Human Rights and Common Good Collected Essays Volume III

Author: John Finnis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199580071
Published In: April 2011
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
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Brings together for the first time John Finnis's wide-ranging contributions to political philosophy, developing his account of political community, social justice, and contemporary controversies in political morality
Includes six previously unpublished papers, including an analysis of the foundations of human rights, the role of labour unions in a just society, and a new restatement of the morality of sexual relations
Coverage includes the major battlegrounds of modern political morality, from the role of the state in personal relations, the nature and achievement of economic justice, and the legal control of euthanasia and abortion

This central volume in the Collected Essays brings together John Finnis's wide-ranging contribution to fundamental issues in political philosophy.

The volume begins by examining the general theory of political community and social justice. It includes the powerful and well-known Maccabaean Lecture on Bills of Rights -- a searching critique of Ronald Dworkin's moral-political arguments and conclusions, of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to fundamental rights, and of judicial review as a constitutional institution. It is followed by an equally searching analysis of Kant's thought on the intersection of law, right, and ethics. Other papers in the book's opening section include an early assessment of Rawls's A Theory of Justice, foundational discussions of migration rights, national boundaries, and the rights of non-citizens, and a challenging paper on virtue and the constitution.

The volume then focuses on central problems in modern political communities, including the practice of punishment; war and justice; the public control of euthanasia and abortion; and the nature of marriage and the common good. There are careful and vigorous critiques of Nietzsche on morality, Hart on punishment, Dworkin on the enforcement of morality and on euthanasia, Rawls on justice and law, Thomson on the woman's right to choose, Nussbaum and Koppelman on same-sex relations, and Dummett and Weithman on open borders.

The volume's previously unpublished papers include a fresh statement of a new grounding for the morality of sex, a surprising reading of C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Manon genetic control and contraception, and an introduction focussing on the ultimate basis of equality and human rights.

Readership: Scholars and students of political philosophy, moral philosophy, philosophy of law, theology, and religious ethics.

Contents:: Introduction; Human Rights and Common Good: General Theory; 1: Human Rights and Their Enforcement; 2: Duties to Oneself in Kant; 3: Rawls's A Theory of Justice; 4: Distributive Justice and the Bottom Line; 5: Limited Government; 6: Virtue and the Constitution; 7: Migration Rights; 8: Boundaries; 9: Nationality and Alienage; Justice and Punishment; 10: Hart's Philosophy of Punishment; 11: The Restoration of Retribution; 12: Retribution: Punishment's Formative Aim; War and Justice; 13: War and Peace in the Natural Law Tradition; Autonomy, Euthanasia, and Justice; 14: Euthanasia and Justice; 15: Economics, Justice, and the Value of Life; 16: Euthanasia and the Law; Autonomy, IVF, Abortion, and Justice; 17: CS Lewis and Test-tube Babies; 18: The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion; 19: Justice for Mother and Child; Marriage, Justice, and the Common Good; 20: Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good; 21: Law, Morality, and 'Sexual Orientation'; 22: Sex and Marriage: Some Myths and Reasons; Bibliography of the Works of John Finnis;