The Natural Law Theory Of John Finnis

Introduction
Natural law theories are deeply rooted in western ideology, more particularly in the culture of the white, male perspective. John Finnis is the frontrunner in regards to the new natural law theory, which Blake notes:
‘[S]eeks to avoid the epistemological pitfalls in which the scholastic version of natural law theory had previously become entangled. By focusing on experiential human goods, this approach to natural law (which Finnis considers to be in many ways a return to Aquinas) buttresses itself against the sceptical critiques that had pushed the scholastic natural law tradition aside.’
However, herein rests a problem with Finnis’s new theory, as although it does rely on experiential human goods, it is submitted that these

Such an approach to the ‘natural law would not be objective and reifying, but neither would it be relativistic, [r]ather, it would acknowledge that truth and goodness are real, and are particular, and are realized within historical circumstance.’ This approach would concur with Finnis’s own perspective, for instance, when writing on the natural law theory of Aquinas and the place of the divine, he remarks that ‘the plan of divine providence must extend to all things and all events in the entire history of the universe, in all their particularity, and – without subtracting from the strong freedom that persons can have in choosing – must shape them all to the common good of the universe.’ However, Blake would argue Finnis is mistaken when he continues that persons ‘understand… certain general truths about the universe (and particular events only to the extent that they instantiate those general truths) and certain principles of practical reason picking out the basic human goods.’ Indeed, quite the opposite holds true. Understanding certain truths depends on how they are subjectively accessible within one’s own existence. A tradition-sensitive view of natural law recognises that truth ought to be realised in particular circumstances, and as such should always be renewed by reinterpretation and restatement. A tradition-sensitive view of the natural law would not dismiss general statements or principles, although these would be regarded as the communicative tools they are, intended to reveal no more than subjective truth to individual men and women in their particular circumstances. It would not objectify general principles into eternal