p. 74 The leading proponents of a marriage between the natural law and natural right traditions are Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) and John Finnis. Whereas Maritain sought to defend the concept of natural rights before a Catholic audience, Finnisian diplomacy has worked in the opposite direction of promoting natural law to a liberal audience. Leading critics of a marriage include: Ernest Fortin (1923–2002), James V. Schall (1928–2019), Robert P. Kraynak, Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, Oliver O’Donovan, Peter Quinlan, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank. Fortin, Schall, and Kraynak approach the issue from the perspective of political philosophy. Quinlan offers a legal perspective. The O’Donovans, Hauerwas, and Milbank speak from a background in philosophical theology. In a number of his early works, Alasdair MacIntyre was also staunchly opposed to the marriage. More recently he declared that ‘our treatment of human rights will be theoretically and practically defective, until and unless we understand them in theological terms’.1 This implies that MacIntyre may be open to a marriage if it has a theological foundation. Mark Retter has also argued that MacIntyre may be open to a marriage if it were founded upon a Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophical anthropology.

Capítulo: The Case against the Marriage of Natural Law and Natural Rights, by Tracey Rowland