The Quest for a New Enlightenment

The 18th-century Enlightenment was the single most important intellectual development in human history; it made possible the comfortable, prosperous, stable, and relatively free Western civilization that we enjoy today.

Enlightenment thinkers believed in a single, knowable, absolute reality guided by rational natural laws. Individuals -- said Enlightenment thinkers -- had the faculty of reason, which enabled them to accurately understand the absolute reality. Using reason, individuals could understand not only the factual data of reality but a rational moral system which would instruct them on how they ought to behave.

The Enlightenment cultivated the rights of every human being to his life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Enlightenment thinkers insisted that no one -- neither private criminals nor the government -- ought to violate these rights. These rights are derived from nature, not from other people -- hence the name natural rights. Natural rights cannot be taken away; they can only be violated, and their violation is the ultimate immorality.

The Enlightenment advanced man's liberty to speak his mind and publish his thoughts using his own property; it decried government censorship and the use force against free expression of ideas. The Enlightenment rebelled against religious bigotry and intolerance; it advocated every individual's freedom to pursue whatever non-coercive religion he saw fit -- or to refrain from religious pursuits altogether. The State should not control religion or morality; both should be left to the private domain.