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A Few Words of Gratitude
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2015
Extract
I am deeply grateful for this symposium on The Idea of Human Rights. I am especially grateful to Marie Failinger, co-editor of the Journal of Law and Religion, who conceived the symposium and then brought it to fruition.
I am also greatly honored by this symposium. In particular, I am honored that the contributors to the symposium are thinkers whose own work I esteem.
I have learned from experience that my engagement with critical commentary on my work is much more likely to be genuinely productive on my part if I do not rush to respond. I am especially wary of rushing to respond at the present time, because for the past few years I have been in the grip of two sets of issues very different from those I addressed in The Idea of Human Rights. For now, suffice it to say the contributors to this symposium, each in her or his own way, have both broadened and deepened my understanding of the issues I addressed in The Idea of Human Rights. When I revisit those issues, as I expect to do in the next few years, I will turn to the important, difficult questions and arguments pressed by the symposiasts in the preceding essays. As Jean Bethke Elshtain, for one, has emphasized in her contribution, there is much more work to be done—important work.
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- Perry Symposium
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1999
References
1. See Perry, Michael J., We the People: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar; Michael J. Perry, One Nation, Under God: Democracy, Morality, Religion (in progress).
2. The work of Emmanuel Levinas comes to mind here.
3. Consider, in that regard, the Last Judgment passage in Matthew's Gospel:
When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people from one another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.” Then the upright will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we find you sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink, I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.” Then it will be their turn to ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.” And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.
Matt 25:31-46.
4. See Perry, Michael J., What Is ‘Morality’ Anyway? (Gianella Memorial Lecture, Villanova Law School, 10 6, 1999; forthcoming, Villanova L Rev)Google Scholar.
5. Perry, Michael J., The Idea of Human Rights 7–8 (Oxford U Press, 1998)Google Scholar (quoting Williams, Bernard, Republican and Galilean 45, 48 NY Rev (11 8, 1990)Google Scholar).