European Influences: John Locke & Natural Rights
English political philosopher
Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690 )
- predestination and total depravity of humans a fiction
- Tabula rasa: humans not innately evil & stained w/ Sin (as in Puritanism) but rather were born "blank slates," neither good nor evil, upon which experience inscribed character (eventually extended by Rousseau to point that humans are born innately good) -
- the making of good people was the making of good society (later de Crevecour would develop this in terms of "American" identity)