In recent years, many Catholic moral theologians have tried to develop new philosophical bases and modes of argument for the establishment of ethical norms, and they have done so with the intention of doing justice to the individual responsibility of the human person. It is maintained as an established and notorious truth that the traditional moral theology. With its natural-law basis for moral demands upon human behavior, has lost its power to convince; it is seen as an abstract 'legalism' which neglects the individual and his moral independence. Accordingly, in recent decades there has emerged within the field of moral theology a new interpretation of the Thomistic doctrine of natural law (lex naturalis). This interpretation places special emphasis on the idea that, according to Thomas Aquinas, the natural law is a law of reason, and not of nature. This emphasis, though quite promising at the outset, has unfortunately led to an historically inaccurate interpretation of Thomas.