Natural Law and Natural Rights.
Title:
Natural Law and Natural Rights.
Author:
Finnis, John.
ISBN:
9780191616655
Personal Author:
Edition:
2nd ed.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (511 pages)
Series:
Clarendon Law Series
Contents:
Cover -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Part One -- I: EVALUATION AND THE DESCRIPTION OF LAW -- I.1. The Formation of Concepts for Descriptive Social Science -- I.2. Attention to Practical Point -- I.3. Selection of Central Case and Focal Meaning -- I.4. Selection of Viewpoint -- I.5. The Theory of Natural Law -- Notes -- II: IMAGES AND OBJECTIONS -- II.1. Natural Law and Theories of Natural Law -- II.2. Legal Validity and Morality -- II.3. The Variety of Human Opinions and Practices -- II.4. The Illicit Inference from Facts to Norms -- II.5. Hume and Clarke on 'Is' and 'Ought' -- II.6. Clarke's Antecedents -- II.7. The 'Perverted Faculty' Argument -- II.8. Natural Law and the Existence and Will of God -- Notes -- Part Two -- III: A BASIC FORM OF GOOD: KNOWLEDGE -- III.1. An Example -- III.2. From Inclination to Grasp of Value -- III.3. Practical Principle and Participation in Value -- III.4. The Self-evidence of the Good of Knowledge -- III.5. 'Object of Desire' and Objectivity -- III.6. Scepticism about this Basic Value is Indefensible -- Notes -- IV: THE OTHER BASIC VALUES -- IV.1. Theoretical Studies of 'Universal' Values -- IV.2. The Basic Forms of Human Good: A Practical Reflection -- IV.3. An Exhaustive List? -- IV.4. All Equally Fundamental -- IV.5. Is Pleasure the Point of It All? -- Notes -- V: THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF PRACTICAL REASONABLENESS -- V.1. The Good of Practical Reasonableness Structures Our Pursuit of Goods -- V.2. A Coherent Plan of Life -- V.3. No Arbitrary Preferences Amongst Values -- V.4. No Arbitrary Preferences Amongst Persons -- V.5. Detachment and Commitment -- V.6. The (Limited) Relevance of Consequences: Efficiency, Within Reason -- V.7. Respect for Every Basic Value in Every Act -- V.8. The Requirements of the Common Good -- V.9. Following One's Conscience -- V.10. The Product of these Requirements: Morality.
Notes -- VI: COMMUNITY, COMMUNITIES, AND COMMON GOOD -- VI.1. Reasonableness and Self-interest -- VI.2. Types of Unifying Relationship -- VI.3. 'Business' Community and 'Play' Community -- VI.4. Friendship -- VI.5. 'Communism' and 'Subsidiarity' -- VI.6. Complete Community -- VI.7. The Existence of a Community -- VI.8. The Common Good -- Notes -- VII: JUSTICE -- VII.1. Elements of Justice -- VII.2. General Justice -- VII.3. Distributive Justice -- VII.4. Criteria of Distributive Justice -- VII.5. Commutative Justice -- VII.6. Justice and the State -- VII.7. An Example of Justice: Bankruptcy -- Notes -- VIII: RIGHTS -- VIII.1. 'Natural', 'Human', or 'Moral' Rights -- VIII.2. An Analysis of Rights-talk -- VIII.3. Are Duties 'Prior to' Rights? -- VIII.4. Rights and the Common Good -- VIII.5. The Specification of Rights -- VIII.6. Rights and Equality of Concern and Respect -- VIII.7. Absolute Human Rights -- Notes -- IX: AUTHORITY -- IX.1. The Need for Authority -- IX.2. The Meanings of 'Authority' -- IX.3. Formation of Conventions or Customary Rules -- IX.4. The Authority of Rulers -- IX.5. 'Bound By Their Own Rules'? -- Notes -- X: LAW -- X.1. Law and Coercion -- X.2. Unjust Punishment -- X.3. The Main Features of Legal Order -- X.4. The Rule of Law -- X.5. Limits of the Rule of Law -- X.6. A Definition of Law -- X.7. Derivation of 'Positive' from 'Natural' Law -- Notes -- XI: OBLIGATION -- XI.1. 'Obligation', 'Ought', and Rational Necessity -- XI.2. Promissory Obligation -- XI.3. Variable and Invariant Obligatory Force -- XI.4. 'Legally Obligatory': the Legal Sense and the Moral Sense -- XI.5. Contractual Obligation in Law: Performance or Compensation? -- XI.6. Legal Obligation in the Moral Sense: Performance or Submission to Penalty? -- XI.7. Obligation and Legislative Will.
XI.8. 'Reason' and 'Will' in Decision, Legislation, and Compliance with Law -- XI.9. Moral Obligation and God's Will -- Notes -- XII UNJUST LAWS -- XII.1. A Subordinate Concern of Natural Law Theory -- XII.2. Types of Injustice in Law -- XII.3. Effects of Injustice on Obligation -- XII.4. 'Lex Injusta Non Est Lex' -- Notes -- Part Three -- XIII: NATURE, REASON, GOD -- XIII.1. Further Questions about the Point of Human Existence -- XIII.2. Orders, Disorders, and the Explanation of Existence -- XIII.3. Divine Nature and 'Eternal Law': Speculation and Revelation -- XIII.4. Natural Law as 'Participation of Eternal Law' -- XIII.5. Concluding Reflections on the Point and Force of Practical Reasonableness -- Notes -- Postscript -- 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 -- X -- Z.
Abstract:
First published in 1980, Natural Law and Natural Rights is widely heralded as a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law, and an authoritative restatement of natural law doctrine. 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. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years ofdiscussion, 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. The author develops a sustained and substantive argument; it is not a review of other people's arguments but makes frequent illustrative and critical reference to classical, modern, and contemporary writers in ethics, social and political theory, and jurisprudence.The preliminary First Part reviews a century of analytical jurisprudence to illustrate the dependence of every descriptive social science upon evaluations by the theorist. A fully critical basis for such evaluations is a theory of natural law. 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 complexrelation between legal and moral obligation; and the practical and theoretical problems
created by unjust laws.A final Part develops a vigorous argument about the relation between 'natural law', 'natural theology' and 'revelation' - between moral concern and other ultimate questions.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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Electronic Access:
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