NATURAL LAW

Natural law is perhaps the most ancient and historically persistent concept in Western ethics. Philosophers like Aristotle regarded nature as a ground of justice. Theologians like Thomas Aquinas distinguished between natural and supernatural sources of morality and law. By it Thomas Jefferson sanctioned a revolution. With it political reformers like Martin Luther King, Jr., justified civil disobedience. Upon it political philosophers like John Locke have built theories of the origin and limits of the civil state; and international lawyers, such as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, the order of justice between states. Despite disagreements about the theory of natural law, international bodies appeal to unwritten sources of rights to healthcare.

U.S. constitutional law has used natural law to clarify and sometimes amend the written law. Natural law undergirds the Thirteenth (1865) and Fourteenth Amendments (1868), which outlawed slavery and secured rights of U.S. citizens against state jurisdictions. Natural law also serves as a method of judicial interpretation, from which the judge looks beyond the written text of the Constitution in order to identify and vindicate rights of citizens. Today, constitutional debates have become the most public and controversial forum of natural-law discussion (Dworkin, 1985; Ely). Inasmuch as natural law is widely regarded as the moral basis for rights of privacy or personal autonomy, it is implicated in some of the most difficult biomedical issues, including abortion, reproductive technologies, and euthanasia.

The question of natural law emerges when we consider human laws and customs (Sokolowski). None is perfect, and some appear to be wicked. We then ask: What is the norm of reason in matters of morality and justice? Are moral norms merely the artifacts of human reason, devised to serve the circumstances of a particular culture? Or is there a ground that transcends cultures and histories? On what basis can laws be morally criticized and rectified?

Since these questions are fundamental to all ethical inquiry, what makes natural law different from other normative theories? There is no tidy answer. An array of moral theorists, using different theories, agree (1) that there are objective, though unwritten, moral grounds for right reason in the legislation and adjudication of human law; and(2) that moral reason must be guided by, and respect, certain values inherent in human nature (e.g., rationality and the capacity for free choice). If natural law means that moral and legal norms are grounded in reason, and that right exercise of human reason requires respect for goods inherent in human nature, then it would be exceedingly difficult not to hold a natural-law theory of one sort or another.

The healthcare professional exploring natural-law issues will face a debate often abstract and bewildering. First, what starts as a debate over particular issues in law, politics, or healthcare often becomes a debate over the concept of natural law itself. Second, what distinguishes one natural-law theory from another is not always clear; there seem to be as many different theories of natural law as there are theorists. In any case, one must remember that the rubric "natural law" often hides important disagreements among its proponents, as well as significant agreements among those who dispute its particular formulations and applications. Third, until recently natural-law thinking for the most part has not directly addressed biomedical issues. A well-developed body of natural-law literature, as found in legal, moral, and political theory, does not yet exist for biomedical issues. Thus, it will be helpful to summarize some of the main historical and philosophical themes of natural law.

Ancient Themes

Ancient Greek philosophers asked whether law and morality are due principally to nature or to convention. Aristotle, who is sometimes credited as the father of natural law, contended that "[w]hat is just in the political sense can be subdivided into what is just by nature and what is just by convention. What is by nature just has the same force everywhere and does not depend on what we regard or do not regard as just" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1134b18). While Aristotle certainly held that there are standards for judging whether a law is "in accord with nature" (Rhetoric, 1373b6), whether he had a doctrine of "natural law" is much debated (Miller). The proposition that moral judgment is rooted in the soil of nature, and not merely in human artifice, does not necessarily mean that nature is a "law."

The form of natural-law theory that came to influence Western culture arose from the confluence of Stoic, biblical, and Christian Scholastic ideas. Cicero, the ancient authority most often cited by Christians, wrote:

True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.… It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely.… [there is] one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. (De Re Publica, 3.22.33)

Similarly, Thomas Aquinas said that "the participation in the eternal law by rational creatures is called the law of nature" (Summa theologica, 1947, I-II, q. 91, a. 2). Nature as law requires the notion that natural standards are promulgated by God. The human intelligence finds itself not merely in a natural order but under a divine commonwealth, which is a rule of law in the exemplary sense.

Aquinas and Natural Law

Since the theory of natural law as developed by Thomas Aquinas is widely regarded as the epitome of the premodern position, let us summarize his view. In the Summa theologica, Aquinas maintains that for something to be called law, it must be: (1) reasonable, in the sense of directing action; (2) ordained to the common good; (3) legislated by the proper authority; and (4) duly promulgated (I-II, q. 90). The eternal law, whereby the world is ruled by divine providence, satisfies these criteria in an exemplary way (q. 91, a. 1). Natural law, however, is principally that part of divine reason accessible to the human intelligence. It is not to be confused with the order of the physical or biological world. Law is predicated only by a kind of similitude with the order found in nonrational entities (q. 91, a. 2 ad 3).

The first principle of the natural law is that "Good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided" (q. 94, a. 2). By nature, the human agent is inclined toward certain intelligible goods. Though Aquinas never claimed to provide an exhaustive list, these goods include life, procreation and care of offspring, entering into society, and knowing the truth about God. The first precepts of natural law take the form that something is to be done and pursued with respect to these goods, or resisted if contrary to them. Why call the precepts "natural"? Because the objectives of action are grounded in human nature antecedent to our deliberation and choice. In this sense, nature signifies the (human) essence directed to its specific operation. The term natural also indicates that the first precepts stand as the basic axioms of action, and are known naturally (naturaliter) rather than learned by study or by inference. Why call the objects of these inclinations "precepts" or "law"? Aquinas maintains that human agents are capable of seeing that certain goods are worthy of pursuit; they also grasp, in an elementary way, that in choices one is morally bound to act in accord with these goods.

The first precepts, however, are not a complete moral code. Aquinas holds that human reason must develop and apply them. First precepts are developed in terms of "secondary precepts," which spell out further implications for human action. For example, from the precept that one must act in accord with the good of life and resist what is contrary to it, we reason that murder is wrong. The first precepts also require "determinations," supplied by custom and positive laws. The "determinations" are ways that the natural law is made effective in the human community. Thus, while the care and education of offspring are enjoined upon human-kind by a first precept of the natural law, how, where, and when the duty is discharged are determined by custom or positive law. Here, the virtue of prudence is paramount.

In the Thomistic scheme, the moral order in human law and politics is a kind of ecosystem, requiring for its proper function not only the universally binding precepts of natural law but also good customs, intelligently framed and emended positive laws, and acquired virtues, by which the laws are obeyed not just externally but also in the interior act of the will. It is therefore not advisable to isolate the doctrine of natural law in Aquinas from the rest of his account of moral agency. First, Aquinas flatly rejects the idea that human beings ever existed in a pure state of nature (I, q. 95,a. 1), unlike the ahistorical "state of nature" models of the modern era. Created in grace and wounded by sin, the concrete human condition, according to Aquinas, is in need of tutoring and, ultimately, of transformation by divine grace. Aquinas insists, for example, that the two great ends of the natural law—the love of God and of neighbor—obscured by sin and evil customs, require repromulgation by divine positive law (q. 100, aa. 5, 11). Second, the greater part of his Treatise on Law (I-II, qq. 90–108) puts the natural law in the double context of the divine positive law of the Old Testament (lex vetus) and the New Testament Law of Grace (lex nova). Biblical history shapes Aquinas's fully considered judgment and exposition of the natural law.

Aquinas can be absolved of the charge that he confuses moral and physical meanings of nature, as well as the charge that his account is ahistorical. Yet his theory of natural law does rely on a teleological conception of providence, and the historical cast of his thought is informed by the biblical narrative. These features are not accidental. To the extent that modern theorists reject the credibility of the teleological science of nature, and aim to provide an account of natural law that is neutral with respect to theological suppositions, the Thomist theory will be of more historical than systematic interest.

Modern Theories

In modern times, the concept of natural law has undergone considerable doctrinal and institutional development. Although the theological framework of natural law was maintained as part of public rhetoric well into the nineteenth century, it was no longer the main interest of natural lawyers. As Lloyd Weinreb notes: "The puzzles with which Aquinas and others grappled when they tried to understand the place of humankind in nature appear in [modern] guise as part of the effort to describe the relationship of the individual to the state" (p. 67). This shift of perspective and emphasis, from cosmological and theological themes to the more narrow political and legal issues of natural law, is complicated. Leo Strauss has argued that the ancient and modern theories are so radically different that they ought not to be confounded. Whether there is continuity or discontinuity between premodern and modern versions of natural law remains a disputed subject in the scholarly literature. While we cannot discuss this in detail, we can cite at least two problems that have shaped the modern approach.

NATURAL LAW AND MODERN SCIENCE. By the seventeenth century, the phrase "natural law" was expropriated by the modern sciences to denote purely descriptive or predictive aspects of natural bodies. In optics, astronomy, and physics, the relation between nature and law no longer expressed the human participation in divine providence but, rather, the intelligible, measurable, and predictable regularities in physical nature (Ruby). Teleological understanding was abandoned in favor of mechanistic explanations that relied exclusively upon material and efficient causes. The success and prestige of the physical sciences made it difficult thenceforth to interrelate the moral and physical meanings of natural law without falling into equivocation. How, for example, can law be predicated on nature without conflating physical and moral necessities? In the physical sciences, law denotes the measurable and predictable properties of things that have no freedom. But in the practical or moral sphere, law denotes principles that govern human freedom. These two meanings of natural law—nature as amenable to description and prediction, and nature as a prescriptive norm of freedom—present an ongoing theoretical difficulty in modern thought about the subject.

NATURAL LAW AND THE PUBLIC ORDER OF RIGHTS. The humane focus of natural law concerns legal and political problems of the relationship between the individual and the state. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, human nature rather than authority allegedly vested in churches or kings came to represent the legitimate origin of the state and its rule of law. Philosophers and jurists wrested natural law from the controversial settings of religion and custom, and attempted to reduce it to self-evident laws of reason sufficient to ground a public order of law and rights. While the well-known dictum by Hugo Grotius that the natural law would have validity even if God did not exist captures something of the modern temper, even more pertinent is his assertion that "[j]ust as mathematicians treat their figures as abstracted from bodies, so in treating law I have withdrawn my mind from every particular fact" (Grotius, Prolegomena nos. 11, 58). Modern natural-law theorists emphasize apodictic, nongainsayable propositions, and filter out anything dependent upon the mediation of culture and religion. These theories are expected to cut through religious and political controversy in order to secure that minimum of rational consensus needed for public purposes (Gewirth). In contrast with the ancients and medievals, the minimalistic bent of modern theories is not designed to mesh with the virtue of prudence.

Natural Social Necessities

Given the new scientific meanings of nature and law, as well as the practical need to devise principles of justice sufficient to limit the modern state, two approaches to natural law dominate the modern period. One tradition keys natural law to what is needed for survival and societal peace. By nature, human beings are vulnerable, and need a certain minimal protection of their interests. Thomas Hobbes set the pattern of this tradition. Other examples of this approach are David Hume's "circumstances of justice," Oliver Wendell Holmes's "can't helps," and H. L. A. Hart's "minimum natural law." Natural law sets a background for customs and laws prohibiting violations of life, limb, and property. The advantages of this approach are at least threefold. First, the desire to protect one's life and property, insofar as it can be described and predicted, comports with the physicalist model of nature and law favored by the modern sciences. Second, it picks out elementary goods and bads that are apt to win consensus. These basic needs do not seem to depend upon the idiosyncrasies of particular individuals and their private life plans. Third, at least in the Anglo-American world, issues of life, limb, and property are easily recognized and adjudicated within a system of positive law.

However, natural necessities provide little or no reason to recognize absolute moral norms or rights that might resist the utilitarian calculations of a political majority acting for its alleged interests in peace and security. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said in his famous essay on natural law: "The most fundamental of the supposed preexisting rights—the right to life—is sacrificed without a scruple not only in war, but whenever the interest of society, that is, of the predominant power in the community, is thought to demand it" (p. 314). It is one thing to say that any system of positive law must work against the background of natural human necessities; it is quite another to hold that these pervasive natural facts about the human condition carry any prescriptive or moral force.

Natural Right of Autonomy

Another tradition, typified by Kant's dictum that one "[m]ust act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature" (Kant, no. 421,p. 30), emphasizes the autonomy of moral agents. This natural law can be expressed in the categorical imperative that humanity in one's person and in the person of others must be respected as an end in itself. As developed by many modern theorists, autonomy is a concept variously described as "moral independence" (Dworkin, 1985, p. 353), "the free choice of goals and relations as an essential ingredient of individual well-being" (Raz, p. 369), and "personal sovereignty" (Reiman, p. 43). Is autonomy a fact about human nature, or is it a moral ideal? There is disagreement about this (Schneewind). Reiman, for example, maintains that "Personal sovereignty [indicates] a natural fact about human beings, consideration of which will lead us to the natural ground of equality between human beings" (p. 43). Put thus, autonomy embraces both a natural fact and a moral principle.

Some version of the autonomist theory is the preferred approach in much of contemporary natural-law theory, for the autonomist position emphasizes specifically moral principles of law rather than mere natural necessities. It seeks to tell us not what agents typically want or need, but how and why human beings must be respected. Moreover, it comports with the humanistic premise that human beings have a native dignity based upon a rational capacity to determine their conduct. It is the rational capacity that sets (at least some) human beings apart from other entities of nature, and constitutes the axioms of the moral world.

Despite its wide appeal, three problems routinely crop up in connection with the autonomist position. First, it is not always clear whether we are enjoined to respect the capacity for autonomy or the rightful exercise of that capacity. If we are enjoined to respect the capacity itself, are we thereby duty bound to respect the agent when he or she uses the capacity in a wicked way? In short, do agents have a moral right to do moral wrong? Second, the rights and obligations that flow from this "natural" fact of autonomy are difficult to formulate except in very general terms. What can a right to autonomy mean, except that persons ought not to be treated as mere objects; and what can this mean, except that a person ought to be treated according to sound moral considerations (Raz)? Hence, while autonomists emphasize a natural right to be treated equally, it is a humanist premise rather than the conclusion of moral reasoning (Raz). Third, we can ask whether the natural capacity for self-determination is adequate for moral reasoning about the status of other nonhuman species, prehuman entities (genetic material), incipient human life (embryos), and human beings whose autonomy is diminished.

Catholic Natural-Law Theory

The Roman Catholic Church is the only international institution to hold a natural-law doctrine in both the premodern and modern phases of the theory. Conciliar decrees, papal encyclicals, and canon law both reaffirm the natural law and have applied it across a range of moral issues (Fuchs; Finnis, 1980b). The encyclical Veritatis splendor(1993) gives considerable attention to natural law. Drawn chiefly from the work of Augustine and Aquinas, the papal formulation of natural law in Veritatis is traditional, emphasizing the status of natural law as real law, promulgated by God. Although there is only passing reference to biomedical issues, the encyclical represents perhaps the clearest exposition of the theoretical underpinnings of natural law by a modern pope. The concept of natural law has also recently been applied to natural rights. The new Code of Canon Law(1983) asserts the right of the church to address secular affairs insofar as such affairs pertain to "fundamental rights of the human person" (canon 747/2).

Over the past three decades natural-law debate has focused upon the encyclical Humanae vitae (1968), which condemned contraception as a violation of the natural law, not because it is artificial but because it is contrary to nature. The encyclical's premise is that marriage (apart from considerations of sacramental theology) naturally contains both a procreative and a unitive good. The moral question is whether these goods can be deliberately separated in the particular conjugal act. The natural-law reasoning of Humanae vitae has been interpreted in quite different, and sometimes contradictory, ways by moral theologians. A 1991 study finds that at least six natural-law positions have emerged in the debate (Smith). This is because the encyclical is terse, and does not spell out its argument in the fashion of an academic exercise. But it is also due to the fact that the encyclical outlines an argument at three levels, each of which is open to debate: (1) that the conjugal act must preserve the intrinsic order toward the procreative end; (2) that the unitive and procreative goods of marriage must not be separated; (3) that the integrity of marriage cannot be maintained in its totality unless it is maintained in each and every conjugal act. Hence, its analysis of nature concerns not only the natural order of the sexual function but also the natural goods of marriage as well as the nature of the human sexual act itself. Whatever might be said about the document, it does not present a simple natural-law argument.

Critics like Charles Curran have charged that Humanae vitae confuses the physical and moral structures of human acts. Curran also charges the encyclical with adopting a "classicist worldview and methodology" that comports with neither the methods of the sciences nor the relativizing of nature by the history of salvation. Bernard Häring raises objections similar to Curran's. Not only in matters of reproduction, but also more generally in biomedical issues, Häring notes that the physician no longer defines himself as a servant of "ordered potentialities and powers of nature." Rather, he "increasingly considers himself an architect and sculptor of the given stuff of nature" (Häring). So, too, the moral theologian, he argues, must emphasize the divine mandate to creatively mold and intervene in nature. As so often happens in debates about natural law, the practical issue at hand (in this case, contraception) quickly opens onto the more abstract philosophical and theological questions about the meaning of nature and how it relates to norms of conduct.

In 1987, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued Instruction on Respect for Human Life (Donum vitae). The Instruction addressed a number of biomedical issues, including experimentation upon human embryos; methods of prenatal diagnosis; and in vitro fertilization, both homologous (the meeting in vitro of the gametes of married spouses) and heterologous (the use of gametes coming from at least one donor other than the spouses). Whereas Humanae vitae contended that the procreative good cannot deliberately be suppressed in favor of the unitive good, Cardinal Ratzinger argued that the natural law also prohibits separating procreation from the unity and love of the spousal act. While the argument is similar to Humanae vitae, Cardinal Ratzinger makes it clearer that natural law is a moral law, not to be confused with a "set of norms on the biological level." By nature, the conjugal act is a "personal" act of love between spouses. This guarantees that the transmission of life is an act of procreativity rather than mere reproduction. The Instruction, therefore, maintains that in vitro fertilization, whether homologous or heterologous, is contrary to the personal and unitive meaning of the marital act.

With respect to human rights, Cardinal Ratzinger argues that in vitro fertilization violates not only the natural structure of the marital act but also the "inalienable rights" of the child. The child cannot be treated as an object serving the interests of the parents but, rather, must be treated as an end in itself. Parents have only the right to perform those acts that are per se ordered to procreation. Were parents to have a right to reproduce, by whatever means, then the child would be an object to which one has a right of ownership. At least on matters of bioethics, the Instruction represents an important development in the linkage between a traditional natural-law conception of the marital act with distinctively modern arguments concerning natural rights.

Natural-law theory is in a period of transition among Catholic scholars. Some scholars working in the Thomistic tradition now emphasize the role of the virtues rather than the juridical themes of natural law (Bourke; MacIntyre). Others, notably John Finnis (1980a) and Germain Grisez(1983), have developed a theory of the relationship between practical reason and "basic human goods" (e.g., life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability, practical reasonableness, and religion). The aim of the theory is to identify moral norms governing how basic goods ought to be chosen. It was first undertaken by Germain Grisez (1964; 1983); John Finnis (1980a) has systematically applied Grisez's work to the whole field of jurisprudence. The natural-law component of the theory is much criticized. Some argue that it has no clear connection to the Thomistic doctrine of natural theology (Hittinger, 1987); others, particularly proportionalists, argue that absolute moral norms are not easily generated by such generalized forms of human wellbeing (McCormick). Although there is considerable agreement among Catholic philosophers and theologians that natural law is important, there is less agreement about how to deal systematically with the subject.

Natural Law in Law and Bioethics

Constitutional and legal issues have occupied recent secular debates over natural law. It is noteworthy that the philosophical ground of the debate between natural lawyers and legal positivists continues to be revisited (see essays in George, 1992). At a more concrete level, however, discussion has focused upon civil liberties, particularly the right of privacy. Since this area of the law is the bellwether for many important biomedical questions, we will briefly outline the state of this discussion.

In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court invalidated a Connecticut statute forbidding the sale to and use of contraceptives by married people. The Court held that a zone of privacy protects marriage from intrusive governmental actions. Since the Constitution and its amendments do not mention the right of privacy, the Court was widely regarded as using natural law in constitutional interpretation. Indeed, the use of natural law was more controversial than the result in this particular case. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), which invalidated a Massachusetts statute prohibiting the sale of contraceptives to unmarried people, Justice William Brennan reasoned that the right of privacy generally covers the decision of individuals, married or single, to make decisions about whether to "bear or beget" children. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the right to privacy was extended to abortion. Since then, it has been cited by lower courts as precedent for paternal refusal to allow the implantation of embryos. Other biomedical issues have also surfaced in the courts in terms of natural rights: "There is a fundamental natural right expressed in our Constitution as the 'right to liberty,' which permits an individual to refuse or direct the withholding or withdrawal of artificial death-prolonging procedures …" (Cruzan v. Harmon, 760 S.W.2nd 408, 434 [Mo. banc 1988] [Higgins, J., dissenting]).

It is unfortunate that some of the thorniest biomedical questions have been formulated legally in terms of a right to privacy. The moral substance of the right is often moved to the periphery in favor of the controverted issue of natural law as a tool of constitutional interpretation. Setting aside the legal questions, we can ask what are the ground and scope of a right to privacy. It is widely held that the moral basis of the right rests upon the natural autonomy of individuals to make decisions about their bodies, with respect not only to sexual conduct but also to many life-and-death concerns. The notion of the body as property has a long philosophical pedigree in the Anglo-American world(e.g., John Locke); the notion that there exists a field of private or self-regarding actions is traceable to a number of different moral theorists (e.g., John Stuart Mill). Moral and legal theorists generally have attempted to unite these themes under a right of autonomy or moral independence (surveyed in Hittinger, 1990). In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its holding in Roe v. Wade. It is significant, however, that the Court discussed the right in the language of autonomy, and brought this language under the legal rubric of "liberty" (in section one of the Fourteenth Amendment), rather than "privacy." Because privacy has such disputable grounds in the positive law, this move from privacy to liberty in Casey can be read as an effort to find more secure grounds in the positive law for the moral right to autonomy.

Two problems attend the formulation of a right to autonomy. First, it is not clear that a natural right to autonomy can be applied with analytic precision. Even if we narrow the scope of autonomous actions to those that relate to use of the body, it would seem that contraception, abortion, and euthanasia are very different kinds of acts— not only materially but also morally. Hence, it can be objected that although autonomy is a necessary element in our consideration of these issues, it is not a sufficient condition for how they ought to be settled. Second, in Western history, the great tradition of natural rights has concerned the limitation of the coercive power of the state. In legislation and in public policy, a natural rights argument can be expected to shed light upon the principles that ought to govern the ends and the means of public force. But the right of autonomy provides only the most inchoate ground for distinguishing between legitimate and wrongful actions on the part of the state. Why, for example, should the state be prevented from intruding upon decisions about reproduction but not those concerning suicide or euthanasia? All these acts concern the body, and are plausible instances of the individual's interest in his or her autonomy. If the difference consists in the moral specifications of the acts (if, for example, abortion is adjudged morally licit or at least indifferent, while suicide and assisted euthanasia are deemed morally wicked), then autonomy needs to be augmented with other principles in order to draw a line between what belongs to the individual and what belongs to the state. If, on the other hand, one has a natural moral right to act autonomously regardless of the moral specifications of the acts, then one would seem to have a natural right to do wrong. While a government might have other reasons to tolerate wicked acts, it is unclear how a government can be bound to respect a right to do a moral wrong.

Since bioethics encompasses matters of physiological well-being, moral choice, and justice, some version of natural law might seem indispensable to how we should frame and resolve the issues. Despite theoretical problems and disagreements, nature stubbornly remains a standard for health (Kass). Until nature is exorcised, it will continue to invite natural law reflection on norms of medical practice. Modern technology urgently bids us to investigate the moral relevance of the contrast between nature and art. Furthermore, it would be hard to imagine a future in which citizens stop making claims about rights in the area of healthcare and the allocation of its resources. Natural law has become part of our repertoire of moral discourse about rights. Yet, as one critic of natural law has stated the problem: "Either the allegedly universal ends [of natural law] are too few and abstract to give content to the idea of the good, or they are too numerous and concrete to be truly universal. One has to choose between triviality and implausibility" (Ely, p. 51). The same can be said of any of the standard normative theories of ethics, whether deontological or utilitarian. With respect to any abstract theory, especially one as prodigious as natural law, one must look carefully at its different versions, and also take the applications of the theories on a case-by-case basis.

russell hittinger (1995)

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SEE ALSO: Abortion, Religious Traditions: Roman Catholic Perspectives; Christianity, Bioethics in; Embryo and Fetus: Religious Perspectives; Enhancement Uses of Medical Technology; Ethics: Normative Ethical Theories; Ethics: Religion and Morality; Eugenics and Religious Law: Christianity; Fertility Control: Social and Ethical Issues; Law and Morality; Reproductive Technologies: Ethical Issues; Transhumanism and Posthumanism; Virtue and Character

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