Thomas Jefferson's Ethics and the Politics of Human Progress
The Morality of a Slaveholder

This extensive study suggests that, despite being one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia, Jefferson was consistent in his advocacy of human rights.

Ari Helo (Author)

9781107687721, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 August 2015

298 pages
23 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

'[A] thorough and complex contribution to Jeffersonian scholarship … The book's five chapters walk the reader through a thicket of Jeffersonian texts, philosophical theories, and historical facts … [Helo] also challenges the commonly held Jeffersonian commitments to agrarianism, constitutions, and small-government … certain sections should certainly be parsed out and explored in other disciplines and classrooms, especially American studies, history, political science, and philosophy. Anthropologists of ethics and cultural critics bent on the Foucauldian notion of self-governance should especially consider the value of this text in terms of its analysis of American leadership as ethical subjects in practice, in private, and in policy production.' Casper G. Bendixsen, American Studies

Could Jefferson claim any consistency in his advocacy of democracy and the rights of man while remaining one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia? This extensive study of Jefferson's intellectual outlook suggests that, once we fully acknowledge the premises of his ethical thought and his now outdated scientific views, he could. Jefferson famously thought the human mind to be 'susceptible of much improvement … most of all, in matters of government and religion'. Ari Helo's thorough analysis of Jefferson's understanding of Christian morality, atheism, contemporary theories of moral sentiments, ancient virtue ethics, natural rights, and the principles of justice and benevolence suggests that Jefferson refused to be a philosopher, and did so for moral reasons. This book finds Jefferson profoundly political in his understanding of individual moral responsibility and human progress.

Introduction to the morality of a slaveholder
1. History, progress, and politics
2. Progress in natural and moral sciences
3. Progress and the wise man's virtue
4. The perfectible rights of men
5. Progressive politics
6. Conclusions: the Jeffersonian ethics of the living.

Subject Areas: Human rights [JPVH], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]