Positivism and Natural Law Revisited

Abstract

March 2012 marked the time of my first of many visits from Argentina to the Notre Dame campus for purposes of teaching a mini-course at the Law School. In those days, Professor John Finnis used to come to South Bend for just a few weeks of the Spring Semester, to teach a one-credit short course on Shakespeare[1]. In 2012, as well as in several subsequent years, I timed my visits so as to overlap with this Spring visit of his. One night, over dinner, he told me that immediately before arriving in America he had been in Italy, where he had delivered a paper on Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the Bundestag, in Berlin. When I was tasked by the Center for Ethics and Culture to comment, all these years later, on that Berlin speech, my mind went straight to the memory of that dinner. I wrote to Finnis and, through his kindness, a few minutes later I had his Milan address in my Inbox[2]. In this contribution I shall put things in my own words as I see the issues, but will from time to time deploy some of the words that Finnis addressed to the Centro di Cultura, in Milan, 9 March 2012, less than six months after Pope Benedict XVI delivered his speech at the Bundestag in Berlin.