Natural Law Today

Natural Law Today gives a strong voice to classical natural law theory as the best answers to the fundamental questions of ethics and as the best framework for political and social life. It explains various aspects of that theory and defends it against common misperceptions and criticisms.

Natural Law Today: The Present State of the Perennial Philosophy explains and defends various aspects of traditional natural law ethical theory, which is rooted in a broad understanding of human nature. Some of the issues touched upon include the relation of natural law to speculative reason and human ends (teleology), the relationship between natural law and natural theology, the so-called naturalistic fallacy (deriving “ought” from “is”), and the scope of natural knowledge of the precepts of the natural law, as well as possible limits on it. It also takes up certain historical and contemporary questions, such as the various stances of Protestant thinkers toward natural law, the place of natural law in contemporary U.S. legal thought, and the relationship between natural law and liberal political thought more generally. It brings together a number of the leading exponents of a more traditional or classical form of natural law thought, who claim to root their arguments within the broader philosophy of Thomas Aquinas more deeply than other major representatives of the natural law tradition today.

Chapter One: God, Teleology, and the Natural Law

Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University

Chapter Two: Natural Inclinations in Aquinas’s Account of Natural Law

Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic University of America

Chapter Three: Natural Law and Natural Right(s): Conceptual and Terminological Clarifications

Fulvio Di Blasi, Thomas International Center

Chapter Four: “The Same as to Knowledge”

J. Budziszewki, University of Texas at Austin

Chapter Five: Aquinas’s Second Reason for the Necessity of Divine Law: Certainty of Knowledge with Respect to Particular and Contingent Moral Actions

Steven J. Brust

Chapter Six: Burying the Wrong Corpse: Second Thoughts on the Protestant Prejudice toward Natural Law Thinking

J. Daryl Charles, the Acton Institute

Chapter Seven: Natural Law and the Law Today

Hadley Arkes, Amherst College

Chapter Eight: Thomas Aquinas’s Concept of Natural Law: A Guide to Healthy Liberalism

Christopher Wolfe, Marquette University