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Larry May argues that socially responsive individuals need not be self-sacrificing or overly conscientious. According to May, a person's integrity and moral responsibility are shaped and limited not just by conscience but also by socialization and moral support from the communities to which he or she belongs. Applying his theory of responsibility to professional ethics, May contends that current methods of professional socialization should be changed so that professionals are not expected to ignore considerations of personal well-being, family, or community. For instance, lawyers should not place client loyalty above concerns for the common good; doctors should not place the physical well-being of patients above their mental and spiritual well-being; scientists and engineers should not feel obliged to blow the whistle on fraud and corruption unless their professional groups protect them from retaliation. This book should prove provocative reading for philosophers, political scientists, social theorists, professionals of many stripes, and ethicists.
Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands brings into conversation the distinct fields of tafsīr (Qur'anic exegesis) studies and women's studies by exploring significant shifts in modern Qur'anic commentaries on the subject of women. Hadia Mubarak places three of the most influential, Sunni Qur'anic commentaries in the twentieth century- Tafsīr al-Manār, Fī Zilāl al-Qur'an, and al-Tahrīr wa'l-Tanwīr - against the backdrop of broader historical, intellectual, and political developments in modern North Africa. Mubarak illustrates the ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and modernization set into motion new ways of engaging with the subject of women in the Qur'an. Focusing her analysis o...
Milner Ball takes an experimental journey into the inner life of law and the careers of men and women who use it to help disadvantaged people and to strengthen the fabric of the communities in which they live. At the center of this book are portraits of seven contemporary legal practitioners—lawyers, judges, and advocates—who have devoted their lives to an unconventional vision of the law. In their work, in areas from New York City housing court to the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon, the law exemplifies fundamental human values, manifestations of what Ball calls the "Word," the presence of God in life. To develop this concept of the Word, Ball explores its workings in familiar literary and biblical texts, primarily William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Toni Morrison's Beloved, the Book of Isaiah, and the Gospel of Mark.
The definitive history of the marriage equality debate in the United States, praised by Library Journal as "beautifully and accessibly written. . . . .An essential work.” As a legal scholar who first argued in the early 1990s for a right to gay marriage, William N. Eskridge Jr. has been on the front lines of the debate over same†‘sex marriage for decades. In this book, Eskridge and his coauthor, Christopher R. Riano, offer a panoramic and definitive history of America’s marriage equality debate. The authors explore the deeply religious, rabidly political, frequently administrative, and pervasively constitutional features of the debate and consider all angles of its dramatic history. While giving a full account of the legal and political issues, the authors never lose sight of the personal stories of the people involved, or of the central place the right to marry holds in a person’s ability to enjoy the dignity of full citizenship. This is not a triumphalist or one†‘sided book but a thoughtful history of how the nation wrestled with an important question of moral and legal equality.
This volume offers theoretical, historical, and legal perspectives on religious freedom, as an experience, value, and right. Drawing on examples from around the world, its essays show how the terrain of religious freedom has never been smooth and how in recent years the landscape of religious freedom has shifted.
While the Constitution is the cornerstone of American government, some who are most familiar with the document find it lacking. This unique volume brings together many of the country's most esteemed constitutional commentators and challenges them to select the "stupidest" provision of the Constitution--then to surmise possible results if different interpretations were applied.
This book offers the first sustained jurisprudential inquiry into Islamic natural law theory. It introduces readers to competing theories of Islamic natural law theory based on close readings of Islamic legal sources from as early as the 9th and 10th centuries CE. In popular debates about Islamic law, modern Muslims perpetuate an image of Islamic law as legislated by God, to whom the devout are bound to obey. Reason alone cannot obligate obedience; at most it can confirm or corroborate what is established by source texts endowed with divine authority. This book shows, however, that premodern Sunni Muslim jurists were not so resolute. Instead, they asked whether and how reason alone can be th...
The relationship between religion and human rights is both complex and inextricable. While most of the world's religions have supported violence, repression, and prejudice, each has also played a crucial role in the modern struggle for universal human rights. Most importantly, religions provide the essential sources and scales of dignity and responsibility, shame and respect, restraint and regret, restitution and reconciliation that a human rights regime needs to survive and flourish in any culture. With contributions by a score of leading experts, Religion and Human Rights provides authoritative and accessible assessments of the contributions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Indigenous religions to the development of the ideas and institutions of human rights. It also probes the major human rights issues that confront religious individuals and communities around the world today, and the main challenges that the world's religions will pose to the human rights regime in the future.
This volume examines the relationship between religion and human rights in seven major religious traditions, as well as key legal concepts, contemporary issues, and relationships among religion, state, and society in the areas of human rights and religious freedom.
In an age marked by controversy over public support of religious schools, federal encouragement of religious providers of social services, and sexuality education, the whole arena of church-state relations appears in flux. In this volume, seven experts probe the meaning of religion in public life for Christians when the "Protestant establishment" has given way to pervasive religious pluralism and a growing secularism. Working specifically out of Lutheran traditions, the authors probe the deeper legal, moral, and religious questions at issue in the current debate. They not only rethink classical sources about law and gospel and two-kingdoms theory but also resurrect neglected resources for Christian civil resistance. They then look to contemporary developments and show how functional interaction of church and state is compatible with their strong institutional separation. Finally, three chapters probe the most hotly contested First Amendment questions: religious liberty, education, and land use.