Natural Law and Practical Rationality
Title | Natural Law and Practical Rationality PDF eBook |
Author | Mark C. Murphy |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 306 |
Release | 2001-06-11 |
Genre | Law |
ISBN | 9780521802291 |
A defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality.
Natural Law and Practical Rationality
Title | Natural Law and Practical Rationality PDF eBook |
Author | Mark C. Murphy |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2007-08-16 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 9780521039772 |
According to the natural law account of practical rationality, the basic reasons for actions are basic goods that are grounded in the nature of human beings. Practical rationality aims to identify and characterize reasons for action and to explain how choice between actions worth performing can be appropriately governed by rational standards. Natural Law and Practical Rationality is a defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality, demonstrating its inherent plausibility and engaging systematically with rival egoist, consequentialist, Kantian and virtue accounts.
A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory
Title | A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory PDF eBook |
Author | Russell Hittinger |
Publisher | University of Notre Dame Press |
Pages | 250 |
Release | 1987 |
Genre | Law |
ISBN |
In this volume Russell Hittinger presents a comprehensive and critical treatment of the attempt to restate and defend a theory of natural law, particularly as proposed by Germain Grisez and John Finnis. A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory begins by examining the positions of various moral philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Alan Donogan, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Stanley Hauerwas, who wish to recover particular facets of premodern ethics. Hittinger then explores the work of Grisez and Finnis, who claim to have recovered natural law in a manner that avoids the standard objections brought against it since the Enlightenment; they thus claim to have recovered natural law theory available once again for moral theology. Hittinger examines this new theory for internal coherence and consistency. In addition, he examines whether it is sufficiently comprehensive to explicate the religious, anthropological, and metaphysical questions that bear upon natural law ethics. He argues that the new natural law theory fails because it does not take into account philosophical anthropology and metaphysics. It cannot show how and why "nature" is normative for human activity. Hittinger concludes that if natural law theory is to be recovered, we must discover how to constructively bring theoretical rationality to bear upon ethics and practical rationality. Until this is done, he asserts, we will not have a defensible theory of natural law.
Natural Law Theory
Title | Natural Law Theory PDF eBook |
Author | Tom Angier |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 118 |
Release | 2021-09-16 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1108586392 |
In Section 1, I outline the history of natural law theory, covering Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. In Section 2, I explore two alternative traditions of natural law, and explain why these constitute rivals to the Aristotelian tradition. In Section 3, I go on to elaborate a via negativa along which natural law norms can be discovered. On this basis, I unpack what I call three 'experiments in being', each of which illustrates the cogency of this method. In Section 4, I investigate and rebut two seminal challenges to natural law methodology, namely, the fact/value distinction in metaethics and Darwinian evolutionary biology. In Section 5, I then outline and criticise the 'new' natural law theory, which is an attempt to revise natural law thought in light of the two challenges above. I conclude, in Section 6, with a summary and some reflections on the prospects for natural law theory.
Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics
Title | Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics PDF eBook |
Author | Mark C. Murphy |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 205 |
Release | 2006-03-13 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1107320925 |
Natural law is a perennial though poorly represented and understood issue in political philosophy and the philosophy of law. In this 2006 book, Mark C. Murphy argues that the central thesis of natural law jurisprudence - that law is backed by decisive reasons for compliance - sets the agenda for natural law political philosophy, demonstrating how law gains its binding force by way of the common good of the political community. Murphy's work ranges over the central questions of natural law jurisprudence and political philosophy, including the formulation and defense of the natural law jurisprudential thesis, the nature of the common good, the connection between the promotion of the common good and requirement of obedience to law, and the justification of punishment.
Reason, Religion, and Natural Law
Title | Reason, Religion, and Natural Law PDF eBook |
Author | Jonathan A. Jacobs |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 304 |
Release | 2012-10-19 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0199995923 |
This edited volume examines the realizations between theological considerations and natural law theorizing, from Plato to Spinoza. Theological considerations have long had a pronounced role in Catholic natural law theories, but have not been as thoroughly examined from a wider perspective. The contributors to this volume take a more inclusive view of the relation between conceptions of natural law and theistic claims and principles. They do not jointly defend one particular thematic claim, but articulate diverse ways in which natural law has both been understood and related to theistic claims. In addition to exploring Plato and the Stoics, the volume also looks at medieval Jewish thought, the thought of Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham, and the ways in which Spinoza's thought includes resonances of earlier views and intimations of later developments. Taken as a whole, these essays enlarge the scope of the discussion of natural law through study of how the naturalness of natural law has often been related to theses about the divine. The latter are often crucial elements of natural law theorizing, having an integral role in accounting for the metaethical status and ethical bindingness of natural law. At the same time, the question of the relation between natural law and God-and the relation between natural law and divine command-has been addressed in a multiplicity of ways by key figures throughout the history of natural law theorizing, and these essays accord them the explanatory significance they deserve.
Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society
Title | Natural Moral Law in Contemporary Society PDF eBook |
Author | Holger Zaborowski |
Publisher | CUA Press |
Pages | 369 |
Release | 2010-08 |
Genre | Law |
ISBN | 0813217865 |
The essays of this volume examine natural moral law, different natural law theories, and the role that natural law can and should play in our contemporary society