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After the Natural Law, book review
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John Lawrence Hill is a law and philosophy professor in his birthplace of Indianapolis,
where he also has faculty positions at IU. After the Natural Law is John Hill's explanation of
natural law ideologies and his argument that returning to them is necessary to sustain basic
Western moral and political ideals. In his literature, he stressed the ancient philosophers' views
on human worth, individual liberty, and man’s responsibilities. Hill provides a historical account
of the rise and collapse of ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas by placing his
thoughts inside their framework. Hill starts with Plato and Socrates and concludes with Aristotle.
Hill defends the Classical Worldview by saying that God is accountable for everything
and that the universe is "a ordered, deliberate, and ultimately understood realm" (14). (Dousa,
2016). Hill claims that the divine, the cosmos, and nature provide the foundation for virtue
ethics, natural law, and a solid hylomorphic view of the person.
While Hill agrees that the objective concepts of natural law, ethics, and morality are
established within the Classical Worldview, he argues that this approach does not provide room
for man's free will. Hill demonstrates that the decline of classical thought and the advent of
modernity occurred simultaneously. He explains why contemporary philosophers abandoned
theistic explanations for the universe in favor of materialism, the belief that human behavior is
determined not by free choice but by external, objective factors. The lack of objective standards
for judging good and evil is his main flaw in philosophical materialism, which is his main attack
against it. After discussing the similarities and contrasts between the Classical Worldview and
