‘What’s Wrong with Rights?’ with Dr. Nigel Biggar

Dr. Nigel Biggar joins Matt and Alastair to examine the relationship between morality and law.

Nigel Biggar

Is the theory of natural rights really the best way to protect ourselves from tyrannical governments? This is the big question of Dr. Nigel Biggar’s book, What’s Wrong With Rights? Dr. Biggar is Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology, and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, & Public Life,  University of Oxford. Matt and Alastair push on this argument with Dr. Biggar to examine the relationship between morality and law. Fun connection: Dr. Biggar is (Dr.) Matt Anderson’s Doktorvater!

The Book of the Month is Ministers of Reconciliation: Preaching on Race and the Gospel. In this collection of essays, issues of race and ethnicity are explored from a variety of perspectives, offering guidance to pastors on how to address those topics in their own contexts. Each builds on a foundational passage of Scripture. With contributions from Matthew D. Kim, Dhati Lewis, J. D. Greear, and more, Ministers of Reconciliation offers practical and biblically faithful approaches to the subject of race. For the month of August 2021, Mere Fidelity listeners will get a 40% discount on their purchase of this volume with the code MEREFIDELITYAUG21 at checkout.

Timestamps

0:00
Big Mere Fidelity News
1:27
Professor Nigel Biggar
4:07
Legal Rights vs. Moral Claims
12:06
Rights Fundamentalism
17:59
Moral Arguments, Not Rights Assertions
21:34
Developing the Moral Sense
29:00
Are morals enough?
35:26
Institutional Models of Rights and Morals
43:14
Universality and Absoluteness

Follow Derek, Andrew, and Alastair for more tweet-sized brilliance. Thanks to Timothy Crouch for keeping us organized. Special thanks to Tim Motte for sound editing. And thanks to The Joy Eternal for lending us their music, which everybody should download out of gratitude for their kindness.

Ethics
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