Intention and Identity: Collected Essays Volume II

376 Pages·2011·2.12 MB·English

by  John Finnis

Intention and Identity
Works of John Finnis available from
Oxford University Press
Reason in Action
Collected Essays: Volume I
Intention and Identity
Collected Essays: Volume II
Human Rights and Common Good
Collected Essays: Volume III
Philosophy of Law
Collected Essays: Volume IV
Religion and Public Reasons
Collected Essays: Volume V
Natural Law and Natural Rights
Second Edition
Aquinas
Moral, Political, and Legal Theory
Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism
with Joseph Boyle and Germain Grisez
INTENTION
AND IDENTITY
Collected Essays: Volume II
John Finnis
1
3
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© J. M. Finnis, 2011
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ISBN 978–0–19–958006–4
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PREFACE
The earliest of the essays collected in these fi ve volumes dates from 1967,
the latest from 2010. The chronological Bibliography of my publications,
near the end of each volume, shows how the collected essays are distributed
across the volumes. But each volume also contains some essays previously
unpublished.
Many of the essays appear with new titles. When the change is
substantial, the original published title is noted at the beginning of the
essay; the original can of course always also be found in the Bibliography.
Revision of previously published work has been restricted to clarifi cation.
Where there seems need for substantive qualifi cation or retractation,
I have said so in an endnote to the essay or, occasionally, in a bracketed
footnote. Unless the context otherwise indicates, square brackets signify
an insertion made for this Collection. Endnotes to particular essays have
also been used for some updating, especially of relevant law. In general,
each essay speaks from the time of its writing, though the dates given
in the Table of Contents are dates of publication (where applicable) not
composition—which sometimes was one or two years earlier.
I have tried to group the selected essays by theme, both across and within
the volumes. But there is a good deal of overlapping, and something of each
volume’s theme will be found in each of the other volumes. The Index,
which like the Bibliography (but not the ‘Other Works Cited’) is common
to all volumes, gives some further indication of this, though it aspires to
completeness only as to names of persons. Each volume’s own Introduction
serves to amplify and explain that volume’s title, and the bearing of its
essays on that theme.
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CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations ix
The Cover Picture xi
Introduction 1
Part One Nature and Freedom in Personal Identity 17
1. The Priority of Persons (2000) 19
2. Personal Identity in Aquinas and
Shakespeare (2005) 36
3. Anscombe on Spirit and Intention (2009) 69
Part Two Group Identity and Group Acts 79
4. Purposes, Public Acts, and Personifi cation (1987) 81
5. Persons and Their Associations (1989) 92
6. Law, Universality, and Social Identity (2007) 100
7. Cosmopolis, Nation States, and Families (2008) 122
Part Three Acts and Intentions 131
8. Human Acts (1987) 133
9. I ntentions and Objects (1991) 152
10. Intention and Side Eff ects (1991) 173
11. Intention in Tort Law (1995) 198
12. Conditional and Preparatory Intentions (1994) 220
13. ‘Direct’ and ‘Indirect’ in Action (2001) 235
14. Intention in Direct Discrimination (2010) 269
Part Four Persons Beginning and Dying 277
15. Organic Unity, Brain Life, and
Our Beginning (1988) 279
16. When Most People Begin (1993) 287
17. On Producing Human Embryos (2000) 293
viii CONTENTS
18. Brain Death and Peter Singer (1998) 302
19. I ntentionally Killing the ‘Permanently
Unconscious’ (1993) 313
Bibliography of the Works of John Finnis 323
Other Works Cited 335
Acknowledgements 343
Index 345
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AAS A cta Apostolicae Sedis (Rome)
AJJ American Journal of Jurisprudence
All ER All England Law Reports
Aquinas 1 998d: John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal
Theory (OUP)
CCC C atechism of the Catholic Church ([1994] rev edn, 1999)
CL H .L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law ([1961] 2nd edn, OUP,
1994)
CLR Commonwealth Law Reports (of decisions of the High
Court of Australia)
CUP Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
DS H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum Defi nitionum et
Declarationum de rebus fi dei et morum (ed. A. Schönmetzer)
(34th edn, Barcelona and New York: Herder, 1967)
EJP H .L.A. Hart, Essays in Jurisprudence & Philosophy (OUP,
1983)
EPD Joseph Raz, Ethics in the Public Domain (OUP, 1994)
FHG M ary Geach and Luke Gormally (eds), Faith in a Hard
Ground: Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics by
G.E.M. Anscombe (Charlottesville, VA and Exeter, UK:
Imprint Academic, 2008)
FoE 1983b: John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (OUP;
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press)
HLAE M ary Geach and Luke Gormally (eds), Human Life, Action
and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M Anscombe (Charlottesville, VA
and Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2005)
HUP Harvard University Press
In Eth. Aquinas, Sententia Libri Ethicorum [Commentary on NE]
(ed. Gauthier) (1969)
LCL G ermain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, Living
a Christian Life (Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1993)
LE Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (HUP; London: Fontana,
1986)
LQR L aw Quarterly Review