Justice: Rights and Wrongs
By:
Sign Up Now!
Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into UK education collection to access this title.
Learn about membership options,
or view our freely available titles.
- Synopsis
- Wide-ranging and ambitious, Justice combines moral philosophy and Christian ethics to develop an important theory of rights and of justice as grounded in rights. Nicholas Wolterstorff discusses what it is to have a right, and he locates rights in the respect due the worth of the rights-holder. After contending that socially-conferred rights require the existence of natural rights, he argues that no secular account of natural human rights is successful; he offers instead a theistic account. Wolterstorff prefaces his systematic account of justice as grounded in rights with an exploration of the common claim that rights-talk is inherently individualistic and possessive. He demonstrates that the idea of natural rights originated neither in the Enlightenment nor in the individualistic philosophy of the late Middle Ages, but was already employed by the canon lawyers of the twelfth century. He traces our intuitions about rights and justice back even further, to Hebrew and Christian scriptures. After extensively discussing justice in the Old Testament and the New, he goes on to show why ancient Greek and Roman philosophy could not serve as a framework for a theory of rights. Connecting rights and wrongs to God's relationship with humankind, Justice not only offers a rich and compelling philosophical account of justice, but also makes an important contribution to overcoming the present-day divide between religious discourse and human rights.
- Copyright:
- 2010
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781400828715
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780691146300, 9780691129679
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- Date of Addition:
- 09/21/17
- Copyrighted By:
- Princeton University Press
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Philosophy
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.
Reviews
Other Books
- by Nicholas Wolterstorff
- in Nonfiction
- in Religion and Spirituality
- in Law, Legal Issues and Ethics
- in Philosophy