Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to reconstruct Aquinas's natural law theory by grounding and thereby integrating it within its larger contextual whole encompassing Aquinas's epistemology, metaphysics, and theology. The integration is not a contextual one where I merely re-explain Aquinas's natural law according to Aquinas's text. Instead, it is critical in that it not only wrestles with the problems extant in contemporary natural law literature but it is also concerned with contemporary philosophical sensibilities insofar as they bear on natural law theory. In other words, this dissertation highlights those aspects of natural law that seem of interest to the contemporary critiques and proponents of natural law theory. ;In the last few decades evolutionary ethics has continued to gain prominence in the academic world. Due to its current popularity and the fact that some of its features prima facie resemble some of the features of natural law theory, evolutionary ethics represents a strong challenge to natural law ethics. Consequently, in the last chapter, I pit Aquinas's natural law theory against the evolutionary ethics of Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, the most notable proponents of evolutionary ethics, contending that unlike the Ruse-Wilson account, Aquinas's natural law theory is a viable ethical option