Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights - by Francis Oakley (Hardcover)

About the Book

The existence and grounding of human or natural rights is a heavily contested issue today, not only in the West but in the debates raging between fundamentalists and liberals or modernists in the Islamic world. So, too, are the revised versions of natural law espoused by thinkers such as John Finnis and Robert George. This book focuses on three bodies of theory that developed between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries: (1) the foundational belief in the existence of a moral/juridical natural law, embodying universal norms of right and wrong and accessible to natural human reason; (2) the understanding of (scientific) uniformities of nature as divinely imposed laws, which rose to prominence in the seventeenth century; and (3), finally, the notion that individuals are bearers of inalienable natural or human rights. While seen today as distinct bodies of theory often locked in mutual conflict, they grew up inextricably intertwines. The book argues that they cannot be properly understood if taken each in isolation from the others.

Book Synopsis

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2006 The existence and grounding of human or natural rights is a heavily contested issue today, not only in the West but in the debates raging between "fundamentalists" and "liberals" or "modernists in the Islamic world. So, too, are the revised versions of natural law espoused by thinkers such as John Finnis and Robert George. This book focuses on three bodies of theory that developed between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries: (1) the foundational belief in the existence of a moral/juridical natural law, embodying universal norms of right and wrong and accessible to natural human reason; (2) the understanding of (scientific) uniformities of nature as divinely imposed laws, which rose to prominence in the seventeenth century; and (3), finally, the notion that individuals are bearers of inalienable natural or human rights. While seen today as distinct bodies of theory often locked in mutual conflict, they grew up inextricably intertwines. The book argues that they cannot be properly understood if taken each in isolation from the others.

Review Quotes

""This excellent book provides a sophisticated but accessible introduction to some fundamental problems in the history of natural law thinking, and the writing throughout is elegant, lucid and persuasive." -Brian Tierney, Catholic Historical Review, 2007" --Catholic Historical Review

""This book consist of the revised text of the 2001 Curti Lectures in Intellectual History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison...Oakley's overall case for the intimate interconnections between moral and scientific thought is cogent and illuminating. By the same token, he amply demonstrates the possibilities and power of a certain kind of intellectual history. May we see many more books like this one." -Jean Porter, The Journal of Religion, Oct. 2007, Vol. 87, No. 4" --Jean Porter

""The argument itself is open to at least three criticisms. First, while Oakley argues that the developments concerning the physical laws of nature led the way for developments in the other two realms, he ends his book with a chapter that traces the origins of natural rights back to the twelfth century, two centuries earlier than the important events in his account of the evolution of the physical laws of nature. Oakley could explain this, I believe, but he does not; it is an obvious question left unanswered. Second, Oakley's Speculative argument is nearly identical to one Michael Foster made in the mid-1930's in the journal Mind, but Oakley-who is aware of Foster's work and has written of it elsewhere-only mentions Foster briefly in the epilogue and an endnote, with no description of Foster's argument. In a book on the history of ideas, this is a surprising omission. Third, although Oakley announces at the book's beginning that he intends to move from Speculation to Scholarship, he in fact fails to make that move decisively..."-Paul Teel, Philosophy in Review" --Negative

"" This short book is meaty, but offers a relevant critique of the rise of the modern views of ethics. It suggests that modernity is not anti-medieval, but an extension of a certain form of medievalism, Nominalism. While there is no direct correlate between his thesis and ministry, Oakley offers an important theory about how we are to understand the context in which we do our ministries." -- Mark C. Mattes, Grand View College, Currents in Theology and Mission" --Mark C. Mattes, Grand View College, Currents in Theology and Mission

About the Author

Francis Oakely is Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas Emeritus at Williams College and President Emeritus of the College. He is also President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. He has held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, at the National Humanities Center, and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. During the 1900-2000 academic year, he was the Sir Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in the History of Ideas at Oxford University. In 200l he gave the Merle Curti Lectures in intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, and in 2002 the Gilson Lecture at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. His most recent book, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300-1870 (Oxford UP, 2003) won the Roland H. Bainton History Prize of the Sixteenth-Century Society. Among his other books are Omnipotence, Covenant, and Order, Politics and Eternity, and The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages