Natural Law and Practical Reason - A Thomist View of Moral Autonomy
(Moral Philosophy and Theology
Series) by Martin
Rhonheimer, Gerald Malsbary (Translator)
Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of
Moral Autonomy seeks to overcome
misunderstandings in the traditional neo-thomistic view of natural law as
well as unjustified claims of some recent currents in Roman Catholic moral
theology in trying to found new, yet problematic understandings of moral
autonomy. Working exclusively from a philosophical standpoint, the volume
also challenges the same moral theologians on their adoption of
consequentialism and proportionalism.
The author systematically explores Aquinas's doctrine on
natural law, seeking to put into evidence both its coherency and its
connection with other features of Aquinas's teaching on human action.
Rejecting a certain neo-Thomistic, rather naturalistic understanding of
natural law, the book puts into evidence how natural law should not be
called a law of nature as such, but a law of practical reason that is
completely natural to humankind because reason is an essential part of
human nature. Moreover, the work argues, that the position, which roots in
a revisionist reading of Aquinas, leads to a deeply flawed conception of
moral autonomy.
Being so tightly bound up with practical reason, any
conception of natural law necessarily includes an understanding of moral
autonomy. Autonomy roots in reason. Only a reasonable being - i.e. a being
acting on reasons, on the ground of personal insight into the good - can
be called "autonomous". Curiously enough, currents of Catholic
moral theology have opted for autonomy understood as one's capacity of
determining good in a "creative" way. According to this
conception, natural law is reduced to a person's capacity of rationally
"creating" conceptions about the good and the corresponding
moral norms. Rhonheimer challenges this view, showing its inner
contradictions and shortcomings and its lack of textual faithfulness. He
develops an alternative view of moral autonomy that does justice to both
human persons' cognitive autonomy in grasping and establishing the
fundamental standards of the human good and the dependence of these
standards on preconditions that are not at a person's disposal.
About the Author
Martin Rhonheimer, born in 1950 (Zürich, Switzerland), studied History, Philosophy, Political Science and Theology
in Zürich and Rome. He holds a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of
Zürich. In 1983 he was ordained a Catholic priest (incardinated in the Prelature of the Holy
Cross and Opus Dei). Between 1972 and 1978 he was an assistant to Professor Hermann Lübbe, at
Zürich University; from 1981 to 1982 he was a Research Assistant with Professor Otfried Höffe at the University of Fribourg. He then
worked together with Professor Wolfgang Kluxen from the University of Bonn with a scholarship from the Thyssen
Foundation, Cologne. He is currently Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the School of Philosophy of the
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. In addition to his scholarly activity, he is also dedicated to pastoral work in
Zürich, especially for university students. Martin Rhonheimer is a member of the Editorial
Boards of The American Journal of Jurisprudence (Notre Dame Law School) and of the
Fordham Series in Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology (Fordham University).
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