-
Right and Reason: Book Review
Title: Right and Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice, Second Edition Author: Fr. Austin Fagothey, S.J. Published: Charlotte, North Carolina: TAN Books, 2000 About the Author[1] Austin J. Fagothey (1901-1975) was born in San Francisco, California. He entered the Society of Jesus after graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1917. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1931. Over his long teaching career, he taught English, Greek, theology and philosophy. He chaired the Philosophy Department for thirty years at Santa Clara University and served on its Board of Trustees from 1943-1973. The university awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1974. My Perspective Right and Reason was a required book for my Morality and Justice class that I am finishing up the last week of. Only selected chapters were required reading, but I read the book in its entirety and I am glad I did. It is recommended in the Preface that the reader has some basic understanding of the Aristotelian-Thomistic system. It uses the problem method. “This consists in introducing one of the major problems of ethics, explaining how it arose and…