‘It’s just not right.’ ‘It’s not natural.’ How many times have you heard these sorts of judgements invoked against a particular practice or act? What do they mean? When abortion is pronounced immoral, same-sex marriage unacceptable, what is the basis of this censure? Is there an objectively ascertainable measure of right and wrong, good and bad? If so, by what means can we retrieve it?
Moral questions pervade our lives; they are the stuff of political, and hence legal, debate. Moreover, since the establishment of the United Nations, the ethical tenor of international relations, especially in the field of human rights, is embodied in an increasing variety of international declarations and conventions, many of which draw on the unspoken assumption of natural law that there is indeed a corpus of moral truths that, if we apply our reasoning minds, we can all discover.
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Author(s): Raymond Wacks