Precepts Of Natural Law Research Articles

Essay About The Western History of Human Rights

Objective: The objective of this article was to investigate the historicity of Human Rights and Human Dignity, with an emphasis on the development of religious natural law in the Roman Catholic and Apostolic periods. Theoretical Framework: Works by renowned authors in Law, Social Sciences and Humanities were consulted, namely Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Hans Kelsen and Rafael Diehl. Method: The methodology used in this research was based on a holistic and multidisciplinary analysis, that is, empirical and documentary research was essential for the hermeneutic and conceptual analysis of Human Rights and Human Dignity. Results and Discussion: It is clear that the conceptual notion of human being was, is and seems to be influenced by religious and rationalist natural law perspectives. Implications of the Research: The research seeks to awaken readers to the historicity of Human Rights and Human Dignity, notably regarding apparently extra-legal precepts of natural law. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the Academy, in the sense of, dialectically, providing a dialogue between classical and contemporary theories on Human Rights and Human Dignity.

New Natural Law, Derivationist Natural Law, and Evolutionary Debunking

Evolutionary debunking arguments attempt to show from the fact of evolution either that there are no evaluative truths existing independently of our evaluative judgments or that we lack knowledge of such truths. In this paper, I consider whether Sharon Street’s influential evolutionary debunking argument threatens natural law theory. I argue that new natural law theory is vulnerable to her argument but that derivationist versions of natural law theory (sometimes referred to as “traditional” or “old” natural law) have the resources to mount a defense. I show that new natural law theory’s account of how we know the precepts of natural law leaves the theory open to Street’s attack. I also show that derivationist natural law theory’s account—on which the precepts of natural law can be derived from facts about human nature and human fulfillment—gives deriviationists what they need for a defense.

The Law of Reason and Beyond

Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham, an English philosopher and theologian, holds a distinctive place in the intellectual discourse of late seventeenth century England. As the daughter of Ralph Cudworth, a prominent Cambridge Platonist, and a close friend and student of John Locke, Damaris Masham participated in a number of discussions at once, related in one way or another to the basic tenets of Christian theology and moral philosophy. The first of these is a dispute with the English Malebranchians, primarily John Norris and his intellectual companion Mary Astell, regarding the concept of the love of God. The second important debate concerned the defence of John Locke's rational Christianity against attacks from deists and enthusiasts. In addition to the defence of moderate conformist theology against radical non-conformism, Masham's writings also offer a special vision of Christian moral life, in which there is room for pleasures, the precepts of natural law and the commandments of Christian Revelation. Natural law occupies an important, but underexplored place in Masham's moral philosophy and theology. This paper is intended to fill said gap and is devoted to the reconstruction of Masham's approach to natural law and its connection with other crucial concepts of her moral theology: pleasures, sociability, reason, Revelation. In order to accomplish this goal, we interpret Masham's writings in light of relevant contexts and consider them as polemical arguments in which natural law plays an important, but limited role.

Natural Law and Parliamentary Election in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls

ABSTRACT Critics have reached the consensus that Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls reveals the fallibility of human reason in interpreting and applying the precepts of natural law. This article, however, asks the reader to look more closely and more skeptically at the common birds’ elections. Though Chaucer critically revises Thomas Aquinas’s concept of natural law by setting will against reason, as is personified in the parliamentary debates, the poet still allows the common birds to follow their natural dispositions when electing representatives and offering counsel. Only in the episode of the collective abuse of the cuckoo does Chaucer criticize the Commons for violating natural rights. The Parliament of Fowls parallels the turn from objective natural law to subjective interpretation of individual rights in intellectual history with the rise of the parliamentary Commons in late-fourteenth-century English constitutional history. As a result, it exposes the crisis of “commonalty” in the 1370s and 1380s.

The Common Good and Legal Interpretation: A Response to Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini

Recent debates in the United States and Canada bear witness to a renewed interest in the moral foundations of legal interpretation. This article offers a contribution to the ongoing debate in Canadian legal circles, responding to critiques by Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini of the emergent theories of “common good originalism” and “common good constitutionalism”. Contrary to our interlocutors’ view, the natural law tradition does not “look to extraneous moral and policy commitments as guides for legal interpretation” nor does it see the law as a mere instrument to achieve “pre-determined outcomes.” Rather, it regards the positive law and natural law as reciprocally interrelated; natural law lends intelligibility to the positive law, while positive law makes concrete the abstract precepts of natural law. This perspective provides valuable insights into the activity of legal interpretation, as directed toward understanding and giving effect to the legislature’s reasoned choices for the common good.

Order of Nature–Order of Love: Arguments against a Naturalistic (Mis-)Interpretation of Humanae Vitae

Order of Nature–Order of Love:Arguments against a Naturalistic (Mis-)Interpretation of Humanae Vitae Andrzej Kuciński The Problem: Naturalistic (Mis-)Interpretation On May 13, 2010, during the second Ecumenical Church Convention in Munich, Margot Käßmann, the former Chair of the Protestant Church in Germany, praised the "birth control pill" as a "gift from God" while speaking at the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich. Her rationale was that "it is about the preservation of life, of freedom, which doesn't have to immediately degenerate into pornography, as much as the sexualization of our society is, of course, a problem."1 In contrast, the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, authored by Paul VI, states: "Similarly excluded is any action which, either before, or at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means."2 This conclusion is based on the natural law and the Church's teaching that "each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life."3 These positions represent two contradictory views: On the one hand "life and freedom," which claims to reflect the attitude toward life of today's European mainstream, and on the other hand, supposedly restrictive and moralizing rules and judgments, which appear out of step with reality. The serious challenge the encyclical letter was to the mainstream attitude [End Page 21] toward life, was demonstrated by the sharp protests which followed with unprecedented vehemence the publication of the papal letter, particularly in northern European countries. The encyclical letter became a genuine symbol of contradiction. One allegation that stood out among the various points of criticism was that of naturalism or biologism, according to which the Pope had translated biological laws into moral imperatives. In German-language literature, the opposition to the encyclical letter was seen as, among other things, a symptom of a departure from the neo-Scholastic approach to natural law theory with its focus on objective beings. The precepts of natural law in matters relating to contraception were criticized for defending a reactionary concept of nature, which had allegedly been adopted from times gone by, irrespective of later developments in science and society.4 In addition, general doubts were expressed with regard to the competence of the magisterium in matters relating to sexual morality. It was therefore argued that: "The encyclical Humanae vitae, which is based on a crude, to some extent virtually biologistic concept of nature, has contributed to discrediting the precepts of natural law in the Catholic sphere, as well."5 The Pope's reference to the physiological processes relating to the transmission of human life led to the fixation on the biological perspective: "If reference is made to the 'laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman' (Paragraph 12) and to something 'repugnant to the nature of man and of woman' (Paragraph 13) or to the 'natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system' (Paragraph 16), this is clearly of a biological [End Page 22] nature; on this basis, birth control through artificial means is condemned as an intrinsically immoral act."6 However, if a conclusion deduced from biology is applied to ethics, the encyclical letter can be criticized for using the naturalistic fallacy that an "is" necessarily leads directly to an "ought." However, suggestions that the content of the encyclical is naturalistic, which consequently leads to a rejection of the precepts of natural law on which the encyclical hinges, must be emphatically rejected in the name of common sense (and all the more if the Church's teachings are to be dealt with in good faith). If something which had previously been incorrectly defined is later rejected, then this is an inevitable consequence of this erroneous premise. This would mean attributing an interpretation to the positions of the Church's teachings that the Church itself, in fact, does not advocate, simply for the sake of questioning said positions and eliminating them as legitimate courses of action. The fallacy of biologism, I would argue, results from a flawed analysis of the concept of nature on which Humanae Vitae is based. This essay...

¿Qué tipo de bien es John Finnis? Un estudio sobre el bien personal y común en «Natural Law and Natural Rights»

Natural Law and Natural Rights, de John Finnis ha tenido un impacto significativo en el campo de la filosofía del derecho, especialmente en algunos temas concretos. En alguna medida sus tesis recuperaron para el iusnaturalismo la relevancia que estos planteamientos tuvieron, al menos, durante cinco décadas. Sin embargo, dicha recuperación significó algo más que la clásica comprensión de una ley natural inclusiva de la ley positiva y de mayor espectro referencial que ésta. En el discurso académico y popular el enfoque de Finnis, sus colaboradores y discípulos constituye, de hecho, una «nueva» ley natural. En este artículo se analiza el origen y fundamento de la ley natural (la clásica y la «nueva»): en particular, el concepto de «bien» (tanto individual como común) que se asume en Natural Law and Natural Rights. La definición de este concepto y su papel en los preceptos primarios de la ley natural son fundamentales y determinantes de cara a la elaboración y desarrollo de los argumentos subsiguientes. La primera parte destaca la gran contribución del libro en el campo iusfilosófico: la defensa de la objetividad del bien. La segunda explora la comprensión de Finnis del concepto de bien y, en particular, las formas en que reinterpreta o se aparta de Tomás de Aquino y Aristóteles. La tercera parte describe cómo tales diferencias afectan a un ejercicio de comprensión del bien común.

THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS´ DISARMAMENT AS A TOOL FOR HUMANITY FLOURISHING: an analysis of the reason and the common good of the natural law theory in International Law Sistem of Human Rights

It´s presented the nuclear proposal disarmament at the light of principles of natural law in International Legal Sistem of Human Rights. It relates the natural law precepts of reason and the common good with the principles of the peaceful resolution of disputes. It´s demonstrated the incongruity of the nuclear weapons argument as a mean of defense. The research is a qualitative bibliography with a doctrinal analysis of international law. It´s concluded that the sovereign´s self-defense with an atomic arsenal violates international treaties, prevents the development of the common good, and is a constant threat to the flourishing of humanity.

La unidad de la ley natural y la distinción de preceptos en Tomás de Aquino

This article is about the radical unity of natural law, and shows that, according to the thinking of Saint Thomas, the plurality of moral precepts can be adequately understood only in its light. In other words, any precept of natural law is a precept because it participates in the first principle. It follows that a division of the precepts into primary, secondary and tertiary precepts does not correspond to a schematic classification. The distinction of primary, secondary and tertiary precepts of natural law is a relative distinction.

Securing the Foundations: Karol Wojtyła's Thomistic Personalism in Dialogue with Natural Law Theory

Securing the Foundations:Karol Wojtyła's Thomistic Personalism in Dialogue with Natural Law Theory Petar Popoviß Introduction Any attempt to exhaustively present the contributions of Karol Wojtyła's Thomistic personalism as elaborated in his pre-pontifical philosophical writings to the theory of natural law is surely not a task that can be easily reduced to a summary overview of Wojtyła's ready-made arguments. In his writings, John Paul II did not, in fact, reflect extensively on the topic of "natural law" as an immediate object of his philosophical enquiries. We can find only a few explicit references to it in his 1969 magnum opus The Acting Person, while a substantial philosophical argumentation on this subject in the immediate textual context of these references is virtually nonexistent. In his only philosophical text explicitly dedicated to the topic of natural law, entitled "The Human Person and Natural Law,"1 also from 1969, a more extensive elaboration on brief references to St. Thomas Aquinas's definitions of natural law is completely absent. Even in his later pontifical documents, John Paul II hardly ever extensively referred to natural law in its classic Thomistic formulation until his 1993 encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor.2 However, such a notable absence of explicit references [End Page 231] to natural law did not discourage Kenneth L. Schmitz, the author of one of the most significant studies of Wojtyła's philosophical project, from repeatedly highlighting the importance of Wojtyła's "personalist approach to natural law" and of his underscoring the "personal dimension within the metaphysics of natural law."3 How can an author who is so reluctant to avail himself of classical natural law discourse be, at the same time, celebrated as an important contributor to its more adequate comprehension? In this paper, we will aim to postulate that Wojtyła enters into an enriching dialogue with the Thomistic theory of natural law, in both its classical and its contemporary formulations, on a specific systematic level that does not directly engage the classic elements of natural law theory (such as natural inclinations, first precepts of natural law, etc.). We will show that Wojtyła, rather, grounds his most important contributions to this theory within the framework of his specific methodology of Thomistic personalism,4 which he held to be essential [End Page 232] to secure more completely the foundations5 that natural law and its adequate understanding offer to the moral and legal normative "grammar" of the humanum. The Personalistic Value of the Human Act as the Immediate Conceptual Context of Wojtyła's Contributions to Natural Law Theory In order to present Karol Wojtyła's contributions to natural law theory, we will first have to delimit the immediate conceptual context of his arguments on the topic. In his writings, he touches upon the topic of natural law in three distinctive ways. First, he sometimes only incidentally refers to some general topics of natural law theory while pursuing his personalistic line of argumentation, only to arrive at the already firmly established conclusions within the theory itself.6 Second, he sometimes, though seldom, explicitly refers to the concept of "natural law" (Polish: prawo naturalne) in order to invoke elements of the classical theory of natural law and to touch upon elements of his philosophical contribution to the theory from the perspective of Thomistic personalism.7 Finally, Wojtyła, at times, and without explicitly invoking the [End Page 233] term, provides arguments that represent his genuine, more developed contributions to the theory of natural law from his own specific philosophical perspective of Thomistic personalism. The first approach to the concept of natural law is not taken into consideration in this paper, while the second has already been thoroughly researched at length by other authors.8 Instead, this paper seeks to present the key elements of Wojtyła's third approach to the understanding of natural law—namely, his arguments on the enriching potential of viewing natural law from the perspective of the analysis of the personalistic value of the human act as the immediate object of philosophical analysis. We have elaborated at greater length on Wojtyła's concept of "the personalistic value of...

Preface: Thomism and the Challenge of Integral Ecology

PrefaceThomism and the Challenge of Integral Ecology David Paul Deavel, Editor The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus said that a “Thomist of the Strict Observance,” was one who believed that the thought of the Angelic Doctor is the intellectual hardware that can run any software. He was thinking, he said, of the Jesuit scholar Norris Clarke, whose philosophical work aimed at showing how Thomas Aquinas could make sense even of the process philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. At Fordham University my then-girlfriend Cathy (now my wife) would take me to lunch with Father Clarke, then in his late eighties, a spry gnome-like character who would regale us with his intellectual adventures of bringing St. Thomas to every conceivable endeavor. Upon his mentioning a lunch date with the Dalai Lama, I asked him what he had said. Father Clarke looked at us and said very seriously, “I told him, ‘You have wonderful meditative practices, but your metaphysics are terrible!’” The Thomist of the Strict Observance then attempted, well, to enlighten him. I’m not sure I agreed with everything Father Clarke said about metaphysics or Thomas Aquinas, but that impulse to bring Thomism to bear on intellectual projects and problems out there in the world was remarkable to me. The tribe of old-fashioned Thomists is often [End Page 5] fiercely protective of their master in such a way as to ward off anybody attempting to bring him out of the thirteenth, the greatest of centuries, and into our own milieu. I do not doubt the intellectual seriousness, the learning, or the rigor of their work. If these, the E. F. Huttons of the perennial philosophy, speak in order to tell me my metaphysics is terrible, I listen. But their conversation is too often about pinning down the meaning of his texts and too little about applying his thought to the problems of the twenty-first, perhaps not the greatest—but hey, it’s what we’ve got—of centuries. Therefore it can be particularly frustrating when tribal members tell me that they are bothered that what the public too often sees as Thomism is the intellectual project known as New Natural Law Theory (NNLT). This version of natural law reasoning, which its proponents say is not really new in the sense of wholly detached from the past but reflects substantial development of the mind of St. Thomas, was articulated by the late philosopher-theologian Germain Grisez, along with the late philosopher Joseph Boyle and the legal scholars John Finnis and Robert George. Broadly speaking, its basic position is that natural law precepts cannot be deduced from the facts of the world by what the ancients would call speculative reason. Instead, they propose that humans are capable of discerning the correct principles of reasoning and actions through a reflection on the first principle of practical reason (do good and avoid evil) and toward a group of goods such as life, work, religion, beauty, and others, the pursuit of which, they argue, is essential to understanding the logic of human free choices and actions. These goods are available to practical reason through a consideration of what it means to live a life characterized by integral human fulfillment. These goods, they say, are basic goods not resolvable into anything more primary and are “incommensurable,” meaning that one cannot either measure them against each other or order them according to importance. I think there are some definite problems with this construal, but my point here is not to rehearse or evaluate the criticisms of NNLT (in a future issue, theologian Christian Washburn will critique NNL thinkers on [End Page 6] their treatment of capital punishment). It is simply to note that whatever one’s evaluation of their theory, no one can deny that this school of Thomists has done yeoman’s work in trying to bring natural law thinking to bear on the subjects of our day. The most prominent contemporary figures, John Finnis, Robert P. George, Ryan Anderson, Christopher Tollefsen, Samuel Gregg, and my colleague Robert G. Kennedy, have written on, among other things, issues of abortion and bioethics; sexuality and what is now called gender identity...

Deontological Originalism: Moral Truth, Liberty, and, Constitutional 'Due Process'

Deontological Originalism: Moral Truth, Liberty, and, Constitutional 'Due Process'

Natural Law in Aquinas and Suarez

This article considers the relationship between the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suarez. It has been said that Suarez made significant departures from the natural law theory of Aquinas, by putting greater emphasis on divine command as the source of natural law precepts, and by replacing Aquinas’s focus on good and bad with a focus on right and wrong. Hence, Suarez appears to replace Aquinas’s eudaimonist account of ethics with one based in deontology. The article argues that the differences separating Aquinas and Suarez are minimal, and that Suarez can be seen as upholding the central tenets of Aquinas’s doctrine of natural law. This has ramifications for our understanding not only of Suarez, but also of Aquinas himself.

John Finnis and Alasdair MacIntyre on Our Knowledge of the Precepts of Natural Law

John Finnis and Alasdair MacIntyre on Our Knowledge of the Precepts of Natural Law

Ley natural y ética universal

Al mismo tiempo que hablar de “ética mundial” o ética universal es frecuente, e incluso a veces parece obvio, la tradicional referencia a la ley natural ha decaído hasta prácticamente su desuso, salvo en limitados círculos, especialmente los ámbitos eclesiásticos católicos, y ni aún en todos estos. Aunque hoy todos los interlocutores concernidos reconocen que el deseo y la búsqueda de unas bases morales compartidas por unos y por otros, más allá de las propias creencias y convicciones, es decir lo que une a los seres humanos, garantizar y puede promover una convivencia justa, la cuestión sigue siendo muy relevante, y hasta urgente. El concepto de “ley natural”, al que se refirió un importante documento de la Comisión teológica internacional de hace seis años, titulado precisamente “En busca de una ética universal”, permite a los autores del estudio adentrarse en la discusión de uno de los fundamentos de la Moral social de inspiración cristiana, que reviste gran importancia para integrar las problemáticas más actuales: mundialización e interdependencia, cambios culturales y tecnológicos y diálogo interreligioso. El de ley natural es un concepto de gran riqueza, aunque con no pocos elementos ajenos a su lógica que lo han ido debilitando y complejizando, casi diríamos “desnaturalizando”. No estamos ya tan sólo frente a la tensión entre universalidad y particularidad, sino ante otra tensión. Los consensos fundamentales y las novedades emergentes. Caminar en la búsqueda de principios y valores compartidos sigue siendo urgente y necesario, pero este camino sólo tendrá éxito si parte de un sólido acuerdo y un lenguaje ético común, no sólo abierto al diálogo, sino al cambio ante la alteridad complementaria de otros interlocutores. El estudio resume la historia de la ley natural, así como su sitio en el magisterio moral católico (apartados tercero y cuarto), para adentrarse en los siguientes apartados en la relación conceptual entre razón universal y ley natural (apartado quinto) y en la cuestión de la conversión de los principios en preceptos normativos (apartado sexto). En el apartado séptimo los autores tratan de la cuestión insoslayable del diálogo intercultural e interreligioso, para concluir en el siguiente apartado con una reflexión sobre la ley natural y la referencia a la verdad que ayude a determinar los preceptos de la ley natural..

Reason, Conscience and Equity: Bishops as the King's Judges in Later Medieval England

AbstractIt has long been recognized that many late medieval bishops were heavily involved in secular government. Scholars have tended to characterize these activities in fairly general terms, labelling those who chose to serve the crown as ‘administrators’, ‘bureaucrats’ or ‘civil servants’. In fact, they are better described as king's judges, for a large part of what bishops did in government was dispensing justice in the king's name. The first part of this article explores the contexts of this judicial activity, showing that bishops were especially active in institutions such as parliament, chancery and the council which offered justice to the king's subjects on a discretionary basis. Discretionary justice was closely informed by the precepts of natural law, which in turn derived authority from the abstract notion of the divine will. The second half of the article suggests that the strong theological underpinning of discretionary justice meant that bishops' involvement in secular government did not stand in opposition to their spiritual vocation or their role as leaders of the church. I argue that the sweeping and rather disparaging contemporary and modern characterizations of ‘civil‐servant’ bishops as self‐serving careerists ought to be replaced by a more nuanced understanding of the rationale and motivation of those senior clergymen who involved themselves in secular governance.

Celebrating the common law rights of man — a note on Blackstone’s work on natural law and natural rights

William Blackstone's (1723-1780) Commentaries, a four-volume work, the first edition of which appeared in 1765, was produced in an epoch of natural law theory which marked the transition from justification to the exposition of natural law precepts and the shift from the ground of obligation of natural law to the formulation of detailed rules in natural law jurisprudence. Similar in style to E de Vattel's Le Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la Loi Naturelle (1758), and T Rutherford's Institutes of Natural Law (1748), Blackstone focused on the detailed rules of natural law rather than indulging in the philosophical underpinnings of natural law theory as such.

Relativismo, ley natural y diálogo en busca de la verdad: el rol de las inclinaciones naturales

The present paper purports to highlight the importance of natural inclinations in the theory of knowledge of natural law. Inclinations, mentioned by Aquinas in I —II, 94, 2, are concrete forms of the will's original natural inclination to good. Said fundamental inclination of the will explains the normative character of the principles of practical reason. Inclinations converge in the apprehension of goods; therefore, when they are not actuated in the correct (i.e. virtuous) direction, certain precepts of natural law do not appear as immediately evident to all. This enables to understand: l) why natural law is not universally accepted and known equally by all men and cultures, and 2) how natural law can be the starting point for a fruitful dialog directed at the search for moral truth, a basic presupposition for human cohabitation.

Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer

The Thomist 70 (2006): 155-201 NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL INCLINATIONS: RHONHEIMER, PINCKAERS, McALEER MATTHEW LEVERING Ave Maria University Naples, Florida THE QUESTION OF THE STATUS of natural inclinations looms large in any Thomistic account of the natural law. Aquinas's presentation of the content of the natural law depends significantly upon his understanding of natural inclinations. Inclination, he observes, arises out of the convertibility of being and good. As he states, "Now as being is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good."1 Whether the practical reason discerns or constitutes the natural law hinges, first and foremost, on the nature of this dynamism toward the good that belongs to the created teleology of the never-neutral creature. Aquinas defines this dynamism toward the good as "the first principle in the practical reason," from which follows "the first precept of law, that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided."2 He unfolds this natural inclination toward the good by specifying four further natural inclinations, arranged in an ontological hierarchy, each of which expresses an aspect of the natural inclination toward the human good. These hierarchically ordered natural inclinations are the teleologies inscribed by 1 STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2. 2 Ibid. 155 156 MATTHEW LEVERING creation in human nature. They compass the vegetative, animal, and spiritual components of the one human soul. The precepts of the natural law, that is to say, what reason "naturally apprehends as man's good,"3 are all based in this created teleological structure of natural inclinations toward ends. As Aquinas puts it, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence ... all those things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of the natural law.4 Natural inclinations and reason's apprehension of the precepts of natural law belong to the same teleological ordering of the human being as created. If this is so, certain questions arise. How does the natural law arise in the human person? How do freedom and the natural inclinations relate? How should the rational character of natural law be described? Is natural law discerned by human reason as a normative order inscribed in nature? Or is natural law constituted by the judgments of practical reason, which transform and elevate (humanize) inclinations found in nature by reorienting these inclinations to the personal ends known by spiritual creatures? In pondering these questions, I will survey three recent accounts of natural law and natural inclinations, by Martin Rhonheimer , Servais Pinckaers, and Graham McAleer respectively. Each of these authors treats Aquinas's discussion in some detail. Examination of the three approaches will illumine how differently Catholic thinkers have approached the relationship of natural law and natural inclinations. Rhonheimer emphasizes the independence or freedom of practical reason in constituting the natural law from the data provided by the natural inclinations. He desires to affirm the fully personal and free activity of human beings in working out their own salvation through practical reason and 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL INCLINATIONS 157 moral action. Pinckaers argues that a nominalist understanding of "nature" places nature in conflict with reason and thereby undercuts Aquinas's theology of the natural law. For this reason Pinckaers devotes significant effort to retrieving a positive account of the natural inclinations. Lastly, McAleer begins with the metaphysical and teleological structure of human bodiliness, so as to locate the natural law within an ecstatic framework adequate to the human person's participation in God. With its emphasis on the constitutive role of practical reason, Rhonheimer's approach to natural law and natural inclinations possesses similarities to that of the "new natural law theory" proposed by Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Robert George, and others.5 Pinckaers, for...

Jean Porter on Natural Law: Thomistic Notes

The Thomist 66 (2002): 275-309 JEAN PORTER ON NATURAL LAW: THOMISTIC NOTES1 LAWRENCE DEWAN, 0.P. Cotlege Dominicain Ottawa, Ontario, Canada lEAN PORTER'S RECENT BOOK Natural and Divine Law aims at making theologians aware of medieval scholastic theological discussions of natural law. The sources she consults include h theologians and canonists, extending over a period including the twelfth and much of the thirteenth century. She sees such discussions as a possible fruitful source for contemporary Christian ethics. As a former student of Etienne Gilson's, I rejoice to see this interest in medieval thought, and in its theological dimension. AB a disciple of St. Thomas, I am sure that acquaintance with the background against which he formulated his views of natural law can help one appreciate the magnitude of his accomplishment. A reader, one would hope, might benefit from such a book by coming to see how what were often confused and confusing presentations in earlier writers eventually become coherent in the works of Thomas. Many years ago, Fr. Thomas Deman used the history of moral discussions by theologians to present Thomas as the founder of moral theology, establishing its order and its place within the unity of sacra doctrina.2 However, Porter's own intentions do not run in that direction. She is interested, rather, in what a knowledge of the nitty-gritty 1 Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics, foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdsmann, 1999). I will cite it simply by page number in my own text. 2 Thomas Deman, O.P., Aux origines de la theologie morale (Montreal: Inst. d'etudes medievales, 1951). 275 276 LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P. of medieval theological discussion can do to dispel the sort of "neat package" image of natural law that can result from the way it is presented by some modern philosophers, and even in some Church documents. Jacques Maritain used to insist on how much "rationalist recasting" and "the advent of a geometrising reason" had by the eighteenth century ruined the conception of natural law.3 An attempt to reestablish an awareness of the difficulty and variety of natural law discussion is well worth while. My own conviction, arising from my exploration of medieval natural law theory, including the texts of Thomas with their very thoughtful distinctions between levels of natural law precepts (and the possibilities or impossibilities of dispensation, whether by God alone or by human judges), is simply that natural law is not enough. One recalls the first article of the first question of the Summa Theologiae. We need a divine revelation, not only as regards knowledge of those truths that transcend human reason, but even as regards knowledge of those truths necessary for salvation which are within the range of our reason. The truths about God at which reason can arrive are known only by a few, after a long time, and with a mixture of error.4 And this need, Thomas eventually makes dear, also concerns truths about how humans should live their lives. Natural law needs the support of divine authority, at least in the present weakened condition of the human being in this world.5 3 Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 8084 . 4 STh I, q. 1, a. 1. 5 Cf. STh X-ll, q. 91, a. 4 (1212a45-b2), the second reason Thomas gives for the need of a divine law: "because owing to the uncertainty of human judgment, especially concerning contingent and particular things, it happens that there are diverse judgments of diverse people concerning human acts, from which (judgments) diverse and contrary laws result. Therefore, in order that man be able without any doubt to know what is to be done and what is to be avoided, it was necessary that in his own acts he be directed by divinely given law, concerning which it is dear that it cannot err.~ On the effects of sin, original and actual, as including the dulling of reason especially regarding matters of action, cf. I-II, q. 85, aa. 1 and 3; also I-II, q. 99, a. 2, ad 2. (In references to the...