The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory: Aquinas to Finnis

Finnis’s proposal to rehabilitate Aquinas’s natural law theory as an appropriate foundation of legal and moral theory rests on the assumption that Aquinas’s theory can be restored by eliminating the mistaken interpretations of subsequent natural law theorists. This work challenges that assumption. After a brief analysis of Aquinas, the theories of Suarez, Grotius and Pufendorf are investigated. It is argued that their theories are no mistakes , but attempts at solving problems inherent in natural law theory. Finally, it is argued that Finnis, running into the same problems, cannot hope to restore Aquinas’s theoretical edifice.