Law, natural law, and human intelligence: Living the correlation

Catholic University Law Review

Volumn 55, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 731-758

  Brennan, Patrick McKinley ^a  

^a VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 49549105805     PISSN: 00088390     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (65)

1. A. P. D'ENTRÈVES, NATURAL LAW 154 (2d rev. ed. 1970)
2. ROBERT BOLT, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS 74 (Heinemann Educ. Books Ltd. 1960).
3. Steven Smith, Interrogating Thomas More: The Conundrums of Conscience, 1 U. ST. THOMAS L.J. 580, 581 (2003).
4. Id. at 608.
5. STEVEN D. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY 13-14 (2004) [hereinafter SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY];
6. see also Steven D. Smith, Nonsense and Natural Law, in AGAINST THE LAW 100, 100-03 (Paul F. Campos et al. eds., 1996).
7. 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 1 (1842), overruled by Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).
8. Richard A. Posner, The Decline of Law as an Autonomous Discipline: 1962-1987, 100 HARV. L. REV. 761, 763 (1987).
9. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 164.
10. Id.
11. Id. at 179.
12. Id. at 21.
13. Id. at 179 (footnote omitted).
14. See 20 THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 468 (2d ed. 1998).
15. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 171 (quoting JOSEPH VINING, FROM NEWTON'S SLEEP 5 (1995)).
16. Id. at 170.
17. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, IN DECEM LIBROS ETHICORUM ARISTOTELIS AD NICHOMACHUM EXPOSITIO para. 29, at 8 (Raymundi M. Spiazzi ed., 3d ed. Marietti 1964).
18. Francis George, Law and Culture in the United States, 48 AM. J. JURIS. 131, 146 (2003).
19. RUSSELL HITTINGER, THE FIRST GRACE 28 (2003).
20. FLANNERY O'CONNOR, INTRODUCTION TO A MEMOIR OF MARY ANN (1961),
21. reprinted in FLANNERY O'CONNOR: COLLECTED WORKS 830 (Sally Fitzgerald ed., 1988).
22. Antonin Scalia, Assoc. Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, The Common Christian Good, Speech at the Gregorianum University Symposium on Left, Right, and the Common Good (May 2, 1996) (transcript available at http://www.learnedhand.com/ scalia.htm).
23. POPE JOHN PAUL II, THE SPLENDOR OF TRUTH: VERITATIS SPLENDOR para. 41, at 57 (Vatican trans., St. Paul Books & Media 1993) (emphasis omitted).
24. 2 Corinthians 12:9.
25. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 173 (quoting VINING, supra note 14, at 128).
26. 527 U.S. 706 (1999).
27. Id. at 715, 727.
28. Id. at 795-98 (Souter, J., dissenting) (attributing natural lawyering to the majority).
29. On Aquinas's view, determinationes are contained in the eternal law, but not in the natural law. See ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, at Pt. I-II, Q. 91, Art. 3 (3d. ed. San Paolo 1999). On the relationship between the eternal law and natural law, see infra Part II.B.
30. See SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 185 n.12.
31. Id. at 204-05.
32. Id. at 46.
33. Id. (emphasis omitted) (footnote omitted).
34. Id. (footnote omitted) (quoting ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE I-II, at Q. 93, art. 3, Q. 95, art. 2,
35. reprinted in THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 34, 58 (Dino Binongiari ed., 1953)).
36. Id. at 185 n.12.
37. Id. at 46 (alteration in original) (quoting AQUINAS, supra note 32, Q. 95, art. 2, reprinted in THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 58 (Dino Binongiari ed., 1953)).
38. Id. at 47.
39. S. Pac. Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, 222 (1917) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
40. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 47.
41. MARY ANN GLENDON, A NATION UNDER LAWYERS 10 (1994).
42. AQUINAS, supra note 27, at Pt. I-II, Q. 93, Art. 3.
43. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 46.
44. AQUINAS, supra note 27, at Pt. I-II, Q. 91, Art. 2.
45. For an elaboration and analysis of the doctrine of " participation" in Thomas's metaphysics of law, see Craig A. Boyd, Participation Metaphysics in Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law, 79 AM. CATHOLIC PHIL. Q. 431 (2005).
46. For a contemporary attempt to retain the classical position but without God and the eternal law, see ANTHONY J. LISSKA, AQUINAS'S THEORY OF NATURAL LAW 116-38 (1996).
47. See HITTINGER, supra note 18, at xxvi, 7. Occasionally, Aquinas does write lex naturae where one would expect lex naturalis, but his meaning remains clear and unchanged. See, e.g., AQUINAS, supra note 27, at Pt. I-II, Q. 95, art. 2, at 961.
48. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 185 n.12.
49. AQUINAS, supra note 27, at Pt. I-II, Q. 90, Arts. 1-4. For contrasting views on how much of Aristotle's cosmology of nature Thomas retained, compare WALTER ULLMANN, A HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT: THE MIDDLE AGES (rev. ed. 1970),
50. with HARRY U. JAFFA, THOMISM AND ARISTOTELIANISM (1952).
51. For an analysis of examples, see HITTINGER, supra note 18, at 46-50.
52. On the natural law as law, see id. at 39-62, JEAN PORTER, NATURAL AND DIVINE LAW 156-64 (1999),
53. and Stephen L. Brock, The Legal Character of Natural Law According to St. Thomas Aquinas (1988) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto) (on file with author).
54. JACQUES MARITAIN, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BASIC PROBLEMS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 54 (Cornelia N. Borgerhoff trans., Magi Books 1990).
55. For a compendious treatment of Maritain's application and development of the Thomist position on natural law and the good, see Patrick McKinley Brennan, Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), in 1 THE TEACHINGS OF MODERN CHRISTIANITY ON LAW, POLITICS, AND HUMAN NATURE 75-114 (John Witte Jr. & Frank S. Alexander eds., 2006).
56. PAMELA HALL, NARRATIVE AND THE NATURAL LAW 37 (1994).
57. Id. at 29.
58. Id. at 37 (footnote omitted).
59. Id. at 38 (footnote omitted).
60. Another source of learning about the content of the natural law is the divine law, both old and new, which God promulgates because of the infirmity of our fallen capacities. See id. at 45-91.
61. HITTINGER, supra note 18, at 98.
62. HALL, supra note 50, at 37.
63. JACQUES MARITAIN, MAN AND THE STATE 31 n.12 (1951).
64. SMITH, LAW'S QUANDARY, supra note 5, at 97.
65. Id.