Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I: Universal Human Rights and the Impoverishment of Moral Discourse -- Chapter 1 The History of Human Rights in International Law -- Chapter 2 The Relativism of Universality -- Chapter 3 Human Rights as Moral Principles -- Part II: Soul Keeping and State Building: Principles and Politics from Plato to Machiavelli -- Chapter 4 Natural Right: The "Philosophic Quest for the First Things" in Plato and Aristotle -- Chapter 5 The Philosophic First Things in the Light of Christianity -- Chapter 6 Machiavelli and the Low Road to Modernity -- Part III: The Decline of Truth and the Rise of Rights in the Thought of Grotius and Locke -- Chapter 7 The Grotian Response to the Realist Challenge -- Chapter 8 Locke's Natural Law: The Answer to Grotius's Prayer -- Part IV: Being and Goodness: The Alpha and Omega of Human Rights -- Chapter 9 Being and Goodness: The Essence of Life and Law in the Philosophy of St. Thomas -- Chapter 10 The Logical Impossibility of Abortion as a Human Right -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.