The Just War Tradition and Natural Law

This Essay is divided into three parts. First, it briefly discusses Augustine on the notion of a naturalistic morality implanted in human minds and hearts. Second, it traces the ways in which such notions as human nature figure in Augustinian and post-Augustinian arguments concerning war and peace. Third, it takes the measure of our current international crises and challenges from the perspective of human dignity the naturalistic morality Augustine addresses when he insists that there is, in fact, a nature we share, trails in its wake far-reaching ethical complications

The Just War Tradition and Natural Law

This Essay is divided into three parts. First, it briefly discusses Augustine on the notion of a naturalistic morality implanted in human minds and hearts. Second, it traces the ways in which such notions as human nature figure in Augustinian and post-Augustinian arguments concerning war and peace. Third, it takes the measure of our current international crises and challenges from the perspective of human dignity the naturalistic morality Augustine addresses when he insists that there is, in fact, a nature we share, trails in its wake far-reaching ethical complications

Will the Real Civil Society Advocates Please Stand Up?

Some critics have charged the Council on Civil Society with longing for a society that excludes entire categories of persons from membership, with being blind to abuse and violence within marriage, and being blasé about growing social and economic inequalities. This Article responds to these and other critiques from McClain and Fleming, Fineman, and Roberts by arguing that A Call to Civil Society clearly demonstrates not only a commitment to the morality and dignity of all human persons, but also a prohibition against any institution that promotes invidious distinctions between men and women. The remainder of this Article argues that critics of A Call to Civil Society in this issue ironically espouse positions that further erode the democratic ideal of social pluralism and bear little relationship to the actual conditions contributing to the weakening of civil society in America

Private Lives, Public Selves

What of the making public of a letter, what of the vocation of correspondent? Letters are a private genre, belonging in general, Kundera would say, to the domain of intimate life. When they go public some boundary is crossed, some violation is committed. Kundera\u27s position hints that the great Oliver Wendell Holmes was perhaps a bit of a monster, seeming in his private life to be very much the same man as he was in his public vocation, except for his romantic effulgency with Clare Castletown. Reading this occasionally twittery and school boyish prose in Professor G. Edward White\u27s article, I found myself alternately embarrassed on Holmes\u27s behalf and overjoyed that he could break out,however mildly, from the constraints of his tightly bound self.\u27 A second matter beckons for attention. When we-we scholars, we bibliophiles, we voyeuristic gazers on and into the lives of others-bring letters or a diary into the public domain, this entails a responsibility and presents an epistemological, if not an ethical, dilemma, depending on whether the correspondent intended the letters for destruction or preservation. We also confront a challenge of meaning or interpretation.Toward the end of his discussion of Holmes as correspondent, Professor White asks: Why did Holmes write so many letters, and how did he conceive of his role as a correspondent? What light can his conception of that role shed on his life as a whole? Can we better understand Holmes the judge, or Holmes the person, from examining his correspondence? White concludes that the correspondence is not a particularly good source of insight into [Holmes\u27s] life as a judge. Holmes rarely discussed in detail the cases on which he was working, gave few clues as to how he adjudicated, and even fewer juicy details on interactions among the Justices. For Holmes, correspondence was itself an object of desire, a cathected pleasure. Thus, correspondence took second place to judging in Holmes\u27s world, because desire ranked lower than duty

Right Makes Might: Lincoln\u27s Evocation Of Natural Rights Still Reverberates In American Politics

Harry V. Jaffa takes his time. The wait is well worth it. Forty-one years separate the publication of Jaffa\u27s recognized classic, Crisis of the House Divided (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226391132, $20.00 softcover), and this new work on Abraham Lincoln\u27s political thought. A third vol...