Book Reviews : Ethics and the Social Science. Edited by LEO R. WARD. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959. Pp. xiii, 127. $3.25.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300253
• Published date: 01 June 1960
• Date: 01 June 1960
• Author: Richard W. Taylor
• Subject Matter: Articles

561
natural law (Jacques Maritain), the state (Leo XIII), the rights of man (Pius
XII), social policy (Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII), communism (Pius XI), church,
state, and family in education (Pius XI), and sections from the constitution of
Ireland dealing with these last matters.
Part IV, &dquo;Romantic Authoritarianism,&dquo; is certainly the weakest section of
the book. The editors devote barely five pages to nazism and fascism, declaring
that &dquo;today, their influence is negligible.&dquo; Such a statement is highly debatable;
moreover, this reviewer finds it difficult to accept the adjective &dquo;romantic&dquo; as
applied to these doctrines. The editors define romanticism as &dquo;an attitude to-
wards life which exalts the emotions at the expense of reason,&dquo; but movements
based on irrationality and brutality cannot be made respectable by calling them
&dquo;romantic.&dquo; This characterization must surely come as a shock to the victims of
Nazi and fascist terror.
The editors also deny that Franco’s Spain is really a fascist state, calling it
merely &dquo;a reflection of local circumstances influenced throughout by a strong
and always individual Roman Catholic tradition.&dquo; Such a challenge to the
widely accepted view that Spain today is fascist ought, in the reviewer’s opinion,
to be buttressed by substantial arguments; instead, Spain is disposed of in fifteen
lines, which include the obscure passage just quoted concerning &dquo;Catholic tradi-
tion.&dquo; Professors Utley and Maclure give a distinct impression of tenderness to-
ward fascism, presumably because it is now unimportant. Even apartheid is de-
scribed in terms of its purportedly scriptural foundations, without the slightest
reference to the practices through which it being implemented in South Africa.
Part V, &dquo;Protestant Political Thought,&dquo; presents a good selection of readings
on a topic hitherto virtually untouched by texts and anthologies in modern
political thought....