While some essays explore systematically the metaphysical and moral foundations of natural law, others focus on questions related to the application of natural law in the political, medical, or legal realm, or discuss historical questions that are closely related to the crisis and defense of natural law.
Essays include: A glimpse of heaven by Paul Josef Cordes; On the encyclical God is love by Pope Benedict XVI; Religion: the Cinderella of charitable programs by Paul Josef Cordes; Concepts of anthropology and motivation by Udio Di Fabio; Working in the name of the Christian faith by Paul Josef Cordes; I want to be with you: witnesses of engagement worldwide presented by Alexander Smoltczyk, [et al.]; A paradigm shift : the aims of caritas and its agents /by Paul Josef Cordes; Loopholes in the law: where is caritas in canon law?
This threatened the absolute power of European monarchies and the Catholic Church.
Science and Reason
The Enlightenment - Part 2
Science, Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Jefferson
Rene Descartes, 1596 - 1650
"
Cogito ergo sum
" = "
I think, therefore I am
"
"
We think that the greatest service to be done to men is to teach them to use their
reason
, only to hold for truth what they have verified and proved.
"
Descartes' quote is
monumentally
incredible because he was single-handedly challenging the
absolute authority
of the monarchs of Europe, the Bible, the Roman Catholic Church and the
clerics
who communicated "truth" to the people of Europe.
Newton is also known for his development of
calculus
, which makes modern scientific calculations possible.
Fathers of the Enlightenment...
Denis Diderot, 1713 - 1784
Knowledge and Reason
John Locke
is, perhaps, the most influential Enlightenment thinker on the
motivations
and
justifications
of the
American and French Revolutions
.
American Founding Father,
Thomas Jefferson
, used Locke's ideas when he authored our
Declaration of Independence
in the summer of 1776.
John Locke, 1632 - 1704
Human Rights
The Enlightenment's impact on the world...
Revolution
Constitution
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws were works written during which time period?
(1) Middle Ages
(2) Renaissance
(3) Enlightenment
(4) Reformation
In what ways will the Global Regents ask YOU about The Enlightenment?
Voltaire, 1694 - 1778
Known by his
pen-name
,
Voltaire
was an 18th century '
philosoph
' whose ideas and written works are credited with inspiring both the
American
and the
French Revolutions
.
Drawing upon landmark legal decisions and historical events, the book emphasizes that justice is not blind, because our concept of justice changes over time and is linked to economic power, social values, and moral sensibilities that are neither universal nor apolitical.
Challenging the assumption that law is an objective, rational and secular enterprise, it shows that the rule of law is historically intertwined with Christian morality, the forces of capitalism responsible for exploiting minorities, and conceptions of individualism bound up in the 16th century Reformation and rapidly developed in the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Barry Alan Shain, “Afterword: Revolutionary-Era Americans: Were They Enlightened or Protestant? Does it Matter?” in Dreisbach, Hall, and Morrison, , pp. 274–277. This characterization of Enlightenment thinkers is truer for members of the Continental or Radical Enlightenment than for those associated with the British and/or Scottish Enlightenment.
Essays include: Levels and trends in absolute poverty in the world : what we know and what we don't; Stephan Klasen -- Identifying absolute global poverty in 2005 : the measurement question; Michael Ward -- How world poverty is measured and tracked; Thomas Pogge -- Christian ethics and the challenge of absolute poverty; Clemens Sedmak -- 'De iustitia in Mundo' : global justice in the tradition of the social teaching of the Catholic Church; Gerhard Kruip -- Religions and global justice : reflections from an inter-cultural and inter-religious perspective; Johannes Müller and Michael Reder -- On the concept of global justice; Peter Koller -- Poverty and responsibility; Stefan Gosepath -- Absolute poverty and global inequality; Darrel Moellendorf -- Sufficientarianism both international and intergenerational?; Lukas Meyer -- The alleged dichotomy between positive and negative rights and duties; Elizabeth Ashford -- Complicity in harmful action : contributing to world poverty and duties of care; Barbara Bleisch -- Transnational political elites and their duties of the common good; Eike Bohlken -- World poverty and moral free- riding : the obligations of those who profit from global injustice; Norbert Anwander -- Medicines for the world : boosting innovation without obstructing free access; Thomas Pogge -- Not only 'a simple math equation' : business organisations as agents for poverty reduction; Michael Schramm and Judit Seid -- The role of corporate citizens in fighting poverty : an ordonomic approach to global justice; Ingo Pies and Stefan Hielscher -- Global justice in the context of worldwide poverty and climate change; Johannes Wallacher -- Conclusion : the paradox of poverty research : why is extreme poverty not in focus?; Else Øyen
Daniel L. Dreisbach, Mark D. Hall, and Jeffry H. Morrison, (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) (containing essays about George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Witherspoon, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, George Mason, and Daniel and Charles Carroll); Dreisbach, Hall, and Morrison, (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009) (containing essays about Abigail Adams, Samuel Adams, Oliver Ellsworth, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Paine, Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Rush, Roger Sherman, and Mercy Otis Warren); Dreisbach and Hall, (containing eight thematic essays and profiles of John Dickinson, Isaac Backus, John Leland, Elias Boudinot, Gouverneur Morris, and John Hancock); Dreisbach and Hall, (a massive collection of primary source documents on religious liberty and church–state relations in the Founding era). See also John E. O’Connor, (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986), and Marc M. Arkin, “Regionalism and the Religion Clauses: The Contribution on Fisher Ames,” , Vol.47 (Spring 1999), pp. 763–828.
Schall concludes that the Catholic Church has been insufficiently engaged on the question, but that this is now changing with the advent of Pope Benedict, and that Schmitz is correct in identifying the key importance of two elements to the formation of law in world history: 1) Greek philosophy, 2) revelation.
Dreisbach and Hall, , p. 220. For a discussion of these and other statements of colonial concerns, see Mark David Hall, (book mss. under review), chapter 3.