In an event sponsored by the Graduate Maritain Fellows, Prof. Michael Pakaluk (Political Economy, Catholic University of America) will lecture on "The Classical Conception of Natural Law." This event is open to the public.
Abstract: We may think that because the natural law is or is supposed to be evident to all that it must start from simple precepts the comprehension and justification of which are somehow isolable. Yet in a reconstruction of what may be called the “classical conception of natural law,” one finds that it presupposes many substantive and apparently controversial theses about human nature and society, such as natural teleology, the existence of pre-political natural institutions with their own authority such as the family, the ultimate source of human political authority in a “numen supremum” (God), providential design, and natural human sociability. What role can appeals to natural law play in contemporary society if this classical conception is correct?
Originally published at maritain.nd.edu.