The author of the text is Prof. John Finnis (born 1940), an Australian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the contemporary philosophy of natural law. For Finnis, natural law is not (as in Thomism) a system of norms that serve as a model for positive law, but rather certain requirements that practical reason places on positive law and that result from a certain conception of human nature. The source from which natural law norms are derived is therefore not God, but common sense. In this article, Finnis recalls and confirms the thesis of the philosophical and doctrinal tradition that there are negative moral norms without exception. He then outlines what is involved in identifying the type of act based on its object and reflects on three successive and different iterations of the Catechism of the Catholic Church's teaching on the death penalty. Furthermore, he draws attention to the noteworthy but little-discussed non-pacifist teaching of the Catechism against all intentions to kill, even in a just war.
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English
Język Polski