8.2 /10 1 Votes
Authors Publisher ISI Books Pages 384 Originally published 2013 Page count 384 Country United States of America | 4.1/5 Goodreads Language English Publication date 2013 ISBN 978-1610170703 Subject Ethics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar In defense of natural law, Clash Of Orthodoxies, Making Men Moral, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, Body‑Self Dualism in Contemp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism is a 2013 book by Robert P. George, the McCormick professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The book was widely reviewed, and received both positive and negative reviews.
Contents
Content
The book is a collection of twenty-eight essays. The main topics are abortion and same-sex marriage. Another topic is immigration. George approaches these topics via natural law.
Critical reception
The book was praised by Anthony Esolen in Crisis Magazine. Similarly, Ed Gantt, a Visiting Fellow at the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University, suggested "the essays in this volume [were] concise, clearly argued, and enlightening." He concluded that it was "a truly wonderful book, a must-read for anyone serious interested in developing a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the important social and moral issues of our day." Writing for The Washington Times, William Murchison praised the book, suggesting, "There’s not a boring or humdrum essay in the lot."
Writing for The New York Times, Kay S. Hymowitz, a Fellow at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute, called it, "a plea for liberty of conscience, or more specifically, for religious liberty." She rejected the notion that George's ideas were homophobic, arguing that his "philosophical ideas [...] predate the modern concept of sexual identity." She added that he was "exceptionally nimble when he spars with conventional contemporary political and social thought." She concluded that he spoke "for a sizable number of conscientious objectors to America’s ruling liberal secularism."
In America, Kevin M. Doyle criticized the book, arguing that it was "noncommital, sending signals in different directions." George published a dissenting response in Public Discourse, the journal of the Witherspoon Institute with which he is affiliated. Writing for Commentary, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry suggested George's use of natural law was reductive. He added that George fails to address the fact that opposition to abortion rights was historically misogynistic. Moreover, he argued that George failed to explain "how the constitutional system would work without judicial review," adding that his faith in an "informed citizenry" was naive. He concluded that the book would fail to influence George's liberal critics.