Product Description

Over the last thirty years the American political class has come to talk itself out of the doctrines of "natural rights" that formed the main teaching of the American Founders and Abraham Lincoln. With that move, they have talked themselves out of the ground of their own rights. But the irony is that they have made this transition without the least awareness, and indeed with a kind of serene conviction that they have been expanding constitutional rights. Since 1965, in the name of "privacy" and "autonomy," they have unfolded, vast new claims of liberty, all of them bound up in some way with the notion of sexual freedom, and yet this new scheme of rights depends on a denial, at the root, of the premises and logic of natural rights. Hadley Arkes argues that the "right to choose an abortion" has functioned as the "right" that has shifted the political class from doctrines of natural right. The new "right to choose" overturned the liberal jurisprudence of the New Deal, and placed jurisprudence on a notably different foundation. And so even if there is a "right" to abortion, that right has been detached from the logic of natural rights and stripped of moral substance. As a consequence, the people who have absorbed these new notions of rights have put themselves in a position in which they can no longer offer a moral defense of any of their rights. Hadley Arkes is the Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College. He is the author of First Things (Princeton, 1986), Beyond the Constitution (Princeton, 1990), and The Reform Constitution (Princeton, 1994). He has been a contributor to First Things, the journal that took its name from his book of that title.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #623786 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 330 pages

Review
"...Arkes's personal experiences add relevance and vitality..."
-Amy L. Peikoff, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ethics

"Part legal and intellectual history, part political philosophy, part polemic, part memoir--[Mr. Arkes's book] succeeds brilliantly in tracing the effects of the decision to reject natural rights."
-The Wall Street Journal

"With wit and energy and coruscating intelligence, Hadley Arkes has written the most persuasive argument I have yet read for a return to natural law and the first principles of the American founding."
-James Bowman, Resident Scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

"This book is shattering, for Arkes shows how our generation, while talking itself into a `right to choose' has talked itself out of the logic of `natural rights.' If he is correct, our so-called `rights' now have no meaning. Even the `right to choose' has no moral defense. Warning: This book may change your life."
-Michael Novak, George Frederick Jewett Chair, The American Enterprise Institute

"Natural Rights and the Right to Choose is the story of how relentless elaboration of a spurious right has jeopardized the foundations of all rights. Hadley Arkes makes the case, as only he can, with rigor, grace, and passion. This is a philosophical page-turner where the shocker is not who-done-it but what was done in the name of law."
-Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

"Arkes admirably merges his experiences in public policy with his philosophical defense of natural rights. For that reason, I especially recommend Arke's book for courses in philosophy of law and social/political philosophy, but it would also be a unique addition to a biomedical ethics course or to any ethics course specifically dealing with the issue of abortion."
-Emily Crookston

"In a most charming and beguiling way, Hadley Arkes brings us face-to-face with our culture's mindless celebration of moral suicide. Arkes is a modern Socrates, drawing half-buried truths and recognitions from his interlocutors, his readers. He shows how our obsession with rights to the exclusion of their corresponding duties has extended the frontiers of degradation, not freedom. Natural Rights and the Right to Choose is not simply another meditation on abortion: It is a profound and lucid inquiry into the moral tenor of our culture. No thinking person will encounter this spiritual tocsin unchanged."
-Roger Kimball, The New Criterion

"Hadley Arkes is one of the keenest observers of law and culture in America. I read--no, devour--his writings. Thank God for him."
-Charles W. Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Washington D.C.

"While the highly charged issue of abortion helps focus Arkes's position, his ideas have far-ranging consequences for human rights. To read Arkes is to experience a rebirth of hope for humankind. Essential."
-Choice

"Arkes's book contains a fascinating examination of the legislative effort, over the past dozen years, to respond to the appalling decision in Roe and Doe."
-The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly

About the Author
Professor Hadley Arkes is Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst, and has published many books on moral philosophy and constitutional law, including Beyond the Constitution (Princeton, 1990). A writer for journals such as The Wall Street Journal and Commentary, he has influenced public policy as an architect of the Defense of Marriage Act and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.

Customer Reviews

Showing us the way towards human unity
Hadley Arkes has written a book that goes to the root of every political debate: what man is determines what "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" means, not just for American citizens, but indeed for all people everywhere.

In today's world people clamor for rights all the time without thinking about what a "right" is or where rights come from. Hadley shows that such forgetfulness (or outright ignorance) is a crucial mistake. It's as if builders lost the blueprints to a structure's foundations, taking it for granted that no matter where they erected pillars or beams, there would be some underlying foundation to support the weight and tie everything together.

The temptation to eventually consider rights a matter of majority might and politics simply "war by other means" only grows stronger within this ignorance of intelligible (i.e. universally knowable) foundations.

Thus a right to own firearms, marry whomever you please, use natural resources however you see fit, and get rid of inconvenient offspring will increasingly appear to be "victories" of pressure group tactics, open to ulterior change rather than anything objectively good and lasting...

Hadley makes the point of temporarily shifting the reader's attention from what people want, to what people are. Only if you know what human beings are can you distinguish between "wants" ("choices") that correspond to human needs, as opposed to "whims" ("choices") that may be neutral or harmful to those that desire it or others in society.

In other words, this book is a tour de force in the metaphysical underpinning of the American experiment. America is not an experiment in political expediency but in man's ability to use reason to know objective (public) truth and discover universally applicable goods that correspond to the reality of human nature. Rights are not a matter of human passion and whimsy. Even if you don't choose something, you may still have a right for it! Even if some ruler doesn't let you choose, you may still have a right to choose! But only if human nature exists. If human nature doesn't exist, then, as Hadley makes clear, politics is just a matter of majority rule and power.

His book reminds us of those solid intellectual presuppositions that make civil life "civil" rather than a charade in which inevitably those with power tyrannize those who are weaker.

Finally, there are no losers in this book; that is, there are no class or category of people whose lives and liberty are threatened by his thought. After all, human liberty is not a matter of doing whatever you want, but of doing what is right - and the "pursuit of happiness" is likewise not wholly subjective, as medical science and psychology proves...some ideas and habits are always harmful and lead to misery, others are always helpful and lead to health. Why? Because human beings (black, yellow, red and white) are all members of a single human nature; we are all of the same family - thus we all have the same rights. What these are exactly are discoverable by reason, not created by whim. Hadley shows us the way.

Must Read
I rarely give a book 5 stars, but 'Natural Rights and the Right to Choose' deserves it.

I read this book during my undergraduate studies in a class that was overwhelmingly pro-abortion. Academic resources to counter the kinds of arguments we had been having in class were very rare at my secular/liberal Canadian university. Thankfully, this book by Hadley Arkes was on the reading list, and it helped to substantially challenge my thinking. As a mainstream evangelical I had never considered looking at natural law theory, and I'm immensely grateful that I finally did.

Part legal/political history, part excercise in natural law theory, 'Natural Rights' excels at both by retelling the story of the legal battles over abortion in the US, examing the presuppositions, fallacies, and arguments of the debate, and by explaining the natural law case against abortion. If you are a Christian, or a pro-lifer looking to deepen your knowledge about the abortion debate, and looking to deepen your knowledge of natural law theory, this book should be at the top of your list.

He's Brilliant but Many times Wrong
Professor Arkes is obviously a brilliant man with very deeply held opinions and feelings. The book is well written and logically presented. While I take issue with some of his premises, I doubt that anyone could express his position better than he has. Truth be told, he not only gave me food for thought, some of that food tasted pretty good.