The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review

BOOK REVIEWS 481 justice show their greatest weakness at just this point. Foundational theories like Gewirth's seem to promise a way ahead. But do they work? That is the question. Gewirth himself admits that his theory, though the most adequate, still leaves unresolved certain tensions between the right to liberty and the right to well-being which he accords to all rational agents. Thus, for example , what limit is to be placed on the interference with political liberty that may be necessary if one nation is to undertake to see that the rights to food of the starving population of another nation are to be honored T Gewirth gives greater weight to well being than liberty but does not this weighting again contain a hidden value judgment not derived from his analysis of agency but from a particular value system relative to culture and historical circumstance~ And do not the conflicts between liberty and well-being that Gewirth identifies point to limitations on the abilities and duty of nations to ensure the rights of other peoples that Gewirth does not reckon with? These and other questions like them will be debated for some time but it is certain that within the debate Reason and Morality along with Human Rights will provide a constant point of reference. Together they constitute something of a classic. The General Theological Seminary New York City, New York PHILIP TURNER The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature. By ERAZill:l Kon.AK. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Pp. 269. $17.50. It is hard to put this profound book into a category. Despite the author's criticisms of Thoreau, it is more like TValden than any other book I have read. But, whereas Thoreau forced the reader to work hard to see through the homespun disguise to the body of learning buried beneath, Kohak's book is explicitly philosophical. Some readers will concentrate on the author's idiosyncratic approach, which relies heavily on his experiences living on a New Hampshire homestead in the woods; others will learn a great deal from Kohak's familiarity with Czech philosophy and East European thought generally. And Husserl plays a significant role in the book. Yet more than anything else I think the book is an extended attempt to defend the Augustinian and Thomistic thesis that esse qua esse bonum est (being is good simply because it is, to the extent that it is). This thesis is defended (or better, illuminated) philosophically and poetically, 482 BOOK REVIEWS with particular reference to nature-not nature in general, but this porcupine , that hemlock, etc. The book makes great strides toward bringing the best insights from medieval philosophy and from contemporary environmental ethics together. Anyone interested in both of these areas must read this book. Have those familiar with medieval philosophy yet done full justice to the notions of Deus sive natura (God, that is, nature) or vis mediatrix Dei in natura (the healing power of God in nature) 'I I think not. But Kohiik at no point avails himself of a syrupy Franciscanism (not that Franciscanism has to be syrupy). Kobak is convinced that many of the problems in contemporary philosophy , and in contemporary society, are due to the egocentrism which has infected the West ever since the decline of the medieval synthesis. Nature, and hence God, can best coax us out of this egocentrism. (This well-written book must be read to see why.) Oddly enough, the title to the book alludes to Kant's famous line about the moral law within and the starry heavens above. Kohak has no argument with Kant's description of the respect due to beings that are ends in themselves, but he disagrees with Kant's restriction of the category of ends to human beings. All of nature, as it is God's creation, deserves respect, albeit in varying ways. Playing freely and insightfully with a familiar Augustinian theme, Kohiik says that being is holy precisely because it is characterized by the intersection of eternity and time. Kohiik's defense of (or better, metaphorical evocation of) nature should not be construed as a diminution of human...