Natural Law and Evolutionary Conservatism

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2005

Abstract

This article reports that what is natural is morally authoritative. Researcher James Fitzjames Stephen thinks that what is natural is, in some sense, morally good. However, researcher Janet Radcliffe Richards disagrees, and argues that Stephen's view is a relic of an antiquated metaphysics that should have perished in the wake of a Darwinian understanding of the world. The author opines that Radcliffe Richards neglects a more reasonable way of developing a conservative, natural law position which, while perhaps not clearly articulated by Stephen himself, is similar enough in both methodology and output to warrant one's attention.

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