Not available to order
Publication date:
28 July 2003Length of book:
144 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739158401
Perhaps no issue is more divisive among philosophers, jurists and theologians than the nature of human liberty. Liberty is central to the claims of the Christian Gospel, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution. But discussions about the nature of freedom have been characterized by profound disagreement and unsettling questions. What does it mean to be free? Is freedom worth more than mens' lives? Why should man be free? What, if any, legitmate responsibilities accompany freedom? These subjects are that the heart of Samuel Gregg's new book On Ordered Liberty. Beginning with the insights of Alexis de Tocqueville and some natural law theorists, Gregg suggests that something which he terms 'integral law' must be distinguished from most contemporary visions of freedom. He argues that this new arrangement requires a complete repudiation of utilitarian ideas on the grounds that they are incompatable with human nature. He also recommends a new and more rigorous focus on the basic but often neglected-question: what is man? On Ordered Liberty goes beyond the liberal and conservative divide, asking its readers to think about the proper ends of human choice and actions in a free society.
This concise introduction to the principles of the free society provides a welcome antidote to the unreflective relativism that dominates important currents of contemporary academic moral and political philosophy. Samuel Gregg's elegantly written treatiseis in the best conservative liberal tradition and is studded with revealing quotations from the likes of Burke, Tocqueville, Guizot, and Ropke. In the spirit of his great predecessors, Gregg's book combines genuine attachment to personal and political liberty with an equally fulsome appreciation of the ends or purposes that inform a freedom worthy of man...