Title: Human Law and Natural Law in the Catholic Tradition: Authoritative Guides to the Good Life
Abstract:The Catholic tradition offers a distinctive account of the nature of human law and political authority. This chapter – written for a volume (to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011) that is...The Catholic tradition offers a distinctive account of the nature of human law and political authority. This chapter – written for a volume (to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011) that is intended to state the Catholic position(s) on a range of disciplines, from physics and astronomy to medicine and law – both develops the Catholic account of law and demonstrates its “pay off” at the level of contemporary U.S. constitutional law. The core of the argument is that the definition of human law is not a matter of custom or invention: the very definition of law is provided by what is first in the order of being, viz., the eternal law, in which humans in turn participate through the natural law. The natural law is a real law, not just metaphorically law, and it sets binding terms and conditions of human lawmaking. These include that (1) law is always what the lawgiver intended and promulgated and (2) true laws are always just and thus conducive to the good life human beings. The chapter develops these and other claims through an examination of how Buck v. Bell would be decided if Catholic principles of law were to guide the Court. The chapter shows that the Catholic position entails neither judicial “activism” nor passivism, but a much more nuanced role that is a function of the people’s and their rulers’ indefeasible obligation to make the natural law effective in their living.Read More
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
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