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A famous claim of the self-evidence of a moral truth is in the United States Declaration of Independence, which states, "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 C. Calhoun agreed, saying that there was "not a word of truth" in the phrase. [24] In 1853 and in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Senator John Pettit, said that the phrase was not a "self-evident truth" but a "self-evident lie". [24] These men were all either slave owners or supporters of slavery.
Such as these are self-evident truths in the field of moral conduct which any sane person will admit if he understands them. According to the Scholastics, the readiness with which such moral truths are apprehended by the practical intellect is due to the natural habit impressed on the cognitive faculty which they call synderesis.
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 ...
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
Franklin, for example, may have been responsible for changing Jefferson's original phrase "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" to "We hold these truths to be self-evident". [1]: 1:427–28 Jefferson incorporated these changes into a copy that was submitted to Congress in the name of the committee. [117]
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Using these self-evident propositions as his axioms, or foundations, he went on to deduce his entire body of knowledge from them. The foundations are also called a priori truths. His most famous proposition is "Je pense, donc je suis" ( I think, therefore I am , or Cogito ergo sum ), which he indicated in his Discourse on the Method was "the ...