Natural law ethics
also natural law theory, teleological ethics
The view, classically Aristotelian and central to much Thomist and Eastern Orthodox ethics, that things (humans included) have a proper function or end, and that wrongness consists in acting against that end rather than violating an arbitrary rule.
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Aquinas's Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy"
- John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980)