Natural Law Commons^™

Law And Artifice In Blackstone's Commentaries, Jessie Allen

Articles

William Blackstone is often identified as a natural law thinker for whom property rights were preeminent, but reading the Commentaries complicates that description. I propose that Blackstone’s concept of law is more concerned with human invention and artifice than with human nature. At the start of his treatise, Blackstone identifies security, liberty and property as “absolute” rights that form the foundation of English law. But while security and liberty are “inherent by nature in every individual” and “strictly natural,” Blackstone is only willing to say that “private property is probably founded in nature.” Moreover, Blackstone is clear that there is …

The Tea Party's Constitution, Jared Goldstein

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

H.L.A. Hart: A Twentieth-Century Oxford Political Philosopher, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This essay offers first a sketch (by a student and colleague) of H.L.A. Hart's life; second an account of the political philosophy which he explicitly articulated in The Concept of Law (1961), and of its relation to the main currents of Oxford political philosophy in the 1950s; and thirdly an exposition and critical assessment of the normative political theory deployed, to widespread acclaim, in his Law, Liberty & Morality (1963).

Caesar, Succession, And The Chastisement Of Rulers, Patrick Martin, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Julius Caesar's reign as dictator and praefectus morum for life ended with his assassination in 44 B.C. It was preceded by over four hundred years of consular rule, a system of executive government by two consuls, elected for a one-year term. Consular government began in 509 B.C., ending the hundred-year rule of the Tarquin kings. Three works printed in 1594 recalled for English readers the overthrow of the Tarquins and the establishing of consular government. One was dedicated to the Earl of Essex. Another, by William Shakespeare, was dedicated to Essex's close companion, the Earl of Southampton. The third work …

Natural Law And Public Reasons, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In this Lecture I shall discuss the reasons that officials and citizens should rely upon in American politics. In recent years, various theorists have claimed that people in liberal democracies should rely in politics on "public reasons," reasons that are accessible to all citizens. Others have objected that such a counsel is unreasonable, if not incomprehensible. I shall concentrate on two facets of this issue. First, does the law exemplify a structure of public reasons – that is, do judges deciding cases draw on a stock of public reasons that is narrower than all the reasons one might give for …

Some Problems With Public Reason In John Rawls's Political Liberalism, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Political Liberalism is a major addition to the political theory of John Rawls. In many respects, it develops or alters views expressed in his famous A Theory of Justice. For changes that appeared in various articles Rawls published after the earlier book, Political Liberalism tends to offer nuances of difference. The most original chapter is about public reason, and my comments are directed to that subject, which has now become a centerpiece of Rawls's theory. I draw in Rawls's other views only as they bear on public reason.

My aim is to present some problems I see with his …

Rights, Communities, And Tradition, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper argues that there is a close connection between basic human rights and communal bonds. It criticizes the philosophical views of Alan Gewirth and Alasdair MacIntyre, which in differing ways deny this connection.

A Skeptical Look At Contemporary Republicanism, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

A growing number of scholars have been led by that impulse to an interest in 'the republican tradition," arguing that it offers resources for correcting the deformities they perceive in contemporary life and for which they hold liberalism responsible. Republicanism is a mansion with many rooms, and its modem interpreters emphasize varying possibilities within it, but common to all is the vision of a politics that recognizes and seeks to strengthen the social bonds within a political community. Within the limits set by that vision differences abound, just as differences exist among liberals concerning appropriate political foundations for individual freedom. …