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ix Editor’s Preface f The present volume brings together, for English language readers, a collection of essays in which the Swiss philosopher Martin Rhonheimer addresses some of the most difficult and contested questions regarding the ethics of procreation. As indicated by the subtitle, the questions addressed range from that of contraception—and special cases related to it— to those of artificial fertilization and abortion. His treatment of the long-disputed question of contraception is unique and compelling, and few English-language scholars have shown familiarity with it. The present availability of it in extended form, following the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, therefore offers a valuable resource for those theologians and philosophers who still hope to move beyond the stalemate that has developed especially around this question, but extending more broadly. Such readers will also find this volume particularly helpful in considering related questions such as the use of contraceptives under threat of rape. Readers will also find that Rhonheimer’s reading of Thomistic virtue ethics from the “perspective of the acting person” sheds surprising new light on the questions of artificial fertilization and abortion. Moralists who want to rethink these and other difficult questions, while taking into account the lively ongoing debates regarding the retrieval of Thomistic moral theory in light of Veritatis Splendor, will be particularly interested in the present volume because of Rhonheimer’s central role in these theoretical debates. They will therefore want to read the present x   Editor’s Preface volume in conjunction with the others that are available, or are becoming so, in English. These include his somewhat exploratory Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of Moral Autonomy,1 which was published in the year 2000, and the recently published The Perspective of the Acting Person: Essays in the Renewal of Thomistic Moral Philosophy,2 which includes many of his most important essays in moral theory, along with an introduction that outlines his broader body of work while locating it in light of alternative readings of Aquinas. Complementary works also include his applied work Vital Conflicts in Medical Ethics: A Virtue Approach to Craniotomy and Tubal Pregnancies, published by the Catholic University of America Press in 2009, and his systematic ethical treatise The Perspective of Morality: Philosophical Foundations of Thomistic Ethics, forthcoming from CUA Press.3 It is my hope that readers will find the present volume a valuable contribution to the literature and that it will facilitate greater consensus on the particular questions it addresses and regarding moral theory in general. I would like to offer special thanks to Martin Rhonheimer for his collaboration in this and other projects, to Dr. Joseph T. Papa for his careful work in translating and copyediting much of the present text, and to Damian X. Lenshek for his editorial assistance with several aspects of the project. Particular thanks are due to the staff of the Catholic University of America Press, especially James Kruggel and Beth Benevides , for their skilled facilitation of this project. William F. Murphy Jr. Pontifical College Josephinum 1. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000, Translated by Gerald Malsbary. 2. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008, edited with an introduction by William F. Murphy Jr. The reader is referred to this introduction for an overview of Rhonheimer’s major works in ethical theory. 3. Also in preparation is another volume of Rhonheimer’s essays that I am editing, which is tentatively entitled The Common Good of Constitutional Democracy: Essays in Political Philosophy and on Catholic Social Teaching. Yet to be translated is his Praktische Vernunft und Vernünftigkeit der Praxis: Handlungstheorie bei Thomas von Aquin in ihrer Entstehung aus dem Problemkontext der aristotelischen Ethik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994), which might be rendered in English Practical Reason and the Rationality of Praxis: Thomistic Action Theory in the Context of its Origin in Aristotelian Ethics. ...

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