ABSTRACT
Belief systems shape values, and values define morally relevant and conventional ethics. A search into American belief systems turns up ample conventional and morally relevant values that provide the context for American welfare policy. There are numerous ideologies that influence American thought and behavior, and some of the systems of beliefs may be organized better than others as representing the truth. The development of ideas before and after the Reformation has left a profound legacy in contemporary Western thought. Ideas of individual moral worth, rights, and impartial law were difficult to assimilate into the life of the organized political community. John Locke transformed the earlier idea of the personalized law of the monarch into impartial and objective law. The idea of a higher law, discoverable by each individual and with a greater authority than the civil law or the laws of convention, was and remains a basic premise of American liberal thought.
