New natural law

New Natural Law (NNL) theory or New Classical Natural Law theory is an approach to natural law ethics and jurisprudence based on a reinterpretation of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The approach began in the 1960s with the work of Germain Grisez and has since been developed by John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, Olaf Tollefsen, Christopher Tollefsen and others. NNL theory typically relies on a concept of 'basic goods'.

Basic Goods

Recent theory suggests the following list of ten human goods derived using the objective approach to defining functionally distinct basic goods as human resources. This list is considered invariable due to integrity of human organism. Objectively measurable characteristics of these human goods are recognized as the object for law and further regarded to as objective human freedoms.

• Life – the principal human good expending over a period of time inalienably given to a human after the birth.
• Ancestry – the human good attributed to inalienable possession of tangible and intangible objects surrounding a human at every moment of time, whereas the fact of such possession is impossible to "cancel".
• Name – all verbal names factually used by a human in the social activity satisfying any of his or her needs.
• Health – physical and psychic abilities of a human.
• Knowledge – any information memorized by a human.
• Convictions – the human good consisting of convictions, each of which is defined as the evaluative or probabilistic positive (useful, admissible, doubtless), negative (stressful, inadmissible, unbelievable) or indifferent (useless, neutral, doubtful) significance attached by a human to the emotion which he or she is able to feel in regard to the possessed knowledge about something.
• Will – human ability to effectively alienate and appropriate material and immaterial goods.This ability is particularly attributed to the channels objectively possessed and used by the human in communicating human goods, including by way of using material goods to his or her own satisfaction.
• Family – personal ability to coexist with the other people for human reproduction.
• Uniqueness – a composition of inalienable immaterial goods. Can be identified by comparison of the human’s basic goods between themselves as well as by their comparison with the respective human goods of other persons (with the societal averages).
• Dignity – human’s subjective contentment, attainable by satisfying his or her physiological needs and a need in development.