After The Natural Law Book Review.pdf

After The Natural Law Book Review

Merissa Cochran

4/29/2023

Liberty University

Introduction

In the book, “After the Natural Law”, Hill aligns the development of philosophy from the

classical philosophical approaches to modern beliefs. Hill uses multiple philosophers throughout

all times to develop the path from classical to modern philosophy. The book displays the works,

theories, and beliefs of philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Augustine, Luther,

Hooker, and Calvin and how we have built up the way that we view natural law today. These

existence of natural law and rights the universe will become meaningless (Hill, J. L. (2016)). The

author explains in the book how we as a society are now in the aftermath of natural law and that

we are essentially centered by specific cultures we have deemed important to us and natural law

becomes forgotten, dismissed, or denied. The importance of positive law and government can be

seen to easily undermine the principles of natural law making natural law a threat to positive law.

The threat exists as positive laws are formed by the government to determine people's rights and

oversee people’s natural rights. He valued the main political and moral values of freedom, moral

truth, responsibility, and human dignity as he explains in detail within the book to help readers

understand the classical ways of the universe. He continues to explain how natural law shapes

other concepts of democracy, statesmanship, and positive law. Throughout the book, we will see

Natural Law

Natural Law is a concept that creates a focal point of postulation regarding morality and

politics in Western traditions. There are a variety of definitions concerning what natural law

theory ought to be. Despite the multiple definitions, philosophers have agreed that it is an

interflow of both moral and legal philosophy. This agreement between different philosophers

shows that both theories hold importance over our ethics in human behaviors. Through natural

perfect natural law would be knowing what is right and avoiding what is wrong. He believed that

everybody had synderesis and that natural inclinations that are good were what made mankind

happy (Aquinas, T. (1981)). Contrarily, Locke regarded natural law as something built outside of

God and stated it was an imposed theory. Locke was unable to see that humans had a conscience

naturally built-in into their minds (Locke’s Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy). (2020, October 6)). Hobbes, another philosopher, regarded human nature instead of

natural law and stated that since humans are selfish in nature that human nature can be disastrous

September 12)). Luther and Hooker wanted to preserve Christian society and covenantal

statesmanship. These philosophers instilled the belief that humans created positive laws based on

the good morality of natural laws. Natural law is coextensive with legal law. Morality helps men

nation. Natural law and positive law do threaten each other as natural law is said to be inherited

in every individual through what is written on our hearts however; positive law is what

governments determine what is the legal rights of man. Positive law is formed to ensure the

management of a human’s natural rights. The colossal discrepancy between natural law in

modern times compared to that of classical times is that classical natural law depended on nature

of reality, element of a person and the final end whereas, the modern views of natural law theory

have been skeptical of metaphysics and denied these philosophical approaches. Instead the

modern views outlined basic goods that we instinctively know and act upon. Denial of

metaphysics is what led to the decline and abandonment of natural law.

Review

to ensure the health of our evolving and dynamic society. He follows the belief that natural law

becomes a workable system due to the religious and Christian beliefs of natural law. Through the

review, we will see how the author followed the development of Western philosophy from

classical to modern times. Hill presupposed that without political and moral values of freedom,

dignity, truth, or responsibility we will not have an interpretation of how the classical world

infers that man is born knowing right from wrong and in following this nature they could achieve

beatitude. With Aristotle's belief in natural law, it is suggested that if leaders follow their inherent

nature they would not need to enforce rules or punishment. Hill shares his views of natural

justice and natural law working together to form political justice in society. He extends this view

by explaining developments from natural law in Stoics and Aquinas's times. The author sees the

truth in the beliefs of Aristotle however; feels that he had failed to mention the Almighty creator

of the natural laws. Hill finds this detail within Aquinas's philosophical theory regarding natural

laws where Aquinas establishes that God is the meaning being all throughout the existence of

time and space (Hill, J. L. (2016)). Aquinas worked to link philosophy and religion in the book

Summa Theologiae. In this book, Aquinas opines that although we might not need both religion

approaches. The legal laws written out within the Summa Theologia were proclaimed by humans

to collaborate and create stability, workability, and general principles (Aquinas, T. (1981)). Hill

writes that Aquinas suggests positive law is man-made rules set by free people to govern them.

The author suggests that with this Aquinas split the whole into half to explain not only the

positive law but also the natural law and how each law can work together in society to govern the

God which could be law, order, flow, and logic. Augustine also split law into two forms both of

which are governed by man- these two laws include the natural law which is inherited in man by

God and the other external law made by man to ensure enforcement of natural law. As we can

see the classical philosophers of this time believed that we can’t know the existence of something

without understanding its purpose (Chroust, A.H. (1944)).

After classical natural law theorists, we have moral voluntarism theorists such as

Ockham, Calvin, and Locke. These theorists defined moral voluntarism as moral standards that

could not be fixed meaning that God could change his mind at any time. It was assumed that we

know right from wrong because we know God’s will. Contrary to moral voluntarism is moral

rationalism. In Plato’s philosophy in Euthyphro, we can see that Plato’s beliefs are more aligned

with the moral rationalist. Moral rationalism is knowing what is just and unjust due to the nature

of the acts and not because God will (Hill, J. L. (2016)).

In Part 2, Hill analyzes the negative impacts that the denial of natural law has had on

today’s society along with the failures of understanding the world from a classical viewpoint.

The author uses the philosophical views of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Luther, and Calvin

to explain the path of natural law from classical to modern times. The views also show how we

eventually disassemble beliefs of the natural law. Luther’s viewpoints state that social behavior

should be evaluated for human nature to understand natural law. He states that even without the

the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their

conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else

excusing (them)” (Romans 2:14-15, NKJV (n.d)). Relating Calvin and the passage from the New

King James Version we can refer to this as the knowledge of natural law possessed by the

Gentiles even with the absence of divine law. Ockham, known as the father of modern

nominalism, had one of the biggest consequences of theological and metaphysical theories.

Ockham denied that there was human nature and in return made it different to understand man’s

common end. Due to their being no human nature, there is no human end. Ockham believed that

what made an act good was the way that it conformed to the will of God (Hill, J. L. (2016)). The

major dilemma with this is that we focus more on the will of God and less on the morality of our

the relationship between metaphysics and epistemology opposite of the way it was understood in

classical philosophy. Under Descartes's approach, we must understand how we know something

before we can understand what we know of that something. It was Descartes who brought back

the old determinism of the world but he also accepted that the old determinism clashed with free

will. His solution to this clash was dualism- to divide the world into the material world (res

beings remain in existence. It is natural for humans and animals alike to care for their offspring

however; how we can care for an offspring often depends on external environmental factors,

law principles may still take precedence over the conflict of rights. For instance, a woman who

continues a pregnancy to bring life regardless of her own outcome would be seen as heroic as she

has placed a life before her own (Kainz, H. (2022, October 26).

Free market economics also known as supply and demand was originally implied by John

Locke. Locke elaborated on individual liberty and stated that because it was not a democracy that

second treatise of government also aligns with this message by stating “Man being born…

enjoyment of all rights and privileges of the law of nature… hath by nature a power, not only to

preserve his property…”. According to Locke, private property and free economics was based on

natural law. Regarding supply and demand, Locke did not coin this term and very vaguely

implied the theory. According to the theory that is present Locke states, “The price of any

their abilities and interest in life. It continues to Rousseau, who was insistent on having a natural

and free development of children instead of a formal education. The beliefs of Rousseau, were

much like a progressivism movement and leads us to the input that Dewey had on Education.

Dewey had a huge impact on education in which he raised concerns about gender, growth,

problems, student’s interest, appropriate activities, and it being child centered. In today’s society

we see that all educational activities, curriculum, policy and classroom practice stem from the

assumptions from multiple philosophers throughout time (Philosophy of education | History,

Problems, Issues, & Tasks. (1999, July 26).