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TWO - The Natural Law – Again, Ever

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Hadley Arkes
Affiliation:
Amherst College, Massachusetts
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Summary

A dear friend, who has done premier work in the neural sciences and several books on philosophical psychology, remarked that he wanted, as the epitaph on his gravestone, “He died without a theory.” A former colleague of mine remarked that I had a “theory” of natural law. But I can join my friend in saying that I, too, have no “theory.” To say that someone has a “theory” of natural law is to suggest that an observer, looking on, can see played out before him people seized with “theories” – that he may stand there, in a wholesome detachment, seeing theories of various sorts whizzing past. From that vantage point we are encouraged to make judgments about the theories, or fragments of theories, that are plausible or implausible, right or wrong, true or false. I said then: Just tell me the ground on which you are making those judgments about the theories that are plausible or implausible, true or false, and you would have been led back to the ground of what I understand as the natural law. For you would have been led back to the ground on which we have confidence in the things we can truly know about the properties of propositions, about the statements that are true and false, and finally, then, about the things that are morally right or wrong. You would be led back to what Blackstone called “the laws of reason and nature.”

Type
Chapter
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Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths
The Touchstone of the Natural Law
, pp. 43 - 78
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • The Natural Law – Again, Ever
  • Hadley Arkes, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511777981.003
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  • The Natural Law – Again, Ever
  • Hadley Arkes, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511777981.003
Available formats
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  • The Natural Law – Again, Ever
  • Hadley Arkes, Amherst College, Massachusetts
  • Book: Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511777981.003
Available formats
×