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Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
Foreword to the First Edition
Preface
Prolegomena
Part 1 — The Foundations of Human Rights
Chapter 1 - Axiology: Rights and the Ground of Worth
Chapter 2 - Teleology: The Vocation of Man
Chapter 3 - Anthropology: The Nature of Empirical Man
Chapter 4 - Soteriology: The Social Significance of the Atonement
Part 2 — The Community of Covenant
Chapter 5 - The Primal Right as the Bond of Covenant
Chapter 6 - Particularizations of the Primal Right
Chapter 7 - Maintaining the Covenant
Notes

Notes

Prolegomena

1

“Conflict of Values: Freedom and Justice,” in Goals of Economic Life, ed. Dudley A. Ward (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 205.

2

See Richard B. Brandt, ed., Social Justice (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), p. v.

3

Plato, The Republic, Bk. 1.

4

The Ego and His Own, trans. S. T. Byington, Modern Library ed. (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1912), p. 218.

5

James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1891), I, 299.

6

Charles Grove Haines, The Revival of Natural Law Concepts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930), p. 340.

7

Religion and the Social Problem (Philadelphia: Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, 1956), p. 12.

8

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, trans. G. D. H Cole, Everyman’s Library ed. (London: Dent, 1947), pp 3,12.

9

Introduction to Social Contract: Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau (New York; Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. xxxiv–xxxv.

10

Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, p. 15.

11

John E. E. D. Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), p. 12.

12

Jacques Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (New York: Scribners, 1941), pp 65–68.

13

John 11:50, 18:14. Except where otherwise indicated all scripture references are to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

14

An inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 3rd ed. (London: J. and J. Knapton et al., 1729), pp. 179–180.

15

John Bowring, ed., The Works of Jeremy Bentham (Edinburgh: Tait, 1838–43), Iv, 122.

16

American Democracy and Natural Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), p. 13.

17

Ibid., p. 100.

18

Ibid., p. 135.

19

See Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative, trans. Olive Wyon (London: Lutterworth Press, 1937), pp. 295–307.

20

Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law, pp. 65–68.

21

Summa Theologica, 1, p. 95, a. 1.

22

An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper, 1935), p. 32.

23

Quoted in Emil Brunner, Justice and the Social Order, trans. Mary Hottinger (New York: Harper, 1945), p. 268.

24

Ibid., p. 281. In context (Luther’s treatise “On Marriage Matters”) the statement actually has reference to law in the narrow sense rather than to justice, and Recht is so translated in the definitive American edition of Luther’s works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967, XLVI, 289). Even though the Brunner-Hottinger rendering is somewhat misleading with respect to Luther’s specific meaning in the marriage treatise, I feel justified in using it as faithfully expressive of the general tenor of his thought. For a detailed technical study of the morphology of Luther’s social concepts, see F. Edward Cranz, An Essay on the Development of Luther’s Thought on Justice, Law, and Society, Harvard Theological Studies, xix (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959).

25

Lectures on Calvinism, delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary on the L. P. Stone Foundation (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1898), pp. 126–127.

26

See Brunner, Justice and the Social Order, p. 267.

27

Commentary on Genesis, 8:21.

28

T. F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), pp. 66, 110.

29

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk. iii, Chap. xiv, Sec. 2.

30

Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man, p. 93.

31

Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847), i, 295–296.

32

Institutes, Bk. iii, Chap. vii, Sec. 6.

33

See Martin Luther, “Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed,” in Works (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1943), iii, 24–25.

34

Justice and the Social Order, p. 266.

35

Institutes, Bk. iv, Chap. xx.

36

Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man, p. 93.

37

Ibid., p. 58.

38

Ibid., pp. 65–66.

39

Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, trans. Olive Wyon (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1931), ii, 589.

40

See his letter to Bucer, Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Guilielmus Baum et al. (Brunswick, 1863). XXIX, 883 ff.

41

Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, ii, 506.

42

See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribners, 1930), p. 109.

43

The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, II. 621.

44

“Prophet of Man’s Glory and Tragedy,” New York Times Book Review, January 29, 1956, pp. 6–7.

45

See Brunner, The Divine Imperative, pp. 663, 665.

Chapter 1

1

Charles Frankel, ed., The Uses of Philosophy: An Irwin Edman Reader (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955), p. 27.

2

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, trans. T. K. Abbot (London: Longmans, Green, 1873), p. 243 and passim.

3

Foundations of the Metaphysic of Morals, First Sec., par. 1.

4

The passages are summarized in Norman Kemp Smith, Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1923), Appendix C.

5

The Source of Human Good (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 267.

6

Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Bk. II, Sec. 1, Pt. C.

7

I Corinthians 7:31 (Authorized Version).

8

Natural Rights (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1894), p. 108. See also p. 61 (n. 2), in which Ritchie, through levity, misses the whole point of J. Lorrimer’s reference in his Institutes of Law to the “rights of the last rose of summer not to be plucked.” For a devastating critique of Ritchie’s book, see Francis Neilson, The Eleventh Commandment (New York: Viking Press, 1933), Chap. xii.

9

The Protestant Era, trans. James Luther Adams (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 299.

10

Genesis 1:28. See also Brunner, The Divine Imperative, p. 195.

Chapter 2

1

1 Corinthians 2:14 (Authorized Version).

2

Psalm 36:9.

3

See Nicolas Berdyaev, Truth and Revelation, trans. R. M. French (New York: Harper, 1953).

4

Matthew 5:48.

5

Cited in Matthew Spinka, Nicolas Berdyaev: Captive of Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1950), p. 143.

6

Nicolas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man, trans. Natalie Duddington (New York: Scribners, 1937), p. 377.

7

John 15:4–11. See also Colossians 1:27:“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It seems plausible to suppose that “glory” in this context connotes, not merely the eternal blessedness of the individual believer, but also, through it, the realization of the divine will for him, and thus the glorification of God.

8

John 17:3.

9

Romans 8:38–39.

10

II Corinthians 4:16–18.

11

The Reawakening of Christian Faith (New York: Macmillan, 1949), p. 124.

12

Duino Elegies, trans. J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender (New York:W.W. Norton, 1939), Appendix IV, p. 28.

13

See Nicolas Berdyaev, Solitude and Society, trans. George Reavey (London: Goeffry Bles: Centenary Press, 1938).

14

Dream and Reality, trans. Katherine Lampert (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 181. See also The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, trans. Donald A. Lowrie (New York: Harper, 1952), p. 37, and The Destiny of Man, p. 377.

15

A Preface to Morals (New York: Macmillan, 1929), pp. 181–183.

16

Living Time and the Integration of the Life (New York: Hermitage House, 1953), p. 120.

17

Ibid., p. 53.

18

Quoted by Rollo May, Man’s Search for Himself (New York: Norton, 1935), p. 241.

19

See Gordon W. Allport, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (New York: Holt, 1937), pp. 350–351.

20

See Berdyaev, Solitude and Society, p. 61.

21

See Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, p. 8 ff. and Chap. IV.

22

Matthew 18:20:“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

23

Berdyaev, Solitude and Society, p. 166.

24

Man’s Search for Himself, p. 246.

25

Reinhold Niebuhr. The Nature and Destiny of Man (New York: Scribners, 1949), I, 146–147.

Chapter 3

1

Human Destiny (New York: New American Library, 1947), pp. 86–88.

2

The Nature and Destiny of Man, I, 181.

3

Ibid., pp. 182, 185.

4

Ibid., p. 242.

5

Brunner, Man in Revolt, p. 132 ff.

6

Brunner, The Scandal of Christianity (Philadelphia:Westminster, 1951), p. 64.

7

W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety (New York: Random House, 1947), pp. 29–30.

8

William Temple, Christianity and Social Order (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1942), p. 38.

9

Basic Writings of St. Augustine, ed. Whitney J. Oates (New York: Random House, 1948), II, 818.

10

Brunner, Man in Revolt, p. 270.

11

Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, p. 85.

12

Brunner, Man in Revolt, pp. 270–271.

13

See ibid., pp. 248 ff., and p. 250.

14

See ibid., Chap. IX, “The Unity of Personality and Its Decay.”

15

For corroboration of the thesis that compulsive sexuality is frequently the symptom of some more profound psychic mal-orientation, see Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (New York: Norton, 1945), pp. 515–523.

16

The Nature and Destiny of Man, I, 179.

17

Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 127.

18

See Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966), p. 65 ff.

19

An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, p.77 ff.

20

See Calvin’s Commentary on Romans, 2:14.

Chapter 4

1

Isaiah 55:8–9.

2

Hosea 11:9.

3

Emil Brunner, The Mediator, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1947), pp. 448, 447.

4

Romans 6:23.

5

The Incarnation of the Word of God (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 32.

6

The Scandal of Christianity, p. 79.

7

Basic Christian Ethics (New York: Scribners, 1954), p. 254.

8

Christian Personal Ethics, p.228.

9

The Principles of Christian Ethics (NewYork:Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1943), pp. 130–131.

10

Social Salvation (New York: Scribners, 1935), pp. 94–95.

11

Ibid., p.70.

12

Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19.

13

Christian Ethics and Moral Philosophy (New York: Scribners, 1955), p. 52.

14

Ibid.

15

Basic Christian Ethics, pp. 249–264.

16

Søren Kierkegaard, The Gospel of Suffering and the Lilies of the Field (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1948), pp. 211–212.

17

See Genesis 2, 3; Romans 7:18–19.

18

See Berdyaev, Truth and Revelation, Chap. III.

19

A Theology for the Social Gospel (NewYork:Abingdon, 1945), p. 177, pp.242–273;“Ethical Versus Forensic Conceptions of Salvation,” in A Rauschenbusch Reader, ed. Benson Y. Landis (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 135.

20

Adversus haereses, v. pref.

21

For a meaningful discussion of “covering” and “expiation,” see Brunner, The Mediator, pp. 520–522.

22

Situation Ethics, p. 103.

23

A Treatise on Christian Liberty (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1947), pp. 29–30.

24

Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics, p. 355.

25

Situation Ethics, p. 105.

26

An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, p. 111.

27

Types of Ethical Theory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1886), II, 122–125.

28

Luke 2:49 (Authorized Version).

Chapter 5

1

Situation Ethics, p.44.

2

Ibid., p. 99.

3

Basic Christian Ethics, pp. 2–10.

4

See Isabel Patterson, The God of the Machine (New York: Putnams, 1943), pp. 90–91.

5

These passages are paraphrased in Henry Hazlitt, The Foundations of Morality (Princeton:Van Nostrand, 1964), pp. 10–20. The Deontology has been out of print since its original edition.

6

A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III, Pt. II, Sec. 2.

7

Situation Ethics, pp. 55, 134, 31.

8

The Masks of Society (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966), p. 40.

9

The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 77.

10

On Liberty (Chicago: Gateway Editions, n.d.), pp. 11–12.

11

William Ernest Hocking, The Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1926), pp. 70–75 passim.

12

Ibid., p.74.

13

American Democracy and Natural Law, p.91.

14

The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Regnery, 1953), p. 42. See also William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1952), pp. 14–15.

15

See Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall, eds., Reinhold Niebuhr: His Religious, Social, and Political Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1956), pp. 434–436.

16

See the study produced by the Federal Council of Churches, Christian Values and Economic Life (New York: Harper, 1954), esp. pp. 212–217.

17

See John Ladd’s introduction to Kant’s Metaphysical Elements of Justice, trans. John Ladd (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. xi.

18

Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (London: Oxford, 1958); J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy and Political Messianism (New York: Praeger, 1960).

19

For a penetrating discussion of the distinction between freedom and the ends which freedom ought to serve, see Frank S. Meyer’s In Defense of Freedom (Chicago: Regnery, 1962), esp. pp. 53–58 and 67–70.

20

R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1920), Chap. II.

21

Harold J. Laski, A Grammar of Politics (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1925), p. 91.

22

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1949), Chap. xxvi.

23

The Metaphysical Theory of the State (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1918), pp. 35–36.

24

Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ethics (New York: Appleton, 1893), II, 222.

25

Nicolas Berdyaev, The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, tran. Donald A. Lowrie (New York: Harper, 1952). p. 99.

Chapter 6

1

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958).

2

Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Random House, 1966), Chap. vi and passim.

3

Democracy in America, Pt. II, Bk. 2. Sec. 3.

4

The Good Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1937), p. 35.

5

See also Yale Brozen, “Is Government the Source of Monopoly?,” The Intercollegiate Review, v (Winter 1968–69), 67–78.

6

See S. I. Benn and R. S. Peters, The Principles of Political Thought (New York: Free Press, 1965), pp. 264–265.

7

For a keen but inconclusive discussion of this issue, see J. Edward Bond, “Whose Rights?,” Modern Age, XI (Summer 1967), 283–298.

8

The Masks of Society, p. 215.

9

The Good Society, pp. 308–309.

10

Cited ibid., p. 309.

11

For a critical analysis of the policy of occupational licensure, see Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), Chap. ix.

12

See von Mises, Human Action, p. 629.

13

The Good Society, p. 223.

14

Quoted in Irving Dilliard, ed., One Man’s Stand for Freedom: Mr. Justice Black and the Bill of Rights (New York: Knopf, 1963), p. 477.

15

René de Visme Williamson, Independence and Involvement: A Christian Reorientation in Political Science (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), pp. 167–168.

16

“The Open Society and Its Fallacies,” in Peter Radclilf, ed., Limits of Liberty: Studies of Mill’sOn Liberty” (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1966), p. 34.

17

Ibid.

18

The Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights, p. 90.

19

Steven B. Cord, Henry George: Dreamer or Realist? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 231.

20

E. R.A. Seligman, Essays in Taxation, 9th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1923), p.71.

21

Cord, Henry George: Dreamer or Realist?, p. 83.

22

Spencer, Principles of Ethics, II, 113.

23

The Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights, p. 88 ff.

24

Social Statics (NewYork: Appleton and Company, 1850), Chap. IX, Sec. 1.

25

Henry George, A Perplexed Philosopher (1892).

26

Second Treatise of Government, Chap. v, par. 27.

27

Henry George, Progress and Poverty (New York: Robert Schalken-bach Foundation, 1962), p. 334.

28

W.E. H. Lecky, Democracy and Liberty (London: Longmans, Green, 1896), II, 293–294.

29

Poverty and the State (London: Constable, 1930), p. 320.

30

On Liberty, p. 138 ff.

31

Syndicated column by Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, Birmingham News, December 3, 1966.

32

John Milton, “The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth,” Works (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), vi, 140.

33

The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, pp. 112–113.

34

The Fate of Man in the Modern World, trans. Donald Lowrie (Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing Company, 1933), p. 53.

35

Christ and Culture (New York: Harper, 1951), p. 197. The interior quotation is from Sir Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel.

36

The Social Crisis of Our Time (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), p. 102.

37

Essays on Freedom and Power, p. 79.

Chapter 7

1

See Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, pp. 41–47.

2

See John Plamenatz, On Alien Rule and Self-Government (London: Longmans, 1960), p. 133.

3

Brunner, The Divine Imperative, p.246.

4

See Gregory Vlastos, “Justice and Equality,” in Brandt, ed., Social Justice, p. 60.

5

On Liberty, pp. 135–136.

6

See his letter dated February 3, 1825, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H.A.Washington (Washington: Taylor and Maury, 1834). VII, 397. The address of the letter is missing, but internal evidence suggests that it was written to Joseph C. Cabell.

7

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 380.

8

Capitalism and Freedom, p.93 ff.

9

The Constitution of Liberty, p. 381.

10

See William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe To Each Other (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1952), P. 141.

11

Henry Sidgwick, The Principles of Political Economy, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1887), p. 563.

12

See Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr., The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).

13

Cord, Henry George: Dreamer or Realist?, pp. 191–193.

14

The American Commonwealth, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1891), II, 452–453.

15

See Article 24 of the Universal Declaration.