Natural Law & the Secular Mythos by Morgan, Gregory;

Short description:

This book diagnoses why natural law theory is becoming an increasingly fragmented discourse by illustrating how natural law theorists are caught in a relationship with 'secular' discourses.

Long description:

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This book argues that natural law - when construed as an epistemological and trans-cultural lingua franca, adjudged capable of legitimating the rational intelligibility and universal applicability of specific Christian moral principles within contemporary ""secular"" discourse - has failed.

Through a detailed analysis of the contributions of three prominent natural law theorists who are located within a shared philosophical-theological tradition, namely, John Finnis, Jean Porter, and John Milbank, the text illuminates the extent to which this failure is as much intramural as it is extramural.

Morgan explores how new horizons open up for natural law if the theological ""unsaid(s)"" are allowed to surface and the disremembering power of the secular mythos is overcome. The final chapter(s) of the book addresses one such horizon- that the theoretical fulcrum of the natural law lies not in its perceptual self-evidence or in its immanent secularity; but rather in its subtle provision of an immanent eschatology.

Table of Contents:

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Part One: Deconstruction

Introduction

Chapter One
The ""Windy Mysticism""

Chapter Two
On (""New"") Natural Law: John Finnis' Analytical Response to its 'Cultured Despisers'

Chapter Three
Jean Porter's Scholastic Defence of Ethical Naturalism: Natural Law as a Theological Locus for Contemporary Moral Reflection

Chapter Four
John Milbank's Genealogical Riposte: Natural Law as a Hylozoistic Re-Narration of Divine Government

Part Two - Reconstruction

Chapter Five
Deconstructing the Secular Mythos

Chapter Six
An Eschatological and Anamnetic: Re-narration of Natural Law

Bibliography
Index