Listening for the Future in the Voices of the Past: John T. Noonan, Jr. on Love and Power in Human History
With the publication of After Virtue in 1981, Alasdair Maclntyre revolutionized the study of post-Enlightenment moral philosophy by insisting that it repent of its current pretensions to a view from eternity and confess its temporal roots in the long and motley history of human reflection about the...
| Published in: | Journal of law and religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1994
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 1994, Volume: 11, Issue: 1, Pages: 203-227 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | With the publication of After Virtue in 1981, Alasdair Maclntyre revolutionized the study of post-Enlightenment moral philosophy by insisting that it repent of its current pretensions to a view from eternity and confess its temporal roots in the long and motley history of human reflection about the good life. Almost a quarter of a century earlier, John T. Noonan, Jr., a young Harvard-trained legal scholar who possessed a doctorate in philosophy from Catholic University, had waged a similar battle against the widespread misconception of the medieval concept of usury as monolithic, self-contained, and immutable.Working with medieval authors who were themselves largely insensitive to the idea of historicity, writing in the context of a pre-Vatican II Catholicism still imbued with the abstract and ahistorical spirit of nineteenth century neo-Thomism, Noonan demonstrated in his first book that the concept of usury was in fact a fusion of concrete theological, ethical, economic, and legal concerns which were not stagnant, but organically developing. In so doing, he gave Catholic Christianity a more adequate conception of its past. More than that, he gestured optimistically toward its future. Tracing how the absolute prohibition of usury, defined as any lending of money at interest, was circumscribed, attenuated, and finally abandoned by succeeding generations of moral theologians and canon lawyers, Noonan underscored that the Church could and did change its mind about important moral issues which were held to implicate unalterable strictures of the natural law. Revealing that an increased willingness on the part of moralists to acknowledge that moral experience of Christians professionally involved in the practices of commerce and banking had fueled the evolution of the usury doctrine in past centuries, Noonan nourished the hope for a stronger voice of lay experience in ecclesial discussions of moral issues throughout the years to come. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1051630 |