This volume addresses whether, how, and where laws (variously defined) teach values and shape moral character in late modern liberal societies. Each author recognizes the essential value of state law in fostering peace, security, health, education, charity, trade, democracy, constitutionalism, justice, and human rights, among many other moral goods. Each author also recognizes, however, the grave betrayals of law in supporting fascism, slavery, apartheid, genocide, persecution, violence, racism, and other forms of immorality and injustice. They thus call for state laws that set a basic civil morality of duty for society and for robust freedoms that protect private individuals and private groups to cultivate a higher morality of aspiration. With contributions by Rudiger Bittner, Brian Bix, Frank Brennan, Allen Calhoun, Robert F. Cochran, Jr., Kenneth John Crispin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, E. Allan Farnsworth, James E. Fleming, M. Cathleen Kaveny, Ute Mager, Linda C. McClain, Reid Mortensen, Patrick Parkinson, Thomas Pfeiffer, Robert Vosloo, Michael Welker, and John Witte, Jr.
Author Biography:
Michael Welker, (born in 1947) was a professor of theology at the German universities of T�bingen, M�nster, and Heidelberg and frequently a guest professor in the Anglo-American world (McMaster, Princeton, Harvard, Emory, and Cambridge). He is an honorary professor at Seoul Theological University, senior professor at the University of Heidelberg, and director of its Research Center International and Interdisciplinary Theology (FIIT). He has organized many international and interdisciplinary research projects that related theology and science, theology and law, theology and economy.
