Lawrence Kohlberg Quotes
The human's being right to do as he pleases without interfering with someone else's rights is a formula defining rights prior to social legislation.
Kohlberg, Lawrence. The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice. Harper & Row, 1981.
This quotation has been used by gay rights advocates. Opponents argue that a gay lifestyle is not “innocent” in that it is Biblically prohibited. This brings the issue of separation of church and state into the argument.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
Note the use of the phrase “against the government.” One of the unique aspects of the American Constitution and The Bill of Rights is that the government is considered a potential and even probable infringer on the liberties of the people. It is almost as though the government was the potential enemy. Modern libertarians state this very explicitly and it is ever present in the views of both the right and left wings of American politics. Most centrists recoil at the thought that some citizens see the government as the enemy, but even in America there have been times where the government has infringed on the rights of citizens only to have the courts or future administrations and Congresses correct the error.
Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist best known for his theory of stages of moral development.
