TY - BOOK ID - 77411377 TI - Natural law liberalism PY - 2006 SN - 0521842786 9780521842785 9780511509704 9780521140607 0511241631 9780511241635 9780511242366 0511242360 0511240597 9780511240591 0511241119 9780511241116 0511509707 0521140609 1107163544 1280568070 0511318464 PB - Cambridge Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - Liberalism KW - Natural law KW - Law of nature (Law) KW - Natural rights KW - Nature, Law of (Law) KW - Rights, Natural KW - Law KW - Liberal egalitarianism KW - Liberty KW - Political science KW - Social sciences KW - Liberalism. KW - Natural law. KW - Social Sciences KW - Political Science UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77411377 AB - Liberal political philosophy and natural law theory are not contradictory, but - properly understood - mutually reinforcing. Contemporary liberalism (as represented by Rawls, Guttman and Thompson, Dworkin, Raz, and Macedo) rejects natural law and seeks to diminish its historical contribution to the liberal political tradition, but it is only one, defective variant of liberalism. A careful analysis of the history of liberalism, identifying its core principles, and a similar examination of classical natural law theory (as represented by Thomas Aquinas and his intellectual descendants), show that a natural law liberalism is possible and desirable. Natural law theory embraces the key principles of liberalism, and it also provides balance in resisting some of its problematic tendencies. Natural law liberalism is the soundest basis for American public philosophy, and it is a potentially more attractive and persuasive form of liberalism for nations that have tended to resist it. ER -