Anscombe, Grisez, Finnis: The Intellectual History of Analytical Thomism and New Natural Law

Abstract This paper provides an intellectual–historical reconstruction of New Classical Natural Law theory (Grisez–Finnis–George), arguing that it is inseparable from the late-twentieth-century movement John Haldane termed “analytical Thomism.” The school’s origins lie in the Catholic intellectual milieu of post-war Oxford and its transatlantic parallel. G. E. M. Anscombe, shaped by Dominican mentors and the moral crises of the Cold War and nuclear weapons, revived Thomistic–Aristotelian practical philosophy with analytical rigor. Her essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958) and her classic book Intention (1957) established a research program of contemporary Thomism. A generation later, John Finnis, trained under the legal positivist H. L. A. Hart yet loyal to Catholic teaching, transformed Anscombe’s insights into systematic natural law jurisprudence. His Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980) combined Oxford analytical clarity with practical reasonableness. From the late 1960s, Finnis’s collaboration with Germain Grisez produced an updated traditional Thomism, a version of natural law competitive within mainstream analytical philosophy. The paper introduces two key followers (Haldane and Robert P. George) and a major challenger (Russell Hittinger). It presents this intellectual movement as one of the most cohesive contributions to contemporary moral, legal, and political philosophy.