Animals as inventions: biotechnology and intellectual property rights.

Second, I have tried to exhibit the peculiarly illogical character of basing an objection to a secular policy on religious revelation. The objectors should concede that nothing they ha ve to say in criticism of the policy ought to persuade a disinterested person. That being so, we had best pass over their objection in silence, for there is nothing that could be said in criticism of it that the objector has not already conceded. Once again, let me emphasize that none of these considerations applies to those portions of religiously based morality most of religiously based morality, I think, for all of the world's great religions that can also be jus tified by publicly accessible reasons. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, insisted that the precepts of natural law could be derived from a reasoned examination of the nature of the cornmon good, without the assistance of divine revelation, and thus he had no need to enter into the paradoxes surround ing the leap of faith. On most moral issues, men and women of faith can participate fully in political debate, knowing that the public reasons they are offering are also in accord with their professions of faith. When they have no public reasons to offer, however, they should retire from the public arena.