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IN PURSUIT OF LIBERTY:
THE CIVIC LIBERALISM OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS
by
Nicholas Buccola
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICAL SCIENCE)
December 2007
Copyright 2007 Nicholas Buccola
Object Description
| Title | In pursuit of liberty: the civic liberalism of Frederick Douglass |
| Author | Buccola, Nicholas |
| Author email | buccola@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Political Science |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2007-08-20 |
| Date submitted | 2007 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2007-10-14 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Kann, Mark E. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Renteln, Alison D. Kincaid, James R. |
| Abstract | Critics contend liberals fail to pay sufficient attention to the moral goods of community and civic responsibility. Liberalism, they argue, is a morally shallow doctrine grounded in a conception of human beings as "atoms of self-interest." This leads to a conception of politics that amounts to little more than "zoo-keeping" -- the establishment of institutions to prevent individuals from mauling one another in their quest for personal satisfaction. Several contemporary thinkers have taken these criticisms to heart and embraced versions of "civic liberalism" -- hybrid theories that combine the liberal emphasis on individual rights with a concern for community and civic responsibility. In an attempt to explore the possibility of civic liberalism, some scholars have turned to the ideas of earlier thinkers who attempted to infuse liberalism with robust conceptions of civic responsibility. My aim is to contribute to the ongoing attempt to explore the possibility of civic liberalism by reconstructing the political thought of Frederick Douglass. He drew on the liberal language of individual rights and a moral vocabulary of human brotherhood and civic responsibility. Why did Douglass infuse his liberalism with a robust civic vocabulary? How did he synthesize these ideas? Is his synthesis morally and politically coherent? My aim is to show that the experience of slavery led Douglass to appreciate the ways in which the liberal aim of securing freedom depends on a robust conception of civic responsibility. I conclude that although Douglass does not "solve" liberalism's problems, he offers an "imaginative recovery" of natural rights philosophy that is attentive to the importance of community and civic responsibility. |
| Keyword | Frederick Douglass; liberalism; communitarianism; natural rights |
| Coverage date | circa 1840/1900 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m868 |
| Rights | Buccola, Nicholas |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Buccola-20071014 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume40/etd-Buccola-20071014.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | IN PURSUIT OF LIBERTY: THE CIVIC LIBERALISM OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS by Nicholas Buccola A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (POLITICAL SCIENCE) December 2007 Copyright 2007 Nicholas Buccola |
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