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Common Truths: New Perspectives on Natural Law
Intercollegiate Studies Institute Books, Jan 2000, Pages: 353
Common Truths comprises lectures delivered a part of the distinguished Goodrich Lecture Series at Wabash College and reflect the growing interest in natural law.
Each chapter is predicated on the desirability of replacing the dominant school of positive law and its majoritarian legitimating principle with a commitment to natural law doctrines, which alone are capable of providing the informing principles necessary for a vital, free, and virtuous society. The contributors make cogent arguments for the necessity of restoring natural law as the basis for our social and legal order but are realistic about such a prospect.
The essayists agree that if any hope remains of refurbishing our civil social order, it lies in reasserting the unassailably valid natural law standards of right conduct as a guide to all human action and choice. Natural law doctrines reject standards of conduct that come from human will only, that bear no imprimatur other than the desires of the individuals who promulgate the rules of behaviour.
Such positivist standards foster individual arrogance and, indeed, operate to dissolve society’s capacities for functioning and sustaining itself. But a society does not intentionally set itself on a course of destruction. To shore up the legitimacy of its system of law, a positivist society must therefore establish a “new religion.” Given its secular premises, however, such a religion, and hence any state based upon it, will have no legitimacy; adherence will be achieved by coercive power only.
There are three major parts to the present collection. Part one discusses certain historical dimensions in the history of natural law philosophy. Part two deals with thematic topics related to natural law. Part three focuses on the applications and importance of natural law to certain areas of legal practice. The collection is preceded by an introductory essay and closes with a prospective view of natural law’s role in the twenty-first century.
Some of today’s most distinguished public intellectuals and legal scholars have contributed to this unique and timely work—a fact, one hopes, that will make this collection a significant contribution to the dialogue that must occur regarding the current state of law in our society.
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