Topic 19- Life in the Modern Polis

• Natural Law Tradition

  • Natural Law: the body of unchanging moral principles that constitute the ultimate standard for all human conduct
  • Accessible to reason
  • Of divine origin
  • Superior to human law
• Legal Positivism

  • Opposed to natural law view
  • Law's authority arises from lawmaking institutions
• Solidarity

  “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good…to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”

  – St. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social Concern of the Church) (1987)
• Solidarity and Charity

  “[S]olidarity seeks to go beyond itself, to take on the specifically Christian dimension of total gratuity, forgiveness and reconciliation…One’s neighbor must therefore be loved, even if an enemy…

  – St. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social Concern of the Church) (1987)