The Scholastic Theory of Moral Law in the Modern World

Abstract

Although no more than one religion can be true, it is now generally accepted that there may be honest mistakes about whether a given religion is the true one. Yet neither scholastic philosophers nor most plain men have yet been brought to agree that there may be honest fundamental mistakes about morality. Differences about morality are socially divisive, because many plain men consider that the state ought to enforce morality by legislation, if it can do so without infringing its citizens’ moral rights. I remember that the church in which I was brought up as a child in Australia provoked great hostility by supporting legislation to close all liquor bars, in order to make it difficult to commit the sin of drinking alcohol. Since there are more drinkers than would-be divorcers, that hostility was much greater than that aroused towards the Catholic Church in New York by the opposition of some Catholics to changes in the divorce laws. Such examples remind us that the question I propose to discuss: ‘How can what belongs to common morality be distinguished from what belongs to the way of life of a particular religion?’ is, if nothing else, a timely one.