After the Natural Law: How the Classical Worldview Supports Our Modern Moral and Political
Views
Book Review 2
Nicholas Merritt
PLCY701: Natural Law, The State & The Gospel
Dr. Jesse Chupp
August 8, 2021
Introduction
John Lawrence Hill has been a professor at the IU Robert H. Mckinney School of Law
since 2003 and has published five novels so far in his career, After the Natural Law: How the
Classical Worldview Supports Our Modern Moral and Political Values being his most recent
book. In the book, Hill discusses the evolution of western philosophy starting from the classical
area and leading into modern times . The author fights for his viewpoint that all of humanity’s
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most basic principles such as freedom and equality become meaningless if not rooted in natural
law. Using natural law philosophies from greats like Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, Hill provides
the readers with a timeline of classical worldviews on political and moral values, starting from
ancient Greek philosophy to the more modernized approach of Thomas Aquinas .
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Hill separates the book into two sections, the first starting with the history on ancient
philosophies and their importance, as well as traditions stemmed in natural law. This becomes
important since it is imperative to understand the historical precedents in order to understand the
transition into more modern ideologies. The second half of the book showcases the stark
declination of traditional natural law, into a more modernistic approach which breaks from past
traditions and offers a concurrent search for new forms of expression . Hill cites modernists such
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as John Locke and Thomas Hobbs, who had a significant impact in the modern political science
realm. The worldviews of these philosophers emphasized theology and fought against the ideals
of materialism.
Classical Worldview
1 R. Bruce Townsend, “Prof. John Lawrence Hill,” accessed August 3, 2021, https://fedsoc.org/contributors/john-
lawrence-hill.
