Until quite recent times, most people accepted the idea that some of the main rules of human life were the object of a kind of universal assent. Of course, within variable limits, human beings could deliberate and freely decide the best way to organize life in common as we are encouraged to do in a democratic regime. But such laws as were determined by the legislator presupposed the prior acceptance of principles held to be obvious, so obvious that there was no need to specify them. For example, it was clear to all that the institution of marriage brought together persons of different sexes. This customary obviousness might be supported by a reference to the law of God, but in any case, it was explicitly tied to “nature,” or the natural order of things. A full range of philosophers, jurists, and theologians spoke more specifically of the natural law.
Today, however, this notion has become unintelligible; it is most often mentioned only to be dismissed in the same breath. How could a notion, held for so long to be indispensable for the understanding and organization of the human world, largely disappear from our moral landscape? Here I would like to propose not a doctrinal presentation of the content of the natural law, but rather an effort to remove the obstacles that prevent well-educated minds from taking this notion seriously.
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