Germain Grisez's natural law theory: A Thomistic critique

During recent years a movement has begun and gathered momentum to break the apparent stalemate between deontology and utilitarianism in ethics; more recently this movement has been named "recoverism". Significant among thinkers so-grouped is Germain Grisez.; Grisez's work may be called a two-tiered ethical theory, in which he first enumerates non-moral "basic goods" for the human person, and then, invoking the "first principle of morality," shows how moral judgments are made based on the integrated choice of these goods. The theory has, according to Grisez, filled a lacuna in the work of Thomas Aquinas, who does not adequately treat of the relationship/s between the ultimate end of man, and the proximate goods to be chosen. One of the chief strengths of Grisez's theory is its complete practicality; it neither attempts nor needs to derive moral truths from speculative truth.; Thomas' theory, in distinction, is heavily reliant upon a foundation in the speculative sciences of metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. Further, it does not, we hold, distinguish non-moral from moral goods as subject to the first practical principle. The principal aspects of Thomas' theory are the theories of virtue and of law, which are complementary.; The contrast between Grisez and Thomas has, in the critical literature, found its focus in the doctrines of the relevance of metaphysics to ethics, and the end of man. Grisez holds that the end of man is "integral human fulfillment," which is a practical cooperation with the will of God; his position is based on a sketchy theory of human nature, marred by metaphysical deficiency. Thomas holds that end of man is beatitude, which he may voluntarily pursue according to being's exigency of final causality. The position of Thomas is founded directly and explicitly upon the intelligibility of being, and can absorb and elevate the position of Grisez. The difficulties with Grisez's theory lie primarily in incompleteness, rather than in positive error; Thomas' strength lies in that he finds ethics in the very structure and mystery of being.