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In Defense of Fortin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Douglas Kries
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Extract

The problem addressed by Professor Tierney is also a problem on which Professor Ernest Fortin, a member of this journal's editorial advisory board, has written extensively and forcefully. Unfortunately, the lingering effects of an untimely stroke make it impossible for him to respond to Tierney's essay. The editor of the Review of Politics has consequently asked me to respond in his stead. My goal is to be faithful to Fortin's position, but of course the following remarks must be taken as my own. It would be contrary to Fr. Fortin's generous spirit for me not to note at the outset that he is genuinely impressed with Tierney's tireless research on the question of the origin of modern natural rights theories, even if he does not always agree with Tierney's assessment of the matter.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , Summer 2002 , pp. 411 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2002

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References

1. Fortin's position on the problem of natural law and natural rights is stated most completely in a series of three articles (“Natural Law and Social Justice,” “On the Presumed Medieval Origin of Individual Rights,” and “The New Rights Theory and the Natural Law”), all of which have been conveniently republished in Ernest Fortin: Collected Essays, ed. Benestad, J. Brian (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 2:223–86.Google Scholar Fortin also applied his thinking on this issue to Catholic moral theology; see especially “Sacred and Inviolable: Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” in Collected Essays 3:191–222.Google Scholar An introduction to the problem for a less scholarly audience may be found in his “Human Rights and the Common Good,” in Collected Essays 3:19–28.Google Scholar A complete bibliography of Fortin's work is available in Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach: Essays on Religion and Political Philosophy in Honor of Ernest L. Fortin, ed. Foley, Michael P. and Kries, Douglas (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002).Google Scholar

2. Fortin's most extensive comments on Tierney's work are found in “On the Presumed Medieval Origin of Individual Rights,” in Collected Essays 2: 245–57.Google Scholar It should be noted that Fortin's remarks were made prior to the recent and more complete statement of Professor Tierney's position in The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law and Church Law, 1150–1625 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997).Google Scholar

3. “The New Rights Theory and the Natural Law,” Review of Politics 44 (1982): 590–612;CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in Collected Essays 2: 265–86.Google Scholar

4. In addition to the essay published here, see especially “Permissive Natural Law and Property: Gratian to Kant,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001): 381–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar