Essays On Law Morality And Religion

Finally, Bradley takes up the questions of religious liberty and how our democratic polity should treat religion. These chapters cover the original meaning of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the role of Catholicism in the post-World War II controversies over movie censorship as they played out in the Supreme Court, and emerging challenges to religious liberty in the 21st century."--Pub. desc.

The essays in this collection explore, from philosophical and religious perspectives, a variety of moral emotions and their relationship to punishment and condemnation or to decisions to lessen punishment or condemnation.

Addressing the proper relation of moral and religious belief to politics and law, especially constitutional law, Perry here discusses whether a common moral foundation exists that is capable of providing, in a diverse social system like ours, consistent guidelines for handling divisive political, policy, religious and constitutional disputes. His study represents a distinctive position in the vast and growing literature on the moral foundations of liberal political and legal life.

"Henry Home (1696-1782) has been called "perhaps the most complete 'Enlightenment man' among the eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers." Kinsman and friend of David Hume, mentor and patron of Adam Smith, John Millar, and Thomas Reid, he was a key figure in that circle of luminaries. He read law, was called to the bar in 1723, was raised to the Bench of the Court of Session in 1752, with the title Lord Kames (the name of his family estate), and joined the High Court of the Justiciary in 1763. Publishing broadly in law, history, philosophy, and criticism, Kames made significant contributions to the Enlightenment's science of human nature." "The Essays is commonly considered Kames's most important philosophical work. In the first part, he sets forth the principles and foundations of morality and justice, attacking Hume's moral skepticism and addressing the controversial issue of the freedom of human will. In the second part, Kames focuses on questions of metaphysics and epistemology to offer a natural theology in which the authority of the external senses is an important basis for belief in the Deity." "The text of this volume is based on the third edition of 1779, while the appendix presents substantial variant readings in the first and second editions."--BOOK JACKET.

Additional Contributor Is Joseph D. Quillian, Jr.

Philosophers enjoy working with ideas that arise as they engage the world. They like to think carefully, looking at ides from more than one perspective, and without partisan urgency or desperate defensive moves. Of course, not all people who call themselves philosophers follow this ideal, but it has a long history, having been exemplified by Socrates and others in the ancient world. The essays in this volume attempt to live up to this ideal, which does not, by the way, prevent Dr. Abegg from reaching strong conclusions—which are, however, always open to challenge.. While parts of some of the essays may be difficult in places for readers not acquainted with philosophy, the shorter essays written recently for this collection are easier to read and also more lively. As a glance at the Table of Contents will reveal, the essays in this volume are on topics that should be important for all of us, such as sexual morality, abortion, Sigmund Freud, the relation between science and religion, and efforts to find a meaningful minimal religion.