Talk:John Finnis

Untitled
It's a little outside my areas of competence, but I'm not sure "drawing both on Oxonian and Catholic Thomistic philosophical traditions to challenge the dominant Anglo-positivist approach to legal philosophy taken by John Austjoin and H.L.A. Hart" makes a whole lot of sense. Austin and Hart were both from Oxford. If there were an Oxonian tradition in the philosophy of law at the time Finnis was writing, /surely/ that tradition is to be identified with Hart. I think I know what the writer intends to imply; he wishes to note a connection between Finnis and Anscombe and Foot (the latter of who are Oxonians) but they're already covered by the use of 'Catholic Thomistic Philosophical trhahahhaaditions' so it just looks like an unfortunate error. I speak from ignorance, however, of whether there was e.g. a fisch dischprominent natural law legal philosophy promulgated in 19th century Oxford, so I haven't made the change myself. That not being the case, I think someone really should. DuncanCrowe (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Marriage
Finnis does not consider marriage a basic human good but rather sees marriage as the instantiation of a number of basic human goods, including friendship and life. Other basic human goods include knowledge, practical reasonableness, religion, aesthetic experience, and play.

Yes. i've removed marriage and clarified the actual 7 basic goods which Finnis discusses in his book The Fundamentals of Ethics

And yet, in his article on marriage and sex he does get awfully close to elevating marriage to a good in itself.212.219.158.202 10:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Finnis has changed his view, and now does consider Marriage a basic good in accord with his current understanding of Aquinas. See his Founder's Aquinas, p. 82. Finnis writes, "In an earlier work he [Aquinas] had spoken of an inclination to a single though complex good which is naturally attractive to our reason, a good which includes both personal sexual union and the procreation and education of children: the 'natural inclination to marriage'.

Controversy section
It seems the entire objective of this article is to highlight controversies rather than actually provide biographical information. Bkennnedy 14:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the aformentioned criticism. John Finnis is a Natural Law theorist, and as such doesn't consider the "naturalistic fallacy" to be a relevant objection. The controversy section should be removed or revised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.112.225.49 (talk) 01:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The controversy section, at least, reads like an extended plea against his critics. Sentences asserting that Finnis says his critics haven't tried to understand his argument convey no substantive information about the argument itself.--ScottForschler (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Links to last two articles removed
The links for the last two articles listed do not work —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.35.34.25 (talk) 09:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 04:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Reversion of article
On 24 August, 2011, I reverted this article back to the way it was on 8 July, 2009, undoing more than a year's worth of editing by other editors. Though my edit has not been contested, I want to explain why I made it. I noticed that, beginning in 2009, editors removed large parts of the content of the article, and added new content. Some of the new content related to homosexuality, and it was sourced to Andrew Sullivan, an admitted homosexual. Since I believe that homosexual writers are biased and cannot be objective about anything related to homosexuality, I considered it necessary to remove that content. I judged wholesale reversion of the article to an older version to be the best way to achieve that. Conservative Philosopher (talk) 02:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The edit referred to above reverted the article from this version, to a version from more than a year earlier. Considering the paragraph referrring to Andrew Sullivan, no cogent reason has been given why this should not be present: the paragraph clearly sets out which views are Sullivan's himself, and which are attributed by Sullivan to Finnis (whose account Sullivan terms 'intelligible and subtle'), and the material is clearly referenced to Sullivan's Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality - so there is no likelihood that Sullivan's views will be mistaken for Finnis'. Furthermore, the content removed from the article since 2009 was largely unsourced, and the material added since (including the Sullivan paragraph) is sourced - as such, the reversion to the 8 July 2009 version has the effect of removing sourced material, and replacing it with unsourced (a cause for concern, given that this is a BLP). As such, if the Sullivan paragraph is to be modified (though I see no reason to do so in terms of WP:BLP, WP:RS or WP:V), the approach of reverting the whole article by more than a year is an unnecessarily disruptive way of doing that. On this basis, I intend to reinstate version 435624086, from immediately before the revert. If there are then reasons (grounded in policy) to modify the Sullivan paragraph, this can be discussed and done from that starting point. Carminowe of Hendra (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Restoring material sourced to Sullivan is a mistake. As a homosexual, he's obviously biased against Finnis. I am going to have to consider removing that material again, though I shall pause to consider the views of other editors. Conservative Philosopher (talk) 03:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, exclusion of material based on such personal opinions is a mistake; edits must be justified according to WP policies, not beliefs. AV3000 (talk) 00:07, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I certainly hope you both change your minds. I would revert Carminowe of Hendra, but I suppose one must respect Wikipedia policy. Conservative Philosopher (talk) 05:48, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

"Economy or Explication" Link is Dead
The link to the princeton.edu hosted "Economy or Explication" article is not working. I've found the proper link and am updating it. 70.113.29.92 (talk) 01:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)Vincent Wagner

Actually, it's out of my pay grade to fix it. The problem is that the .pdf at the end of the link has spaces in the title which are properly input as "%20" in the code but interpreted as spaces when you click through. The same link works fine through google. Don't know how to fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.29.92 (talk) 01:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong emphasis
Simply from the amount of space spent on the subject, this article gives the idea that Finnis's work is primarily against homosexuality, when is only one of a number of other subjects he engages. The article needs badly to be fleshed out (or else the homosexuality part de-emphasized drastically). JKeck (talk) 13:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * That's exactly correct, and I have accordingly de-emphasized the material on homosexuality. That material was not only disproportionate to the subject's importance, and hence not in accord with WP:DUE, but also included a blatant BLP violation, as I noted here. Unfortunately, the revision history of this page shows that there have been multiple attempts to restore the undue material, including the obvious BLP violation. It's disturbing to see that little effort has been made to oppose this sort of biased editing. (There has been another attempt to bias the article recently, and I shall comment on that in a new section). FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Recent IP edits
This article has recently seen a series of IP edits, most reversing changes made by me. I comment on the first of two of them separately.

1. This edit was made with no edit summary or explanation of any kind. I hope the IP will forgive me for suspecting that its reason for making the edit was to reverse my changes simply for the sake of reversing them. If this is not the case, the IP should explain why linking Aung San Suu Kyi twice in one short paragraph serves a useful purpose. I suggest the IP see WP:OVERLINK and WP:REPEATLINK.

2. This edit, unlike the first, did have an explanation. The explanation ("His views on homosexuality are central to his natural law work") is unacceptable, however. The edit restored a section consisting almost entirely of a single long quotation from an article by Finnis. The material looks as though it was chosen to highlight exactly those parts of Finnis's views on homosexuality that people opposed to them are likely to find most offensive. In accord with WP:DUE, that material simply does not belong here. Finnis's work on natural law deals with numerous subjects, and is not mainly or primarily about homosexuality. It is appropriate to briefly describe what reliable sources have said about Finnis's views on homosexuality, but devoting an entire section of the article to them violates the intention and probably also the letter of WP:BLP.

FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 06:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Edit by Wadhamite55
I have just had to revert this edit by Wadhamite55. The edit is disruptive in numerous respects. In the first place, it was made without any attempt to discuss matters on the talk page, even though I have outlined my objections to the content it restored, and even though this is a BLP. In the second place, it contains insinuations about my personal beliefs and motivations ("Finnis's views on homosexuality are an important part of his public persona. There is no reason to delete this section except to hide the fact that these views may be regarded as backward"). I don't find that kind of comment acceptable, and if Wadhamite55 continues such behavior, I will have to consider it a personal attack and ask an admin to deal with it accordingly. It's not his place to tell me what my reasons for making an edit might be. I have in fact not the slightest interest in hiding anything about Finnis's views on homosexuality. Finnis's views on homosexuality are described briefly in the section on his career: I consider the material there appropriate, and have never sought to remove it. The fact that Finnis's views on homosexuality are already described in the section on his career makes an entire additional section on those views, consisting mostly of one long inflammatory quotation, totally inappropriate. Wadhamite55 needs to review basic policies such as WP:NPA, WP:BLP, and WP:DUE. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:49, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Views on homosexuality
It is not controversial to state that Finnis holds View X given that he is reporting it himself in the quotation provided. This settles the neutral point of view issue. It is clearly verifiable because it is a quotation from the man himself. And third, it is not original research in the sense relevant here, e.g. someone doing research on Finnis' views and reporting it here. I should also add that Finnis' views on homosexuality are a major component of his perceived public persona. There is, then, a specific reason in light of this public persona to have a section on his views regarding homosexuality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wadhamite55 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Your behavior at this article is completely outrageous and unacceptable. If you think that your comment above justifies what you have done, then you are very much mistaken. We don't fill up articles about living people with long quotations from their work, whether about homosexuality or about other issues. You seem to think that just because someone said something, it's "neutral" to stuff the quotation in the article about him. No, Wadhamite55, it is not. Including a quotation about homosexuality, when there is no quotation from Finnis about any of his other views, implies that his views about homosexuality are more important than any other views he holds, which is anything but "neutral". It in fact is a major violation of WP:NPOV. Your statement that "Finnis' views on homosexuality are a major component of his perceived public persona" is of course only your unsupported assertion, and it's not good enough, however strongly you may believe it. The fact of the matter, as I've pointed out several times now, is that Finnis's views on homosexuality are already described in the section on his career - which makes an additional section called "views on homosexuality" unnecessary. The "views on homosexuality" section is therefore illogical and poor article structure, in addition to being WP:UNDUE. It must be removed. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:27, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Original research
I stated in an edit summary recently, "Rm homosexuality section. The problem with it is neither that it is unverifiable, nor that it is original research - rather, it is undue material." Having looked again at that section, I now wish to modify that slightly. The main problem with that section is definitely the undue quotation, but there does seem to be some apparent original research there as well. The section states, "The most concentrated treatment of homosexuality comes in his 1997 paper 'Law, Morality and Sexual Orientation". That statement would seem to be simply an editor's opinion - there is no source to validate it. This constitutes a further reason why the material is inappropriate. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:50, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Third Opinion

 * Thank you for providing a third opinion. I appreciate the disclaimers. The statement that, "Finnis is one of the most prominent living legal philosophers" was quite likely true, but as it was unsourced, I have now removed it, and replaced it with, "Finnis is a legal philosopher." FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

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Improving the article
2 suggestions:

The classification of this article in Wikiproject Law should be high. Finnis is a World leading commentator on Jurisprudence and the article provides a fairly detailed account of this views and critiques of other leading commentators (e.g., H. L. A. Hart).

What would it take to move this article up from Start classification? Felixmar2002 (talk) 11:19, 21 April 2023 (UTC)