A natural-law theory is a critical reflective account of the constitutive aspects of the well-being and fulfillment of human persons and the communities they form. Such a theory will propose to identify principles of right action—moral principles—specifying the first and most general principle of morality: namely, that one should choose and act in ways that are compatible with a will toward integral human fulfillment. Among these principles are respect for rights people possess simply by virtue of their humanity—rights that, as a matter of justice, others are bound to respect, and governments are bound not only to respect but also, to the extent possible, to protect.
Natural-law theorists of my ilk understand human fulfillment—the human good—as variegated. There are many irreducible dimensions of human well-being. This is not to deny that human nature is determinate. It is to affirm that our nature, though determinate, is complex. We are animals, but rational. Our integral good includes not only our bodily well-being but also our intellectual, moral, and spiritual well-being. We are individuals, but friendship and sociability are constitutive aspects of our flourishing.
By reflecting on the basic goods of human nature, especially those most immediately pertaining to social and political life, natural-law theorists propose to arrive at a sound understanding of principles of justice, including those principles we call human rights. In light of how natural-law theorists understand human nature and the human good, it should be no surprise to learn that natural-law theorists typically reject both strict individualism and collectivism. Individualism overlooks the intrinsic value of human sociability and tends mistakenly to view human beings atomistically. It fails to account for the intrinsic value of friendship and other aspects of human sociability, reducing all relationships to means by which the partners collaborate with a view to more fully or efficiently achieving their individual goals and objectives. Collectivism, meanwhile, compromises the dignity of human beings by tending to instrumentalize and subordinate them and their well-being to the interests of larger social units—the community, the state, the volk, the fatherland, the führer, the future communist utopia. Individualists and collectivists both have theories of justice and human rights, but they are, as I see it, highly unsatisfactory. They are rooted in important misunderstandings of human nature and the human good. Neither can do justice to the concept of a human person—that is, a rational animal who is a locus of intrinsic value (and, as such, an end in himself who may never legitimately treat himself or be treated by others as a mere means), but whose well-being intrinsically includes relationships with others and membership in communities (beginning with the family) in which he or she has, as a matter of justice, both rights and responsibilities.
(Robert P. George, Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, American Ideals and Institutions Series, ed. Robert P. George [Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2013], 76-7 [italics in original])
