Law and command

R. A. Armstrong's book, Primary and Secondary Precepts in Thomistic Natural Law Teaching, is not an easy book to find--there was a used copy floating around a while ago, but someone snatched it up before I could buy it. The following article makes a reference to the book, and I stumbled across it while doing a search for Armstrong's work.

The relationship between law and command is of some concern for my topic; I am wondering if I am missing more recent work. Armstrong's book was published in the 60s, after all.

THE LOGIC OF NATURAL LAW IN AQUINAS'S "TREATISE ON LAW"
James Fieser

Apparently James Fieser has a lot of things lined up; most of his work is on Hume. So what is this essay on Aquinas?

Armstrong: "...when we speak of a precept "following" or being "derived" from another, we are not suggesting a procedure in any way analogous to the strict deductive system employed by Euclid."

Fieser: "Against commentators such as Armstrong, I will argue that the "logic" referred to by Thomas in his account of natural law is best interpreted as formal, syllogistic logic.⁽⁴⁾ What emerges is a more precise account of how actions are related to natural law, and a procedure which takes much of the guess work out of discovering our moral duty."

But is the derivation of secondary precepts a part of a science such as ethics, or a function of practical reasoning, through understanding of the good? Judgments need to be made as to what bears upon goods, but are these judgments further specified or elaborated? Or are there actual syllogisms involved? This is a question I hadn't thought of before...

On the other hand, it seems that ethics, even one that is virtue-centered, does result in secondary precepts by telling us what actions are good and what are not...

Ugh, something else I will have to sift through and decide if I need to discuss it in the dissertation.

Found this essay by Fr. Rhonheimer (not located at his homepage), "Natural Moral Law." Whoa, it turns out that it was published in The Thomist.

Dr. Kilma has a bibliography for those interested in learning more about medieval philosophy.