By James Dudley, June 21, 2011 in Uncategorized
However unfashionable and politically incorrect it may be to confess to the obvious, there are certain foundational moral truths that a normal human being is unable not to know. Rooted in the constituion of the human person, they are a universal possession, an emblem of rational mind, an heirloom of the family of man. These basic moral principles, together with their proximate and remote implications, are the natural law. Fpr twenty centuries, the concept of natural law formed the spine of the Western tradtion of ethics and jurisprudence, the foundation of its politics, and the basis for its respect for human liberty and dignity. Over the years, however, the concept has suffered many vissitudes, including distortion by the rationalizers of injustice, thinning anf flattening by thinkers of the Enlightenment, and, more recently, complete rejection. In our own time, the natural law tradition is experiencing a renaissance. The purpose of this seminar is to reintroduce the classical theory of natural law, focusing on its seminal work, the challenging but highly rewarding Treatise on Law of Saint Thomas Aquinas.