There are five ways in which the question of knowledge is a problem for Natural Law. First, how does a human being actually know that “good should be done and evil avoided”? Can a more persuasive account be given for the operation of synderesis on the human heart? Lewis inquires:
...it is no good saying there are Natural Law precepts unless one can explain how “ordinary men” know them.
Is Aquinas an intuitionist? Daniel Maguire portrays Aquinas’ teaching as “affectivity” (or “gut-feeling”), a position rebutted successfully by Scott Davis. However, Thomist Natural Law is a form of intuitionism, in that it requires a moral proposition to be per se notum; and while Aquinas wants to appeal to reason as the ground of the doctrine, the primary precept must be understood pre-reason, that reason may build from it. This explanation is vague, to say the least.
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