Although many modern philosophers of law describe custom as merely a minor source of law, formal law is actually only one source of the legal customs that govern us. Many laws grow out of custom, and one measure of a law's success is by its creation of an enduring legal custom. Yet custom and customary law have long been neglected topics in unsettled jurisprudential debate. Smaller concerns, such as whether customs can be legitimized by practice or by stipulation, stipulated by an authority or by general consent, or dictated by law or vice versa, lead to broader questions of law and custom as alternative or mutually exclusive modes of social regulation, and whether rational reflection in general ought to replace sub-rational prejudice. Can legal rules function without customary usage, and does custom even matter in society? The Philosophy of Customary Law brings greater theoretical clarity to the often murky topic of custom by showing that custom must be analyzed into two more logically basic concepts: convention and habit. James Bernard Murphy explores the nature and significance of custom and customary law, and how conventions relate to habits in the four classic theories of Aristotle, Francisco Suarez, Jeremy Bentham, and James C. Carter. He establishes that customs are conventional habits and habitual conventions, and allows us to better grasp the many roles that custom plays in a legal system by offering a new foundation of understanding for these concepts.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This book concerns the dignity and the degradation of labor. Because our work has considerable power either to foster or to undermine our happiness and well-being, the degradation of labor is a profound obstacle to human flourishing. Yet the moral dimension of labor has been neglected in our political theory and practice. In this book, James Bernard Murphy aims to restore productive labor to its rightful place in moral and political debate. Ever since Aristotle, there have been many theories of distributive justice but very little in the way of a theory of justice in production. Through a bold reconstruction and critique of Aristotle's views of nature and moral reason, Murphy develops a new Aristotelian theory of productive labor. According to Aristotle, work has dignity when the worker executes what he has first conceived in thought, and work is degraded when one worker merely executes what is conceived by another. With Aristotle's definition of work as a unity of conception and execution, we can see what is wrong with work in the contemporary world: the detailed division of labor has divorced conception from execution. Although the prevalence of monotonous and stultifying work is widely regarded as the inevitable cost of economic progress, Murphy argues that restoring the unity of conception and execution in the design of jobs is compatible with our economic interests in efficient production and is required by our moral interests in human flourishing.

Why are religious rituals, symbols, and rhetoric so full of images of blood, sacrifice, and death? Why does religious fervor so often lead to Holy War, Crusade, and Jihad? No wonder many people assume that religion tends to give rise to violence. But what if it were the other way around? What if violence actually gave rise to religion? So argued the French literary theorist and anthropologist Rene Girard (1923-2015). Described as the Darwin of the human sciences, he was elected to the French Academy in 2005 for his seminal theories of sacred violence. Girard argued that religious practices function to sublimate, regulate, and discharge human violence in controlled rituals. Where does violence come from? According to Girard, from the social nature of human desire itself. We desire things only because others desire them, so desire is inherently rivalrous, leading to violent conflict. But if a scapegoat can be found, then this war of all against all turns into a war of all against one. Social order, claimed Girard, stems from the unity of a lynch mob. Religious rituals then serve to commemorate the primordial murder of the scapegoat. What are we to make of Girards provocative claims about human desire, violence, scapegoat killings, and religion? Political philosopher James Bernard Murphy presents here a series of sharp and witty dialogues in which Girard attempts to defend his ideas against attacks by rival theorists, among them, Sigmund Freud, William James, Simone Weil, Elias Canetti and Joseph de Maistre. Whatever we might think of his answers, Girard asks challenging, unsettling questions. In these illuminating and lively exchanges, Girard squares off with the titans of social theory.

The African Foreign Policy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger outlines in clear, comprehensive terms the details of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's foreign policy toward Africa and how that policy related to other aspects of his global viewpoint. For the first time, editors Hanes Walton, Jr., Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Bernard Rosser bring together a diverse collection of public documents, speeches, and congressional presentations for critical analysis and in-depth discussion. This book presents an intellectual evaluation of governmental sources to determine the kinds of foreign policy proposals and programs that Kissinger developed for the various crises and problems which were under way in Africa. The essays demonstrate how Kissinger used his brand of shuttle diplomacy to set up delicate negotiations to ease the new international tensions and the power-rivalry. The African Foreign Policy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger offers important insight that will stimulate debate and be a lively read for those interested in international politics and political science.

Prophets are wild cards in the game of politics, James Bernard Murphy writes in this startling new book. They risk their lives by calling out the abuses of political and religious leaders, forcing us to confront evils we would prefer to ignore. By setting moral limits on political leaders, prophets chasten our political pretensions and remind us there are values that transcend politics. They wield a third sword—distinct from the familiar swords of state and church power—their sword is the word of God. The Third Sword offers a new take on political history, illustrating a theory of prophetic politics through tales of political crises, interspersed with direct dialogue between the prophets and their persecutors. With chapters on Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Thomas More, and Martin Luther King, Murphy brings these prophets to life with storytelling that blends biography, history, and political theory.

'A wonderful introduction to history's most influential scribblers' - Steven Pinker

What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived.

Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls.

In each brief chapter, the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art. And if we want to understand today's political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both.

A holistic view of human development that rejects the conventional stages of childhood, adulthood, and old age When we talk about human development, we tend to characterize it as proceeding through a series of stages in which we are first children, then adolescents, and finally, adults. But as James Bernard Murphy observes, growth is not limited to the young nor is decline limited to the aged. We are never trapped within the horizon of a particular life stage: children anticipate adulthood and adults recapture childhood. According to Murphy, the very idea of stages of life undermines our ability to see our lives as a whole. In Your Whole Life, Murphy asks: what accounts for the unity of a human life over time? He advocates for an unconventional, developmental story of human nature based on a nested hierarchy of three powers-first, each person's unique human genome insures biological identity over time; second, each person's powers of imagination and memory insure psychological identity over time; and, third, each person's ability to tell his or her own life story insures narrative identity over time. Just as imagination and memory rely upon our biological identity, so our autobiographical stories rest upon our psychological identity. Narrative is not the foundation of personal identity, as many argue, but its capstone. Engaging with the work of Aristotle, Augustine, Jesus, and Rousseau, as well as with the contributions of contemporary evolutionary biologists and psychologists, Murphy challenges the widely shared assumptions in Western thinking about personhood and its development through discrete stages of childhood, adulthood, and old age. He offers, instead, a holistic view in which we are always growing and declining, always learning and forgetting, and always living and dying, and finds that only in relation to one's whole life does the passing of time obtain meaning.

Prophets are wild cards in the game of politics, James Bernard Murphy writes in this startling new book. They risk their lives by calling out the abuses of political and religious leaders, forcing us to confront evils we would prefer to ignore. By setting moral limits on political leaders, prophets chasten our political pretensions and remind us there are values that transcend politics. They wield a third sword—distinct from the familiar swords of state and church power—their sword is the word of God. The Third Sword offers a new take on political history, illustrating a theory of prophetic politics through tales of political crises, interspersed with direct dialogue between the prophets and their persecutors. With chapters on Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Thomas More, and Martin Luther King, Murphy brings these prophets to life with storytelling that blends biography, history, and political theory.

Classic Hammer horror starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) journeys to Castle Dracula, where he is turned into one of the undead by the famous vampire (Lee). Professor Van Helsing (Cushing) arrives and drives a stake through Harker's heart, but must then pursue Dracula to London, where the Count intends to make Harker's fiancée Lucy Holmwood his bride. Lee and Cushing went on to make several more 'Dracula' films for Hammer.

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century many forms of theatre have been called ‘popular’, but in the twentieth century the term ‘popular drama’ has taken on definite political overtones, often indicating a repudiation of ‘commercial theatre’. But does that mean that political theatre is or tries to be more attractive to more people than commercial theatre? Does it conversely mean that commercial theatre has no political effects? The articles in this book were submitted as papers for a conference on the theme of ‘popular’ theatre, film and television. Contributions came from people with very different types of experience: from an ex-animal trainer to a lecturer in film studies; from playwrights, directors and actors to professional critics and academics. Each author focused on a particular problem of defining drama in performance, drawing together the conditions of performance, the types of audience and the political effects of the plays or films in question. The result was a series of fruitful connections and juxtapositions which shows the remarkable continuity of the problems raised in attempts to create a popular political drama.

Mrs. Gareth, widowed chatelaine of Poynton, is fighting to keep her house with its priceless objets d'art from her son Owen and his lovely, utterly philistine fiancee. When she discovers that her young friend and sympathizer Fleda Vetch is secretly in love with Owen, she thrusts her into the battle-line.
The power struggle that ensues between the three women leaves Owen vacillating. What is at stake is not the mere possession of tables and chairs; it is, for Fleda, a conflict between aesthetic ideals, ethical imperatives, and her innermost feelings, in which she risks betraying, and being betrayed by, all that she holds most dear.
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This volume collects some of the best recent writings on St. Thomas's philosophy of law and includes a critical examination of Aquinas's theory of the relation between law and morality, his natural law theory, as well as the modern reformulation of his approach to natural rights. The volume shows how Aquinas understood the importance of positive law and demonstrates the modern relevance of his writings by including Thomistic critiques of modern jurisprudence and examples of applications of Thomistic jurisprudence to specific modern legal problems such as federalism, environmental policy, abortion and euthanasia. The volume also features an introduction which places Aquinas's writings in the context of modern jurisprudence as well as an extensive bibliography. The volume is suited to the needs of jurisprudence scholars, teachers and students and is an essential resource for all law libraries.