Justice or The Plot to Seize the White House

Justice: Rights and Wrongs

Author: Nicholas Wolterstorff

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.

Table of Contents:

Preface     vii
Introduction     1
The Archeology of Rights     19
Two Conceptions of Justice     21
A Contest of Narratives     44
Justice in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible     65
On De-justicizing the New Testament     96
Justice in the New Testament Gospels     109
Fusion of Narrative with Theory: The Goods to Which We Have Rights     133
Locating That to Which We Have Rights     135
Why Eudaimonism Cannot Serve as Framework for a Theory of Rights     149
Augustine's Break with Eudaimonism     180
The Incursion of the Moral Vision of Scripture into Late Antiquity     207
Characterizing Life- and History-Goods     227
Theory: Having a Right to a Good     239
Accounting for Rights     241
Rights Not Groundedin Duties     264
Rights Grounded in Respect for Worth     285
The Nature and Grounding of Natural Human Rights     311
Is a Secular Grounding of Human Rights Possible?     323
A Theistic Grounding of Human Rights     342
Applications and Implications     362
Epilogue: Concluding Reflections     385
General Index     395
Index of Scriptural References     399

Interesting textbook: Construção Sustentável:Desenho de Edifício Verde e Entrega

The Plot to Seize the White House

Author:

Most people will be shocked to learn that in 1933 a cabal of wealthy industrialists—in league with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League—planned to overthrow the U.S. government in a fascist coup. Their plan was to turn discontented veterans into American “brown shirts,” depose F.D.R., and stop the New Deal. They clandestinely asked Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler to become the first American Caesar. He, though, was a true patriot and revealed the plot to journalists and to Congress. In a time when a sitting President has invoked national security to circumvent constitutional checks and balances, this episode puts the spotlight on attacks upon our democracy and the individual courage needed to repel them.