Publications

Books

The Natural Law Reader

The Natural Law Reader, (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013).

“A treasure trove of excerpts, some revelatory, and all of them inspired choices. For those afflicted by caricatures of the natural law tradition, this book is the cure.” — John Gardner, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford

“With their generous vision, Laing and Wilcox open up the idea of law in Western thought beyond today’s limits of analytical liberalism and positivism.” — Anthony Carty, Sir Y K Pao Chair of Public Law, University of Hong Kong

The natural law tradition is an enduring one that has been at the very heart of Western ethical, political, and jurisprudential development. The Natural Law Reader is a wide-ranging and representative series of readings deriving from the classical natural law tradition, following its development and applications in the modern world. Drawing principally upon the metaphysical and ethical categories first put forth by Aristotle and championed by Aquinas and others, this set of readings takes us into metaphysics, jurisprudence, politics, and ethics, demonstrating the tradition’s historical continuity and contemporary relevance. While the first part of the book introduces the reader to that historical development, the latter part vindicates the natural law tradition’s relevance to current ethical, political, and jurisprudential discourse. Specific areas of public policy are considered in a final series of readings. Scholarly and thought-provoking, The Natural Law Reader offers prescient insights into a tradition that remains one of the most resolute foundations of Western civilization. Available from Amazon. 

Human Lives

Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics, (London: Macmillan, 1997).

This book aims to redress the imbalance in moral philosophy created by the dominance of consequentialism and utilitarianism, the view that criterion of morality is the maximisation of good effects over bad without regard to intrinsic rightness or wrongness. This approach has become the orthodoxy over the last few decades particularly in bioethics, where moral theory is applied to bioethics. Human Lives critically examines the assumptions and arguments of consequentialism reviviing in the process such concepts as rights, justice, innocence, natural integrity, flourishing, the virtues and the fundamental value of human life.

Sir Anthony Kenny, Times Higher Education: “The volume would make an excellent text for an undergraduate or graduate bioethics seminar. It is much to be desired that it will, as its authors hope, provide a counterbalance to the preponderance of consequentialism in bioethics.” Available on Amazon.

Journal Articles

  • J. A. Laing, “Assisting Suicide” Journal of Criminal Law, 54 (1990) 106-116. ISSN 0022 0183.
  • Jacqueline A. Laing, “The Prospects of a Theory of Criminal Culpability: Mens Rea and Methodological Doubt” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 14 (1994) 57-80. ISSN 1464-3820.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Vegetative State – The Untold Story” New Law Journal  152 (2002) 1272. ISSN 0305-9332, Online ISSN: 1464-3669.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Life and Death in Healthcare Ethics” Review, Journal of Medical Ethics  28 (2002) 331. ISSN: 0306-6800 ISSN: 1473-4257.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Mental Capacity Bill – A threat to the vulnerable” New Law Journal 154 (2004) 1165. ISSN 0305-9332, Online ISSN: 1464-3669.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Disabled Need Our Protection” Law Society Gazette101 (2004) 12. ISSN: 0262 1495.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “The Right to Live: Reply to the Chief Executive of the Law Society” Law Society Gazette102 (2005) 11. ISSN: 0262 1495.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “The Mental Capacity Bill 2004: Human Rights Concerns” Family Law Journal35 (2005) 137-143. ISSN 0964-9069, Online ISSN: 1469-9621.
  • Jacqueline A. Laing and David S. Oderberg, “Artificial Reproduction, the ‘Welfare Principle’, and the Common Good” Medical Law Review, 13 (2005) 328-356. ISSN 0967-0742, Online ISSN: 1464-3790.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “A Certain Kind of Moral Scepticism and the Foundations of Human Rights” Law and Justice, 157 (2006) 39-53. ISSN 0269-817X.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “The Prohibition on Eugenics and Reproductive Liberty” University of New South Wales Law Journal29 (2006) 261-266. ISSN: 0313-0096.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “The Philosophy of War and Peace” Jenny Teichman, Review Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26 (2009) 114-116.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Human Rights” For Journal of Criminal Law(in progress) ISSN 0022 0183.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Artificial Reproduction, Blood Relatedness and Human Identity” Monist: International Journal of General Philosophical Enquiry 89 (2006) 548-567. ISSN 0026-9662.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Information Technology and Biometric Databases: Eugenics and Other Threats to Disability Rights” Journal of Legal Technology Risk Management3 (2008) 9-35. ISSN 1932-5584.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Inter-Species Embryos And Human Clones: Issues Of Free Movement And Gestation” European Journal of Health Law16 (2009) 69-79. ISSN 0929-0273.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Disability Rights, Quality-of-life Arguments and the Equal Dignity Principle” (for Journal of Applied Philosophy)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Los derechos humanos y la nueva eugenesia” 4 [2009] SCIO65-81 (translated into Spanish from the English). ISSN 1887-9853
  • Jacqueline A. Laing “On the Wrong Track” 154 Solicitors Journal (2010) 2.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “The Background and Consequences of the Reproductive Revolution” Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 62 (2012) pp. 24-36
  • Jacqueline A. Laing “Not In My Name” 162 New Law Journal (2012) 81 ISSN0305-9332, Online ISSN: 1464-3669
  • Jacqueline A. Laing (2012) “Incentivising Death” Solicitors Journal, 158, 1444
  • Jacqueline A. Laing (2013) “Managerialising Death” Law Society Gazette, http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/68831.article
  • Jacqueline A. Laing (2013) “Normalising a Homicidal Culture of Healthcare” Solicitors Journal Vol 157 no 29 23-07-13
  • Jacqueline A. Laing (2013) “Infanticide: A reply to Giubilini and Minerva” 154 Journal of Medical Ethics (2013) 336-340
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2013) “The Connection between Law and Justice in the Natural Law Tradition” Religion and Law, Theos: London, pp. 125-134
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2013) “Infanticide: A reply to Giubilini and Minerva” Journal of Medical Ethics, 39:336-340
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2013) “Institutional Human Rights Abuse” New Law Journal Vol 163: 7570  (25 July 2013)
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2014) “Natural Law, Comparative Law and Eugenics” Journal of Comparative Law 8:209-237

Chapters in Books

  • Jacqueline A. Laing, “Innocence and Consequentialism” in Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics, eds. J. A. Laing with D. S. Oderberg (London, Macmillan, 1997), pp. 196-224. ISBN 0-333-62980-9, ISBN 0-312 16099-2.
  • Jacqueline A. Laing, “Introduction to Human Lives” co-authored, in Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics, eds. J. A. Laing with D. S. Oderberg (London, Macmillan, 1997), pp. 1-12. ISBN 0-333-62980-9, ISBN 0-312 16099-2.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “New reproductive technologies are morally problematic” in Medical Ethics (ed. James Torr) Greenhaven Press, California, 2000. ISBN 0-7-377-01455, ISBN 978-0737701456.
  • Jacqueline A. Laing, “Law, Liberalism and the Common Good” Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law  Edited by David S. Oderberg and T.D.J. Chappell, London, Macmillan, 2004, pp. 184-216. ISBN 4039-1810-4.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Food and Fluids: Human Law, Human Rights and Human Interests” in Artificial Nutrition and HydrationC. Tollefsen, ed., Springer Press 2008, pp. 77-100. ISBN 978-1-4020-6206-3.
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2013) “The Connection between Law and Justice in the Natural Law Tradition” Religion and Law, London, 2013, pp. 125-134
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2017) “Natural Law Reasoning in Applied Ethics. Four Paradigms” Cambridge Companion to Natural Law ed. Robert George and George Duke, CUP, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 216-245
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2019) “Bioethics and Natural Law” in Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics, ed. Tom Angier, CUP, Cambridge, 2019, pp. 199-214.

Companions and Encyclopaedias

  • Jacqueline Laing, “J. M. Finnis” in Dictionary of Philosophy  ed. Thomas Mautner, Penguin, 2005. ISBN-10: 0140512500; ISBN-13: 978-0140512502.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Law” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, 2010.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Justinian” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, 2010.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Authority” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, 2010, and six other shorter entries.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Monogamy” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, 2010 and five other shorter entries.
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Human Rights” in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Moral Theology” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, (2012) 
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Monotheism” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, (2012)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Apostasy” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, (2012)  
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Communion” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, (2012)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Annunciation” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Civilisation, Oxford, Blackwell, ed. George Kurian, Oxford, Blackwell, (2012)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Marriage” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education, Lamport and  Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Family” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education,  Lamport and  Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014) 
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Virtue” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education,  Lamport and Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Natural Law” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education,  Lamport and  Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Human Rights” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education,  Lamport and  Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Jurisprudence” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education,  Lamport and Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Social Justice” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education, Lamport and Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Moral Philosophy” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education, Lamport and Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Thomistic Tradition” in Encyclopaedia of Christian Education, Lamport and Kurian. New York, Rowman and Littlefield (2014)
  • Jacqueline Laing, “Natural Law Reasoning in Applied Ethics. Four Paradigms” in Cambridge Companion to Natural Law, George and Duke, CUP, Cambridge (2017)
  • Laing, Jacqueline A. (2019) “Bioethics and Natural Law” in Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics, ed. Tom Angier, CUP, Cambridge, 2019, pp. 199-214.