WOJCIECH GOLUBIEWSKI, Reading Aquinas on The Intelligibility of Natural Law

SUMMARY

This article is concerned with an accurate reading of St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of natural law that would secure the intelligibility of its principles from the reductions of moral emotivism. It aims to show that in light of some criticisms of a “purely ethical” reading of this doctrine, the sources of intelligibility of practical reason cannot be detached from his metaphysical insights, especially those concerning the notion of the good (ratio boni). Moreover, it points out that for Aquinas the principles of natural law based on the intelligibility of the good require some sort of imitation of nature by practical reason. The “purely ethical” interpretations, which tend to disregard the intelligibility of the good manifest in the realm of physical natures, may turn out to be unable to account for the rational truthfulness of the doctrine of natural law intended by Aquinas.