The Non-Aggression Principle and the Pauline Principle
There is no one non-aggression principle . Rather, “non-aggression principle” names a family of norms precluding the initiation of force against others. One version, familiar to many readers, is the one found in the Libertarian Party’s membership pledge , which rejects “the initiation of force.” One deontic cousin of the NAP is the Pauline Principle, which occupies a central place in natural law theory. The Pauline Principle (I believe we owe the label to Alan Donagan in The Theory of Morality ) gets its name from St. Paul’s characterization as justly damnable those who maintain that it is morally acceptable to do evil that good may come. Rejecting the possibility of doing evil to bring about good is sometimes understood to mean declining to violate a range of prohibitions, not necessarily connected but understood as absolute. But the new classical natural law (NCNL) theorists, who have done the best and most extensive contemporary work on this principle, have argued for a more genera...