Power,War And Natural Law

John Courtney Murray(1904-1967)was an outstanding American theologian and Catholic thinker in the 20 th century.Murray made great achievements in the fields of Catholic theology,public philosophy and international politics,and he was also a theologian who had an important influence on the theory of international relations in the United States.The research topic of this paper is Murray's international thought.As a representative of American idealism and liberalism thought academia,Murray's international thought and his theology and public philosophy research method has the close relation,Thomas Aquinas' theory of natural law and American traditional values have shaped the moral foundation of Murray's international theory,and the ideas and opinions of modern Catholic scholars influenced Murray's interpretation and innovation of contemporary Catholic doctrine.In his early years,Murray devoted himself to the study of traditional Catholic theology.He began to study Catholic theology in the 1930 s.In the 1940 s,Murray began to focus on the theory of religious freedom and the relationship between religious freedom and state and government.In the 1950 s,he worked in the American democratic system research center,during this time Murray used social liberalism tradition and historical experience to explain the Catholic tradition theory,at the same time,with the aid of the theory of Thomas Aquinas' s natural law,further developed the traditional Catholic doctrine of just war and power theory.In the 1960 s,Murray has successively served as John Kennedy's campaign consultant and member of the Presidential Committee of Linden Johnson.In 1963,he was invited to participate in the second Vatican Council,and successfully incorporated the American concept of religious freedom into the "Declaration of Religious Freedom" at the Second Vatican Council.This idea has become the value consensus of the contemporary Catholic community on religious freedom.Murray's multiple identities and achievements make him of great academic value.For the United States,Murray is committed to diversity in the faith of the social background,through the dialogue between the public resolve social conflicts,to reconstruct the moral foundation of American society.At the same time,it objectively further resolve the long history of the conflict between the Catholic believers and the American society.Meanwhile,Murray's just war theory and power theory based on the traditional natural law theory provided the necessary moral theory support for the formulation of American public policy and foreign policy.For international,Murray put traditional value concept into the contemporary American society in the doctrine of the Catholic Church,and allowing traditional Catholicism to accept the values proclaimed by the United States,and thus shaping contemporary international political norms,at the same time with the factors of contemporary Catholicism became the international voice of moral foundation.This paper chooses to conduct a case study of Murray's international thoughts.Based on the discipline theories and methods of history and international politics,the author will comprehensively discuss Murray's growth background,academic achievements and the basic characteristics of his academic thoughts by means of literature analysis and theoretical structure analysis.The thesis consists of six parts and five chapters.The introduction introduces Murray's personal experience and academic achievements,as well as the theoretical and practical significance of choosing a case study of Murray's international thought.Afterwards,it introduced and analyzed the current domestic and foreign situation of Murray's international thought research.At the same time,it introduces the literature basis,innovations,and theoretical methods used in this thesis.Chapter One mainly from the "idea" and "academic" comb in two dimensions,respectively introduces Murray's international thought from medieval scholar Thomas Aquinas,the modern Catholic scholar John Ireland,as well as the connection between the contemporary scholars.At the same time,it introduces Murray's personal academic history and main academic works in combination with archives.Chapter Two to Three are the main part of Murray's theory of internationalism.The author introduces Murray's works on power and war,investigates the basic framework of his theories of power and war according to the interpretation of his works.The morality extended by Murray's theory of natural law constitutes the ethical basis of Murray's theory of power and his theory of war.Meanwhile,in the theory of power,morality and public consensus as well as church freedom restrict the use of power.In the theory of war morality,morality constitutes the criterion to judge the justice of war.Chapter Four mainly introduces Murray's theory of natural law.Through the analysis of Aquinas and Murray's natural law works.Murray's theory of natural law borrowed from Thomas' s theory of natural law,but also he integrated the traditional values of American society.Natural law is the core content of Murray's international theory,by which Murray discusses the role of morality in limiting power and its definition of whether war is just or not.Finally,the author summarizes six different functions of Murray's theory of natural law in reality.Chapter Five is a systematic summary of Murray's academic thought evolution.The author points out that the theory of power;morality and war based on the theory of natural law constitute the main content of Murray's international thought.Compared with other idealist thinkers,Murray's international thought is based on the Catholic doctrine,attaches importance to the theoretical methods of traditional theology,and takes into account the historical tradition of American society.However,Murray's academic research is inevitably conservative and limited under the specific conditions of The Times.