Exploring the relationship between natural law theory and the philosophy of law, Bebhinn Donnelly proposes a new approach to natural law theory - one which addresses some of the tradition's shortcomings, and advances further the approach to Hume's dichotomy. This volume will be of interest to academics in philosophy of law, moral/political philosophy, natural law theorists, and students of jurisprudence internationally.

A defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality.

Presents a systematic, contemporary defence of the natural law outlook in ethics, politics and jurisprudence.

First published in 1980, Natural Law and Natural Rights is widely heralded as a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law, and an authoritative restatement of natural law doctrine. It has offered generations of students and other readers a thorough grounding in the central issues of legal, moral, and political philosophy from Finnis's distinctive perspective. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years of discussion, criticism and further work in the field to develop and refine the original theory. The book closely integrates the philosophy of law with ethics, social theory and political philosophy. The author develops a sustained and substantive argument; it is not a review of other people's arguments but makes frequent illustrative and critical reference to classical, modern, and contemporary writers in ethics, social and political theory, and jurisprudence. The preliminary First Part reviews a century of analytical jurisprudence to illustrate the dependence of every descriptive social science upon evaluations by the theorist. A fully critical basis for such evaluations is a theory of natural law. Standard contemporary objections to natural law theory are reviewed and shown to rest on serious misunderstandings. The Second Part develops in ten carefully structured chapters an account of: basic human goods and basic requirements of practical reasonableness, community and 'the common good'; justice; the logical structure of rights-talk; the bases of human rights, their specification and their limits; authority, and the formation of authoritative rules by non-authoritative persons and procedures; law, the Rule of Law, and the derivation of laws from the principles of practical reasonableness; the complex relation between legal and moral obligation; and the practical and theoretical problems created by unjust laws. A final Part develops a vigorous argument about the relation between 'natural law', 'natural theology' and 'revelation' - between moral concern and other ultimate questions.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} span.s1 {font: 10.0px Helvetica} This thought-provoking Research Handbook provides a snapshot of current research on natural law theory in ethics, politics and law, showcasing the breadth and diversity of contemporary natural law thought. The Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory examines topics such as foundational figures in Western natural law theory, natural law ideas in a variety of religious and cultural traditions, normative foundations of natural law, as well as issues of law and governance. Featuring contributions by leading international scholars, this Research Handbook offers a valuable resource for scholars in law, philosophy, religious studies and related fields.

Many evangelical Christians have faith in the Bible, but struggle with confidence in its ethical principles. Some believe that biblical morals are not as effective as secular ideologies in promoting human well-being and societal progress. Others feel that using the Bible as a basis for moral arguments lacks persuasive power in public discussions. In Faithful Reason: Natural Law Ethics for God’s Glory and Our Good, Andrew T. Walker argues that developing a comprehensive Christian ethic is not simply a matter of appealing to biblical authority, but also of understanding the way that God has ordered creation and our place within it. In this work, he provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to natural law ethics from an evangelical perspective. In the first section of Faithful Reason, Walker develops a robust framework of natural law ethics, guided by biblical and theological evidence. In the second section, this framework is applied to various contemporary ethical issues within dignity ethics, embodied ethics, personal ethics, social ethics, and political ethics. Through a natural law framework, readers are empowered to reason through the particulars of any situation and develop a godly ethical response.

The first-ever multivolume treatment of the issues in legal philosophy and general jurisprudence, from both a theoretical and a historical perspective. The work is aimed at jurists as well as legal and practical philosophers. Edited by the renowned theorist Enrico Pattaro and his team, this book is a classical reference work that would be of great interest to legal and practical philosophers as well as to jurists and legal scholar at all levels. The work is divided in two parts. The theoretical part (published in 2005), consisting of five volumes, covers the main topics of the contemporary debate; the historical part, consisting of six volumes (Volumes 6-8 published in 2007; Volumes 9 and 10, published in 2009; Volume 11 published in 2011 and Volume 12 forthcoming in 2015), accounts for the development of legal thought from ancient Greek times through the twentieth century. The entire set will be completed with an index. Volume 6: A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Scholastics 2nd revised edition, edited by Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Carrie-Ann Biondi Volume 6 is the first of the Treatise’s historical volumes (following the five theoretical ones) and is dedicated to the philosophers’ philosophy of law from ancient Greece to the 16th century. The volume thus begins with the dawning of legal philosophy in Greek and Roman philosophical thought and then covers the birth and development of European medieval legal philosophy, the influence of Judaism and the Islamic philosophers, the revival of Roman and Christian canon law, and the rise of scholastic philosophy in the late Middle Ages, which paved the way for early-modern Western legal philosophy. This second, revised edition comes with an entirely new chapter devoted to the later Scholastics (Chapter 14, by Annabel Brett) and an epilogue (by Carrie-Ann Biondi) on the legacy of ancient and medieval thought for modern legal philosophy, as well as with updated references and indexes.

Legality is a profound work in analytical jurisprudence, the branch of legal philosophy which deals with metaphysical questions about the law. In the twentieth century, there have been two major approaches to the nature of law. The first and most prominent is legal positivism, which draws a sharp distinction between law as it is and law as it might be or ought to be. The second are theories that view law as embedded in a moral framework. Scott Shapiro is a positivist, but one who tries to bridge the differences between the two approaches. In Legality, he shows how law can be thought of as a set of plans to achieve complex human goals. His new "planning" theory of law is a way to solve the "possibility problem", which is the problem of how law can be authoritative without referring to higher laws.