Outlines and discusses St. Thomas Aquinas's insights into legal reasoning and judgments, and the nature and role of judges and lawyers.

Using St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law philosophy and Divine Exemplar argument to prompt new discussion of ethical questions that lawyers and judges should confront, the author delivers a complete occupational profile for the professional conduct of judges and lawyers. St. Thomas's discourse on such topics as procedural law, judicial and advocate conduct and character, criminal and civil practice standards, and sentencing guidelines provides a blueprint for the Christian lawyer and judge by laying out the professional and ethical parameters that make the actor operate in accordance with reason and morality. This text on Thomistic jurisprudence challenges the current beliefs of law and the justice system, the functions of lawyers, advocates, and judges, and traditional views on evidence and punishment, and suggests a return to the roots of the system, in which reason, virtue, and justice guide the law and its practice. Lawyers, judges, students, and scholars should find in these pages a unique approach to renewing our beleaguered justice system. Relying on extensive quotations from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, the author begins the text with an explication of St. Thomas's influences, legal philosophy, and thoughts on virtue and the law. He then devotes several chapters to specific concepts in Thomistic jurisprudence, including prudence, the common good, judicial process, judgment, and punishment. The final chapters analyze the role of lawyers and judges, and argues for the need for the application of the Thomistic model of jurisprudence to our criminal justice system.

The Aristotelian Society of Marquette University each year invites a scholar to speak on the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Those lectures have come to be called the Aquinas Lectures and are customarily delivered on the Sunday nearest March 7, the feast day of the Society's patron saint. For the year 1945, the Society has the pleasure of publishing the lecture by Edward Kennard Rand, Pope Professor of Latin emeritus, Harvard University.

During the tumult of the 1960s, the American character was tested in extraordinary ways--none more pressing than the rightful clamor for civil rights in Black community. Existing laws institutionalized the second class citizenry in many quarters and courts were very unsympathetic to the obvious injustices coursing through the American experience. Laws were aplenty -- most of which served to maintain the unjust status quo. Those seeking reform had a variety of options open when challenging these wrongs. Consider the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr. How did Dr. King arrive at a philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience to the inequalities of his day? Why did he choose this method of structural challenge over the other options? Dr. King could have gone in very different directions. Why did he passionately urge his followers to lay down the sword, to accept suffering and humiliation rather than strike his errant and hateful neighbor, and to willingly and very humbly experience the jail cell for his alleged crimes? As King relates: "I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens' councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear." By examining the man, his life and his work, both written and oratorical, the author concludes that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in fact a Thomist through and through. Not a Thomist on all things, but as to his understanding of law and its corresponding obligation or lack thereof, King is the ultimate Thomist. In his letters and writings, texts and speeches, King is a regular advocate of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. A reader can feel the respect that King has for Thomist principles, and in a sense, Thomism is the "antidote" against the ravages of modernity. King's theory of civil disobedience classically adheres to the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Amazingly, he even tells us about his allegiance to the philosophy of St. Thomas. That is what this work is all about -- a discourse on and a discernment into the compatibility of both men and a revelation that once again, St. Thomas had the answers long before the problem ever emerged. "Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections." -- CHOICE Magazine

In A Comparative Analysis of Cicero and Aquinas, Charles P. Nemeth investigates how, despite their differences, these two figures may be the most compatible brothers in ideas ever conceived in the theory of natural law. Looking to find common threads that run between the philosophies of these two great thinkers of the Classical and Medieval periods, this book aims to determine whether or not there exists a common ground whereby ethical debates and dilemmas can be evaluated. Does comparison between Cicero and Aquinas offer a new pathway for moral measure, based on defined and developed principles? Do they deliver certain moral and ethical principles for human life to which each agree? Instead of a polemical diatribe, comparison between Cicero and Aquinas may edify a method of compromise and afford a more or less restrictive series of judgements about ethical quandaries.

The Aristotelian Society of Marquette University each year invites a scholar to speak on the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Those lectures have come to be called the Aquinas Lectures and are customarily delivered on the Sunday nearest March 7, the feast day of the Society's patron saint. For the year 1945, the Society has the pleasure of publishing the lecture by Edward Kennard Rand, Pope Professor of Latin emeritus, Harvard University.