Preface
Preface I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Prof. Bill Murphy, for his conception and execution of this project, for his careful editing of the enclosed essays, and for his thoughtful introduction, which will not only help readers grasp their place in the context of my broader work, but will also facilitate the understanding of some of their basic contents. This is particularly important because, in the Anglo-Saxon world, scholarly discussion of my work has sometimes evidenced a lack of familiarity with my main treatments of philosophical ethical theory. With exception of my Natural Law and Practical Reason, these works have been published so far only in German, Italian, and Spanish. For this reason, I am delighted that these related essays are here gathered and thereby made more readily accessible for both scholars and students, who will appreciate the detailed index and bibliography . Moreover, I am pleased that those previously published in English are now complemented by related and perhaps overlooked works that are now available for the first time in English. Although I am a philosopher offering primarily philosophical arguments, much of the present work concerns questions raised in the context of moral theology, so I hope these essays will be useful to scholars and students in both moral philosophy and theology. Besides Prof. Murphy, to whom I am especially thankful for ongoing support of my work, I also wish to thank Drs. Gerald Malsbary and Joseph T. Papa for having so competently translated some of the essays from German and Italian, respectively. Finally, I wish to express my thankfulness to the staff of the Catholic University of America Press for publishing the volume. Martin Rhonheimer April 2007 xi ...
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