Friday, November 14, 2014

Are Appeals to Natural Law and Right Reason Still Effective?


Samuel Gregg in Crisis Magazine :

...The American Founding was suffused with the language of virtue. Alongside this went a conviction on the part of many Founders that there was a natural law that all humans could know. Hence someone such as Alexander Hamilton didn’t hesitate to affirm in his Farmer Refuted that “upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind.” To which Hamilton immediately added: “the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things.

It’s not an easy reading, but it is worth the effort—and your time will be well spent!

No comments:

Post a Comment