What Makes an Ethical Account a Natural Law Ethical Account? Contemporary Ethics, Metaethics, and Normative Ethics

What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is, I argue, commonly misrepresented in teaching within much of the philosophical academy. Yet those immersed in the field of natural law and ethics rarely give definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. I suggest theoretical reasons for the lack. I argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other: an overlooked and significant point when defending natural law ethical accounts. My arguments throughout rely on the metaethical/normative ethical distinction, which is relatively little used in the natural law literature. I argue that the distinction helps clarify what is distinctive of natural law ethical accounts in general, especially to the secular contemporary philosophical academy, where appreciation of natural law ethical accounts is commonly appreciably lower than in philosophical contexts with a religious ethos.


Introduction
Whilst natural law ethical accounts can be understood in the most general and simple terms as worked-out approaches or perspectives based on the natural law as the principal ethical point of reference, the following question remains: what in more precise terms makes an ethical account a natural law ethical account? 1 One might expect that finding adequate answers to that question would be straightforward.But, as I illustrate, an examination of leading university ethics textbooks and handbooks within the contemporary philosophical academy suggests otherwise. 2What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is often misrepresented and presumably misunderstood.This situation is, admittedly, significantly more acute in philosophy departments in non-religious universities/ colleges, in which advocacy for and research on natural law and ethics are often noticeably less common than in institutions with a religious ethos. 3ne might, however, expect experts on natural law within ethics to supply what is needed.But, as I also illustrate, scholars immersed in the field generally fail to give definitions/brief characterisations stating concisely what they understand makes ethical accounts natural law ethical before they proceed to give their own particular natural law ethical account or address specific points. 4Readers instead typically need to piece together statements across the text and infer as best as possible.As I show, inferences from texts not designed to supply definitions/brief characterisations can present interpretative challenges and result in a potentially confusing array of definitions/brief characterisations.That said, a notable exception to my diagnosis of the situation among scholars working on natural law are the writings of some prominent advocates, such as Germain 1.When I raise the question throughout the rest of the article, I do not include 'in more precise terms'.2. I focus on ethics not jurisprudence, a field in which the meaning of 'natural law' is affected through contrast with legal positivism.3. I intend the claim about the relative lack of interest in and regard for natural law ethical approaches in philosophy departments in non-religious institutions as an empirical, non-evaluative, and uncontroversial point.I am unable to provide here a full defence of my claim, but let me give some supporting evidence.Consider the affiliations of the authors of the works on the philosophy of natural law listed in note 31 below, all chosen on the basis of their prominence in the field: one from a secular institution (Anthony Lisska) and four from institutions with a religious ethos.Of these four, three have their principal appointments in philosophy departments (Steven Jensen, Stephen Brock, Vernon Bourke), and one (Jean Porter) in a theology department-much teaching and research on natural law and ethics takes place in theology departments, a situation I do not discuss in this article but which fits with my point about contexts with a religious ethos.The authors of the texts used in university teaching of ethics I take issue with for misrepresenting natural law and ethics later in this article are all at time of writing based in philosophy departments in secular institutions (John Brunero, Stephen Darwall, Julia Driver, Mark Timmons).I accept that the general situation might be different within law departments.A significant case in point: the writings on natural law of John Finnis (whose academic appointments have been principally in law departments) are often also intended for a non-jurisprudential philosophical readership in addition to a jurisprudential readership.See John Finnis, Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp.vii-viii.
Grisez and John Finnis, of what are often termed 'new natural law' approaches in ethics. 5ince, however, the natural law credentials of these albeit influential accounts are sometimes contested, I focus my analysis on accounts with uncontested credentials. 6Yet, without taking sides on the credentials of new natural law ethical approaches, as I show later, my analysis in this article of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is nonetheless compatible with the natural law claims of new natural law ethical approaches. 7n what follows, I argue that regardless of possible ad hominen explanations for the present situation regarding the lack of clarity about what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical, there are also theoretical explanations in terms of the metaethical/normative ethical distinction (hereafter: the M/N distinction).I also argue that the M/N distinction helps identify a theoretically significant and distinctive feature of natural law ethical accounts that is rarely if ever examined explicitly in the literature even though it is highly relevant to defending natural law approaches to ethics: that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other.This article is thus an exposition and defence of the usefulness of the M/N distinction in analysing what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.The M/N distinction is, however, relatively little explicitly employed in the natural law literature even though it is highly prominent in much contemporary ethical analysis. 8This article is therefore also an exercise in seeking mutual 5.I use 'new natural law' and related terms because of their currency and without pejorative overtones.See e.g.Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume One: Christian Moral Principles (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), pp.173-75; John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.23-25.6.The natural law ethical credentials of the accounts that I focus on are not contested, as far as I know, even by advocates of the new natural law approach, though the contrary is not the case.understanding: clarifying what is distinctive about natural law ethical approaches to the wider philosophical academy, regardless of religious ethos or other sympathies, using tools and language familiar to those within the wider philosophical academy.The M/N distinction is often explained as follows: normative ethics relates to metaethics in an analogous fashion to how science (first-order discourse) relates to the philosophy of science (second-order discourse). 9My preferred account is: Normative ethics: discourse pertaining to what actions, people etc. are ethically good/ bad and/or right/wrong and what makes them so.
Metaethics: the theoretical activity that aims to explain how the content of normative ethical discourse fits into reality (e.g., in metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological terms). 10etaethical and normative ethical commitments are often understood as logically independent of each other, without any entailment; and that any metaethical view can be combined with any normative ethical view and vice versa. 11Thus, consequentialism (normative ethical) in general terms is compatible with metaethical positions contrary to each other such as ethical naturalism (Peter Railton) and ethical non-naturalism (G.E.Moore); ethical realism (Railton) and ethical anti-realism (Simon Blackburn).Kantian-inspired deontology (normative ethical) is likewise compatible with ethical naturalism (Frederick Rauscher) and ethical non-naturalism (Konstantin Pollok); ethical realism (Alison Hills) and ethical anti-realism (Christine M. Korsgaard). 12ecause of such cases of logical independence, accounts involving both the metaethical and normative ethical are typically understood as sets of views detachable from each other rather than as theoretical unities.I argue, however, that natural law ethical accounts are best understood as involving both metaethical and normative ethical commitments brought into theoretical unity, as theoretically unitary.Just as a family can be unified without going so far as to claim it is a unity (or unitary) since its members could straightforwardly go their separate ways, a theory can be unified (as opposed to being a unity or unitary) simply by bringing together different and mutually detachable elements in a way that makes sense and is coherent.Being theoretically unitary goes further: the full significance of the elements constituting the theory are understood not as independent positions simply attached to each other, but holistically, within the context of the theory as a whole.In more technical terms and applied to natural law ethical accounts, as I will argue: to be theoretically unitary involves metaethical and normative ethical commitments that have at least some entailment across the M/N boundary, that they are not logically independent of each other.
Many ethicists favour keeping normative ethical and metaethical commitments logically independent: it ensures that metaethical analyses of the normative ethical presuppose nothing normatively ethical and thus are not vulnerable to circularity.But theoretically unitary accounts have their attractions: that a single ethical account can provide a comprehensive perspective on ethics, giving explanation and justification both metaethical and normative ethical.In the case of natural law ethical accounts, there is the added advantage that if they are unitary across the M/N boundary, then the metaethical and normative ethical elements overlap, and thus show an innate fit with, and perhaps even affinity to, each other.Natural law ethical approaches would thus be less open to the objection of being an arbitrary collection of philosophical commitments thrown together perhaps due to vested interest or other historical contingencies.Instead, commitment to a given element partially constituting a natural law ethical account would support commitment to other constitutive elements, thereby reflecting that they belong together.That the elements constituting natural law ethical accounts exhibit innate mutual fittingness thus supports the aspirations of natural law ethical accounts to make claims that transcend local settings and specific times for their core natural law perspectives on ethics.
There are, however, relatively few modern ethical theories current within contemporary philosophical ethics that unambiguously bring the metaethical and normative ethical into a single theoretically unitary account. 13The dominant focus is on specific The structure of this article is as follows.In the next section I illustrate, using examples from leading texts in the teaching of ethics, how natural law and its role in ethics are commonly misrepresented within much of the philosophical academy.I then illustrate what I mean by the lack in the literature by experts in the field of definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.I also illustrate the potentially confusing diversity of sorts of definitions/brief characterisations that can be inferred from the literature.I show that these definitions/brief characterisations can be categorised using the M/N distinction.This is to address (i) and part of (iii).I then argue that the M/N distinction need not be understood as a sharp distinction, a necessary result in order to argue for (ii) and to complete the argument for (iii).Throughout, the discussion is concerned with the concepts of natural law and natural law ethical approaches, without the stipulation that for practical reasoning to be natural law ethical it must be in keeping with what the natural law actually is as opposed to what ethicists think it is or might be in terms of its content. 15tural Law and its Role in Ethics: The Contemporary Philosophical Academy I now present a snapshot of the situation within undergraduate teaching in much of the contemporary philosophical academy on the basis of texts by eminent philosophers much used in teaching.Many general ethics textbooks used prominently in university ethics courses do not mention natural law ethical approaches at all. 16But some do.

Consider the following examples from a leading handbook on ethics: John Brunero in
The Continuum Companion to Ethics; and from three leading university textbooks, all of which have been published in multiple editions: Stephen Darwall: Philosophical Ethics; Julia Driver: Ethics: The Fundamentals; and Mark Timmons: Moral Theory. 17None of these philosophers specialise in natural law ethical approaches.Apart from Timmons, these works give a page and a half at most to natural law and its possible role in ethics.Yet, such works, by providing a first encounter for many university students, can have significant impact on how natural law ethical approaches are viewed.I argue that they misrepresent natural law and its role in ethics in ways likely to narrow its appeal.
Brunero understands natural law ethical approaches as based on 'the universal and unchanging moral laws prescribed to us by God and accessible to our human reason'. 18Driver does not assert theism as a necessary condition, but that natural law ethical theory 'often connects morality to God'. 19She proceeds to present ethics understood in terms of natural law in dominantly theistic terms, employing a highly ethically physicalist conception.By 'ethically physicalist' (within the context of natural law ethical accounts) I mean locating ethical good in natural or biological functioning (understood as ends) in a way that gives insufficient attention to the ethical significance of achieving and upholding personal and societal flourishing as integral to the ends within human nature. 20s Driver puts it, assuming a restrictive conception of 'nature' without mention of wellbeing or flourishing: 'the "natural" is good and the "unnatural" is perverse, or bad'.The discussion then points out that (presumably on physicalist grounds) commitment to natural law in ethics has led to the condemnation of 'homosexuality, artificial methods in aid of reproduction, and the use of birth control'. 21ith Darwall the situation is ambiguous.The concerns with his account are due largely to emphasis and impressions that might be given.Whilst he does not assert theism as a necessary condition, his presentation of natural law ethical accounts as involving commitment to a belief in a global harmony within the world seems suggestive of a divinely-instituted order: 'the defining end or function of each natural thing fits with that of every other to form a harmonious order'. 22After all, the assertion of an overall harmonious order goes beyond standard forms of neo-Aristotelianism, which typically base ethics on natural things fulfilling their functions.On Darwall's view, natural law accounts are understood as committed to the following analogy with a knife: just as a knife is good in terms of its function, so human beings are good in terms of adherence to their human function.Like Driver, this readily suggests a physicalist conception given that the ethical significance of flourishing is not presented as integral to the conception of ethics.That said, Darwall mitigates this concern, but without any attempt at a fuller account, by mentioning in passing that for the advocate of classical natural law ethical approaches there is a 'coincidence' between 'natural law and self-interest' that is 'metaphysically guaranteed'. 23or Timmons the 'core' of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is a set of normative ethical commitments: (a) a perfectionist theory of ethical value; (b) the principle of double effect; (c) moral absolutism. 24ach of the above definitions/brief characterisations is problematic.Consider first the issue of theism in the accounts of Brunero, Driver, and maybe Darwall.Whilst many theistic advocates of natural law ethical approaches might hold that such positions in their fullness or in their most convincing forms require elements drawn from theism, this need not imply that what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical requires theism or even perhaps that natural law ethical reasoning cannot be carried out with great fruitfulness without theism.The consensus achieved in support of the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights is much cited as demonstrating natural law principles as capable of transcending differences in religious belief/non-belief by virtue of a common humanity. 25Furthermore, official documents from the Catholic Church, the religious body most associated with promoting the role of natural law within ethics, accept that natural law approaches provide a means for ethical discourse across the theist/nontheist divide. 26Yet, Brunero, Driver, and maybe Darwall, present natural law ethical approaches almost as though they were only an option for those with theistic commitment.
Given the wide diversity of perspectives within which natural law ethical reasoning is conducted, it is surely unsurprising that advocates of natural law ethical reasoning can arrive at different normative ethical conclusions.Yet, as already mentioned, Driver presents natural law ethical approaches as strongly associated with specific normative ethical positions.These positions can be controversial, even among advocates of the natural law within ethics. 27Furthermore, by presenting natural law ethical reasoning in largely physicalist terms that downplay flourishing as integral to ethical reasoning, Driver and maybe Darwall are at odds with the consensus of advocates of and experts in natural law ethical approaches. 28To downplay the eudaimonistic aspects of ethics is presumably also to present natural law and its role in ethics as potentially alienating, and thus in ways likely to deter many students from giving it consideration.Timmons emphasises theistic commitment less than the others, though his account focuses on three commitments associated with, but not exclusive to, St Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition.That perhaps a majority of advocates of natural law ethical approaches support the normative ethical commitments Timmons puts forward does not thereby render the normative commitments necessary or core to what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.The natural law ethical literature does, I think, support a perfectionist theory of ethical value as central, that right/wrong and good/bad are to be understood primarily in terms of the value of upholding human excellences/fulfilment. 29 But many leading extended natural law ethical accounts mention only a little if at all the principle of double effect or moral absolutes. 30inally, of note in the light of the overall aims of this article: Brunero's account focuses on the metaethical (the metaphysical foundations of ethics); Timmons focuses on the normative ethical (perfectionism, double effect, and moral absolutism); and Driver and Darwall focus on both the metaethical and normative ethical.The M/N distinction already presents itself despite being little employed in the natural law ethical literature.

Natural Law Ethical Accounts: Experts in the Field
The future prospects, in terms of sympathetic well-informed attention and thus also of acceptance, of natural law ethical approaches in the contemporary philosophical academy do not look promising.Perhaps experts immersed in natural law and ethics have supplied definitions/brief characterisations that could ameliorate the situation?I now illustrate the general lack of such definitions/brief characterisations.I am unable in this article to give an extensive survey. 31I make my point using a leading mainstream Perhaps the first statement in the ITC document that moves in the direction of furnishing the basis of a general definition/brief characterisation is at the end of chapter 1: Certainly, natural law is a law accessible to human reason, common to believers and nonbelievers, and the Church does not have exclusive rights over it, but since revelation assumes the requirements of the natural law, the Magisterium of the Church has been established as the guarantor and interpreter of it. 32 speaking of a 'law accessible to human reason', and thus to be discovered ('accessible') rather than constructed, the text implies ethical realism, the position that there exist ethical propositions both true and stance-independent.In also speaking of 'law', the text implies that there are sufficient true and stance-independent ethical propositions to enable the formation of ethical accounts capable of guiding agents.It also specifies an epistemological commitment ('accessible to human reason') that applies across humanity ('common to believers and nonbelievers'); and that revelation and natural law are not at variance ('revelation assumes the requirements of the natural law').The document also asserts that the ecclesiastical Magisterium has special authority regarding the interpretation of the natural law, though the document as a whole upholds the view that this ecclesiastical claim is not an essential feature of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. 33For further assistance at arriving at a comprehensive definition/brief characterisation of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical, one needs other statements found throughout the text.Perhaps the most informative passage is found much later, in chapter 3: Thus creatures are animated by a dynamism that carries them to fulfil themselves, each in its own way, in the union with God.This dynamism is transcendent, to the extent to which it proceeds from the eternal law, i.e., from the plan of divine providence that exists in the mind of the Creator.But it is also immanent, because it is not imposed on creatures from without, but is inscribed in their very nature.Purely material creatures realize spontaneously the law of their being, while spiritual creatures realize it in a personal manner.In fact, they interiorize the dynamisms that define them and freely orient them towards their own complete realization.They formulate them to themselves, as fundamental norms of their moral action-this is the natural law properly stated-and they strive to realize them freely. 34his passage in effect states that natural law ethical approaches are in some way supported by/founded on what is inscribed in creaturely nature and manifested through dispositions and inclinations interior to the creature ('a dynamism').There is thus a grounding for an ethical realism that applies to all humanity.This metaphysical claim, along with the epistemological claims above, is to assert substantive metaethical claims central to natural law ethical accounts.The passage also asserts a substantive normative ethical, perfectionist, claim: natural law ethical approaches are committed to a point of reference in terms of human beings being able to 'fulfil themselves' and achieve 'complete realization'.

ITC,
In all this there is no attempt at a clear and inclusive definition or concise summary of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical, let alone any attempt at furnishing necessary and/or sufficient conditions.The centrality, to the degree of perhaps having the status of necessary condition, of both metaethical claims that the basis for natural law ethical approaches is inscribed in creatures and in principle epistemically accessible to rational human beings, and of the normative ethical perfectionist claim, is not stated explicitly.Nor is attention drawn to the combination of both metaethical and normative commitments or how they might combine.In addition, the contrast of general natural law ethical accounts with alternative ethical approaches, such as consequentialism and Kantian deontology, which might have helped clarify and highlight what is distinctive in natural law ethical accounts, is barely raised in the document: utilitarianism is referred to twice (in passing) and Immanuel Kant or deontology are not mentioned, even if there are references to what could be understood as deontology.
Those in search of definitions/brief characterisations can nevertheless try to extract some.The texts from which I extract definitions/brief characterisations (see below), apart from that by Vernon Bourke, were not written to supply definitions/brief characterisations.The relevant authors might not approve of the extraction of definitions/brief characterisations, which underlines the risk of interpretative uncertainty the lack of explicit definitions/brief characterisations brings.I also admit some possible anachronism in the case of the definition/brief characterisation derived from St Thomas.I now present some definitions/brief characterisations.For reasons of space, I am unable to present the original texts on which the definitions/brief characterisations are based.I direct the reader to the works mentioned in the footnotes.I indicate in brackets the relevant authors.I am for reasons of space unable to analyse and evaluate NE1-5 in detail.Instead, I now make a number of points in the light of NE1-5 relevant to fulfilling aims (i) and (iii) of this article as put forward in the Introduction.

NLE1 (Columba
First, NLE2 and NLE5 (condition (d)) contain commitment to theism, which I took issue with in the accounts of Brunero, Driver, and Darwall.I will focus on NLE5.I include condition (d) in NLE5 to be faithful to the text from Murray from which I extracted it.Situating NLE5 in the wider context of Murray's writings, however, supports the view that he included mention of theism in order to explain what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical in its fullness from his theistic perspective rather than as a necessary condition.The first five essays in his We Hold These Truths, the volume from which I extracted NLE5, address questions of modern pluralism in relation to the commitment among the founding fathers of the United States to natural law ethical principles, both secular and Christian.Murray nowhere denies that the secular versions are natural law ethical.NLE5 therefore presents an example of the interpretative difficulties attendant on extracting definitions/brief characterisations from texts not written for the purpose.
Second, NLE1-5 plus the admittedly problematic definition/brief characterisation drawn from Timmons's account suggest a tripartite categorisation of definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical in terms of how they are expressed: (a) metaethical; (b) normative ethical; (c) metaethical and normative ethical.NLE1-3 are expressed in metaethical terms, whereas NLE4-5 contain reference to both the metaethical and normative ethical, and Timmon's account as presented earlier is in wholly normative ethical terms.I will argue later that even if some of the definitions/ brief characterisations are expressed in wholly metaethical or normative ethical terms, careful examination shows that they do not deviate from a conception of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical as containing both metaethical and normative ethical elements.I therefore have addressed aim (i) as listed in the Introduction, though I will add further argument later.
Third, there is nothing comparable to the variety of NLE1-5 in the case of other leading ethical terms such as 'consequentialism', 'deontology', or 'virtue ethics'. 40eontology, for example, can be defined in terms of (a) the primacy of duty within ethics regardless of outcomes of action; or (b) the view that certain actions are right/ wrong simply by virtue of the nature of actions themselves; or (c) the ethical position that upholds the metaphysical and explanatory primacy of right/wrong over good/bad.Although (a)-(c) are expressed differently and are perhaps not wholly equivalent to each other, their core similarities can be quickly established.Definitions (a) and (b) emphasise deontology as non-consequentialist and the ethical significance of aspects of actions other than the value of consequences, with (b) focusing on the nature of the action itself.Definition (c), by giving primacy to right/wrong and not good/bad, likewise renders the value of consequences (good/bad) of actions as secondary and thus moves ethical evaluation to aspects of action other than consequences.40.I do not wish to suggest 'natural law ethics' as a rival to virtue ethics, deontology etc.After all, natural law ethical accounts can take, e.g.virtue ethical and/or deontological forms.
In the case of NLE1-5, however, the variation is much greater; or, at least, what they have in common would take appreciably more effort to establish than in the case of deontology.For a start, they involve both the metaethical and normative ethical.For those who hold that there is no overlap of the metaethical and normative ethical domains (against which I argue in the next section), the variation across the possible definitions/brief characterisations would be radical, from sharply distinct domains.Even allowing for some overlap of the metaethical and normative ethical domains, the definitions/brief characterisations still vary to the degree of moving across different domains of ethical discourse.The possibility of definitions moving across the M/N boundary did not even arise in the case of deontology, in which all the definitions/brief characterisations are normative ethical.
Finally, and admittedly somewhat speculatively, the large and perhaps confusingly varied-to the degree of crossing the M/N boundary-array of possible definitions/ brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical provides a prima facie explanation for the seeming reluctance of experts to provide definitions/ brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.If the definitions/brief characterisations were less varied, then I think it highly plausible that a consensus on how to define or best characterise briefly what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical would have been more likely to emerge.I therefore have addressed aim (iii) as listed in the Introduction, though I will add further argument later.

The M/N Distinction in Greater Detail
To argue that natural law ethical accounts can be understood as theoretically unitary across the M/N boundary, I need to show that even if there are contexts in which M/N distinction is sharp, it need not always be so.
Consider the following example. 41Many natural law ethical accounts are committed to ethical naturalism, the metaethical position that ethical properties are natural (i.e., derive fully from what is natural).A common form of metaethical ethical naturalism involves at least some reduction of normative ethical properties to non-evaluative natural properties: e.g., action-type A (described in non-evaluative terms) by having non-evaluative natural properties F 1 , F 2 , F 3 …F n at least partially constitutes the action as ethically right/wrong.Understood in general terms, ethical naturalism involves no reliance on normative ethical content: e.g., an ethical naturalist could be consequentialist or anti-consequentialist etc.But if the version of ethical naturalism were to be spelled out in more specific terms, it would involve supplying a specific reduction scheme relating normative ethical properties to non-evaluative natural properties.The justification of the reduction scheme, and thus the justification of the specific form of ethical naturalism, would involve taking a stand on whether certain configurations of natural properties are convincing as good/bad and/or right/wrong.This involves normative ethical commitment in justifying the metaethical commitment.The specific metaethical account relies on the normative ethical: they are not logically independent.
The dependence can also operate in the contrary direction, i.e., the normative ethical involving metaethical commitment.I argue this in terms of normative ethical positions ruling out certain metaethical positions, thereby resulting in a demarcation of incompatible metaethical positions from compatible ones.Consider an example from Alan Gewirth. 42A normative ethicist claims that a necessary condition for a morally good judgment is that the one making the judgment must intend to give equal weight to the needs and interests of others as they give to their own needs and interests.By contrast, the metaethicist claims that moral judgments are simply the expressions of the emotions of those making the judgments, without restrictions such as the requirement to consider the needs and interests of others.As Gewirth points out, the normative ethicist and the metaethicist are talking about the same kind of judgment, albeit the former in more specific terms and the latter generically.Yet the normative ethicist asserts something about moral judgments that the metaethicist denies.
Since they contradict each other, a general conclusion follows: that commitment to normative ethical positions can rule out metaethical positions.They are not logically independent.Indeed, for reasons given, normative ethical commitments might prompt reconsideration of metaethical commitments (and vice versa).Numerous other examples of possible incompatibility can be provided.A neo-Aristotelian normative ethicist who holds that a good moral judgment requires that the judgment support actions that help achieve and maintain human fulfilment and well-being understood in terms of derivation from a determinate conception of human nature of general application across cultures would presumably be at odds with the metaethicist who supports a thoroughgoing moral relativism.
In response to arguments that whilst the metaethical and normative ethical can sometimes be logically independent they can also overlap, some philosophers have stipulated that metaethics and normative ethics be wholly independent of each other. 43On this view, metaethical analysis (metaphysical, epistemological, linguistic, psychological) of the normative ethical needs to be wholly independent of the normative ethical in order to be as objective as possible and to minimise risk of circularity.Most philosophers do not, however, insist on independence from the normative ethical as a necessary condition for metaethics.It would place an extremely restrictive limit on what could count as metaethical or normative ethical. 44It would also be at odds with many standard natural law ethical accounts.Indeed, forms of ethical naturalism and of neo-Aristotelianism are both common in natural law ethical accounts.Ethical naturalism and neo-Aristotelianism were presented earlier as metaethical and normative ethical respectively, even though after scrutiny they were found in their more specific forms to cross the M/N boundary.The M/N distinction does not collapse in the sense that it remains highly serviceable, even if it is not always sharp.
Theoretical Unity and Overcoming the M/N Boundary I now argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, which involves being theoretically unitary across the M/N boundary.
I present two arguments.First, that an analysis of the term 'natural law', and thus 'natural law ethical account' (as an approach to or perspective on ethics based on the natural law as the principal ethical point of reference), suggests both normative ethical and metaethical commitments within a theoretically unitary ethical account.'Natural law' is a much examined and accepted term.Yet an obvious limitation of the argument is that it relies on 'natural law' being illuminating regarding the reality to which it refers.
The second argument is more significant.Using the example of Korsgaard's 'selfconstitution' ethical theory-perhaps the most prominent comprehensive ethical theory in the contemporary literature that intentionally and unambiguously brings metaethical and normative ethical commitments into a single unitary account-I illustrate how the metaethical and normative ethical are brought into theoretical unity through commitment to an explanatory and justificatory narrative that provides the framework for the unity. 45I present a similar explanatory and justificatory narrative for natural law ethical accounts.
Before moving to the arguments, let me first address two potential concerns.First, that the M/N distinction is little used in the literature to understand what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical provides prima facie evidence that the M/N distinction is not especially relevant to the task.My arguments easily address this concern.If they are correct, natural law ethical accounts can be understood as straddling both the metaethical and the normative ethical with the two domains overlapping.It is thus unsurprising that the M/N distinction has struck many advocates of natural law ethical approaches as not especially relevant due to the lack of a sharp boundary between the metaethical and normative ethical in natural law ethical accounts.My reason for highlighting the M/N distinction is, however, largely with the wider philosophical community in mind, in which the M/N distinction is generally highly prominent and standardly invoked when analysing ethical accounts.

The forms of consequentialism and Kantian-inspired deontology mentioned in the
Introduction are in terms indicating detachability from specific metaethical commitments.Some comprehensive forms of neo-Aristotelianism, such as in Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), are perhaps construable as unitary, or amenable with further detail to being unitary, across the M/N boundary.I argued in the previous section that forms of neo-Aristotelianism have overlap of the metaethical and normative ethical, a necessary condition for being unitary.There are also similarities between Foot's account and traditional Thomistic natural law ethical accounts (which I argue are best understood as unitary): perhaps the biggest difference being that the natural law ethical accounts make significant additional epistemological claims (which, admittedly, play an important role in my argument for natural law ethical approaches as unitary) and sometimes also theistic claims.
Second, I argue for a view of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical that goes beyond NLE1-3 (expressed in wholly metaethical terms) or Timmons's definition/brief characterisation (expressed in wholly normative ethical terms).Given these definitions/ brief characterisations, why argue that what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical embraces both the metaethical and normative ethical?
It is, I think, uncontroversial that the view of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical as involving both metaethical and normative ethical commitments is in keeping with the bulk of comprehensive natural law ethical accounts by experts in the field.The account in the ITC document already discussed, for example, clearly involves both metaethical and normative ethical commitments.Notice too that NLE1-3 and Timmons's definition/brief characterisation can be understood as simply highlighting, respectively, the metaethical and normative ethical aspects of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.These definitions/brief characterisations in no way exclude the possibility that what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical involves both metaethical and normative ethical commitments.NLE3, for instance, assumes that if the general natural law ethical perspective is true then there are precepts or norms of good/right conduct that are discoverable-i.e., normative ethical claims with specific content.In the case of Timmons's definition/brief characterisation, the wider context of his discussion in his Moral Theory explicitly assumes a realist conception of ethics as grounded in, and derivable from in some way, human nature. 46The presence of both the metaethical and the normative ethical are implicit in both definitions/brief characterisations despite the exclusive terms in which they are expressed.Similar arguments can be made for NLE 1-2.To argue these points completes my addressing aim (i) as listed in the Introduction.
I now turn to the first of my two main arguments, focused on the term 'natural law'.Consider the term: 'natural'.The term is understood in various ways: 'natural' in contrast to 'supernatural', 'non-natural', or to 'altered by human beings' etc. Regardless of such differences, 'natural' within 'natural law' is concerned with the reality that provides the grounding for ethical truths and enables human beings to come to know these truths.'Natural' is thus concerned with metaethical matters.
'Law' is concerned with precepts and norms regarding what is permissible/impermissible, obligatory/optional etc. by which actions can be evaluated as right/wrong or good/ bad.These are normative ethical matters.But 'law' also implicitly invokes the metaethical since the conditions for what constitutes law invoke the metaethical.St Thomas puts forward three necessary conditions for law.Law must be: (a) an ordinance of reason of an appropriate authority; (b) appropriately promulgated so that those under the law can know about it; (c) and aimed at upholding the common good. 47Even if 'law' in 'natural law' is sometimes understood analogously to 'law' as discussed by St Thomas, the three conditions, albeit understood in a way adjusted to fit the analogous sense, still stand.Either way, put into the natural law ethical context, the first two conditions (sufficient for my argument) become: (a) precepts and norms arrived at by the 46.Timmons, Moral Theory, p. 72.47.Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a2ae 90.4.exercise of reason being in conformity with ethical truth whose foundations are within the natural order, whether created and ordained by God (an appropriate authority) or that the natural order itself possesses sufficient ethical authority-a general metaphysical commitment regarding the foundations of ethical normativity, and thus metaethical; and (b) that what is right/wrong or good/bad is in principle epistemically accessible to rational agents-an epistemological commitment and thus metaethical.'Law' therefore has both metaethical and normative ethical aspects within a single concept.
Regarding 'natural law': the metaethical adjectival term, 'natural', qualifies the noun term 'law' that contains metaethical and normative ethical components.'Natural' adds an extra metaethical dimension to 'law'.It does not undermine unity of the metaethical and the normative ethical in 'law', and thus in 'natural law', and therefore in 'approaches or perspectives on ethics based on the natural law as the principal ethical point of reference'.If 'natural law' is an accurate guide to the nature of what the term refers to, then this supports the view that natural law ethical accounts bring metaethical and normative ethical elements into theoretical unity.
I now move to my second main argument.I argue by use of an explanatory and justificatory narrative that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to what is theoretically unitary.By 'explanatory and justificatory narrative' (applied to an ethical theory), I mean: a description according to a given theory of what happens when agents interact with the world and need to make choices about how to respond that both explains the various elements making up a given theory and how they relate to each other; and that also seeks to justify the theory in the process.For theoretical unity across the M/N boundary, the narrative needs to present a plausible account of how the metaethical and normative ethical commitments involve each other.The full significances of the commitments are thus to be understood not as independent positions attached to each other but holistically, within the context of the theory as a whole.
A standard approach for the explanatory and justificatory ethical-theory narratives is to foreground the first-personal perspective: the agent encountering the world, needing to choose how to respond and reflecting on her experience.The explanatory and justificatory narratives thus present accounts of agential phenomenology (with which readers will hopefully find resonance in their own experience), as well as employ intuitions as uncontroversial and defensible as possible in addition to commitments core to the ethical theory.
I now present, in highly abbreviated form for illustrative purposes, the narrative found in Korsgaard's Kant-inspired theory of self-constitution. 48Korsgaard starts with the agent impacted upon by the world in daily life.The agent is therefore forced to choose how to respond.As a rational being with needs and interests, how she is to act is a normative ethical question. 49Before addressing this question, Korsgaard argues for a way forward that avoids two metaethical positions she finds problematic: ethical realism and anti-realist emotivism.She does this in part by invoking intuitive principles: the 48.Christine M. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).49.Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, pp.1-26.
agent ought to act to uphold her autonomy (normative ethical) and that autonomy is understood largely in terms of rationally defensible rules/laws freely embraced by the agent (metaethical).On Korsgaard's construal, ethical realism (what she calls 'ethical rationalism') is more than simply the view that there exist ethical propositions both true and stance-independent: it asserts ethical demands which are experienced by the agent as external to her and thus undermine her autonomy.On the other hand, if ethics is reduced to following the direction of affective response ('empiricist account of normativity'), agential autonomy is undermined as the agent would then be subjugated to the dictates of occurrent feelings and inclinations.The two metaethical positions are thus rejected on normative ethical grounds. 50orsgaard proceeds by employing an anthropology influenced by Plato's Republic: the agent is constituted by different elements, understood largely in terms of elements that give rise to inclinations and that can uphold various dispositions.The agent only achieves stable autonomy to the degree she brings the different elements constituting her under the control of her exercise of rationality.Anything other than the rule of rationality undermines autonomy because it makes the agent subject to random forces, even if these are inclinations within her. 51 In addition, the agent is someone with a self-endorsed self-identity as an agent ('practical identity').The agent therefore ceteris paribus exercises autonomy by acting in ways in accord with what she agrees with and is committed to.In so acting, the agent confirms and shapes a hopefully stable rational selfhood, which includes her practical identity. 52This is 'selfconstitution'.The agent ought to act to uphold her self-constitution: a normative ethical commitment.Actions that support self-constitution uphold the agent's unity of action, autonomy, and selfhood.These latter elements help constitute the actions as truly those of the agent as a free and responsible acting person who can thereby be evaluated normatively and held to account.That such agents fulfil the conditions to be evaluated normatively and held to account, and that normative ethical statements can function appropriately in this context, are metaethical positions upheld by Korsgaard. 53The metaethical and normative ethical come together.The ceteris paribus qualifier is due to various rational (including moral) constraints Korsgaard puts forward as part of her overall account.
I now put forward a corresponding explanatory and justificatory narrative for the sort of mainstream (traditional) natural law ethical accounts of Thomistic inspiration already discussed.As with Korsgaard's narrative, the natural law ethical narrative I give is highly abbreviated, sufficient for the purposes of my argument.In a spirit of inclusivity, however, I present it in terms compatible with both traditional Thomistic and 'new natural law' ethical positions. 54I thereby show that new natural law approaches fit with my analysis in terms of the M/N distinction.In presenting an explanatory and justificatory narrative for natural law ethical accounts I use a revised form of NLE5, the most comprehensive of the definitions/brief characterisations considered earlier and which includes both metaethical and normative ethical commitments.The revised form of NLE5, NLE5*, is identical to NLE5 except that I have removed the commitment to theism (formerly condition (d)), which I argued is not a necessary condition for what makes an ethical account natural law ethical.The narrative starts with the agent encountering the world, which impacts on her.Even if unarticulated, the agent has a conception of who she is as a rational person with internal unity (NLE5*(b) and (d)).She also has some appreciation of the general shape a human life should take (what human fulfilment involves etc.), which applies to all human beings by virtue of their human nature (NLE5*(b) and (c)).As a rational agent (NLE5*(d)), she perceives in some fashion through her inclinations and her reason that some of the realities in the world are good for her and for other human beings (traditional Thomistic); or she perceives immediately certain aspects of reality as good (new natural law).Similarly, the agent is repelled by other realities in the world, which she appreciates to be bad in some fashion.Underlying the agent's responses is an awareness of the self-evident general practical principle known reflectively from experience ('first principle of practical reason') that good ought to be done and evil avoided. 56he picture of the agent's experience is thus far in normative ethical terms since it focuses on ethically relevant features of the agent encountering the world, such as what is good or bad for the agent.But a fuller account, from the natural law ethical perspective, brings out that it is also implicitly imbued with underlying metaethical commitments.Although the agent's affective responses and inclinations play a role, she encounters what she understands to be ethically relevant facts about the world, which is understood as permeated by value/disvalue in relation to the agent and to other human beings more generally by virtue of a common humanity, and as independent (at least to some degree) of her affective responses and inclinations.The ethical facts arrived at by the agent can be understood in terms derivable in some way from human nature with its needs, inclinations etc. (traditional Thomistic); or in terms of certain goods instantiated in the world (new natural law).This is not only metaethically realist (NLE5*(a)), but also has significant epistemological commitments (NLE*(a)): agents have in principle epistemic access to truths about value/disvalue and to the first principle of practical reason.
Rational reflection on experience allows a more detailed normative ethical position imbued with the metaethical to emerge.Actions are good/bad in relation to how they support or hinder human beings moving towards flourishing or some other fulfilment in keeping with the general shape a human life takes (traditional Thomistic); or actions are good/bad in relation to how they uphold or undermine certain goods (new natural law).In time the set of normative ethical norms can become extensive and detailed.Indeed, due to the following metaethical commitments-(i) that human agents have in principle some epistemic access to what is of value/disvalue (NLE5*(a)); (ii) that ethical norms apply across human agents by virtue of a common humanity (NLE5*(b)); and (iii) that agents possess free will capable of choice (NLE5*(d))agents may be held morally responsible by themselves and others for their actions, which is required if one is to speak in some sense of 'law' as in 'natural law' applied to ethics.
In the natural law ethical explanatory and justificatory narrative, the metaethical and normative ethical impact on each other in numerous ways.For example, the general degree of epistemic accessibility of ethical norms (metaethical commitment) can affect the gravity (i.e., degree of ethical wrongness) with which an infraction of the ethical norm might be viewed, which can form part of a normative ethical code.That the agent encounters the ethically relevant features of the world as resulting in ethical truths also can affect how she relates to them, to her normative ethical commitments and to alternative accounts that she holds to be erroneous. 57 The natural law ethical explanatory and justificatory narrative that I put forward is in highly general terms.As illustrated earlier, metaethical and normative ethical commitments in highly general terms tend to be amenable to being logically independent of each other.The explanatory and justificatory narrative might thus give the impression of natural law ethical approaches as unitary in merely psychological terms, on the basis of what helps the narrative flow.Yet once the narrative is seen as reflecting what is of ethical significance for the agent, that the moves from the metaethical to the normative ethical and vice versa reflect a unitary agential ethical perspective, then the overlap of the metaethical and normative ethical kicks in because the metaethical and normative ethical components are now encountered and understood in a way that brings them together.Furthermore, if a given natural law ethical account with its metaethical and normative ethical elements becomes more specific, detailed, and less general, then the basis for overlap across the M/N boundary can increase and the degree of explanation and justification of the natural law ethical account as theoretically unitary correspondingly increases.
Even if my line of argument does not rule out the possibility (especially given lack of clarity in the literature about what exactly makes ethical accounts natural law ethical), I think it would be odd to understand natural law ethical accounts as sets of logically independent commitments and not as theoretically unitary.It would be at variance with the dominant approach in the mainstream literature, which consistently presents natural law accounts as single ethical approaches/perspectives and not as mere collections of ethical commitments, even if it is rarely if ever explicitly pointed out or examined. 59The natural law ethical narrative I have given also illustrates how readily the metaethical and normative ethical form a unitary position.Moreover, given this consensus and propensity in favour of being theoretically unitary across the M/N boundary, and given how uncommon theories exhibiting such theoretical unity are within the contemporary ethical literature, as I believe is the case, then the theoretical unity of natural law accounts is surely relevant as a distinguishing feature within contemporary ethics.I therefore have fulfilled aim (ii) as listed in the Introduction.
My arguments also suggest an additional reason for the apparent reluctance of experts on natural law within ethics to supply definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical.Definitions/brief characterisations like NLE1-3 have the limitation of being from a metaethical perspective.Thus NLE1-3 on their own fail to do justice to the comprehensive breadth of features that make ethical accounts natural law ethical.But comprehensive definitions/brief characterisations like NLE5*, whilst providing an inclusive starting point for readers that could be of great value, might also risk doing injustice to the task by coming across as a collection of commitments of great diversity of kind that happen to be thrown together rather than as theoretically unitary.Definitions/brief characterisations like NLE5* require at least some accompanying narrative to communicate adequately NLE5* as theoretically unitary.Ethicists can, of course, do greater justice to any given ethical approach the more they add explanatory and justificatory narrative.But natural law ethical approaches raise specific challenges: they are typically constituted by an unusually large number of commitments of great diversity in type (even across the M/ N boundary) that could, if expressed in very general terms, be understood as logically independent of each other.That such difficulties are especially present in the case of natural law approaches might easily be a disincentive to providing definitions/brief characterisations.To provide this admittedly speculative explanation is to complete the second part of aim (iii) listed in the Introduction.

Conclusions
I have argued that the M/N distinction sheds light on how best to understand natural law ethical approaches and on why definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical are hard to come by.The M/N distinction is very prominent within the contemporary philosophical academy, which is often highly secular, whereas natural law approaches are often associated with commitment to theism. 60It is in keeping with the aims of many natural law approaches to seek consensus in ethics regardless of religious belief.The M/N distinction thus seems a particularly apposite resource for 59.E.g., as pointed out earlier when I quoted from ITC, In Search of a Universal Ethic, §63.60.In addition to my points in note 3 above, it should be noted that the authors from whose work I extracted NLE1-5 were all committed theists, which is reflected in their ethical writings.St Thomas and Ryan were Dominican friars; Maritain and Bourke were Catholic laypeople; and Murray a Jesuit.I chose these authors not due to religious affiliations, but on grounds of their prominence in the field and to ensure a variety of content.
The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (2013), pp.105-31.7. I therefore do not claim that my analysis in terms of the metaethical/normative ethical distinction gives both sufficient and necessary conditions for what makes ethical approaches natural law ethical.My use of the work of Christine Korsgaard later in this article underlines the same point.At most my analysis provides a necessary condition.There might be other criteria for what merits being regarded as natural law ethical, such as (and controversially) no reliance upon ethical non-naturalism.In any case, the boundary between what merits being regarded as natural law ethical and what might not may be more complex than a simple For defences of the natural law ethical credentials of new natural law ethical approaches, see e.g.Robert P. George, 'Human Law and Human Nature', in his In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.83-91; and Craig Paterson, 'Aquinas, Finnis and Non-Naturalism', in Craig Paterson and Matthew S. Pugh (eds.),Analytical Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), pp.171-93.For a critique of the natural law ethical credentials of new natural law ethical approaches, see Steven A. Long, 'Fundamental Errors of the New Natural Law', binary.See John D. O'Connor, 'Natural Law and Ethical Non-Naturalism', Studies in Christian Ethics 34.2 (2021), pp.190-208.8.The M/N distinction is little discussed even in the otherwise fine article (despite its title), 'From Metaethics to Normative Ethics' by Colleen McCluskey in Eleonore Stump and Brunero, 'Natural Law Theory', p. cxix.19.Driver, Ethics, p. 28.20.Within contemporary natural law ethical accounts, ethical physicalism is overwhelmingly viewed negatively.See e.g.International Theological Commission (ITC), In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2012), 17. John Brunero, 'Natural Law Theory', in Christian Miller (ed.),The Continuum Companion to Ethics (London: Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2011), p. cxix; Stephen Darwall, Philosophical Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998); Julia Driver, Ethics: The Fundamentals (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007); Mark Timmons, Moral Theory: An Introduction, 2nd edn (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013).18. § §78-82 (first published in Italian and in French in 2009 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano).21.Driver, Ethics, p. 29.22. Darwall, Philosophical Ethics, p. 88.
29. E.g.ITC, In Search of a Universal Ethic, § §39-43.30.E.g.ITC, In Search of a Universal Ethic; Jean Porter, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005).The ITC document does not mention the principle of double effect.The mentions of moral absolutes are in relation to high-order moral principles such as one must always seek to do good and avoid evil and be concerned for the common good.Porter's book mentions the principle of double effect towards the end and briefly (pp.301-302), certainly not as central to her account.Moral absolutes are similarly not given prominence, not even listed in the index.By contrast, Grisez and Finnis present the principle of double effect and especially moral absolutes as central to their accounts.In this too they and other advocates of new natural law approaches contrast with much of the rest of the field of natural law and ethics.See Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume One, pp.147-50, 216-22, 239-41, 297-300; Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, pp.118-25.31.The lack of definitions/brief characterisations is true even of extended accounts: e.g.Lisska, written to explain and defend natural law within ethics: the 2009 (Catholic) International Theological Commission (ITC) document, In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law.I then present and analyse a diverse array of definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical extracted from various texts in the natural law ethical literature.I argue that the M/N distinction provides an explanatory basis for categorising the definitions/brief characterisations.I also suggest that the distinction might help explain the general lack of definitions/ brief characterisations by experts in natural law and ethics.
Ryan): What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is commitment to ethical law understood as obligatory within the natural order. 3535.Columba Ryan, 'The Traditional Concept of "Natural Law"', in Illtud Evans (ed.),Light on the Natural Law (London: Burns & Oates, 1965), p. 19.Although Ryan speaks of the ethically obligatory within the natural order, and of ethically relevant 'rules' built into human nature (pp.21-23), he does not understand ethical normativity in terms similar to natural-order normativity, the normativity associated with physical laws.Instead, through What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is that they can be understood as the rational creature's participation in the eternal law and regulated by this eternal law. 36NLE3 (Vernon Bourke): What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is that they are committed to the view that there are certain precepts or norms of good and right conduct discoverable by all rational persons and that are grounded in human nature. 37NLE4 (Jacques Maritain): What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is that they are committed to the view that by virtue of human nature, rational human beings possess a disposition which human reason can discover and according to which the human will must act in order to attune itself to the essential and necessary ends of the human being. 38NLE5 (John Courtney Murray): What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is that they are committed to: (a) a realist epistemology, that there is reality by which knowledge claims can be assessed and that human beings have in principle access to such knowledge; (b) human nature is unitary and constant, though allowing some differences across human beings; (c) a metaphysic of nature and ethics in terms of fulfilling what is innate within human nature; (d) a natural theology, asserting that there is a Creator God, who has created a normative order inherent within creation; (e) human beings are capable of rationality, choice, and freedom. 39conduct and organisation conducive to achieving human fulfilment, whilst allowing for some adaptation due to context and for human beings to shape themselves in response to culture to some degree (the human being 'not simply as a biological object' (p.23)), are not determined solely by human choice and interpretation but are constrained by human nature.It is beyond the scope of this article to address the various debates on how best to understand natural law in relation to the natural order, even though diversity of opinion among scholars on such a fundamental matter is relevant to the topic of the article.After all, such diversity of opinion could be a contributing factor to the misrepresentation and misunderstanding within much of the contemporary academy of what makes ethical approaches natural law ethical.For a good summary of some different approaches to understanding the relation of ethical normativity to natural-order normativity, see A.P. d'Entrèves, Natural Law (London: Hutchison, 1951).36.Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a2ae 91.2.Regarding whether NLE2 is best understood as a definition, see Brock, The Light That Binds, p. 33.37. Bourke, 'Natural Law', p. 224.38.Jacques Maritain, 'Natural Law in Aquinas', in Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (eds.),Readings in Moral Theology No.7: Natural Law and Theology the exercise of reason in the light of experience, human beings can come to understand ('discover') ways of conduct and organisation conducive to achieving human fulfilment, a fulfilment towards which we are moved not only by reason but also through inclinations and 'the dynamism of the will and shot through with its force' (p.26).The nature of these ways of NLE2 (St Thomas Aquinas): (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), p. 115.39.John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), pp.293-94.NLE5 is more concisely expressed than Murray's text.

NLE5 * :
55at makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is that they are committed to: (a) a realist epistemology, that there is reality by which knowledge claims can be assessed and that human beings have in principle access to such knowledge; (b) human nature is unitary and constant, though allowing some differences across human beings; (c) a metaphysic of nature and ethics in terms of fulfilling what is innate within human nature; (d) human beings are capable of rationality, choice, and freedom.55 Indeed, the significance of 56.Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a 79.12; 1a2ae 94.2.57.For a non-natural law account of how commitment to moral realism impacts on how we relate to our normative ethical commitments and can thereby affect the content of normative ethical the natural law normative ethical commitments themselves is perhaps best appreciated if it is kept in mind that the agent could in principle have arrived at other normative options that are widely defended but that are standardly considered as being at odds with natural law ethical accounts, e.g., consequentialism (let us assume).For advocates of natural law ethical approaches, insofar as the agent exercises her reasoning correctly and is true to her human nature, the structure of the world and epistemological capacity of the agent in effect lead her towards natural law ethical normative positions.The general in principle ability of agents to know what is good or bad in the world (metaethical) is of a piece with their knowing what makes actions good or bad (normative ethical).It basically boils down to the (according to advocates of natural law ethical approaches) that natural law metaethical and normative ethical claims obtain and that human beings are constituted in a way that these claims are not understood apart from each other in our experience as agents.For the advocate of natural law ethical approaches: to forgo natural law ethical commitments, whether metaethical or normative ethical, is thus to make choices that overrule, at least to some extent, what one's experiences as a rational human being in effect tells us about what is ethically the case. 58 codes, see Nicholas Sturgeon, 'What Difference Does It Make Whether Moral Realism is True?',Southern Journal of Philosophy XXXIV Supplement (1986), pp.115-41.58.The bringing together of the metaethical and normative ethical is explained well (albeit not explicitly as metaethical and normative ethical) in e.g.Jensen, Knowing the Natural Law, pp.108-49.