Question

o Natural Law Theory • What are the fundamental claims of the theory? • What values underlie the theory? • Who are the primary theorists associated w/the theory? • What principles are associated w/the theory?

Answer 1

FUNDAMENTAL CLAIMS

The fundamental thesis affirmed here is that the natural law is a participation in the eternal law. The eternal law is that rational plan by which all creation is ordered; the natural law is the way that the human being “participates” in the eternal law. While nonrational beings have a share in the eternal law only by being determined by it — their action nonfreely results from their determinate natures, natures the existence of which results from God's will in accordance with God's eternal plan — rational beings like us are able to grasp our share in the eternal law and freely act on it. It is this feature of the natural law that justifies our calling the natural law ‘law.’

VALUES UNDERLYING THE THEORY

The first is that, when we focus on God's role as the giver of the natural law, the natural law is just one aspect of divine providence; and so the theory of natural law is from that perspective just one part among others of the theory of divine providence. The second is that, when we focus on the human's role as recipient of the natural law, the natural law constitutes the principles of practical rationality, those principles by which human action is to be judged as reasonable or unreasonable; and so the theory of natural law is from that perspective the preeminent part of the theory of practical rationality.

PRIMARY THEORISTS

St. Thomas Aquinas, John Finnis, John Austin are some.

PRINCIPLES

The natural law constitutes the basic principles of practical rationality implies, for Aquinas, both that the precepts of the natural law are universally binding by nature and that the precepts of the natural law are universally knowable by nature.
The precepts of the natural law are binding by nature: no beings could share our human nature yet fail to be bound by the precepts of the natural law. This is so because these precepts direct us toward the good as such and various particular goods .