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Article: NATURAL LAW THEORY IS VERY MUCH ALIVE AND WELL.(Main)
- Article from:
- Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)
- Article date:
- August 17, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Albany Times Union. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Peter Steinfels New York Times
One of the more curious displays of cultural illiteracy has been the consternation and bafflement created by Judge Clarence Thomas' expressions of esteem for "natural law."
For some of the critics of the nominee to the Supreme Court, it was as though the man had let slip a reference to torture by thumbscrews. Others squinted as though Thomas had disclosed an obscure and probably sinister belief in alchemy.
These are strange reactions to a philosophical theory stretching back to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, propounded by the Stoics, developed anew by medieval churchmen like Aquinas, elaborated in secular ...