Natural Law as Hermeneutical
Fri, Feb 21
|Robert Rowling Hall, 3.406
Explore a fresh perspective on natural law through the lens of thinkers like John Finnis and Martin Rhonheimer. Instead of metaphysics or anthropology, discover how cultural context and personal insight shape our understanding of first principles.
Time & Location
Feb 21, 2025, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Robert Rowling Hall, 3.406, 300 W Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin, TX 78701, USA
About The Event
The natural law is generally presented as highly certain and universal in its first principles, as essentially known by all rational persons, even though the specifications of those principles to concrete actions is far less certain. This view is especially prevalent in classical accounts of natural law rooted in metaphysics or philosophical anthropology. If, however, we begin with a first-personal account of the natural law, as advocated by thinkers such as John Finnis and Martin Rhonheimer, and (arguably, although highly disputed, Thomas Aquinas as well), then the first principles of natural law are grasped by an insight which is neither an intuition or a conclusion, and also not derived from metaphysics or anthropology. If we thoroughly understand what an insight is, we recognize how highly conditioned our grasp of the natural law will be, including cultural conditions. None of this should surprise a Thomist or Aristotelian, however, committed to hylomorphism,…
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