ebooks The Believing Primate: Scientific; Philosophical; and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion by Jeffrey Schloss; Michael Murray in History

Description

This central volume in the Collected Essays brings together John Finnis's wide-ranging contribution to central issues in political philosophy.The volume begins by examining the general theory of political community and social justice. It includes the powerful and well-known Maccabaean Lecture on Bills of Rights -- a searching critique of Ronald Dworkin's moral-political arguments and conclusions; of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to fundamental rights; and of judicial review as a constitutional institution. It is followed by an equally searching analysis of Kant's thought on the intersection of law; right; and ethics. Other papers in the book's opening section include an early assessment of Rawls's A Theory of Justice; a radical re-interpretation of Aquinas on limited government and the significance of the private/public distinction; and a challenging paper on virtue and the constitution. The volume then focuses on central problems in modern political communities; including the achievement of justice in work and distribution; the practice of punishment; war and justice; the public control of euthanasia and abortion; and the nature of marriage and the common good. There are careful and vigorous critiques of Nietzsche on morality; Hart on punishment; Dworkin on the enforcement of morality and on euthanasia; Rawls on justice and law; Thomson on the woman's right to choose; Habermas on abortion; Nussbaum and Koppelman on same-sex relations; and Dummett and Weithman on open borders. The volume's previously unpublished papers include a foundational consideration of labor unions; a fresh statement of a new grounding for the morality of sex; a surprising reading of C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man on contraception; and an introduction reviewing some of the remarkable changes in private and public morality over the past half-century.