Aspects of the Straussian critique of Aquinas

Abstract

Leo Strauss and his disciplines criticise Aquinas on various grounds and openly disregard his natural law theory. They accuse him of conceiving natural right in maximally universalist terms, so that all legal codes deemed just will necessarily share the same legal framework, a scenario with which the Straussians are clearly uncomfortable. Taking notice of their criticism, the present text explores the relationship established in the Summa theologica between natural right and ius gentium, that basic collection of legal arrangements that was considered to be shared by all peoples.