Good, Evil, and the Virtues: An Extension of the New Classical Theory of Natural Law

This paper proposes extending New Classical Natural Law Theory to the theory of virtues. After a brief personal recollection, the paper begins, in section II, by presenting some of John Finnis’s ideas on the relationship between natural law and the virtues. Section III suggests that there is an incipient theory of virtue in Finnis’s highly developed work on moral principles and human action. The main part of the paper, section IV, aims to explain why a developed theory of virtue is needed in order to supplement New Classical Natural Law Theory. The reasons are: first, to explain both moral good and evil in general and the specification of human actions as good or evil and as different kinds of human actions in genere moris; and, second, to supplement the methodology of moral reasoning, based on first principles of natural law and the requirements of practical reasonableness, with a way of reasoning about good and evil actions by relating specific act-types to certain kinds of virtues and vices.