Natural Law and Human Rights
by Pierre Manent
2020-12-29 21:40:19
Natural Law and Human Rights
by Pierre Manent
2020-12-29 21:40:19
This first English translation of Pierre Manentâs profound and strikingly original book La loi naturelle et les droits de lâhomme is a reflection on the central question of the Western political tradition. In six chapters, developed from th...
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This first English translation of Pierre Manentâs profound and strikingly original book La loi naturelle et les droits de lâhomme is a reflection on the central question of the Western political tradition. In six chapters, developed from the prestigious Ãtienne Gilson lectures at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and in a related appendix, Manent contemplates the steady displacement of the natural law by the modern conception of human rights. He aims to restore the grammar of moral and political action, and thus the possibility of an authentically political order that is fully compatible with liberty. Manent boldly confronts the prejudices and dogmas of those who have repudiated the classical and Christian notion of âliberty under lawâ and in the process shows how groundless many contemporary appeals to human rights turn out to be. Manent denies that we can generate obligations from a condition of what Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau call the âstate of nature,â where human beings are absolutely free, with no obligations to others. In his view, our ever-more-imperial affirmation of human rights needs to be reintegrated into what he calls an âarchicâ understanding of human and political existence, where law and obligation are inherent in liberty and meaningful human action. Otherwise we are bound to act thoughtlessly and in an increasingly arbitrary or willful manner. Natural Law and Human Rights will engage students and scholars of politics, philosophy, and religion, and will captivate sophisticated readers who are interested in the question of how we might reconfigure our knowledge of, and talk with one another about, politics.
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