Proportionalist theories like rule utilitarianism, however, say that it is never right to go against a principle unless a proportionate reason would justify it.
In the 1960s, proportionalism was a consequentialist attempt to develop natural law, a principally Roman Catholic teleological theory most strongly associated with the 13th-century scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas, but also found in Church Fathers such as Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus, as well as early pagan schools of philosophy such as Stoicism.
Pope John Paul II rules out the 1960s proportionalism in his encyclicals Veritatis Splendor, promulgated in 1993 (cf.
Bernard Hoose was a significant contributor to the theory of proportionalism, first summarising his viewpoint in the 1987 text 'Proportionalism: The American Debate and its European Roots'.
Hoose held that there are rigid absolutist moral laws that cannot be violated unless there exists a proportionate reason that would justify disobedience.