PLSC-4370: Republican Hero - Midterm #2

PLSC-4370: Republican Hero - Midterm #2

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Reading: The Sorrows of Young Werther

Main Point: Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) is a foundational Romantic novel that depicts a sensitive young artist consumed by his unrequited passion for Lotte, culminating in his suicide. It embodies core Romantic themes: the primacy of intense feeling over reason, the sublime in nature, the suffering genius, and radical individual subjectivity set against stifling bourgeois society.

In the context of corrupted Romanticism, Werther represents the dangerous endpoint of Romantic ideals when untethered from civic or moral discipline—emotion becomes self-indulgence, individuality collapses into solipsism, and the heroic inner life curdles into narcissistic despair. The novel famously triggered the "Werther effect," a wave of copycat suicides across Europe, illustrating how the Romantic glorification of feeling can erode the self-restraint and public-spiritedness that republican virtue requires.

Percy. Shelley

Reading: A Defense of Poetry

Main Point: Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (written 1821, published 1840) argues that poetry is not mere ornament but the highest expression of imagination, the faculty that perceives unity, beauty, and moral truth beneath surface appearances. Shelley distinguishes imagination (synthetic, creative, moral) from reason (analytical, calculating), insisting that civilizations decay when reason and utility outpace the imaginative and sympathetic capacities that poetry cultivates.

For Shelley, poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of the world" because they expand human sympathy, allowing us to identify with others and thereby grounding genuine moral and political progress. In the context of your course, the Defence offers a Romantic counter-vision to corrupted Romanticism: rather than collapsing inward like Werther, Shelley's Romanticism is outward-facing and civic, treating imaginative cultivation as essential to liberty, justice, and the renewal of public life.

Marry Shelley

Reading: Frankenstein

Main Point: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) dramatizes the Romantic tension between visionary aspiration and its catastrophic excess: Victor Frankenstein embodies the Promethean overreacher who, like Goethe's Werther, channels prodigious feeling and imagination but severs them from moral responsibility, domestic affection, and community. The novel draws deeply on Romantic conventions—sublime Alpine and Arctic landscapes, the solitary genius, the outcast yearning for sympathy—while interrogating them critically, suggesting that Romantic individualism untethered from social bonds produces monstrosity rather than transcendence.

The Creature himself is a profoundly Romantic figure: self-educated through Milton, Goethe (notably Werther), and Plutarch, he begins with natural innocence and benevolence but is corrupted by rejection and isolation, illustrating Rousseauian themes of the noble nature deformed by society. For your course, Frankenstein exemplifies corrupted Romanticism: it shows how the Romantic worship of the unbounded self—creative, ambitious, feeling—becomes destructive when divorced from the republican virtues of justice, benevolence, and civic responsibility, leaving both creator and creation ruined.

Mark Noll

Reading: “Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought”

Main Point: Mark Noll's essay "Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought" (1985) traces how Scottish Common Sense philosophy—developed by Thomas Reid and others as a response to Humean skepticism—became deeply intertwined with American evangelical Protestantism in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Noll argues that evangelicals embraced Common Sense Realism because it affirmed that ordinary people, through intuition and shared moral perception, could directly access truth, scripture, and basic ethical principles without elite mediation, making it a natural fit for democratic and revivalist religion.

This fusion shaped American intellectual life by grounding both republican political thought and evangelical theology in confident appeals to self-evident truths, common moral sense, and inductive Baconian method. For your course, Noll's essay is relevant because it explains the philosophical underpinnings of American republicanism's moral confidence: the conviction that virtuous self-government is possible because ordinary citizens possess a reliable inner faculty for discerning truth and right—a foundation that both empowered democratic citizenship and, Noll suggests, left American thought vulnerable when that confidence later eroded.

Emerson

Reading: “Self Reliance” and “Heroism”

Main Points: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance (1841) argues that genuine virtue and truth come from trusting one's own intuition and inner divinity rather than conforming to society, tradition, or institutional authority—"trust thyself" and "whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." Emerson celebrates the sovereign individual whose originality and integrity become a moral force, insisting that consistency, imitation, and public opinion are enemies of authentic selfhood and creative power.

Heroism (1841) extends this vision into the civic and moral sphere, defining the hero as one who acts from inner conviction with courage, self-trust, and indifference to comfort, danger, or popular judgment. For your course, Emerson represents a distinctively American transformation of Romantic individualism into a quasi-republican ideal: the heroic self-reliant citizen whose virtue is internally generated rather than inherited—though critics note this ideal risks slipping toward the corrupted Romanticism of Werther or Frankenstein when self-trust becomes detached from justice, benevolence, and the common good.

Carl J. Friedrich

Reading: “Belief in the Common Man”

Main Point: Carl J. Friedrich's "Belief in the Common Man" (from The New Belief in the Common Man, 1942) defends democratic faith against mid-twentieth-century totalitarian challenges by arguing that democracy rests not on the claim that ordinary people are wise or expert, but on the conviction that they possess sufficient moral sense, practical judgment, and capacity for self-government to be entrusted with political power. Friedrich grounds this belief in the Christian and republican traditions, drawing on Common Sense philosophy and the dignity of the person, rather than on Romantic glorification of "the people" as an undifferentiated mass.

He distinguishes genuine democratic faith from its corruptions—populist demagoguery, fascist worship of the Volk, and cynical elitism—insisting that belief in the common man requires institutions, education, and civic virtue to be sustained. For your course, Friedrich connects directly to the Common Sense tradition Noll describes and to republican thought generally: he articulates why self-government is morally justified and practically possible, while warning that this faith is fragile and easily perverted when severed from its religious, philosophical, and civic foundations.

Daniel J. Herman

Reading: “The Other Daniel Boone: The Nascence of a Middle-Class Hunter”

Main Point: Daniel J. Herman's "The Other Daniel Boone: The Nascence of a Middle-Class Hunter" (1998) reexamines the Boone legend, arguing that the iconic frontiersman was reshaped in the early 19th century from a rough Long Hunter into a respectable middle-class hero embodying restraint, domestic virtue, and providential purpose. Herman shows that biographers like John Filson and Timothy Flint deliberately refashioned Boone to fit emerging bourgeois ideals—pious, self-disciplined, family-oriented—transforming hunting from a lower-class subsistence activity into a morally elevated pursuit suitable for genteel emulation.

This refashioning created a distinctly American template for the common hero: not an aristocratic warrior or Romantic genius, but an ordinary man whose virtue lies in self-control, productive labor, stewardship of nature, and quiet courage. For your course, Herman illuminates how republican ideals of virtue were democratized and embodied in popular figures like Boone—anchoring heroism in the common man's character rather than in birth or genius, and offering a healthy alternative to the corrupted Romantic hero who acts from passion or ego alone.

W.I. Matson

Reading: “The Naturalism of Anaximander”

Main Point: W.I. Matson's "The Naturalism of Anaximander" (1953) argues that Anaximander, the 6th-century BCE Milesian philosopher, made a decisive intellectual breakthrough by explaining the cosmos through impersonal natural principles rather than mythological or divine agency. Matson emphasizes that Anaximander's apeiron (the boundless or indefinite) functions as a genuinely naturalistic first principle, from which all things emerge and to which they return through lawlike processes of separation, opposition, and balance.

This represents the birth of rational, naturalistic inquiry: phenomena are accounted for by internal causes and regularities rather than by the will of gods, marking the transition from mythos to logos. For your course, Anaximander's naturalism is foundational to the broader Western tradition of rational self-government and Common Sense inquiry—the conviction that the world (including the moral and political world) is intelligible to human reason, a premise on which both classical republican virtue and later democratic thought ultimately depend.

Thomas Nagel

Reading: “Aristotle on Eudaimonia”

Main Point: Thomas Nagel's "Aristotle on Eudaimonia" (1972) examines the apparent tension in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics between two accounts of the highest human good: an inclusive view, where eudaimonia consists in the full exercise of all human virtues (moral and intellectual) across a complete life, and an intellectualist view (especially in Book X), where eudaimonia is identified primarily with contemplation (theoria) as the activity of the highest part of the soul. Nagel argues that Aristotle ultimately favors the intellectualist reading, holding that contemplation most fully realizes what is divine and essential in human nature, while moral and political virtues constitute a secondary form of happiness.

Nagel defends the coherence of this view by emphasizing Aristotle's metaphysical premise that a thing's good is determined by its highest function, making contemplative activity the truest fulfillment of the rational animal. For your course, Nagel's reading sharpens the classical foundation of republican virtue: civic and moral excellence matter profoundly, but they serve a higher end—the cultivation of reason and understanding—reminding us that political life and heroic virtue are ultimately ordered toward contemplative and moral truths beyond mere action or utility.

The Common Hero

1. Goodness, but not greatness. This “goodness”, much to the dismay of Aristotle, who says that it is an exogenous quality that must be taught, the Common Hero says that goodness is inherently Endogenous through through INTUITION. This is the endogenous capacity. It has two aspects.

2. It is a moral good. Meaning objectively good. This is the binding. Where romantic goodness is incidental, Common Goodness is an intentional primary concern. Romantics are rebellious, common heroes are stewards of the new order.

3. The Common hero is EMINENT. God is within them (HUGE EMERSON). Goodness is valitional.

4. Defying Social norms is crucial. Slavery was a social norm at one point and the common hero would know it’s wrong through common sense and HEROIC SELF RELIANCE.

5. It is the opposite of Deference. Which is only the preservation of the coward and keeping ordinary men ordinary.

6. Common heroes have no time for puffery and pageantry . They dislike those who seek material gain and those who claim righteousness while siphoning joy from society.

7. Nothing more or less than an awakening of one’s mystical goodness. Latent Divinity: Latent divinity is the philosophical and spiritual concept that a divine, sacred essence exists within every human being, waiting to be awakened. It suggests humanity is "gods in the making," possessing innate potential for compassion, wisdom, and perfection, often obscured by worldly distractions or lack of self-awareness.

Common Hero vs. Magnanimous Hero

1. The Common here is not perfected in her values as the Magnanimous hero supposedly is. Common Hero is aspirational.

2. Emerson: “We are all wise in capacity, though so few in energy”. (Habituation is critical) Our faith comes in moments, our vice is habitual. We try and fail to be good, but expecting perfection is wholly unrealistic.

3. Thus, we are exposing the fraudulence of Magnanimity. The Common Hero comes to her fruition through nerve, positive liberty, transcendent, and VOLITION. Not by grace or sagacity.

4. Common Heroes are EPISODICALLY HEROIC. And infallibility is an unrealistic standard.

Archetypes of Common Heroes

1. Astronauts, cowboys, pioneer, SELF-MADE Man, yeoman farmer, all americans. Where commonness is a virtue. A heroic attribute. The everyman what we COULD BE through our own VOLITION.

2. Self-confidence and a sense of social PLACE.

Intuition

1. Common Hero’s endogenous capacity of Goodness. They will acquire their goodness intuitively through two aspects:

2. Two aspects:

   1. Common Sense, which is spontaneous moral reason born of intuition.

   2. Transcendental understanding of the good.

Common Sense

1. One of the key aspects of the Common Hero’s endogenous capacity for Goodness.

2. Spontaneous moral reason born of intuition.

3. Common sense is wholly pragmatic. An understanding independent of inquiring into first principles. For example, you can be a great athlete without knowing the first principles of biomechanics.

4. It is the human capacity to derive moral precepts from self evident truths.

5. Thus you can practice moral agency. We experience things and we can learn from them.

6. It is a form of comprehension known to all except lunatics. It’s a sense like touch and hearing.

7. Common Sense is MYSTIC: As if God was telling you. A faculty of vision.

8. Emerson calls it the over-soul. Still part of you, but God speaking within you.

Manifestations of Common Sense

1. Manifests as Capacity and Resource. It is both of these social functions:

   1. Capacity: Base layer of Common Heroism. It is fundamental to moral Volition. An aptitude that all possess but only some employ. Emerson: “We are all wise incapacity though so few in energy”. If you fail to realize this common sense, it will strip you of your positive and negative liberties.

   2. Resource: It is common knowledge. An ever-expanding warehouse of shared wisdom. As a resource, it has contributed to the democratization of the American mindset. It was a way of knowing truth, God, the legitimate boundaries of political authority. Common sense was an antidote for too much authority which shifted wisdom from the few to the many (democratization).

   3. It is a way of reconceiving moral authority. In America, It suggested that authority must be earned.

   4. Tyranny and Absolutism are the enemy of Common Sense.

Transcendentalism

1. Going beyond what we perceive. It is A Priori: Judgement without experience. You have generated knowledge intuitively about the world.

Over-soul and Emerson

1. Emerson’s conception of Common Sense.

2. Still part of you, but God speaking within you. Neither cognition nor Affect, but the eminent power within you. The Godly fusion of Cognition and Affect, as a universal. Jove nods to Jove behind each of them.

3. It is signifying the recognition of a shared, divine nature between people. It suggests that beneath superficial conversation, a higher consciousness connects individuals, allowing a tacit understanding to pass between them

4. HEROIC-SELF RELIANCE: Most important to Emerson. Self Reliance is liberation from those who wish to impose their will(s) upon you (Mag. Hero, Philosopher King). We are all imbued with the requisite knowledge through Transcendentalism and A priori Knowledge.

Common Sense and its application to Republicanism

1. Common Sense is an example of balance being neither Aristotelian, nor Architectonic.

2. In this instance, we do not need a philosopher king, or perfect equilibrium. We can structure society as moral agents, different collections of equals balancing each other. A society of equals with no innate power, honor, we lose nothing in terms of virtue in this system of government.

3. We know we are equal in capacity because we are all equally human. Be not fooled by those who proclaim magnanimity, as they are just as flawed and fallible as you and I.

Common Sense and America

1. Thomas Paine’s work aside…

2. You have to live under the authority of someone. Emerson: “Moral order seeing through the medium of an individual nature”.

3. Common Sense was a long time coming in America and not something that has always been a defining characteristic of our nation.

4. The Role of Religion: The Puritans, as early Americans, emphasized hierarchy, control, lack of individualism, and a Puritan calling which maintained the doctrine of preparation (living to be saved). And a collective responsibility to maintain their covenant with god to uphold a christian Republic.

5. But as the Enlightenment began to take shape, its individualistic ideas began to also creep into religion in the form of “newlights”.

The First and Second Great Awakenings

First Great Awakening:

1. Absorbed many enlightenment ideas about individualism, shaking puritanism to its very core. Jonathan Edwards: “Take your saving into your own hands”. Maybe we’re not all “depraved” and God has endowed us with moral agency. What we think of as American Democracy originated with this shift.

2. It opened american eyes up to the threat of too much consolidation of power. These awakenings are a process in which spiritual and cultural norms are realigned with Ambient Frameworks. They are Folk movements, the changing of the Magnanimous guard.

3. The old ways needed changing: the sovereignty of of kings yielded to the volitional efficacy of the individual. The old way was deference and the new way was the primacy of Common Sense. The new ideal was to be free and equal and this notion sparkes…

The Second Great Awakening:

1. Evangelical Explosion of the 1st quarter of the 19th century.

2. The denominations preached the efficacy of american individualism. The CAUSE of America is the CAUSE of Jesus. Freedom was a Divine mandate.

3. Religious roots in America led to a uniquely American form of Heroism: A celebration of common sense and self-evident first principles.

4. Transcendentalism: Expansion of the capacity of common heroism. A latent eminence. It was an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening and Common Sense.

First Awakening was awakening men’s hearts to God, the second was awakening men to their own potential.

Transcendentalism in America: Three Main Tasks

1. It was an awakening of individuals over the torpid (old, non-functioning) moral character in America.

2. Emphasized the transcendence of conformity, social limitation.

3. Freedom from the limitations imposed by the senses through A priori knowledge.
   

4. America was not characterized by noblemen, but by the common men who were noble in their commonness. Trust the common man for virtue, not those who proclaim to be virtuous.

5. Just because something is a common practice/social norm, that does not mean that is good nor for the benefit of the Common good. Huckleberry Finn. He knows it is traditionally/socially wrong for him to protect Jim, but he is listening to his intuition by still helping. He overcame society and conformity and HIMSELF. He is listening to his oversoul and A priori knowledge, he knows something is right without being taught. This is the essence of common sense, transcendentalism, the awakenings, and Common Heroism.

Moral Maturity

1. Raise the standard of Civil virtue, fan the flame of human love.

2. The process is this: Moral maturation is “I am as good as you and vice versa, let us help each other”. End goal is a huge brotherhood of divine average men, Emerson says.

3. We must appropriate the magnanimous hero’s goodness and give it to the common men.

Good Citizen vs. Good Man

1. Good Man: Knower of first and last principles.

2. Good Citizen: Knower of last principles.

3. So what? Emerson says that the use of the greatly good (magnanimous) man is that we should appropriate the knowledge of great man. They serve as a sense of inspiration not idolization. If you do idolize the magnanimous hero, it will rob common people of self-determination.

Overarching themes of the Common Hero

1. The Common Hero masters her will in the fulfilment of the divine mandate. Meaning self, society, and God. Not replacing god, but living in accordance with that which is objectively good (obligation to god).

2. Transcendent through Justice.

3. True to herself, comfortable in her own skin.

4. We are all magnanimous all of the time.

Common Hero: In America

1. Rural Conception - Yeoman Farmer. Also the frontiersman, a baptismal quality to being in nature/natives. This is kind of Romantic, but there was an aspect of taming/domesticating the land.

2. Urban Conception - Self-made Man (Alger).

3. The Cowboy and Hard-boiled detective.

   1. Similar in the sense of just being some guy. But that’s exactly what makes them so admirable they are the embodiment of EMERSON: We are all wise in capacity though so few in energy.

   2. Reversal of each other. Urban Corruption vs. Nature’s cleansing element. Fighting crime vs. Riding off into the sunset.

   3. They are incredibly similar however.

   4. Both choose justice over injustice. Emphasis on the individual and individual self-reliance. No one is coming to help.

   5. Great Depression caused the need/demand for more uplifting heroes. Thus, the superhero was born.

Superheroes

1. Common Heroes. Came about during the Great Depression as characters to look up to/Fight fascism. Someone to look up to with their aspect/trait of relatability. There’s always a weakness. Teach us to look within for our own (endogenous if you will/ Transcendentalism) superpower (Batman pretty much).

2. Not Homeric/Epic Heroes. They do not do their heroic acts for the sake of glory. Virtu(osity)e is its own reward - This is the OBLIGATION TO SELF and the reason for anonymity.

3. Obligation to God: Same as other Transcendentalists. We obey god through listening to the eminence within us, our common sense.

4. “The People” incarnate. She is the cure to magnanimity through puffery and pageantry,

5. She stands for individualism (self-reliance), She is the force that makes hierarchy redundant. Good for the sake of virtue and not for recognition. This is what makes them NOT epic/homeric heroes.

The Super Hero: Three Crucial Aspects

1. The ability to resist private and self-serving temptations. That is her muscular individualism.

2. Unwillingness to lose sight of the big picture. Welfare of civil society that is the source of liberty. Depends on collectivism of the importance of collective welfare welfare.

3. She arouses aspirational qualities and is a source of inspiration and emulation. You are greater than you think you are. Smile, we have done this a thousand times.

4. Problem: Common heroism often goes unnoticed.

5. The common hero is defined by transcendence through Volition. Not by capacity or gift, but a willingness. Each of is is precisely as good as we choose to be.

Republican Hero

1. Each of the four hero types thus far could be classified as “republican heroes”. The provide defense, redemption, leadership, and fulfil their obligations to self, society and, God.

2. The COMPLETE republican hero is all four of the hero types embodied simultaneously, you can certainly try to make the case for one, but it’s going to inevitably fall short, Mr. Socrates.

Post-Heroic World?

1. Nowadays, do we live in a world of last men who are equally wise in capacity, though so few in energy (to be great).

2. Lutzig says: “NO, Are you kidding??”

3. We live in the most heroic age because all of the hero types exist simultaneously, just not in a single packaged individual. And this is a good thing because it prevents all of our heroic eggs being placed in a single basket and running the risk of corrupted magnanimity. This disaggregation is COSMICALLY JUST.

4. GUESS WHAT? it allows all the hero types to exist in BALANCE and check one another.

5. This demonstrates that virtue is to be found in the much more prosaic virtuous mean, not in the TOWERING extremities. It is balance.

Corruption

1. Corrupted magnanimous hero: The authoritarian ruler who says, “it’s for your own good”.

2. Corrupted Romantic: The romantic is corrupted through self absorption. Werther killing himself after losing the game of love — Once.

3. Common hero can become corrupted through greed/selfishness.

4. The Epic hero corrupted is a lion.

Acceptable legacy

1. What our hero types leave behind is not their homeric glory or legacy, but their Derivative social values:

2. They are a conjunctive web that emanate from the four hero types. They represent the prerequisites for the good republic.

DSV: Epic Hero

1. Efficacy (possession of these values does not mean that you are this hero type): A taste for taking action. Active citizenship.

2. Ambition: Pits the efficacious citizens against each other. Which was bad in the sense of Rome, but GOOD when the rules of the game are fair. Free market economy in the US, the Court System. PLURALISM is key here. There needs to be many competing groups/parties.

3. WARNING: Everything in balance and moderation. These values in excess will result in tyranny and require constraints or RULES OF ENGAGEMENT.

4. They become problematic when factionalism overwhelms these constraints resulting in “big man” politics where personality takes over rule of law.

Rules of Engagement

1. Epic Heroes are not inherently bad for the republic, they provide derivative social values that must be regulated by Rules of Engagement.

2. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (universally accepted and effectively enforced guidelines). Like constitutionalism which is an exercise in the rules of engagement.

DSV: Magnanimous Hero * wtf.

1. Justice:

2. ingenuity:

3. In her pure form, the magnanimous hero is a metaphysical response to the epic her, Greatly good and a vehicle for the importation of cosmic first principles. That which is objectively good and turn it into LAW. She is the enlightened captain of the ship of State leading the unenlightened out of the cave. She is perfected in the active and contemplative virtues. She supplies society of their moral nourishment.

4. WARNING: Corrupted Magnanimity.

   1. Manifestation of corrupted magnanimous hero is venality.

   2. Sometimes they use their perfection to serve their own interests/means.

   3. Second is a sense of the infallibility of one’s great goodness, but guess what, you’re an emotion-having human being too.

   4. It presents as Authoritarianism.

DSV: Romantic Hero

1. Liberty: Not in Lockean terms. It is a transcendent state of autonomy and the ability to be free from anything that constrains you.

2. Equality: Liberty without equality is pathological. Equality of liberty if you will. Without liberty the equality is corrupted, and vice versa arguably. When ascriptive (innate) characteristics have no impact on the outcome of success for individuals.

3. Identity: Complicated. Subjective sense of oneself. Romantics challenge/ disrupt traditional social identities like Rosa Parks.

   1. Social identity: How a group views and makes sense of the world we share with others. There are ascriptive characteristics (innate like Race). That are collectively ascriptive which forms communities.

   2. Identity in a modern sense creates an affective sense of placefulness - not citizenship. Placefulness in how you feel about a society.
      

Review of the Romantic Hero as well:

1. There was a historic emphasis on Greatness, but the Common and Romantic Heroes both challenge this notion. They address the imbalance of power (social equality) and the endogenous moral quality of individuals.

2. INDIVIDUALISM in a SOCIAL FRAMEWORK: You can go to Walden pond but you have to come back eventually and share the fruits of your self-contemplating and nature-considering labors.

3. The Romantic Hero is a supplement to liberalism (liberty). They speak to multiculturalism.

4. We can have spiritualism but not faith. We HAVE TO KNOW THROUGH experience and thus observing “god” through nature.

5. Moral Affect is guide and introspection is good but knowing yourself is not an end as I have previously discussed, it is merely the first step in learning how the would could be.

6. We the Romantics reimagine the world as what it could be and make society more authentic. Leading others to their authenticity is the obligation to SOCIETY.

Romantic Corruption

Manifestations:

1. Savagery of the Monster: Mary Shelley. We can lose control if our passions overwhelm us.

2. Excessive Subjectivity: Too much sense of self (absorption). Werther in this case.

3. Mindless dissident: Perpetually discontented.

4. Boorstein’s Celebrity Hero.

DSV: The Common Hero

1. Tolerance: Softens reasonableness/ Not too restrictive, it makes social identity reasonable. Allows/Promotes minority cultures to care out their space in a modern republic and facilitates acceptance. It too becomes corrupted when taken to excess. Excessive tolerance imputes equal legitimacy to ALL social identities like pedophiles and racists. Tolerance requires justice and judgement like all things.

2. Reasonableness: Allows citizens to discriminate between various types of freedom. Allows us to adapt, aggregate social differences, makes losers accept losing. Reasonableness becomes corrupted when we say that things should stay as they’ve always been (tradition does not mean good).

3. Good Point: Reasonableness (restricti(ve)on) and tolerance (permissi(ve)on) conditions for liberty that need to be in Aristotelian balance.

Overview:

1. The everyman, not that every man can, but they should. By limiting the role of the magnanimous hero, we increase the egalitarianism amongst citizens.

2. The Common Hero is good in the objective sense. They access the first principles of goodness through volitional employment of innate human capacity (Intuition and Common sense). Everyone is fallible and the Common Hero acknowledges this in a way that the Magnanimous Hero does not. However, sometimes they work in tandem with the Magnanimous hero painting the broad brushstrokes and the Common Hero filling in the details (whatever that means).

3. The corrupted common hero i simply mediocrity, the domain of last men. She exists only for comfort and not fulfilment. The substitution of values for comfort.