Western Creed, Western Identity: Essays in Legal and Social Philosophy

As we enter a new millennium, calls for the renewal of America abound. There is a widespread belief that something is amiss, that the nation is in a period of moral and cultural decline. We still speak of Western civilization, and it remains a reality even though its spiritual foundation has been under siege within Western intellectual circles for more than two centuries.

In "Western Creed, Western Identity," Jude P. Dougherty investigates the classical roots of Western culture and its religious sources in an effort to define its underlying intellectual and spiritual commitments. The essays were written from a single vantage point, one that has come to be identified with Thomas Aquinas, although the natural law outlook they represent is older than Aquinas. While they are the reflections of a spectator formed in the Catholic tradition, they are not theological in character. They are meant to be observations and judgments that can be appreciated by readers who may not identify with that tradition.

The first part of the volume examines the role of religion in society. Dougherty considers the views of Karl Marx and John Dewey, contrasting them with those of Jacques Maritain and John Courtney Murray. The second part of the book examines the nature of the law and the relation between civil law and natural law. Contemporary legal issues bearing upon the assignment of responsibility are addressed in an essay on collective responsibility and in another on the assignment of blame within the context of tort law. Responsibility and punishment are examined within the same framework. The final section brings together a number of essays on the relation of faith and reason. One essay follows the intellectual journey of Edith Stein, another the thought of Jacques Maritain from the beginning of his career to his final works. John Paul II’s "Fides et Ratio" as a defense of reason and the reasonableness of faith is also discussed.