Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order [Paperback]

Douglas B. Rasmussen (Author), Douglas J. Den Uyl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1991

"Liberty and Nature - an Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order" describes the manner in which Aristotle's way of thinking has normally been understood as hostile to modern liberal, pluralistic, and commercial society. In opposition to this prevailing view, the authors set out to show that the Aristotelian approach to ethics supports the natural rights which forms the most secure basis for liberal principles. Rasmussen and Den Uyl lay the foundations of their thesis by rebutting the most prominent arguments against the Aristotelian approach; they then offer a new interpretation of the basic nature of Aristotelian ethics as a natural-end ethics in which the human flourishing is the ultimate moral standard. "Liberty and Nature" examines the concept of the common good in the light of theory of rights. The Aristotelian claim that the function of the state is the promotion of the common good is consistent with the Lockean claim that the function of the state is to protect the natural right to liberty in all its forms, for "the common good of a political community need not be a single goal that all men must strive to attain. Rather, the common good need only be that set of conditions that allows for the well-being and self-actualization of the community's members". The authors provide a close analysis of the relation between Aristotelian friendship and commercial transactions. They also compare their own theory with alternative defences of liberal social orders.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company (October 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812691202
• ISBN-13: 978-0812691207
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #847,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas B. Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at St. John's University. He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. from Marquette University. He has served on the Steering Committee of the Ayn Rand Society and the Executive Council of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment to the Humanities and the Earhart Foundation and has been a Visiting Research Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, on three occasions. His areas of research interest are epistemology, ontology, ethics, and political philosophy as well as the moral foundations of capitalism. He has authored numerous articles in such journals as American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, American Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, The New Scholasticism, The Personalist, Public Affairs Quarterly, Social Philosophy & Policy, The Review of Metaphysics, and The Thomist, and in many scholarly anthologies. He guest edited TELEOLOGY & THE FOUNDATION OF VALUE--the January 1992 (Volume 75, No. 1) issue of The Monist. He is coauthor (with Douglas J. Den Uyl) of Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order (1991); Liberalism Defended: The Challenge of Post-Modernity (1997); and Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (2005). Finally, he is coeditor (with Den Uyl) of The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (1984).