scholarly journals En tredje vej for teologisk etik?

2015 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-123
Author(s):  
Svend Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Doctoral Degree ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Theological Foundation ◽  
Natural Law Theory

The article is a review of Ulrik B. Nissen’s higher doctoral degree thesis, which deals with Bonhoeffer’s ethics seen within the Lutheran tradition. By means of the exposition of Luther’s and Bonhoeffer’s ethical thoughts, Nissen aims at formulating a third position between universality and specificity, particularly in regard to the role of Christian/religious arguments in public discourse. As a conceptual instrument for grasping the theological foundation of the alleged third way, Nissen uses Chalcedonian Christology and communicatio idiomatum.The reviewer claims that even if there is, in Lutheran ethics, a combination of a specific Christian and a universal dimension – the latter consisting in natural law theory – it does not contribute to a deeper understanding to interprete this combination as a manifestation of the intertwinement of the two natures of Christ.

scholarly journals God, New Natural Law Theory, and Human Rights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Full Theory ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Epistemological Dimension

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.

2. Natural law and morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-73
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship between the ancient classical theory of natural law and its application to contemporary moral questions. It considers the role of natural law in political philosophy, the decline of the theory of natural law, and its revival in the twentieth century. The principal focus is on John Finnis’s natural law theory based largely on the works of St Thomas Aquinas. The chapter posits a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ natural law, examines the notion of moral realism, and examines the tension between law and morality; and the subject of the moral dilemmas facing judges in unjust societies.

Physician Assistance in Dying: An Option for Christians?

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-249
Author(s):  
Lloyd Steffen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Just War ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
Controversial Problem ◽  
Natural Law Theory

Abstract Opposition to physician-assisted suicide is widespread in Christian ethics. However, on a topic as controversial as physician-assisted suicide, no one can reasonably speak for “the Christian” perspective. Natural-law and, specifically, just-war thinking are claimed in the Christian tradition, yet the natural-law contribution to a Christian ethical analysis of physician-assisted suicide requires explanation and defense. Natural-law ethical theory affirms the central role of reason in moral thinking and provides a theoretical resource in contemporary ethics to assist in analyzing specific moral issues, problems, and conflicts. This essay seeks to demonstrate how just-war thinking, derived from natural-law tradition, allows movement from the theoretical world of natural-law theory to the practical world of normative ethics. Here the case is made that the just-war model of ethics helps elucidate the moral problematic involved in physician-assisted suicide while clarifying direction on this particularly thorny and controversial problem.

Republicanism and Ancient Constitutionalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Barducci
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Impact

Grotius has been regarded a major bridging figure between Dutch and English republican culture. In particular, after the settlement of the English Commonwealth, the ‘States’ became a veritable model of political, religious, and commercial liberty for the neighbouring Republic. However, in examining the role of Grotius as a source on the Dutch Republic, scholars have rather pointed to his natural law theory, which was the object of contrasting interpretations which fell also into monarchical and parliamentary field. Was Grotius a republican thinker? Were his works constitutive of the Dutch republican culture? If so, did English authors read and use them in ways that were consistent with Grotius’ republican beliefs? Chapter 3 aims to respond to these questions. Along with an analysis of the impact of Grotius’ use of history on English historiography, it will also compare his praise of the Batavian Republic with the English political language of ‘ancient constitutionalism’.

scholarly journals A Finnis-based Understanding of the Rule of Law and the Dialectical Method of Aquinas

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Luka Martin Tomažič
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Theological Foundation ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Interpretive Turn

The paper investigates the possibility of a conception of the Rule of Law, based on Finnis’ natural law theory. His claim that law exists in degrees, but has a focal meaning, is the starting point to the research. A contradiction regarding incommensurability of values in connection with the focal meaning of law is emphasized and an interpretive turn to his theory proposed. It is claimed that the substantive elements of the Rule of Law can be understood through his concept of common good. In order to assess the congruence of individual laws with the Rule of Law, supplementation with the dialectical method of Aquinas is proposed. Such an approach also enables the restatement of modern natural law on a theological foundation, which is, however, more nuanced than its older natural law counterparts.

What the Sovereign Can’t Do

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-198
Author(s):  
Michael Sevel
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Oxford University Press

One of the central claims of Larry May’s Limiting Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 2013) is that Hobbes’s theory of law is best understood as a kind of “procedural natural law” theory akin to the one developed by Lon Fuller in the mid-twentieth century. May’s interpretation of Hobbes suggests at least two different views of the role of equity as a constraint on legal validity; neither of them bears any important affinities with Fuller’s theory. May however makes a stronger case that Hobbes and Fuller share broadly similar views about how and why citizens have an obligation to obey the law; the affinities between the two are therefore found in their theories of political obligation rather than in their theories of law.

The Role of God in the New Natural Law Theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulvio Di Blasi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Law Theory

The Law in Plato’s Laws: A Reading of the ‘Classical Thesis’

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-126
Author(s):  
Luke William Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Ontology ◽  
The Way

Abstract Plato’s Laws include what H.L.A. Hart called the ‘classical thesis’ about the nature and role of law: the law exists to see that one leads a morally good life. This paper develops Hart’s brief remarks by providing a panorama of the classical thesis in Laws. This is done by considering two themes: (1) the extent to which Laws is paternalistic, and (2) the extent to which Laws is naturalistic. These themes are significant for a number of reasons, including because they show how Laws might be viewed as a sophisticated forerunner of natural law theory. The upshot is that Plato’s metaphysical commitments about legal ontology allow him to base the truth of legal propositions on the way they relate to the truth of corresponding moral propositions.

Thomas Jefferson, Nature's God, and the Theological Foundations of Natural-Rights Republicanism

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-688
Author(s):  
Kody W. Cooper ◽  
Justin Buckley Dyer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
Natural Law Theory

AbstractWhile the role of theology in Jefferson's political thought and its implications for how we should understand the role of “Nature's God” in grounding natural-rights republicanism are topics of ongoing scholarly interest, scholars have missed important continuities between Jefferson's natural-law theory and that of classical, theistic natural-law. Many scholars who have considered Jefferson in this light have emphasized Jefferson's discontinuity and even subversion of that tradition. In critical dialogue with this vein of scholarship, we argue that Jefferson espouses a creational metaphysics and a natural-law theory of morality that has surprising continuities with classical natural-law. We seek to shed new light on Jefferson's theory of the moral sense and his the earth belongs to the living principle, which we contend encapsulates his theistic understanding of equality and property.

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