John Finnis

John Mitchell Finnis, AC QC (Hon) FBA (born 28 July 1940) is an Australian legal philosopher, jurist and scholar specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is currently the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School and Permanent Senior Distinguished Research Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.[2] He was Professor of Law & Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2010, where he is now professor emeritus. He acted as a constitutional adviser to successive Australian Commonwealth governments in constitutional matters and bilateral relations with the United Kingdom.[3]

For the explorer and settler of South Australia, see John Finnis (captain).

John Finnis
John Finnis on the television discussion programme After Dark in 1987
Born
John Mitchell Finnis

(1940-07-28) 28 July 1940
Australia
Alma materUniversity of Adelaide
University of Oxford (DPhil)
Notable work
Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980)
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolThomism
Natural law theory
ThesisThe idea of judicial power, with special reference to Australian law
Doctoral studentsNeil Gorsuch[1]
Robert P. George
Main interests
Philosophy of law
Political theory
Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas
Criticism of legal positivism

His academic focus is in the areas of jurisprudence, political theory, and constitutional law, while his practice at the English Bar saw him in cases at the High Court and at the Court of Appeal. He is a member of Gray's Inn. He was appointed an honorary Queen's Counsel in 2017.[4] In 2019 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), Australia's highest civilian award.[5]

Early life and education

Finnis was educated at St. Peter's College, Adelaide and the University of Adelaide, where he was a member of St. Mark's College. He obtained his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree there, winning a Rhodes scholarship to University College, Oxford, in 1962, where he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree with a thesis on the concept of judicial power, with reference to Australian federal constitutional law.[6][7] Also in 1962, Finnis converted to [[Roman Catholicism[[.[8]

Finnis was a friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, also an Oxford graduate; and, in 1989, Finnis nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize. Aung San Suu Kyi won the prize but did not receive it until June 2012, when she recalled how her late husband, Michael Aris, had visited her under house arrest and brought her the news "that a friend, John Finnis" had nominated her for the prize.[9]

Career

Finnis is a legal philosopher and author of Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980, 2011), a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law and a restatement of natural law doctrine. For Finnis there are seven basic goods; life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability of friendship, practical reasonableness and religion. In his book on Finnis' student Neil Gorsuch while at Oxford University, John Greenya has described Finnis's views by stating: "Some of John Finnis's views are very controversial. For example, in defending his long-held position against same-sex marriage and same-sex coupling, he once compared them to bestiality."[8]

Philosopher Stephen Buckle sees Finnis's list of proposed basic goods as plausible, but notes that "Finnis's account becomes more controversial when he goes on to specify the basic requirements of practical reasonableness". He sees Finnis's requirement that practical reason requires "respect for every basic value in every act" as intended both to rule out consequentialism in ethics and also to support the moral viewpoint of the Catholic Church on a range of contentious issues, including contraception and masturbation, which in his view undermines its plausibility.[10]

Finnis's work on natural law ethics has been a source of controversy in both neo-Thomist and analytical circles. Craig Paterson sees his work as interesting because it challenges a key assumption of both neo-Thomist and analytical philosophy: the idea that a natural law ethics must be based upon an attempt to derive normative (or "ought") statements from descriptive (or "is") statements.[11]

According to Andrew Sullivan, Finnis has articulated "an intelligible and subtle account of homosexuality" based on the new natural law, a less biologically-based version of natural law theory. Finnis argues that the state should deter public approval of homosexual behaviour while refusing to persecute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, basing this position not on the claim that homosexual sex is unnatural but on the idea that it cannot involve the union of procreation and emotional commitment that heterosexual sex can, and is therefore an assault on heterosexual union. Sullivan believes that such a conservative position is vulnerable to criticism on its own terms, since the stability of existing families is better served by the acceptance of those homosexuals who are part of them.[12] Other scholars, such as Stephen Macedo and Michael J. Perry, have also criticised Finnis's views.[13]

He has supervised several PhD students including Neil Gorsuch,[1] Justice Susan Kenny of the Federal Court of Australia, and Robert P. George.[14] In 2013 George and Keown summarised some of Finnis's media work as "He has, for example, debated embryo research with Mary Warnock on BBC's Newsnight and with Jonathan Glover in the Channel 4 Debate; discussed euthanasia with a leading Dutch euthanasiast on the same channel's After Dark, and written on eugenic abortion in The Sunday Telegraph".[15]

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours List in Australia, Finnis was appointed a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia, the country's highest civilian honour for his eminent service as a jurist and legal scholar.</ref>

Publications

Books

In May 2011, Oxford University Press published a five-volume collection of essays by John Finnis and a second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights. Their release was marked by an all-day conference at the Notre Dame Law School on 9 September 2011.

  • Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980; 2nd ed., 2011. ISBN 9780199599134.
  • Fundamentals of Ethics, Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0878404087.
  • Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism, with J. M. Boyle Jr. and Germain Grisez, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0198247913.
  • Natural Law, 2 vols (as editor), New York: New York University Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0814726037 and ISBN 978-0814726044.
  • Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision and Truth, Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0813207452.
  • Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0198780854.
  • The Collected Essays of John Finnis, 5 vols, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780199689934.

Articles

Video lectures
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References
  1. Gorsuch, Neil McGill (2004). The right to receive assistance in suicide and euthanasia, with particular reference to the law of the United States. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 59196002. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.401384.
  2. http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/people/fellows/research/
  3. Notre Dame Faculty Page for John Finnis
  4. "Lord Chancellor welcomes historic promotion of talent for new silks - Press releases - GOV.UK". gov.uk. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
  5. "Queen's Birthday 2019 Honours List" (PDF). Governor-General of Australia. 10 June 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  6. Finnis, John Mitchell (1965). The idea of judicial power, with special reference to Australian law. ora.ox.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 694895648. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.671295.
  7. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 7 September 2011. Retrieved 26 September 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), Oxford Law Faculty, retrieved 25 March 2008.
  8. Greenya, John (2018). Gorsuch: The Judge Who Speaks for Himself. Threshold Editions. Page 47.
  9. Video on YouTube
  10. Stephen Buckle, "Natural Law" in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell Publishers, 1997, ch. 13, p. 171.
  11. Aquinas, Finnis and Non-Naturalism, Craig Paterson, "Aquinas, Finnis and Non-Naturalism" in Craig Paterson & Matthew Pugh (eds.), Analytical Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue. Ashgate, 2006, ch. 9, pp. 171–93.
  12. Sullivan, Andrew. Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality. Picador: London, 1996. pp. 98–99
  13. Stein, Edward, The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. Oxford University Press, 1999. p. 356
  14. George, Robert Peter (2014). Constitutional Structures and Civic Virtues. Emory University.
  15. Reason, Morality and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis, edited John Keown and Robert P George, OUP, 2013
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