Natural Law and Natural Rights (Clarendon Law Series)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.45 (522 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0199599149 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 500 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-09-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
It has offered generations of students and other readers a thorough grounding in the central issues of legal, moral, and political philosophy from Finnis's distinctive perspective. A fully critical basis for such evaluations is a theory of natural law. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years of discussion, criticism and further work in the field to develop and refine the original theory.The book closely integrates the philosophy of law with ethics, social theory and political philosophy. Standard contemporary objections to natural law theory are reviewed and shown to rest on serious misunderstandings.The Second Part develops in ten carefully structured chapters an account of: basic human goods and basic requirements of practical reasonableness, community and 'the common good'; justice; the logical structure of rights-talk; the bases of human rights, their specification and their limits; authority, and the formation of authoritative rules by non-authoritative persons and procedures; law, the Rule of Law, and the derivation of laws from the principles of practical reasonableness; the complex relation between legal and moral obligation; and the practical and theoretical problems created by unjust laws.A final Part devel
A brilliantly refreshing attempt at Natural Law John Finnis's book is revolutionary, and it is owing to this brilliant, though not uncontroverted work that Aquinas' theory of natural law has regained its appeal and even prestige. Finnis' arguments can be hard to grasp, principally because natural law is not argued for, but is self-evident, and can only be submitted to a defense. Precisely on this count Finnis, and his collaborators with him, Germain Grisez and Robert P George (themselves also excellent catholic intellectuals) have found criticism amongst more conservative readers of Aquinas' moral theory. For Finnis, the reasonable grasp of basic goods. The best introduction to Natural Law Theory Cristobal Orrego Finnis, encouraged by the late H.L.A. Hart (20th Century leading English legal positivist), wrote this introduction to legal theory from the Natural Law Tradition point of view. In 13 chapters he shows what is a science of Law, why Natural Law classical (Plato's, Aristotle's and Aquinas') theory has been misunderstood (even by Hart or Kelsen), which are the basic principles of practical reason (corresponding to the basic human values) and the basic requirements of practical reasonableness (which allow us to reason in a morally right way), and which are the most fundamental truths regarding the community a. "A comprehensive theory of ethics, politics, and law" according to A Customer. Finnis's background is that of a lawyer and legal philosopher, and so this book is ostensibly a contribution to philosophy of law, but in effect it is a wide-ranging treatment of ethical and political theory aimed at supporting a broadly Natural Law conception of the foundations of law. Finnis's starting point is a teleological but anticonsequentialist ethical theory originally developed by Germain Grisez. Grisez, and following him Finnis, attempt to combine the Aristotelian insight that human actions are fundamentally directed toward realization of or participation in certain human goods, with the Kantia
He is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.. John Finnis is Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of University College
"Finnis's book not only meticulously restores a truly ancient and at times cathedral-like building in need of repair, but also in a very original way endows it with a new meaning by using some freshly developed materials and techniques." -- American Society of International Law Newsletter