Comments on Finnis on Catholic Engagement in Public DebatesTypePad2012-04-30T15:18:13ZRick Garnetthttps://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/tag:typepad.com,2003:https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2012/04/finnis-on-catholic-engagement-in-public-debates/comments/atom.xml/Kevin Miller commented on 'Finnis on Catholic Engagement in Public Debates'tag:typepad.com,2003:6a00d834515a9a69e2016765fce9de970b2012-05-01T23:44:18Z2012-05-02T18:41:13ZKevin MillerAnd I would add to Matthew's comment that I think Aquinas interprets Aristotle ("as the Philosopher explains") rightly - i.e.,...<p>And I would add to Matthew's comment that I think Aquinas interprets Aristotle ("as the Philosopher explains") rightly - i.e., that Finnis is mistakenly reading into Aristotle (and Plato) also (i.e., as well as Aquinas) an objectionable "paternalism." I think Finnis is right about the problems with "package deals," and also about the need to see how doctrine legitimately develops (has already done so and quite possibly will continue to do so) with regard to issues like religious liberty. But I don't agree with the view that has frequently been advanced by Finnis and his colleagues (e.g., Grisez) and students (e.g., Brugger) that there's anything terribly problematic about the basic conception of the relationship between person and polis or between morality and polis that we find in, say, Aristotle and Aquinas (or that the contemporary Magisterium has fundamentally rejected this conception). I think that Lawrence Dewan has replied very helpfully to Finnis on this point; I think that Dewan sufficiently demonstrates that it is the Finnis conception of politics that is more likely to lead to a society in which the dignity of the human person isn't adequately respected.</p>
<p>(My doctoral dissertation was [yet another] analysis of John Paul II on capital punishment - responding especially [though not only - I also replied to people on the other end of the authentically Catholic spectrum like Dulles and Long - although it seemed to me that they didn't need as lengthy a reply] to the take proposed by Bradley and Brugger - and thus looking at some of the key background in the political [as well as moral] theory of Finnis and Grisez.)</p>Matthew Polaris commented on 'Finnis on Catholic Engagement in Public Debates'tag:typepad.com,2003:6a00d834515a9a69e20168eaf3d705970c2012-04-30T23:28:46Z2012-05-02T18:41:13ZMatthew PolarisWonderful passage. But is Aquinas really paternalistic? Was he "insufficiently attentive to differentiations"? I wonder. "Now human law is ordained...<p>Wonderful passage. But is Aquinas really paternalistic? Was he "insufficiently attentive to differentiations"? I wonder.</p>
<p>"Now human law is ordained for one kind of community, and the Divine law for another kind. Because human law is ordained for the civil community, implying mutual duties of man and his fellows: and men are ordained to one another by outward acts, whereby men live in communion with one another. This life in common of man with man pertains to justice, whose proper function consists in directing the human community. Wherefore human law makes precepts only about acts of justice; and if it commands acts of other virtues, this is only in so far as they assume the nature of justice, as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. v, 1).</p>
<p>But the community for which the Divine law is ordained, is that of men in relation to God, either in this life or in the life to come. And therefore the Divine law proposes precepts about all those matters whereby men are well ordered in their relations to God."</p>
<p>--ST I.II q. 100, a. 3</p>