Abstract

Natural law doctrine argues that there is objective truth about matters of morality. This truth is available to all human beings through both self-evident principles and as the product of rational cogitation. Accordingly, there are objective criteria for making moral decisions as well as evaluating moral decisions made by others. Decisions are moral to the extent that they conform to the objective criteria of the natural law, decisions are immoral to the extent that they deviate from or are at variance with natural law principles. While natural law is primarily associated with Catholicism, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, its roots are clearly discernible in the philosophy of Plato, the Stoics, and especially, Aristotle. The notion of objective moral truth as held by natural law theorists was seriously challenged during the Enlightenment period. Some Enlightenment-era thinkers disputed the existence of objective truth; others argued that even if truth were somehow objectively real, its discovery was virtually impossible. The modern era largely embodies these and related Enlightenment-era postulates about morality. Alasdair MacIntyre, a critic of modernity, decries what he views as the moral chaos engendered by the Enlightenment project. MacIntyre seeks to demonstrate that the Enlightenment project is not only a failure, but that its formulation guaranteed failure. As an alternative to the moral relativism, even skepticism that he views as a direct consequence of what has become known as Enlightenment thinking, MacIntyre argues that objective standards of morality do indeed exist, but their existence is time- and culture-specific. I argue that his argument is essentially a modified form of relativism and hence ill-suited as a corrective to relativism itself As an alternative, I propose a juxtaposition of natural law and ethical naturalism. It is my contention that a genuine understanding of morality is not possible without an understanding of ethical naturalism, and that such an understanding will ultimately lay waste to the plethora of theories about morality that have eschewed the concept of a transcendent human nature