation of Jefferson's use of the phrase "pursuit of happiness".

Wills pushes "pursuit of happiness" towards utilitarian morality, but I fear this is part of a shallow project. Our capacity to penetrate the process that generated Jefferson's text is opaque. Not only did the first 20 lines follow a previous text by Benjamin Franklin (Jared Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Boston, Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840, ch. 9, note 62); Jefferson himself freely admitted he borrowed lines and phrases for the greater good and to get it passed. In fact, the Declaration committee - Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston - were preoccupied by other duties they thought more important. Adams earlier resolution against royal authority was considered the key text at the time.

The most important tension we know of in these lines, and it wasn't experienced as such by the writers, was Franklin's re-editing of the Declaration's first sentence. Jefferson wrote "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable," a Lockean sentiment that was religious in orientation. Franklin, closer to Hume than Locke, and closer to the 20th century than Jefferson, pushed human rights into the domain of rationality, "we hold these truths to be self-evident."

Jefferson was high-minded and rhetorically gifted, knowing a felicitous phrase when he heard one. Since the "pursuit of happiness" was lifted from Locke, its perfectly valid to trace its meaning backwards into the enlightenment. But Jefferson shifted its meaning to fit political circumstances, and the phrase seems most likely to be forward looking, into a murky, difficult convention. The "pursuit of happiness" remains a trenchant motto because of its latent uncertainty. Franklin, the pragmatist, used it to politic for democracy, saying "the constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it." Wills misses the point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bricoyle (talk • contribs) 22:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I also dispute Wills's gloss. Wills is quoted in the original article as saying, "[Jefferson] meant a public happiness which is measurable; which is, indeed, the test and justification of any government." The first objection is based on the observation that the topic is rights, and rights are held only by individual persons. The first two, life and liberty, clearly have individual persons as the rights holders in mind. Suddenly, Wills inconsistently wants us to switch to believing that the third fundamental right with which all men are endowed by their Creator is a right only to pursue a collective public happiness. It doesn't make any sense at all to say that men are endowed with an individually held right only to pursue something collectively held.

The second objection is Wills's having inserted his own personal view of the legitimate end of government into his analysis. I believe I am on every bit as firm ground as Wills in saying the legitimate end of government is to attempt to assure and guarantee the conditions best permitting individual persons to pursue their private happiness; and if that happiness is found primarily in the acquisition and use of property, so be it.--Jonball52 (talk) 21:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. Will's "research" is so poor and almost deliberately biased to prove his rather weak thesis that the Scottish innate sense morality was a major influence on the founders; this just an example of a rather foolish 1970s historical revisionism, on par with pet rocks, leisure suits, and bell bottom pants. One item in the comment I disagree with is that the purist of happiness was lifted from Locke. This is true of "life, liberty" but not "the pursuit of happiness". Locke used the last phrase not in the context of rights, but free will, and as a rather technical way to restore some free will to his rather fatalist view of human nature. The founders were idealists, not fatalists (save for the Calvinists), and it seems much more likely that Wollaston and his "religion of nature", also mentioned in the Declaration as "Nature, and Nature's God",  was the source.  Wollaston was almost as popular as Locke (see William Wollaston). Jefferson read him, and Wollaston was taught in many Colonial colleges.  The section in sources should include more on Wollaston.

Adam Smith
Where/when does he say "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?" I can't find it anywhere.Jjmckool 12:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am sure, at least in my own mind, that "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of property" is in The Wealth Of Nations, and I seem to remember it being fairly early in the work, but it is a huge work and I haven't time just now to go hunting. 70.27.154.144 (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2015 (UTC) Zachariah

pursuit of happiness
I heard an interview on NPR regarding the pursuit of happiness and was hoping someone else remembers - it was in the last two years. The interviewed person traced the phrase from its origins as meaning (roughly) the ability to work in one's chosen field (property + happiness). He went on to say that in Europe at the time, a favorite way to destroy someone was to prevent them from doing so, and that this meaning was very much recognized and intended when written into the Declaration of Independence.

Does anyone here have a link to the interview or know who the author is? PatriotSurvivor 22:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

According to a past judicial opinion, the "pursuit of happiness" is inferred to mean the choice of occupation or vocation (BUTCHERS' UNION CO. v. CRESCENT CITY CO., 111 U.S. 746 (1884)). In other words, the Supreme Court of the United States considered "pursuit" to refer to an economic activity and not the chasing of psychological satisfaction, although the two may be linked. Jason P Crowell 07:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Study
Will Wilkinson: [http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa590.pdf In Pursuit of Happiness Research: Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy?] (PDF; 771 KB), Cato Institute, April 11, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.158.16.21 (talk) 22:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

A modern pursuit of Happiness
Just a thought: I believe things that make people happy now is very different from what it was fifty years ago.

Scenerio 1- "She smiled at me"...boy+smile= a VERY CONTENT HAPPY

Scenerio 2- "Yeah well I got laid"...boy+laid= eggghhh

My point is. It seems it gets harder and harder to find true happiness. Why is that? Is it the selfishness of society?

End of thought:Lolahothot 22:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding "pursuit of happiness"
The entry says "Adam Smith coined the phrase 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of property'. The expression 'pursuit of happiness' was coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 1759 novel Rasselas." However, David Hume uses this phrase in his 1748 edition of An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. So, how can this be "coined" by Dr. Johnson?

131.216.167.221 01:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)Jessica

An important consideration
I still need to translate to English this manifesto where I specifically included an important consideration about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness :

+ "Un Lema Global" (Pending translation)

I intend to translate it as soon as I can, but if someone could advance me a translation, I'd be sincerely grateful.

--Faustinonh 00:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

???
I have always had difficulty understanding this statement. Liberty seems to be the only straightforward one. (That an individual has the right to act in a manner that does not harm other individuals’ ability too do the same) What on earth is life? Is it the ability to stay alive? Seems like a rather crappy inalienable right. (And since when did I need the government's or God's consent to be alive?) I really don't understand the pursuit of happiness either. If it were the idea the each individual had the ability to pursue their one happiness, it would have to be tempered the fact that many peoples pursuit of happiness would overlap, or destroy another’s pursuit of happiness. (A child-molester’s pursuit of happiness would inhibit the child's pursuit of happiness) Field’s and Miller's definition seems to be insufficient. The pursuit of happiness, (Or any of the 'inalienable rights') should not be tempered by law. For this would make the statement of the inalienable rights irrelevant. All laws would be ad hoc, their would be no higher authority (not necessarily God, could be a set of moral ways to govern) This would destroy any relevance to the Supreme Court, or any Constitutional Court.

If what I have said makes any sense to you, please respond. If you think I am wrong, please respond. And if you believe that you have a special incite on the matter, please respond. (RorikStrindberg (talk) 05:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC))


 * See my entry below on Aristotelian Happiness. When happiness is understood as the cardinal virtue (because it exists for its own sake, not for something else, and in order to achieve it, life must be in balance - happiness is not the same as pleasure), Then the progression of Life which is a necessary precondition for Liberty within which one pursues the (Virtue of) Happiness. This then becomes a moral imperative, and can be considered in reverse. Those who pursue virtue have enough responsibility to have liberty, and thus deserve to live as free and virtuous human beings in a society of free and virtuous human beings. John Elder (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Two excellent comments. However, Wikipedia likes citations.  Life and Liberty were common slogans of the period; "life, liberty, and property" was also common.  John Locke seems the instigator of the "rights" to life and property with his theory of Natural Rights -- an idea that came into the Colonial Mind at the time of the Stamp Act Congress, but his use of "the purusit of happiness", if anything,contradicts the Declaration.  The change from these "rights" based statements to ones that connote a moral obligation was one of the great advances of the Declaration over the previous mere political slogans.  Indeed, as JohnElder perceptively points out,the phrase is involved with the Enlightenment idea of Virtue.  However, in the spirit of Wikipedia, it might be best to cite sources for this, and how it came into the American mind of not just Jefferson, but the Committee of Five and all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. I'll add a section documenting the vector of the introduction, and perhaps mention some alternative slogans like "life, liberty, and property" that were rejected.  As to understanding of a relative happiness being destructive of morality, the men of the times knew of this issue: the great American Educator President (of King's College) Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson in his seven editions of his work on moral philosophy taught in Colonial Colleges used to habitually write "highest Happiness", "true Happiness", and "chief Happiness"; but a political document doesn't have be that precise.  The American educator Johnson claimed that learning, morality, and religion were your true, highest, and chief "happiness", and you should pursue them by studying them and "the universal practice of virtue". Some of his statements should be cited as he was influential in the period.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrycroswell (talk • contribs) 18:23, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Pursuit of Personal Happiness
The article currently includes the following: ... the exact quote, as written in the original document is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of personal happiness."

I can't find that phrase in the document. The site http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/compare.htm shows the Declaration text along with multiple draft versions, and I can't find it in any of the versions.

Can whoever put that claim in there provide a reference, perhaps?

WorldAsWill (talk) 07:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the current wikisource text of the US Declaration of Independence and didn't find any such wording as "pursuit of personal hapiness." and have reverted the article to one version back. Thane Eichenauer (talk) 00:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Leibniz, not Locke, inspired the Declaration of Independence
Could someone try to incorporate this material into this article? http://american_almanac.tripod.com/leiblock.htm#happines

Hoped Offer (talk) 17:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Leibniz associated "natural right" with "happiness" in the introduction to his 1693 Codex Iuris Gentium. Burlamaqui's recent editor associates Burlamaqui's thought with Leibniz.  Burlamaqui was widely read in the American colonies.  The very first paragraph of his Principles of Natural and Politic Law refers to the "noble pursuit" of "true and solid happiness."--Other Choices (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Unclear
The first paragraph under "Phrasing" is unclear and confusing. This is due to two problems. The first, and probably most important, is simply that the wording of the paragraph does not present its ideas clearly and concisely; this is largely due to its contradictory claims (it is stated that Jefferson borrowed the phrase from Locke and was uninfluenced by Locke in the span of two sentences before claiming that the matter is ambiguous), likely caused by multiple authors trying to present their diverse positions without reference to the coherence of the piece. The second is that one of the main ideas presented seems weak. The jist one arguement within the paragraph seemingly suggests that Jefferson may have made up the phrase independent of John Locke; the author goes to great lengths to (presumably) present Jefferson's ideas as original, I suppose for the purpose of maintaining a lionized view of him (though I could be reading too much into this). I'd be happy to see a better written and well sourced version of this argument, but as presented the idea that Jefferson hadn't read that particular work of Locke because it hadn't been approved in Virginia seems ridiculous. Locke had been dead for over 70 years before the penning of the Declaration, and moreover even if Locke's work wasn't approved in Virginia at the time, a worldly and wealthy landowner such as Jefferson would have likely had little difficulty procuring a copy of his work. Like I said, if this argument can be better written and contextualized (which needs to happen regardless), that is fine, but otherwise it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.50.108 (talk) 05:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to add that "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is not a sentence, as the first sentence in the article suggests.98.195.223.129 (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a big error in the 'Origin and phrasing' section. It simply drops off at the end, in an unfinished sentence. Can this be fixed by reverting to a previous version? " William Wollaston's 1722 book The Religion of Nature Delineated[5]" (the sentence is not finished!)--Jerekson (talk) 21:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Aristotelian Happiness
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness is the supreme virtue. I can't imagine that Jefferson had never read Ethics. Pursuit of happiness would imply pursuit of the highest virtue, which is in balance, not being excessive nor deficient. This subordinates property ownership to virtue and excellence. It is not an anti-property stance, nor does it endow property as an unalienable right. The rights are then to live, that one may be free, that one may pursue virtue, the prime of which, is happiness.
 * John Elder (talk) 05:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * As a teenager, Jefferson copied a long quote about happiness from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations into his commonplace book. Jefferson recalled this passage late in life -- clearly it made a strong impression on him; and this would seem to be a logical starting point for discussing Jefferson's thought on the matter.--Other Choices (talk) 11:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I came to this page hoping to find a footnote that would tell me where in the Nicomachean Ethics the founders had taken this idea from. I had been taught, in a course on Aristotle, that this was the origin of the Jeffersonian concept.  So I was sorely disappointed and am now left wondering if the article really ought not at least include a mention of Aristotle. - phi (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Tracing connections is difficult. The men of the period would have called Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics a work of "Moral Philosophy", and read him in Greek or possibly Latin, though there were two English translations available of Nicomachean Ethics by 1750. But Aristotle wasn’t all that popular: the Puritans loathed all moral philosophy as opposed to their Calvinist dogma, and Aristotle does not even appear on the list of Circular offerings at pre-revolutionary colleges in David Robertson's, Educating Republicans (see pp. 81-82). Instead, Cicero was taught everywhere, particularly at the College of William and Mary in the two years Jefferson spent there -- "Other Choices" is quite right to note this.


 * The phrase “the pursuit of Happiness” as used by Jefferson seems much more likely to have directly come from William Wollaston’s very popular The Religion of Nature Delineated, which we know Jefferson read as he comments on it later in life.


 * However, it is possible that Jefferson leaned the “mediated” idea as derived from Aristotle while he was a student at Rev. James Murray’s school. The first work of Moral Philosophy in America was written by the American Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who indeed started with Aristotle's idea of “pursing Happiness by the pursuit of virtue” in 1743, but added elements of Wollaston and Berkeley to craft his own “pursuit of happiness” philosophy. Since Johnson’s Moral Philosophy was taught to about half the Colonial American college students (after 1743) at Yale, Columbia (King's) and Penn (College of Philadelphia), and was promoted by Benjamin Franklin and Provost William Smith in Philadelphia itself, there is a good chance Jefferson heard about the idea from his teacher Maury, or from one of Johnson many disciples and students all over Virginia, rather than directly.  None of Johnson’s works or seven editions of his philosophy appear in Jefferson’s library or are mentioned in his letters or notes. However, The Founders, in general, most likely did learn it from Johnson's text while in college, or from his many disciples and students.


 * We probably will never know where Jefferson got it from – but a statement such as “Jefferson go the idea from Aristotle” more likely reflects your teacher’s natural desire to connect the two men, rather than any provable connection.


 * And to answer Ph7fiv 's question, for a discussion of the place Johnson (not Jefferson) might have gotten it from in Nicomachean Ethics, see Devettere, Raymond J., Introduction to virtue ethics: insights of the ancient Greeks, Georgetown University Press, 2002, p. 45. It does require a tolerance for Greek words. Or you can read A History of American Philosophy, by Herbert Wallace Schneider, which discusses Johnson's use of Aristotle's eupraxia [happiness], or one of the many other works on Johnson's philosophy.


 * How all this could be put into the article, I'm not sure, save that a new section titled "American Johnson Hypothesis" or "Wollaston Hypothesis" might be added someday.Harrycroswell (talk) 18:25, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

No mention of Epicurus?
Jefferson stated that "I too am an Epicurean". As Epicurus taught that happiness (eudaimonia) was the aim of life and that property could not guarantee happiness it is not surprising that Jefferson would advocate "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" rather than "Life, liberty and property". [Epicurus, for example, said that "The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity."]

The evidence for this origin of the phrase can be found in Jefferson's letter to William Short of October 31, 1819 - which begins "I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing every thing rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us" and ends with a Syllabus of the Doctrines of Epicurus including "Happiness is the aim of life. Virtue the foundation of happiness. Utility the test of virtue." The evidence for this origin of the phrase is covered in detail in a paper by Dr Carol V. Hamilton of the University of Berkeley entitled The Surprising Origins and Meaning of the “Pursuit of Happiness” — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.71.43.37 (talk) 10:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

All the authors of the Declaration of Independence as well as those of the Federalist Papers (which afterwards would interprete the American Constitution) were well bred in Classical Greek Philosophy. So - the pursuit of happiness actually, in my view, goes back to Aristotle's terminus of "eudaimonia". bonadea-2004 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diotima-2004 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, happiness was defined by the Continental Congress in the original May 1776 declaration of independence as "internal peace, virtue, and good order," closely following Cicero's Tusculan Disputations; the definition of happiness was drafted by John Adams, not Jefferson. This is discussed at length here, based on a master's thesis and probably not meeting wikipedia standards for a reliable source.
 * --Other Choices (talk) 00:14, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Epicurus must be mentioned (preferably near the beginning of this article.) A recent book, "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern", by Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt, aludes to the influence of Epicurus on Jefferson, and might be a worthwhile source to cite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetsuo (talk • contribs) 19:19, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" reflected a consensus view of the members of the Continental Congress, as attested by both Adams and Jefferson himself. It seems that, to mention Epicurus, we would need reliable sources arguing that either (1) the famous phrase was an expression of Jefferson's ideosyncratic personal views, or (2) that Epicurus's view on happiness was mainstream among the founding fathers.  Option (2) simply doesn't exist.  Option (1) is more likely, but I would want to see a reliable source that directly connects Jefferson's epicurian view to the Declaration of Independence.  Otherwise, it's WP:SYNTH.--Other Choices (talk) 00:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I very strongly agree with this comment. The reference by Jefferson to Epicurus was in 1818.  Jefferson's draft was in 1776.  Whatever he might have been in 1818, Jefferson was not an "Epicurian", in 1776: he was in fact a vestryman of St. Ann's Parish at the time, and as surprising as it may seem, in 1777 he founded a "Calvinistical Reformed Church" in Charlottysville, Va. (see http://providencefoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Clay-PP-web.pdf, though many commentators believe he was actually a Deist at this time. Unless he was channeling his future self -- and Jefferson also called himself a "materialist" and a "Unitarian" after he was a Epicurean, this casual almost trivial aside in a letter written almost forty years after Declaration was written is hardly worth mentioning.  Perhaps it should be in a new article on "Jefferson and Epicurius" or something -- if you can find enough material. Also, there were 99 delegates other than Jefferson that contributed to the Continental Congress, and about 50 who debated the Declaration, and they were not Epicureans, but Anglicans or Puritan-Calvinists.  They passed the document as a consensus view, or what Jefferson called "a harmonizing sentiment", of their deepest views.  If for no other reason, as there is no citation, it should be deleted from this article.Harrycroswell (talk) 07:13, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Origin of happiness as a right
The article currently focusses on the expression of the idea, while mostly ignoring the profound nature of the progressive idea that people have a right to pursue happiness - breaking from the historical set of rights (not to be imprisoned without trial, not to be tortured, the right to elect representatives...).

What's the origin of this? (I.e. why did the concept get put into the declaration?)

I remember something about it being from The Enlightenment, but I've nothing more precise than that. Anyone? Gronky (talk) 21:25, 14 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Hah, thanks for asking, I wrote a rather long master's thesis that dealt with that question. The thesis is online here.  Anybody can download the first 20 or so pages free, but you'll have to go to a university library to get around the paywall for the rest.  In Chapter 3 I discuss at length the origin of the relationship between happiness and natural right -- the 1693 introduction to Leibniz's Codex Juris Gentium with its summary of the ancient natural law tradition.  Leibniz, by associating happiness with natural right, drew a logical conclusion from the thinking of Cicero.  (And my discussion of that is, of course, original research, so I've never tried to introduce it around here.)  In the same place, Leibniz planted the seed of the "moral sense" philosophy of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, who, together with Leibniz's follower Burlamaqui and Burlamaqui's student Vattel, profoundly influenced the Founding generation throughout the American colonies.  (None other than John Witherspoon, himself a professor of moral philosophy and signer of the Declaration of Independence, recognized Leibniz as the source of "moral sense" philosophy.)  In a nutshell, according to these philosophers, happiness is derived from benevolence, and it is our natural duty to act benevolently toward our fellow humans, from which it logically follows that the pursuit of happiness (which specifically means acting benevolently) is a natural right, because we have the right to do what we have a duty to do.
 * As part of my research, I actually discovered the anti-Lockean 1776 congressional definition of happiness, written by John Adams, and rooted in Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. I summarized this portion of my master's thesis, discussing the long history of the 1776 definition of happiness, in  "Safety and Happiness: The American Revolutionary Standard for Governmental Legitimacy."  I suppose that this doesn't qualify as a reliabe source, but I understand that it qualifies as an external link to this article.  If other editors concur, I'd like to add this as an external link.--Other Choices (talk) 04:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"...well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language"
This is a totally subjective description of the phrase, and doesn't belong in the first paragraph, let alone the first sentence. Feel free to move it somewhere else in the article, as I don't dispute that somebody has this wonderful opinion, but judgements of quality are not an objective fact. I'm not saying its not a well-written phrase, but that could be said about any famous phrase - there's just no way to objectively rank "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" against "give me liberty or give me death" or "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". --Blazerbryant (talk) 01:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The original text contains the serial comma.
I'm not sure what kind of journalistic absurdism legitimizes destroying the grammatical integrity of a quite well-structured statement, but the title of this article needs the serial comma as well, and I can't see where to edit that. Does the entire page need to be moved? I would appreciate if someone with more Wikicode experience could handle that. Thank you! --76.20.39.78 (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The images I've seen that look like this one don't have the comma. The ones like look like this one do.  RJC  TalkContribs 18:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * While this is OR, I have emailed the librarian of the LOC years ago about this issue. The serial comma was not part of the original DOI. It was placed by the printer on the broadside which is what most of us are using as reproductions of the DOI, since the original is too badly damaged. Sir Joseph (talk) 20:33, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Uppercase in lede title
Okay, I made this edit, which was inconsistent because I only decapped "Liberty" and failed to decap "Happiness". My edit was reverted with this edit, with a suggestion to bring this up here on the talk page.

My contention is that the article title should be consistent with the title in the first sentence of the lead. That seems to be the conventional formatting. If we use quotation marks to emphasize that the title is a quote from, in this case, a document, then both the title in the lead and the article title itself should be formatted with uppercase letters, as in Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This is probably one of those issues that has been discussed numerous times in the past, so if my contention has already been deemed less desirable than the present formatting of Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then would this be one of those rare cases when it is okay for the lead and the article title to differ? I have not been able to find an example quite like this (famous quotation) in the policy or the MOS. –  Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 16:37, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that both should match, but I thought discussion might be good to determine which version was used. I would suggest that the most common usage by far is "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" (as it appears in the Declaration of Independence) and "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" (capital P, title case, as it appears in what seems to be a very significant number of Google results compared to the Declaration version). The question is, which to use. I favour the Declaration version, since that is the origin, and it seems the capitalised words could, in a way, be considered proper nouns in this usage. Of course, the proper title case version also has arguments in its favour. What are your thoughts? — Huntster (t @ c) 04:29, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * In 18th-century English America, it was still customary to capitalize all nouns (as is still done in the German language today). I don't think it's a good idea to follow this archaic style point in a wikipedia article.--Other Choices (talk) 10:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It usually is not a good idea to follow archaic styles; however, this article is about the quotation itself as noted in the lead section. Any article about a famous quotation would be expected by readers to have its title formatted in the same manner as the quotation is formatted in the original document.  So I would have to agree that the article title should follow the format of the quotation and use the style that Jefferson used in the handwritten Declaration of Independence .  The article title should appear as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –   Paine Ellsworth   C LIMAX ! 17:12, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

It is not Jefferson's quote
In the lead section of the article, and in this talk discussion, there is the outright statement or implicit implication that the phrase is Jefferson's. Jefferson did not originality write this; his first draft went, "We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;"  Most likely Franklin (or possibly Adams, or one of the other two members of the Committee of Five) tightened the loose legalistic phrase. This should be noted as it affects the "source" question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrycroswell (talk • contribs) 18:43, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction
If a sadistic person pursues happiness, they would need to take liberty and lives. --2.245.139.122 (talk) 13:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't the entire phrase "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" explain and qualify itself?

Each of those three is the right of each individual. The rights of another individual are not limited or taken away by the exercise of those rights. So if a sadist wishes to exercise his or her right to the pursuit of Happiness, and involve another person in that, the other person's right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness must not be affected.2602:304:AE26:9FD9:34C5:B45:60A2:660A (talk) 02:05, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Confusing
I've added a "Confusing" tag to the section entitled "Meaning of 'happiness'". This section feels, to me, like a bit of an overstretch of the sources. In this case: 1 and 2. While the sources do discuss the meaning of the phrase "pursuit of happiness", neither of them seems to suggest that the meaning of the word 'happiness' used in 1776 is significantly different from the way it's used today. Indeed, the provided definition "good fortune, prosperity, thriving, wellbeing" shouldn't be a revelation to an English-speaker in 2018. Isn't that exactly what we thought it meant? Do the sources themselves seem to push the idea that the definition has changed or are they merely being used to support an original thought for this article? It's also unclear what "this is not seriously disputed" means. What isn't disputed? It seems to me that this section should be merged into the general article body as I don't see any serious dichotomy between the definition provided and the general understanding of the phrase. Please let me know if you have any opinions or insights. Thank you. Scoundr3l (talk) 22:43, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * After a little further digging, it appears that this section may be a bit of a Frankenstein. Recently this removed some of the content and added the "This is not seriously disputed" as a response to what previously stated there was debate over the meaning of happiness. As evidence, the previous section linked to two blog articles about the meaning of happiness with no real context to the Declaration of Independence. As such, I feel more confident in suggesting the content be merged as OR. However, I leave it open to discussion if anyone else has any thoughts. Scoundr3l (talk) 22:56, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Is someone watching this page?
There seems to be a lot of non-sense/opinion on this page. meatclerk (talk) 05:20, 13 May 2019 (UTC)


 * In one of the judicial opinions cited in an, the judge described the pursuit of happiness as (including) "the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others...".
 * I would construe this as a prohibition on guilds, which restricted who could practice a vocation. By extension, this should also place some limits on governmental requirements to obtain a license.  This is surely a rather Libertarian idea.
 * I kind of agree about the extent of the "stuff and nonsense" in this article, I had thought that perhaps "simple" wikipedia would offer a simpler version of this article, but alas, it does not have this article at all.
 * I really just have a hard time accepting the idea that "happiness" is not a broad enough concept and that it could be restricted to just gainful employment, rather doing whatever suits one's fancy (notwithstanding infringing on the happiness of others). The section on "changes in the meaning of words" seems extraneous to me.  Anybody care to be BOLD and toss it? Fabrickator (talk) 03:25, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

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