Natural Law Commons^™

Natural Law And Legal Reasoning, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Much academic theory about legal reasoning greatly exaggerates the extent to which reason can settle what is greater good or lesser evil, and minimizes the need for authoritative sources which, so far as they are clear and respect the few absolute moral rights and duties, are to be respected as the only rational basis for judicial reasoning and decision, in relation to the countless issues which do not directly involve those absolute rights and duties. A natural law theory in the classical tradition makes no pretense that natural reason can determine the one right answer to those countless questions which …

Allocating Risks And Suffering: Some Hidden Traps, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

The economic analysis of which Adam Smith is a principal founder is helpful in practical reasoning about problems of justice precisely insofar as it systematically calls attention to the side-effects of individual choices and actions and behavior. Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that we need only a more adequate account of the benefits and burdens up for distribution or allocation by those responsible for the common good or general fate. We need also to bear in mind what Smith did not forget and what economics does not comprehend, the requirements of commutative justice. To see this, we …

Natural Law And Justice (Book Review), Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

Professor Weinreb's aim in this thoughtful and thought-provoking book is a drastic overhaul of the ongoing debate about natural law. Natural law as he sees it is not a mere theory about the relation of law and morality: it is a comprehensive theory about the place of human beings in the cosmos. As such, it has a profound bearing on legal questions, but not in the way its current proponents have in mind. By recasting the fundamental question of natural law, Weinreb sheds light on many subsidiary questions of legal theory. This is a difficult book, because it is closely …

Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Book Review), Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Book review of: Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, by Jerome Bruner; Time, Narrative, and History, by David Carr; Law, Freedom, and Story: The Role of Narrative in Therapy, Society, and Faith, by John C. Hoffman; and Narrative and Morality, by Paul Nelson.

Legal Enforcement Of "Duties To Oneself": Kant Vs. Neo-Kantians, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This Article considers writings by modern scholars including Rawls, Dworkin, and D.A.J. Richards on the topic of Kant's discussion of the neutrality principle and the harm principle.

On Reason And Authority In Law's Empire, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Law's Empire will shape jurisprudence by its admirably resourceful attention to understanding a community's law "internally". It promotes reflective understanding of the practical argumentation constitutive of the attitude(s) in which that law subsists. But the book neglects some of practical understanding's resources of political and moral theory, and overestimates practical reasoning's power to identify options as the best and the right)

Practical Principles, Moral Truth, And Ultimate Ends, John M. Finnis, Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle

Journal Articles

The natural-law theory on which we have been working during the past twenty-five years has stimulated many critical responses. We have restated the theory in various works, not always calling attention to developments. This paper reformulates some parts of the theory, taking into account the criticisms of which we are aware.

The Unity Of Law & Morality: A Refutation Of Legal Positivism (Book Review), John H. Robinson

Journal Articles

Professor Robinson provides a critique of M.J. Detmold’s book, The Unity of Law & Mortality: A Refutation of Legal Positivism. He argues that the book is flawed for failure to present his adversary’s position and for failure to explain the reasons for embracing an ontological perspective towards all ethics. Despite its ambition, the argument does not get off the ground.

The "Natural Law Tradition", John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This "tradition of natural law theory" has three main features: First, critique and rejection of ethical scepticism, dogmatism and conventionalism; Second, clarification of the methodology of descriptive and explanatory social theories (e.g., political science, economics, jurisprudence .... ); Third, critique and rejection of aggregative conceptions of the right and the just (e.g., consequentialism, utilitarianism, wealth-maximization, "proportionalism"...).

On "The Critical Legal Studies Movement", John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

"The present study critically examines the account of legal thought developed in Roberto Unger's very long article, ""The Critical Legal Studies Movement"" (1983), and tests it against Unger's own account of certain ""exemplary"" difficulties in the Anglo-American law of Contract. These scrutinies reveal that Unger's account fundamentally misunderstands the ways of legal thought, and disguises its misunderstanding behind equivocations on ""(in)determinate"" and ""(un)justified."""

On 'Positivism' And 'Legal Rational Authority', John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This Article critiques Anthony Kronman’s book Max Weber, which provides an interpretation of Weber’s social theory of law concerning positivism and legal rational authority. In particular, the three premises of Kronman’s thesis regarding social theory are considered and their weaknesses are explained. Through this critique, the Author argues that no good reason has been presented to accept that Weber’s positivist theory is of value.

Power To Enforce Treaties In Australia -- The High Court Goes Centralist?, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

At first glance, the decision of the High Court of Australia in Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen profoundly affects the distribution of legislative power between the States and the Commonwealth of Australia. Perhaps that first impression should be somewhat qualified. But there seems no good reason to doubt what Wilson J (dissenting) said about its possible implications for the exercise of State legislative power.

The Responsibilities Of The United Kingdom Parliament And Government Under The Australian Constitution, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Arguing that the United Kingdom retained constitutioanl duties to Australia following that country's independence.

Natural Law And The "Is"-"Ought" Question: An Invitation To Professor Veatch, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This Article invites Professor Henry Veatch to consider some of Finnis' previous work. Finnis asserts that his work presents "serious questions" for those who interpret Aristotle and Acquinas in the way the Veatch does and invites Veatch to respond.

The Basic Principles Of Natural Law: A Reply To Ralph Mcinerny, John M. Finnis, Germain Grisez

Journal Articles

In the preceding volume of this journal, Prof. Mclnerny criticized certain theoretical positions of Finnis and Grisez as well as their interpretation of St. Thomas. In the present article Finnis and Grisez reply that Mclnerny's criticisms lack cogency, because he has misunderstood their theories, judged their exegesis by his own different interpretation assumed gratuitously to be correct, and mixed philosophical and historical criticism in a way which helps to clarify neither the problems of ethical theory nor those of Thomistic exegesis.

Truthfulness And Tragedy (Book Review), Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

This is the third book in which Professor Stanley Hauerwas has developed his "story" approach to Christian ethics. It is a collection of essays, almost all of which appeared in periodicals, written while he was developing his theory more systematically in Vision and Virtue (1974), and in Character and the Christian Life (1975). One of the chapters here, on suicide and euthanasia, was written with Dr. Richard Bondi; two others, on story theology and on Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, were written with Father David B. Burrell. The essays are arranged so that they explain and defend Hauerwas' thought …

Some Professorial Fallacies About Rights, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Why do students usually get into a muddle when analysing legal situations in Hohfeldian terms? What is the use of trying to straighten out the muddles, and of teaching Hohfeldian analysis at all? The short answer to the first question is that Hohfeld was clear-headed in applying his scheme, but because of his writing style and his odd views about definition was regrettably gnomic about the meaning and inter-relations of the terms of that scheme. The short answer to the second question is that clear-headed familiarity with Hohfeld's scheme can bring with it an awareness of the questions regularly begged …

Comparative Judicial Behavior (Book Review), Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

This book consists of several cross-cultural and exploratory studies of judicial decision-making, and is one of the first to appear in the developing field of comparative judicial politics. A product of many months of collaboration between American and Asian scholars at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, it deals chiefly with decision-making processes in the high courts of Japan, Hawaii, India, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines. The Asian contributors are mainly law teachers with a strong interest in the sociology of law; the American scholars are mainly teachers of political science whose special interest is the study of judicial behavior. …

Abortion And Legal Rationality, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This article concerns the legitimacy of various legal schemes for dealing with abortion. Legitimacy in one sense is secured simply by complying with the formal criteria for valid law-making: enactment within power and in due form. But jurists have learned (or re-learned) that more can be said about legitimacy, without betraying the purity of their discipline by moralizing and advocacy. From this development in jurisprudential thought emerges the range of questions and criteria deployed in the present study.

Separation Of Powers In The Australian Constitution, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Even those who regret it accept that the founders of the Australian Constitution "beyond question" intended the separation of powers now required by the Boilermakers' Case . This article seeks first to show that the arguments advanced to prove the alleged intention are no more probative -than the draftsman's literary arrangement which has prompted the accepted view of constitutional history; and second, to discuss the proper strategy of approach to the historical record on these matters.

Reason And Passion: The Constitutional Dialectic Of Free Speech And Obscenity, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

In recent obscenity cases, the Supreme Court has been attempting to define the constitutional meaning of "speech." This is not as banal a statement as it may seem, for there are critics, both on and off the Court, who think that the Court's task is to define "freedom."

Some advocate boundless freedom in this area. For them, obscenity raises no special problems of definition, and is simply an exercise of speech or press presenting dangers which are remote and disputable, rather than clear and present. From this point of view, the only relevant distinction is that between "speech" and "conduct." …

Developments In Judicial Jurisprudence, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

The purpose of this Comment is to explore briefly the fundamentals of what Prof. H. L. A. Hart has called "the contribution offered by the judges to the jurisprudence of our day", and to indicate in outline the disparity between this contribution and those of the most recent academic writings.

Natural Law Institute Proceedings, 1951, Vol. 5, Edward F. Barrett, John J. Cavanaugh C.S.C., J. Francis A. Mcintyre, Solomon Freehof, Khalifa Abdul Hakim, M. S. Sundaram, Daisetz T. Suzuki, Hu Shih, George E. Sokolsky, Theodore M. Hesburgh C.S.C.

Natural Law Institute Proceedings

From the Editor's Preface

The 1951 convocation was held in the College of Law, December 11–15. At the conclusion of a three-day series of information round-table discussions, the papers presented in this volume were read. The Most Reverend J. Francis A. McIntyre's, Archbishop of Los Angeles, introductory address is printed here along with five scholars of international reputation—all non-Christians—who for two days explored the place of Natural Law in their respective philosophical and religious traditions.

• Jewish Tradition
• Moslem Tradition
• Hindu Tradition
• Buddhist Tradition
• Chinese Tradition

Natural Law Institute Proceedings, 1950, Vol. 4, Edward F. Barrett, John J. Cavanaugh C.S.C., George E. Sokolsky, Thomas J. Brogan, Joseph C. Hutcheson Jr., Felix Morely, John C. Ford S.J.

Natural Law Institute Proceedings

From the Introduction

The papers read at the 1950 Convocation of the Institute and reprinted in this volume were concerned with certain "rights" which we Americans call "fundamental:"

• the right to liberty
• the right to property
• the right to freedom of expression
• the right to pursue happiness

Does the Natural Law as the source of human rights offer a true and solid explanation of what men really mean when they call such rights "fundamental"? This was the central theme of the 1950 sessions.

Natural Law Institute Proceedings, 1949, Vol. 3, John J. Cavanaugh C.S.C., Pope Pius Xii, Edward F. Barrett, Richard O'Sullivan, Edward S. Corwin, Stephan Kuttner, Carlos P. Romulo

Natural Law Institute Proceedings

From the Foreword

The papers presented during the 1949 sessions of the Third Natural Law Institute of the University of Notre Dame and reprinted in this volume have brilliantly maintained the high standards of exacting scholarship set by the preceding sessions of 1947 and 1948. They deal with the impact of the Natural Law on four great bodies of positive law.

• Common Law
• Canon Law
• Constitutional Law
• International Law

Natural Law Institute Proceedings, 1947, Vol. 1, Alfred L. Scanlan, John F. O'Hara C.S.C., John J. Cavanaugh C.S.C., Clarence E. Manion, Ben W. Palmer, Mortimer Adler, Harold R. Mckinnon, W. J. Doheny C.S.C.

Natural Law Institute Proceedings

From the Foreword

The following pages contain the lectures delivered at The First Natural Law Institute which convened at the College of Law of the University of Notre Dame on December 12th and 13th, 1947.

This meeting was probably the first gathering in modem times by members of the legal profession for the primary purpose of considering the natural law.

Participating in the First Natural Law Institute were

• Clarence E. Manion, Dean of the College of Law
• Reverend William J. Doheny, C.S.C., of the College of Law, former Procurator and Advocate of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and of …

Natural Law Institute Proceedings, 1948, Vol. 2, Alfred L. Scanlan, Paul C. Schulte D.D., John J. Cavanaugh C.S.C., Maurice Lebel, Ernst Levy, Gordon Hall Gerould, Heinrich A. Rommen, Robert N. Wilkin

Natural Law Institute Proceedings

From the Foreword

This volume contains the impressive record of the proceedings of the Second Annual Natural Law Institute held at the University of Notre Dame on December 10th and 11th, 1948.

This second Institute emphasizes the historical roots of natural law theory in five distinct eras of world history. Five accomplished and scholarly lectures graced the proceedings.

• Professor Maurice Lebel, of Laval University, Quebec, gave the introductory lecture on Natural Law in the Greek Period.
• Professor Ernst Levy, distinguished teacher of legal history at the University of Washington Law School, presented a profound and scholarly dissertation on Natural Law …

The Fundamental Rights Of Man, Thomas Frank Konop

Journal Articles

This article transcribes discourse between Dean Thomas F. Konop of Notre Dame Law School and Mr. James J Boyle of the senior law class. Mr. Boyles begins by inquiring about the rights individuals have and the sources of said rights. Dean Konop delves into a discussion of the history of the law in America. He states that we derive our law from the common law of England, and we find our rights expressed in the common law and the Constitution of England; therefore, we must go to England to look for the basis of our rights. There are four main …