Natural Law Commons^™

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.

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 …