John Finnis

Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory

Preface Works of Aquinas Cited I. Life, Learning, Works II. Subject Matter and Method III. Freedom, Reason, and Human Goods IV. Fulfilment and Morality V. Towards Human Rights VI. Distribution, Exchange, and Recompense VII. The State: Its Elements and Purposes VIII. The State: Its Government and Law IX. The Power of the Sword X. On Our Origin and End Other works cited Index locurum

Object and Intention in Moral Judgments According to Aquinas

INTENTION IS OF END, choice is of means. A human aict ~s specified by (and s? is co.rrect:ly describe~ in terms of) its end. A human act IS specified by (and so Is correctly described in terms of) its object. An a:ct which is bad by reason of its object cannot be justified by its end (its: good intention) . A human a:ct is specified by (and so is correctly described in iterms of) its intention .... Such a sequence of statements of St. Thomas ought to leave an impression of confusion. That impression would be heightened by the traditional representation of his analysis of acting in a schema of 12 terms signifying a sequence of psychological acts involved in willing and doing something. For in this analysis, intention seems to precede ·deliberating, judging, and choosing, and so, as deliberating, judging, and choosing often present themselves to consciousness distinctly, intention is presented in this analysis as if it were a distinct content of consciousness. When intention is so conceived, iit becomes possible to imagine that one can, so to speak, choose to direct (an) intention to or withhold it from the various aspects of ones chosen behavior, e.g. it.hose consequences which one foresees and welcomes or those one chooses to bring about onJ.y with regret. To some contemporary moralists, such approving or regretting of consequences is precisely what engages or disengages ones will and thus ones responsibility; what Christians or Jews used to regard as immoral can be uprightly done if done merely as a means to good ends and only with reluctance,

Grounds of Law and Legal Theory: A Response

Linking theses of Plato, Wittgenstein and Weber, section I argues that identification of central cases and settling of focal meanings depend upon the theorists purpose(s) and, in the case of theory about human affairs - theory adequately attentive to the four irreducible orders in which human persons live and act - upon the purposes for which we intelligibly and intelligently act. Among these purposes, primacy (centrality) is to be accorded (by acknowledgement, not fiat) to purposes which are, as best the theorist can judge, reasonable and fit to be adopted by anyone, the theorist included. Section II defends the reasonableness (and hence entitlement to universal assent) of practical and moral judgments, against Michael Perrys ultimately nihilist claims that egoisms challenge to moral normativity has gone unanswered and that reason for A does not entail reason for anyone else. Section III takes up Steven Smiths suggestion that such subjectivism is encouraged by the talk in Natural Law and Natural Rights of pursuing goods, talk which (he argues) is individualistic and neglectful of (other) persons, inimical to an understanding of friendship, and impotent in the face of egoism. Here as elsewhere the key is to grasp that understanding any basic or intrinsic human good is to understand it as good for anyone like me and thus - since I instantiate and embody a universal, viz. human being - as a good common to (good for) anyone and everyone. Section IV argues that common good (which includes respect for human rights, and the Rule of Law) gives reason for exercise and acceptance of authority, and for allegiance, even (and in a sense, especially) in time of breakdown. Section V argues that natural law theory is no more dependent on affirming Gods existence than any other theory is, in any of the four orders of theory, but equally that it is not safe for atheists. For, like any other sound theory, it suggests and is consistent with questions and answers about its grounds, in this case about the source of its normativity and of the human nature that its normative universals presuppose and affirm; and the answers are those argued for, too abstemiously, in the last chapter of NLNR and, more adequately, in the equivalent chapter of Aquinas.

Philosophy of law

Philosophers of law are concerned with providing a general philosophical analysis of law and legal institutions. Issues in legal philosophy range from abstract conceptual questions about the nature of law and legal systems to normative questions about the relation between law and morality and the justification for various legal institutions. Topics in legal philosophy tend to be more abstract than related topics in political philosophy and applied ethics. For example, whereas the question of how properly to interpret the U.S. Constitution belongs to democratic theory and hence falls under the heading of political philosophy, the analysis of legal interpretation falls under the heading of legal philosophy. Likewise, whereas the question of whether capital punishment is morally permissible falls under the heading of applied ethics, the question of whether the institution of punishment can be justified falls under the heading of legal philosophy. Topics in legal philosophy fall roughly into three categories: analytic jurisprudence, normative jurisprudence, and critical theories of law.

Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Part I: Goddard Tyrwhitt, martyr, 1580

Nor must we think them only to achieve this triumph, who by apparent violence, by wounds or effusion of blood conclude their life: but all they, though never so unknown, whose days by imprisonment, banishment or any other oppression are abridged in defence of the Catholic Faith Among the most prominent Lincolnshire families in Tudor and Jacobean times were the Tyrwhitts of Kettleby and Twigmore. Other Lincolnshire branches of the family were seated at Scotter, Cammeringham and Stainfield. The Victoria County History of Lincolnshire says, ‘To follow various members of the Tyrwhitt family, whose names re-appear from first to last in connexion with Romanist sympathy, is to trace the history of recusancy in the county.’ But some important parts of the history of the Kettleby Tyrwhitts have been confused or overlooked by historians, and the record should be corrected. Here we shall focus on one of the sons of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, a son who died in prison in 1580. In a further article we will identify a grandson of Sir Robert who gave John Gerard SJ much financial support from about 1598 until Gerard left England in 1606.

Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism.

Nuclear deterrence deserves rigorous, objective ethical analysis. In providing it, the authors of this book face realities - the Soviet threat, possible nuclear holocaust, strategic imperatives - but they also unmask moral evasions - deterrence cannot be bluff, pure counterforce, the lesser (or greater) evil, or a step towards disarmament. They conclude that the deterrent is unjustifiable and examine the new questions of conscience that this raises for everyone.

Law as Idea, Ideal and Duty

Law as a Moral Idea1 is a deep-going and deeply considered work, which should have a civilising and reformative influence on English-speaking legal philosophy or, as Simmonds usually prefers to call it, jurisprudence. The title suggests, though it does not precisely mean, that laws are ideas, and this suggestion is altogether welcome. Laws—the rules or norms and principles of the political communities governed by systems of law—are facts only if they are first ideas in the minds of those who make them (posit them), or whose practices are the source of purely customary laws. These ideas become efficacious social facts only by being adopted—thought of as relevant reasons for action—in the deliberations and consequent choices and actions of those to whom they were addressed, the laws’ subjects. Those social facts can’t be accurately understood by historians, sociologists or other observers—can’t be understood as the human realities they are—unless the ideas those facts embody are first understood precisely as they were understood in the deliberations of law-positers and of the persons their laws were made to guide. All the facts about laws are primarily facts in the realm of spirit—of that dimension of human reality in which ideas, meanings, propositions, valid argumentation, and properties such as truth and falsity, not to mention aspirations, aversions and intentions, can all leap (not without material support) from mind to mind and thereby, both immediately and mediately, change the world. As I said, these reflections about laws are suggested, not asserted, by the title. Still, they are reflections which Simmonds, without (I think) using the word ‘spirit’, accepts (it seems to me), both as a kind of presupposition and as an implication of what more directly concerns him in this book. This concern is expressed both in his title and in his frequent treating of ‘idea’ and ‘ideal’ as interchangeable, at least when the idea in question is a moral one. What the title proposes is that for a political community to have law, or more precisely to be ruled by and in accordance with law, is a moral ideal, an ideal to which any such community and its members should aspire. No understanding and no philosophical account of the nature of law ‘as a distinct kind of social institution’2 is satisfactory unless it understands and (2010) 1(2) Jurisprudence 245–251

Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Part II: Robert Tyrwhitt, A Main Benefactor of Fr John Gerard SJ, 1600–1605

Our earlier article discussed the family of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt (d. 1581) of Kettleby in Lincolnshire and the imprisonment of Sir Robert and several of his sons by the Privy Council in June 1580. The Council was acting on a report of Catholic activities associated with the wedding of Edmund, Lord Sheffield and Ursula Tyrwhitt at the Tyrwhitt family homes of Kettleby and Twigmore. Sir Robert’s son Goddard died in a London gaol, and Goddard’s elder brothers William and Robert were imprisoned for years in the Tower and elsewhere. We turn now to the next generation of the same family, and show that Sir Robert’s grandson and heir, Robert Tyrwhitt, became a strong supporter of John Gerard SJ and the Jesuits in England during the years c.1600 to early 1606. Fr Gerard’s autobiography strains to make this clear, within the necessary limits of discretion. But just as the identity of the Tyrwhitt martyr of 1580 was soon totally lost to view, so Gerard’s identification of ‘one of my main benefactors’ as a Tyrwhitt has remained undecoded—hidden, indeed, by loose translation, and inattention to the different ways one can be a ‘brother in law’.

Natural Law and Natural Rights.

PART I 1. Evaluation and the Description of Law 2. Images and Objections PART II 3. A Basic Form of Good: Knowledge 4. The Other Basic Values 5. The Basic Requirements of Practical Reasonableness 6. Community, Communities, and Common Good 7. Justice 8. Rights 9. Authority 10. Law 11. Obligation 12. Unjust Laws PART III 13. Nature, Reason, God Postscript

Fundamentals of Ethics.

Are we entitled to be confident that our moral judgements can be objective? Can they express insights into aspects of reality, rather than mere feelings, tastes, desires, decisions, upbringing, or conventions? Why must we consider some of our choices to be free, and how do our free choices matter? How far should our moral judgements be based on assessments of expected consequences? Can utilitarianism, and other consequentialist or proportionalist theories, be anything more than the rationalization of positions taken on other grounds? The main theme of this book is the challenge to ethics from philosophical scepticism and from contemporary forms of consequentialism. But in seeking to meet this challenge, the book develops a sustained philosophical argument about many of the central questions of ethics. It reviews classical positions, and challenges some long-influential interpretations of those positions. It also reviews and participates in some recent developments and controversies in Anglo-American ethical theory. The activity of ethical theorizing itself is shown to be a matter of free and intelligent decision, in pursuit of intelligible good; it thus provides a test-case for any ethical theory.