Abstract
This essay is about Catholic theological ethics and an explanation of competing answers to questions raised by Catholic ethicists. The core of the essay is a presentation of the cognitional theory of perspectivism as a counter to the concerns of relativism raised by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The essay considers the foundational theory of natural law and contrasts its 19th-century neo-Thomist understanding with Aquinas’s own understanding of natural law as reason. As a concrete illustration of the theories of perspectivism and natural law, the essay considers the question of contraception and its competing Catholic answers.
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