The Human Person and a Culture of Freedom

Twenty-first-century society faces profound challenges, and the future seems anything but secure. The rapid advance of technology has far outpaced mankind's moral and religious development. There is greater material wealth now than in past centuries, yet poverty remains an international problem. Wars persist and global peace seems increasingly unattainable as terrorism and civil strife become more prevalent. Numerous forms of entertainment made possible by modern industrialization and technology divert attention away from the things that really matter and invert the objective hierarchy of values. Underlying all these threats to the foundations of civilization one can find one or another theoretical conception of man and human freedom.

This volume presents a rich and diverse collection of essays on the theoretical foundations of human freedom. From several distinct perspectives, the authors examine various aspects of the deeper anthropological questions at the root of a number of critical social challenges confronting modernity. Readers interested in educational theory, church and state, the nature of love and friendship, questions of authority and the common good, law and human rights, and virtue theory and the various types of freedom will find this collection of special interest.

Contributors are: Montague Brown, Romanus Cessario, O.P., Gavin Colvert, John Conley, S.J., John Cuddeback, Christopher Cullen, S.J., Raymond Dennehy, Heather Erb, Desmond Fitzgerald, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Carson Holloway, Brian Hughes, Piotr Jaroszynski, David Klassen, Steven Long, Ralph Nelson, Alice Ramos, and James V. Schall, S.J.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Peter A. Pagan Aguiar is professor of philosophy at Aquinas College in Nashville. His articles have appeared in The Thomist, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and in previous volumes published by the American Maritain Association. Terese Auer, O.P., is a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. She has taught at the high school and college levels for the past 30 years and currently chairs the bioethics department at Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School in Dumfries, Virginia.