Source: Ehtika Politika | In his recent First Things article, “Is, Ought, and Nature’s Laws,” David Bentley Hart puts forth a formidable and subtle critique of the use, “by certain self-described Thomists,” of the natural law tradition in public discourse. While Hart does not deny “a harmony between cosmic and moral order,” he takes issue when “the natural law theorist insists that the moral meaning of nature should be perfectly evident to any properly reasoning mind, regardless of religious belief or cultural formation.” He thus contends that (1) such natural lawyers, despite best intentions, ultimately fall prey to David Hume’s critique that one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”; that (2) natural law reasoning depends upon a person’s prior acceptance of certain metaphysical commitments (e.g. a teleological world and a harmony between the cosmic and moral orders); that (3) universal … [Read more...]
