• The challenge for each individual and culture is to discover this immutable natural law that underlies the specific conventions of any society.
(Philosophers Way John Chaffee Pgs259-260)

• Nature, however, embodies the vast realm of truth that exists on a deeper level than social conventions that exist on the surface. These “natural truths” are not relative to each society: they are constant from culture to culture, and from age to age. These truths are rooted in the fundamental nature of what it means to be human. According to this view, there is a natural law that is based on humanity’s essential nature and that is universal and binding on all people.

The social conventions of a society are the customs and beliefs, laws, and tastes that are peculiar to that society. That is why when you examine the numerous culture is the world, past and present, you find a spectacular diversity in the social fabrics of each society: you are observing the social conventions that age relative to each individual society.

, a grounding that will remove it from the grip of divine command theory, social conditioning, and the shadow land of inscrutable mystery

is that which advances the requirements of human fulfillment

• What are the most enlightened values that humans can aspire to?
• What are the norms of conduct that foster the most meaningful and productive society?
• What are the conditions that maximize an individual’s freedom and personal growth?
• What are the moral responsibilities that we have to each other as members of an interdependent human community?

• “…they could be if they were fully morally developed.”

• We are in a tricky area here; what is morally developed? It is as if we are putting the cart in front of the horse. Morality is what we are supposed to be extrapolating from nature not hypothesizing of a what full moral development would and should be..