What We Can't Not Know: A Guide

by J Budziszewski

Overview

Revised and Expanded Edition 

In this new revised edition of his groundbreaking work, Professor J. Budziszewski questions the modern assumption that moral truths are unknowable. With clear and logical arguments he rehabilitates the natural law tradition and restores confidence in a moral code based upon human nature.

What We Can't Not Know explains the rational foundation of what we all really know to be right and wrong and shows how that foundation has been kicked out from under western society. Having gone through stages of atheism and nihilism in his own search for truth, Budziszewski understands the philosophical and personal roots of moral relativism. With wisdom born of both experience and rigorous intellectual inquiry, he offers a firm foothold to those who are attempting either to understand or to defend the reasonableness of traditional morality.

While natural law bridges the chasms that can be caused by religious and philosophical differences, Budziszewski believes that natural law theory has entered a new phase, in which theology will again have pride of place. While religious belief might appear to hamper the search for common ground, Budziszewski demonstrates that it is not an obstacle, but a pathway to apprehending universal norms of behavior.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781586174811
Publisher:	Ignatius Press
Publication date:	02/11/2011
Edition description:	Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	650,878
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

J. Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. Among his several books are The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man and The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction.

Table of Contents

	Preface: Whom This Book Is For	xv
	Acknowledgments	xix
	Introduction: The Moral Common Ground	3
I	The Lost World
1	Things We Can't Not Know	19
2	What It Is That We Can't Not Know	28
3	Could We Get By Knowing Less?	51
II	Explaining the Lost World
4	The First and Second Witnesses	77
5	The Third and Fourth Witnesses	86
6	Some Objections	107
III	How the Lost World Was Lost
7	Denial	139
8	Eclipse	161
IV	Recovering the Lost World
9	The Public Relations of Moral Wrong	185
10	The Public Relations of Moral Right	198
11	Possible Futures	213
	Appendices
Appendix 1	The Decalogue as a Summary of the Natural Law	221
Appendix 2	The Noabide Commandments as a Summary of the Natural Law	225
Appendix 3	Isaiah, David, and Paul on the Natural Law	227
Appendix 4	An Example of Enmity to Nature: The Redefinition of Pregnancy as a Disease	235
	Notes	237
	Index	250

Editorial Reviews

"All too often higher education today deems its task to be the production of epistemological agnostics and moral nihilists. What We Can't Not Know provides young people with the argumentative ammunition they need to resist that juggernaut."
- John M. Grondelski, First Things

From the Publisher

Once upon a time, Budziszewski contends, a common moral ground existed so that all cultures could agree on moral absolutes. In contemporary society, however, such mutual ground has given way to shifting moral sands and new "situational" ethics. According to Budziszewski, an associate professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, none of these new systems offers strong moral foundations. Very simply, he argues, we all have deep inside us a moral regulator-our conscience-that tells us right from wrong. This conscience is part of our human nature, and the law that it writes on our hearts is the natural law of God. Thus, contends Budziszewski, we all know it's wrong to murder, steal, lie, commit adultery or have abortions because our conscience tells us so. No matter how we justify cheating on a spouse, he argues that "we can't not know" the activity is wrong. Budziszewski finds fault with every ethical system but his own because they fail to account for this natural, absolute law written in our hearts. He also egregiously misrepresents certain philosophical positions to make his case. He mistakenly presents utilitarianism, for example, as an ethical system guided by the principle of pleasure instead of emphasizing utilitarianism's focus on the greatest good for the greatest number. Despite his tendency to make straw men out of the systems he opposes, Budziszewski passionately and polemically challenges what he sees as the moral shortcomings of contemporary society. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly