Twentieth-century French philosophers Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon pioneered new approaches to understanding and defending political democracy in the wake of two world wars. Rather than break from a religious tradition that seemed to struggle against modernity and certain forms of democratic theory and practice, these thinkers instead looked back to the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to propel Catholic political philosophy forward. The profound influence of Maritain and Simon is manifest in the dramatic achievements of Vatican II and in the work of the scholars of political philosophy who learned from them. John P. Hittinger, one of the finest of these scholars, provides in Liberty, Wisdom, and Grace a comprehensive survey of the Thomists' contributions to contemporary political thought as well as a detailed analysis of their approach to democracy. Hittinger treats criticism of Maritain, including the work of Catholic political writer Aurel Kolnai, and discusses the alternative democratic visions of John Locke and David Richards. His portraits of thinkers who have wrestled with democracy in the Thomist tradition, such as Leo Strauss and John Paul II, are sensitive and engaging. Addressing questions of religion and philosophy broadly understood, the essays collected here offer a searching examination of democratic theory in the modern age.
An integrative view of the evolution of genetics and the natural world Even in this advanced age of genomics, the evolutionary process of unicellular and multicellular organisms is continually in debate. Evolutionary Biology, Cell–Cell Communication, and Complex Disease challenges current wisdom by using physiology to present an integrative view of the nature, origins, and evolution of fundamental biological systems. Providing a deeper understanding of the way genes relate to the traits of living organisms, this book offers useful information applying evolutionary biology, functional genomics, and cell communication studies to complex disease. Examining the 4.5 billion-year evolution process from environment adaptations to cell-cell communication to communication of genetic information for reproduction, Evolutionary Biology hones in on the "why and how" of evolution by uniquely focusing on the cell as the smallest unit of biologic structure and function. Based on empirically derived data rather than association studies, Evolutionary Biology covers: A model for forming testable hypotheses in complex disease studies The integrating role played by the evolution of metabolism, especially lipid metabolism The evolutionary continuum from development to homeostasis Regeneration and aging mediated by signaling molecules Ambitious and game-changing Evolutionary Biology suggests that biology began as a mechanism for reducing energy within the cell, defying the Second Law of Thermodynamics. An ideal text for those interested in forward thinking scientific study, the insights presented in Evolutionary Biology help practitioners effectively comprehend the evolutionary process.
During the last few centuries, a practical dichotomy between God and humans has developed within moral theory. As a result, moral theory tends to focus only on humans where human autonomy is foundational or only on God where divine commands capriciously rule. However, the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas overcomes this dichotomy. For Thomas, humans reach their perfection by participating in God's wisdom and love. Perfecting Human Actions explores the ways humans participate in eternal law--God's wisdom that guides and moves all things to their proper action. The book begins with a thoughtful examination of the philosophic recovery of the notion of participation in Thomistic metaphysics. It then explains Thomas's theological understanding of the notion of participation to show how humans are related to God. It is discovered that when performing human actions, humans participate in the eternal law in two ways: as moved and governed by it, and cognitively. In reference to participation as moved and governed, humans are directed by God to their proper end of eternal happiness. This mode of participation can be increased by perfecting the natural inclinations through virtue, grace, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In reference to cognitive participation, humans as rational creatures can know their proper end and how to attain it. Through this knowledge of moral truths, the intellect participates in the eternal law. Cognitive participation is perfected by the intellectual virtues (especially faith) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (especially wisdom). The book concludes by showing how the notion of human participation in the eternal law is a much better foundation for moral theory than the contemporary notion of autonomy. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Rziha is associate professor of theology at Benedictine College. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: " A] competent and indeed masterful study. . . . Rziha's book is to be welcomed as not just an important, but indeed an overdue contribution to the contemporary recovery of Aquinas's moral theory. More importantly, this study is of surpassing importance in advancing the correct understanding of the relationship between human freedom and natural law. . . . Rziha's lucidly written and well-documented study displays all the characteristics of a competent and learned interpretation of the thought of the doctor communis according to the highest standards of current Aquinas scholarship."--Reinhard Hutter, Thomist "Rziha explores at length the two modes by which human participate in God's eternal law: as moved and governed by it and as having knowledge of it. . . . T]his book proves to be something of a comprehensive course in Thomistic thought. This project is supported by extensive and meticulous footnote reverences to texts of Aquinas." --Janine Marie Idziak, Speculum
This accessible book is invaluable to anyone coming to social and political philosophy for the first time. It provides a broad survey of key social and political questions in modern society, as well as clear discussions of the philosophical issues central to those questions and to political thought more generally. Unique among books of this kind is a sustained treatment of specifically social philosophy, including topics such as epistemic injustice, pornography, marriage, sexuality, and the family. The relation between such social questions and specifically political topics is discussed. These topics include: political authority, economic justice, the limits of tolerance, considerations of community, race, gender, and culture in questions of justice, and radical critiques of current political theories.? Updates to the Second Edition emphasize the non-statist areas of the subject and include two brand new chapters on social philosophy and transnational justice. This Second Edition also includes revisions throughout and coverage of recent theoretical discussions and world events.
What do we mean when we refer to people as being equal by nature? In the first book devoted to human equality as a fact rather than as a social goal or a legal claim, John Coons and Patrick Brennan argue that even if people possess unequal talents or are born into unequal circumstances, all may still be equal if it is true that human nature provides them the same access to moral self-perfection. Plausibly, in the authors' view, such access stems from the power of individuals to achieve goodness simply by doing the best they can to discover and perform correct actions. If people enjoy the same degree of natural capacity to try, all of us are offered the same opportunities for moral self-fulfillment. To believe this is to believe in equality. This truly interdisciplinary work not only proposes the authors' own rationale but also provides an effective deconstruction of several other contemporary theories of equality, while it engages historical, philosophical, and Christian accounts as well. Furthermore, by divorcing the "best" from the "brightest," it shows how descriptive equality acquires practical significance. Among other accomplishments, By Nature Equal offers communitarians a core principle that has until now eluded them, rescues human dignity from the hierarchy of intellect, identifies racism in a new way, and shows how justice can be freshly grounded in the conviction that every rational person has the same capacity for moral excellence.
This dissertation seeks to establish that there is a renaissance of Thomistic Philosophy in the Post-Conciliar Catholic Church, specifically a reawakening of Scholasticism, as evidenced by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) ushered in a new era for the Roman Catholic religion prompted by the desire of Pope John XXIII to have the 2,000 year old institution catch up with the modern world and address current problems as well as present the ancient faith in contemporary ways. Prior to Vatican II, there was a monolithic way to explain faith and reason. Theology and Philosophy were rigidly taught via textbook manuals according to a norm established under Pope Pius X who vigorously denounced the errors of Modernism in his encyclical Pascendi (1907). His immediate predecessor, Pope Leo XIII had issued Aeterni Patris (1879) which directed a restoration of the pre-eminence of Thomistic philosophy. Unfortunately, the neo-Thomism of the Leonine papacy was not as resilient as the classical Thomism before it.The staunch Thomism which existed from 1879 to 1965 had been preceded by an era of anti-Scholasticism among the European centers of learning during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Protestant Reformation, the advent of Humanism and the chaos of the French Revolution proved to be formidable foes for Thomistic philosophy. Scholastic reasoning alone could not address the Biblical questions being posed by Luther and the other Reformers. Logical distinctions which are the hallmark of Thomism were too complicated for world which at times violently left the Mediaeval era behind it.Leo XIII after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars and while Europe was relatively at peace, saw the need to resurrect the philosophy he deemed perennially valid to combat religious and political errors which he saw as the causes for the wars and discord among peoples and nations. Leonine strategy was to aggressively promote and proliferate a centralized control over Catholic education, especially at the seminary and university levels. The first half of the twentieth century ironically experienced the horrors of two world wars and demonstrated the depth of human depravity and capacity for evil. No one, however, in 1879 could have envisioned the wars, hot and cold, which would define global existence.Just as Aquinas was originally suspected and rejected by many of his contemporaries in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and later vindicated in glory, so, too, Thomistic Philosophy would wax and wane through the centuries. The aftermath of Vatican II when the Latin Mass was replaced with the vernacular and ecumenical dialogue was sought with the non-Catholic religions, Thomism again took a back seat. Post-Conciliar scholars of philosophy and theology wanted to break the chains of manual style textbooks. Existentialism and Phenomenology were the predominant philosophies. Thomistic Philosophy and Scholasticism were viewed as relics of the past. Thirty years after the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II, known for his penchant for Phenomenology and Personalism, issues Veritatis Splendor which in essence restores the pride of place the Natural Moral Law doctrine once held before. A true student and subscriber to the moral reasoning used in Humanae Vitae (1967) by Pope Paul VI, John Paul II shakes the dust in Catholic intelligentsia by canonizing the Natural Moral Law as the only valid means to do good moral theology. Veritatis Splendor ignited a firestorm of debate, essays, discussions and dissertations on the age old principle known as the Natural Law.This paper intends to show the development of the Natural Moral Law doctrine from its beginnings to its most famous herald followed by a systematic review of Veritatis Splendor in order to show that Thomism is indeed alive and well in Catholic thought and has once again captured the imprimatur of Papal endorsement.
Individual freedom looms large in political and ethical thought. Nevertheless, the theoretical foundations underlying modern liberalism continue to be contested by proponents and opponents alike. The Myth of Liberalism offers a unique contribution to this debate by following through on the often-underdeveloped suggestion that liberal principles are untenable because they are self-contradictory. By analyzing and ultimately refuting each of the proposed underpinnings of liberalism - liberty, equality, rights, privacy, autonomy, or dignity - Safranek concludes that contemporary liberalism is a myth: it is not a coherent political philosophy as much as a collection of causes masked by emotively potent political rhetoric.
With over 10,000 entries, this bibliography is the most comprehensive guide to published writing in the tradition of Leo Strauss, who lived from 1899 to 1973 and was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. John A. Murley provides Strauss's own complete bibliography and identifies the work of hundreds of Strauss's students, and their students' students. Leo Strauss and His Legacy charts the path of influence of a beloved teacher and mentor, a deep and lasting heritage that permeates the classrooms of the twenty-first century. Each new generation of students of political philosophy will find this bibliography an indispensable resource.
The "natural law" worldview developed over the course of almost two thousand years beginning with Plato and Aristotle and culminating with St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This tradition holds that the world is ordered, intelligible and good, that there are objective moral truths which we can know and that human beings can achieve true happiness only by following our inborn nature, which draws us toward our own perfection. Most accounts of the natural law are based on a God-centered understanding of the world. After the Natural Law traces this tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and then describes how and why modern philosophers such as Descartes, Locke and Hobbes began to chip away at this foundation. The book argues that natural law is a necessary foundation for our most important moral and political values freedom, human rights, equality, responsibility and human dignity, among others. Without a theory of natural law, these values lose their coherence: we literally cannot make sense of them given the assumptions of modern philosophy. Part I of the book traces the development of natural law theory from Plato and Aristotle through the crowning achievement of Thomas Aquinas. Part II explores how modern philosophers have systematically chipped away at the only coherent foundation for these values. As a result, our most important moral and political ideals today are incoherent. Modern political and moral thinkers have been led either to dilute the meaning of such terms as freedom or the moral good or abandon these ideas altogether. Thus, modern philosophy and political thought are leading us either toward anarchy or totalitarianism. The conclusion, entitled "Why God Matters", shows how even the philosophical assumptions of the natural law depend on a personal God.
Written as an undergraduate textbook, Understanding Our Being treats central topics about our knowledge of being, the being of the natural world, and, via the latter, being as such
By focusing on the cellular mechanisms that underlie ontogeny, phylogeny and regeneration of complex physiologic traits, Evolution, the Logic of Biology demonstrates the use of homeostasis, the fundamental principle of physiology and medicine, as the unifying mechanism for evolution as all of biology. The homeostasis principle can be used to understand how environmental stressors have affected physiologic mechanisms to generate condition-specific novelty through cellular mechanisms. Evolution, the Logic of Biology allows the reader to understand the vertebrate life-cycle as an intergenerational continuum in support of effective, on-going environmental adaptation. By understanding the principles of physiology from their fundamental unicellular origins, culminating in modern-day metazoans, the reader as student, researcher or practitioner will be encouraged to think in terms of the prevention of disease, rather than in the treatment of disease as the eradication of symptoms. By tracing the ontogeny and phylogeny of this and other phenotypic homologies, one can perceive and understand how complex physiologic traits have mechanistically evolved from their simpler ancestral and developmental origins as cellular structures and functions, providing a logic of biology for the first time. Evolution, the Logic of Biology will be an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers studying evolutionary development, medicine and biology, anthropology, comparative and developmental biology, genetics and genomics, and physiology.
For more than 2,500 years, the Western tradition has embraced monogamous marriage as an essential institution for the flourishing of men and women, parents and children, society and the state. At the same time, polygamy has been considered a serious crime that harms wives and children, correlates with sundry other crimes and abuses, and threatens good citizenship and political stability. The West has thus long punished all manner of plural marriages and denounced the polygamous teachings of selected Jews, Muslims, Anabaptists, Mormons, and others. John Witte, Jr carefully documents the Western case for monogamy over polygamy from antiquity until today. He analyzes the historical claims that polygamy is biblical, natural, and useful alongside modern claims that anti-polygamy laws violate personal and religious freedom. While giving the pro and con arguments a full hearing, Witte concludes that the Western historical case against polygamy remains compelling and urges Western nations to hold the line on monogamy.
In Pope John Paul II Speaks on Women, Brooke Williams Deely presents a comprehensive record of John Paul II's reflections. This collection brings to the forefront the full context and content of his original contributions. Since John Paul II encouraged women and men to expand what he has adumbrated, this book facilitates ongoing dialogue. The principle of the organization of the volume is chronological, compiling John Paul II's teachings on the subject of women arranged by date over the entire term of his Papacy. Since this influential Pope addressed the situation of women from the beginning of his pontificate, this overview of his writings and his spoken addresses best showcases the development and historical context of his thought.
This book presents an improved design for service provisioning and allocation models that are validated through running genome sequence assembly tasks in a hybrid cloud environment. It proposes approaches for addressing scheduling and performance issues in big data analytics and showcases new algorithms for hybrid cloud scheduling. Scientific sectors such as bioinformatics, astronomy, high-energy physics, and Earth science are generating a tremendous flow of data, commonly known as big data. In the context of growing demand for big data analytics, cloud computing offers an ideal platform for processing big data tasks due to its flexible scalability and adaptability. However, there are numerous problems associated with the current service provisioning and allocation models, such as inefficient scheduling algorithms, overloaded memory overheads, excessive node delays and improper error handling of tasks, all of which need to be addressed to enhance the performance of big data analytics.
Born out of a speech celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, in which emperors Constantine I and Licinius granted Christians legal rights, this book by Cardinal Angelo Scola gives attention to the crisis of religious freedom in the twenty-first century. Let’s Not Forget God outlines how Christianity has been at the center of creating a pluralistic society, from the Roman Empire in 313 to the American Revolution in 1776. This bold vision of freedom brings religion into the realm of public debate without allowing the state to banish or control it. “The question of religious freedom,closely connected to that of freedom of conscience,” writes Cardinal Scola, “is revealing itself today to be crucial not only to the development of Western societies but also to the peaceful evolution of their relationships with Asia, Africa, and Latin America.” Let’s Not Forget God is both a portrait of the history of religious freedom and a testament to its potential for spreading peace.
As the healthcare environment changes, the need for outcomes-based tre atment planning becomes even more critical. This book guides the reade r through current outcomes-based research as it pertains to surgery. F irst, it gives a complete overview of the practice of evidence-based s urgery (EBS), with topics such as treatment planning, policy issues, a nd ethical issues. Then it gives practical, step-by-step advice on the methodology of EBS, with chapters on study design, outcomes measures, adjustments for complications and comorbidities, cost, and data sourc es. Last, it publishes the results of numerous respected EBS studies.
This book provides a detailed survey of the law relating to public interest disclosure. It examines how the new system has developed since the coming into force of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), and provides up-to-date practical guidance on the key issues that arise in practice. Analysing the legal framework in the area, both under PIDA and the disparate sources of law that can apply, it provides in-depth commentary on case law and legislative developments. It examines the structure of PIDA, litigation procedure and remedies under the Act, data protection, confidentiality, copyright, defamation issues, and the Human Rights Act 1998, as well as the contractual and fiduciary duties of employees, statutory obligations (both regulatory and criminal), and the Corporate Governance Codes. Since the publication of the first edition, there have been substantial developments in the area, including those regarding whether a disclosure tends to show a Public Interest Disclosure, the burden of proof, remedies, and alternative dispute resolution. This new edition also covers the employment tribunals' new powers to pass PIDA claims to the appropriate regulator, where the claimant consents, and provides extensive coverage of a number of important decisions emerging from the Court of Appeal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal, including Babula v Waltham Forest College, Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust and Fecitt and others v NHS Manchester. Written by an author team with extensive experience in the area, and making use of checklists and worked examples, the book is an essential reference work for employment practitioners dealing with cases involving public interest disclosure issues. It will also be of interest to private and public sector employers seeking guidance on whistleblowing procedures and policies.
Law, Person, and Community: Philosophical, Theological, and Comparative Perspectives on Canon Law takes up the fundamental question "What is law?" through a consideration of the interrelation of the concepts of law, person, and community. As with the concept of law described by secular legal theorists, canon law aims to set a societal order that harmonizes the interests of individuals and communities, secures peace, guarantees freedom, and establishes justice. At the same time, canon law rests upon a traditional understanding of the spiritual end of the human person and religious nature of community. The comparison of one of the world's ancient systems of religious law with contemporary conceptions of law rooted in secular theory raises questions about the law's power to bind individuals and communities. Professor John J. Coughlin employs comparative methodology in an attempt to reveal the differing concepts of the human person reflected in both canon law and secular legal theory. Contrasting the contemporary positivistic view of law with the classical view reflected in canon law, Law, Person, and Community discusses the relationship between canon law, theology, and natural law. It also probes the interplay between the metaphysical and historical in the theory of law by an examination of canonical equity, papal authority, and the canon law of marriage. It juxtaposes the assumptions of canon law about church-state relations with those of the modern liberal state as exemplified by U.S. first amendment jurisprudence. No scholarly work has yet addressed this question of how the principles and substance of canon law, both past and present, relate to current issues in legal theory, such as the foundation of human rights and in particular the right of religious freedom for individuals and communities.
Like their predecessors throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have emphasized the importance of philosophy in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In his encyclical Fides et ratio (1998), John Paul II called on philosophers “to have the courage to recover, in the flow of an enduringly valid philosophical tradition, the range of authentic wisdom and truth.” Where the late pope spoke of an “enduringly valid tradition,” Jacques Maritain and other Thomists often have referred to the “perennial tradition” or to “perennial philosophy.” Words of Wisdom responds to John Paul's call for the development of this tradition with a much-needed dictionary of terms. As a resource for students in colleges, universities, and seminaries, as well as for teachers of the perennial tradition and interested general readers, Words of Wisdom occupies a unique place. It offers precise, yet clear and understandable accounts of well over a thousand key philosophical terms, richly cross-referenced. It also explains significant terms from other philosophical movements with which Thomism (and the Catholic intellectual tradition more generally) has engaged—either through debate or through judicious and creative incorporation. Moreover, it identifies a number of theological and doctrinal expressions to which perennial philosophy has contributed. Finally, it provides a comprehensive bibliography of works by Aquinas in English, expositions and discussions of perennial themes, and representative examples from the writings of all philosophers and theologians mentioned in dictionary entries.
In a pluralistic society such as ours, tolerance is a virtue—but it doesn't always seem so. Some suspect that it entangles us in unacceptable moral compromises and inequalities of power, while others dismiss it as mere political correctness or doubt that it can safeguard the moral and political relationships we value. Tolerance among the Virtues provides a vigorous defense of tolerance against its many critics and shows why the virtue of tolerance involves exercising judgment across a variety of different circumstances and relationships—not simply applying a prescribed set of rules. Drawing inspiration from St. Paul, Aquinas, and Wittgenstein, John Bowlin offers a nuanced inquiry into tolerance as a virtue. He explains why the advocates and debunkers of toleration have reached an impasse, and he suggests a new way forward by distinguishing the virtue of tolerance from its false look-alikes, and from its sibling, forbearance. Some acts of toleration are right and good, while others amount to indifference, complicity, or condescension. Some persons are able to draw these distinctions well and to act in accord with their better judgment. When we praise them as tolerant, we are commending them as virtuous. Bowlin explores what that commendation means. Tolerance among the Virtues offers invaluable insights into how to live amid differences we cannot endorse—beliefs we consider false, actions we think are unjust, institutional arrangements we consider cruel or corrupt, and persons who embody what we oppose.
To take a journey, travelers must know where they are, where they are going, and how to get there. Moral theology examines the same three truths. The Christian Moral Life is a handbook for moral theology that uses the theme of a journey to explain its key ethical concepts. First, humans begin with their creation in the image of God. Secondly, the goal of the journey is explained as a loving union with God, to achieve a share in his eternal happiness. Third and finally, the majority of the book examines how to attain this goal. Within the journey motif, the book covers the moral principles essential for attaining true happiness. Based on an examination of the moral methodology in the bible, the book discusses the importance of participating in divine nature through grace in order to attain eternal happiness. It further notes the role of law, virtue, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in guiding and transforming humans into friends of God, who participate in his happiness. Following this section on moral theology in general, the book analyzes the individual virtues to give more concrete guidance. The entire project builds upon the insights of great Christian thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, Thérèse of Lisieux, and John Paul II, to uncover the moral wisdom in scripture and to show people how to be truly happy both in this life and the next. This book will be of great interest to undergraduate students of moral theology, priests and seminarians, parents and teachers seeking to raise and to form happy children, and anyone interested in discovering the meaning of true happiness.
Leading legal scholar John Witte, Jr. explores the role religion played in the development of rights in the Western legal tradition and traces the complex interplay between human rights and religious freedom norms in modern domestic and international law. He examines how US courts are moving towards greater religious freedom, while recent decisions of the pan-European courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg have harmed new religious minorities and threatened old religious traditions in Europe. Witte argues that the robust promotion and protection of religious freedom is the best way to protect many other fundamental rights today, even though religious freedom and other fundamental rights sometimes clash and need judicious balancing. He also responds to various modern critics who see human rights as a betrayal of Christianity and religious freedom as a betrayal of human rights.
This volume of John Finnis's collected essays shows the full range and power of his contributions to the philosophy of law. The volume collects over 20 papers on the foundations of law's authority; major theories and theorists of law; legal reasoning ; revolutions, rights and law; and much more.
The essays in Intention and Identity explore themes in Finnis's work touched on only lightly, if at all, in Natural Law and Natural Rights, developing profound accounts of personal identity and existence; group identity and common good; and intention and choice as action- and self-shaping. In his many-faceted study of what it is to be a human person, and a human community, Finnis not only engages with contemporary philosophers and bioethicists such as Peter Singer, Michael Lockwood and John Harris, with thinkers from other traditions such as Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), and with judges in the highest courts. He also offers illuminating and deeply considered readings of Shakespeare and Aquinas, and debates with Roger Scruton, Joseph Raz, Hans Kelsen, John Rawls, Glanville Williams, Richard Posner, Ronald Dworkin and others. The role of intention in the criminal law and the law of civil wrongs is searchingly explored through case-law, as are judicial attempts to understand conditional and preparatory intentions. Moral or bioethical issues discussed include in vitro fertilization, cloning, abortion, euthanasia, and 'brain death', patriotism, multi-culturalism and immigration. The papers show the power of a sometimes neglected aspect of the new classical theory of natural law. The volume includes previously unpublished papers on whether brain life is relevant to the beginning of a person's life, on its relevance to the end of one's life, and a substantial introduction in which John Finnis reflects on the changes in his thinking on personal reality and on how intention is to be analysed and understood and its moral significance appreciated.
God's Joust, God's Justice' provides a vista of the major debates over law and religion in the West, enabling readers to proceed toward a more integrated understanding of the foundational elements of modern democracy.
Reason in Action collects John Finnis's work on the theory of practical reason and moral philosophy. The essays in the volume range from foundational issues of meta-ethics to the practical application of natural law theory to ethical problems such as nuclear deterrence, obscenity and free speech, and abortion and cloning. Defending the objectivity of some evaluative and moral judgments, the volume's meta-ethical papers debate with figures as diverse as Jurgen Habermas, Bernard Williams, David Hume, Max Weber, and Christine Korsgaard, and offer a new understanding of Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Further papers engage with Philippa Foot, Geoffrey Warnock, Leo Strauss, Terence Irwin, Matthew Kramer, neo-scholastic interpreters of Aquinas, utilitarians, game theorists, and Immanuel Kant on the shape of moral thought. John Rawls's conception of public reason, J.S. Mill's understanding of free speech, and Jacques Maritain's appeal to "connatural" knowledge are critically contested. Foundational questions addressed in the volume include: how legal reasoning differs from general practical reasoning; how aesthetic appreciation differs from erotic attraction; how subrational elements enter into the rational standard of fairness; how virtues depend upon principles and norms; and how incommensurabilities count in moral thought. These essays mark the development of Finnis's new classical theory of natural law, engaged with contemporary thinkers and problems. Several essays, including two previously unpublished, show the theory's emergence before Natural Law and Natural Rights. Other unpublished essays include a discussion of pornography, an analysis of freedom of speech, and a substantive introduction reflecting on the theory, its reception, and the convergence on it of capabilities theorists such as Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.
In Faithful Reason, the noted Catholic philosopher John Haldane explores various aspects of intellectual and practical life from a perspective inspired by Catholic thought and informed by his distinctive philosophical approach: 'Analytical Thomism'. Haldane's discussions of ethics, politics, education, art, social philosophy and other themes explain why Catholic thought is still relevant in today's world, and show how the legacy of Thomas Aquinas can benefit modern philosophy in its efforts to answer fundamental questions about humanity and its place within nature. Drawing on a Catholic philosophical tradition that is committed to concepts of the world's intrinsic intelligibility and the objectivity of truth, Faithful Reason's bold and insightful perspectives provide rich matter for debate, and food for further thought.
Misunderstandings about what it means for humans to be created in God's image have wreaked devastation throughout history -- for example, slavery in the U. S., genocide in Nazi Germany, and the demeaning of women everywhere. In Dignity and Destiny John Kilner explores what the Bible itself teaches about humanity being in God's image. He discusses in detail all of the biblical references to the image of God, interacts extensively with other work on the topic, and documents how misunderstandings of it have been so problematic. People made according to God's image, Kilner says, have a special connection with God and are intended to be a meaningful reflection of him. Because of sin, they don't actually reflect him very well, but Kilner shows why the popular idea that sin has damaged the image of God is mistaken. He also clarifies the biblical difference between being God's image (which Christ is) and being in God's image (which humans are). He explains how humanity's creation and renewal in God's image are central, respectively, to human dignity and destiny. Locating Christ at the center of what God's image means, Kilner charts a constructive way forward and reflects on the tremendously liberating impact that a sound understanding of the image of God can have in the world today.
In this powerfully argued book, Knasas engages a debate at the heart of the revival of Thomistic thought in the twentieth century. Richly detailed and illuminating, his book calls on the tradition established by Gilson, Maritain, and Owen, to build a case for Existential Thomism as a valid metaphysics. Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists is a comprehensive discussion of the major issues and controversies in neo-Thomism, including issues of mind, knowledge, the human subject, free will, nature, grace, and the act of being. Knasas also discusses the Transcendental Thomism of Mar chal, Rahner, Lonergan, and others as he builds a carefully articulated case for completing the Thomist revival.
In this study John Bowlin argues that Aquinas's moral theology receives much of its character and content from an assumption about our common lot: the good we desire is difficult to know and to will, in particular because of contingencies of various kinds - within ourselves, in the ends and objects we pursue, and in the circumstances of choice. Since contingencies are fortune's effects, Aquinas insists that it is fortune that makes good choice difficult. Bowlin then explicates Aquinas's treatment of a number of topics in light of this difficulty: the moral and theological virtues, the first precepts of the natural law, the voluntariness of virtuous action, and the happiness available to us in this life. By noting that Aquinas proceeds with an eye on fortune's threats to virtue, agency, and happiness, Bowlin places him more precisely in the history of ethics, among Aristotle, Augustine, and the Stoics.
A brief examination of the history and science of food chronicles four great transitions including those of cooking, agriculture, processing and preservation to consider the sources of culinary preferences, the disparity between malnutrition and overconsumption and the issues associated with obesity, sustainable agriculture and genetic modification. Original.
Potassium ions K+ ions are vital in physiological processes, particularly with regard to the cardiovascular system. Modulators influence the channels through which these ions flow and the research into modulator drugs of these channels is the subject of rapidly-advancing research. This work is intended to be of use as a tool for those working in the pharmaceutical industry. Early chapters concentrate on the synthesis and structure-activity relationships of potassium channel modulators. These are followed by discussion on the application of these drugs to different target organs, such as the cardiovascular system and the airways. The book concludes with a broad overview of clinical experience and future prospects.; The authors show how potassium channel activators and potassium channel blockers each have a role to play as therapeutic agents for many disorders, including asthma and respiratory tract disorders, diseases of the central nervous system such as epilepsy, and vascular diseases such as angina, peripheral vascular disease and high blood pressure. This book should therefore also be of interest to those researching into this wide range of diseases.
Piderit explores the failures of mainstream economics and proposes an alternative grounded in natural law. His assessment is grounded in the Christian higher law tradition which assumes that objective standards known to human reason should govern society and individuals. This book demonstrates both the reasonableness of a distinguished ethical tradition and its capacity to address a wide range of ethical issues, economic as well as personal and social. Piderit emphasizes that natural law theory underlies the U.S. Constitution and informs Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish worship today.
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