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As for his own position, two passages in particular reveal his intentions. "Perhaps nothing," he suggests in one of them, "is more important in the ethical reorientation of modern Christianity than a new study of the doctrine of natural law. Love perfectionism is clearly no specific guide for the detailed problems which arise in human society. No society has ever existed without some degree of coercion and it is better to recognize that fact than to obscure the realities with idealistic phrases which permit privileged people to benefit from covert coercion while they stand in abhorrence of the overt resistance of the underprivileged" (154). And in the other he concludes: _ "_We dare not disavow general standards of justice. But neither must we give ourselves to the illusion that they are either easily defined or simply realized. Some of our worst social evils are derived, not from the cynics, who acknowledge no standard but their own, but from the fanatics who acknowledge an absolute standard but fail to detect the corruption of self-interest in their definition of the absolute" (214 f.).

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