Natural Law: Reflections On Theory & Practice

✍ Scribed by Jacques Maritain, William Sweet

• Publisher: St. Augustines Press
• Year: 1960
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 499
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

You'll go into a Barnes and Noble and see on a desk a sign raised which reads "thought-provoking." More often than not the desk inhabits atheist agenda and nonsense, which the casual reader is always tempted to wonder about, though the trained reader always deplores. This is a book - this is an author - that deserves the title "thought-provoking." Maritain is as interesting, is as lucid, is as creative as he is brilliant.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 1
Preface......Page 3
Orient and Occident......Page 7
Greek Sophism......Page 8
Socrates and the Sophists......Page 9
The Socratic Enigma......Page 10
The Good......Page 15
Virtue is Knowledge......Page 16
Popular Mores and Philosophical Morality......Page 18
The Idea of the Good......Page 20
The Transcendence of the End......Page 21
Supra-empirical Happiness......Page 22
Value and End......Page 23
The Platonic Utopia......Page 26
The Good and Happiness identified......Page 30
The End -- the Aristotelian Sovereign Good......Page 31
The search for an equilibrium between Finality and Value -- the primacy of Finality......Page 33
Ethics and the common Conscience -- the theory of the Virtues......Page 36
Freedom......Page 38
The Sage and the City......Page 39
The first Defeat......Page 43
The second Defeat......Page 44
The ineffectiveness of the appeal made to Man by the End proposed......Page 45
For "the Porch" only Virtue is Good......Page 47
The Super-human in moral Virtue......Page 48
Emphasis on Value and the aspiration to a heroic moral life......Page 50
Natural Law......Page 51
Epicurean Asceticism......Page 56
The illusion of Pleasure as the supreme End......Page 57
Haste to arrive at the supreme End......Page 58
Pragmatic displacement of the notion of Wisdom......Page 59
Stoic Physics......Page 60
A supra-philosophical ambition and need -- curing the human Soul......Page 61
The Wisdom of India......Page 63
Greek Wisdom......Page 64
The Law of the Incarnation......Page 65
"To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise" -- The Absolute Ultimate End and the Sublective Ultimate End Beatitude......Page 66
Absolute Ultimate End and Subjective Ultimate End in the Natural Order and in the Supernatural Order......Page 67
Absolute Happiness is desired for love of the Good subsisting of itself......Page 68
The Supernatural Order and the Grace of Virtues and Gifts -- Divine Charity and Friendship Theological Virtues and moral Virtues......Page 70
Friendship's Love between God and Man......Page 72
The reversal of Values -- the call of the Ultimate End......Page 73
Philosophy put to the test......Page 75
Through Moses He gave them the Decalogue. Through Christ He gave them the New Law.......Page 76
A reinforcement which may regenerate Moral Philosophy or endanger it......Page 78
Rationalism and Empiricism......Page 81
The English School of the Eighteenth Century......Page 83
The Good as End excluded as a constituent element of Morality Elimination of the Subjective Ultimate End -- Kantian Disinterestedness......Page 85
Elimination of the Absolute Ultimate End -- Kantian Autonomy......Page 88
The Good as a Value inherent in the moral Object excluded as a constituent element of Morality -- Kantian Formalism Primacy of the "you ought", pure of all content......Page 92
What constitutes the value of the Act is not the good present in its object, but the logical compatibility of its maxim with the Form of the Law......Page 94
A Christian ethics of pure Reason which Christianity was instrumental in warping......Page 96
Cosmic-Realist Ethics and A-cosmic-Idealist Ethics......Page 97
After the Kantian Revolution......Page 101
Dialectic as Knowledge or Science{......Page 103
The Real introduced forcibly into the logical Being of Reason does violence to Logic......Page 106
The Great Sophistry......Page 108
The primordial intuition of Hegel......Page 111
The Hegelian requirement of Overcoming and of Affirmation-Destruction, or the ritual murder of Realities that are elevated to the skies......Page 114
The Individual Person......Page 120
Freedom of Choice......Page 124
The morality of Conscience......Page 125
The State as the Objectivication of Mind and the Incarnation of Freedom......Page 128
Freedom of Autonomy and the Hegelian system......Page 130
Religion captured by Philosophy......Page 137
The Spiritual captured by the Temporal......Page 140
Hegel's God......Page 141
History as the supreme Law of Good and Evil......Page 147
Characteristics of the Hegelian Ethic......Page 152
Realism and Materialism -- Marx Turns Hegel Over......Page 157
Marxist Atheism......Page 159
The Marxist Dialectic......Page 164
Connivance with History......Page 169
Towards true Man or deified Man as Human Species or Human Community......Page 172
The latest Christian heresy......Page 175
The implicit moral content and the theory of Morality......Page 177
Characteristics of Marxist Ethics......Page 183
The anti-Kantian reaction and purely Scientific Positivism -- Positivism and Kantism......Page 189
Purely scientistic or secularized Positivism......Page 191
Oppositions and convergences......Page 193
The mission of Auguste Comte......Page 194
The Law of the Three Stages......Page 196
"Everything is relative, that's the only absolute principle"......Page 201
The Positivist conception of Philosophy......Page 207
Positivism and Dialectical Materialism......Page 208
Impossibility of the philosophy of Anti-philosophy......Page 214
The atheism of Comte......Page 217
The subjective synthesis......Page 222
The religion of Humanity......Page 228
The supreme Science......Page 232
Love as Our principle{......Page 235
Headless love......Page 239
Ethics and Religion......Page 244
Value and Finality......Page 245
A Cosmic and Naturalistic Ethics......Page 246
Between the religion of the Great Being and the Myth of Science......Page 248
Coming to terms with self-knowledge......Page 250
The champion of the Singular......Page 253
Ethics and supra-Ethics......Page 257
Descartes and the sailors......Page 261
Nausea......Page 262
Being and Nothingness......Page 263
The valuating Decision......Page 268
Existentialist Ethics is a Morality of Ambiguity......Page 271
And a Morality of Situation......Page 275
Classification of the principal moral theories posterior to the Kantian System......Page 279
John Dewey and the Objectivity of Values......Page 0
The Naturalism of John Dewey......Page 282
Toward an absolute naturalism......Page 284
A purely Experimentalist theory of Value......Page 285
Weaknesses of the theory......Page 288
On Naturalist Ethics......Page 292
Fortunes of Ambiguity......Page 299
Authentic love of Humanity......Page 301
Moral Obligation......Page 303
The method followed in this book......Page 307
On some possible renewals......Page 308
Man and the Human Condition -- a problem preliminary to any moral systematization......Page 310
The temptation to refuse the Human Condition......Page 311
The temptation to accept purely and simply the Human Condition......Page 313
The answer to Indian spirituality......Page 314
The Gospel answer......Page 315