Second Thoughts on Natural Law Ethics
Maybe third thoughts would be more accurate, as I used to be an enthusiastic defender of natural law ethics. In any case, several readers pushed back in response to the posts a few months ago (here and here) in which I broadly rejection the idea, and I’ve been considering their comments off and on since.
What I’ve concluded is that the appeal to natural law which I reject as invalid could be dubbed the derivationist variation–the idea that we can derive from a metaphysical-teleological study of human nature absolute moral norms governing human action. You cannot, for example, derive an absolute conclusion about the rightness or wrongness of contraception from factually-based conclusions you’ve reached about the natural (biological, etc.) purpose of human sexuality.
However, not all appeals to natural law argue this way. You could, for example, compose an argument that one ought or ought not use contraception based on the consequences their use has for human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness. This sort of argument would presuppose that human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness are appropriate standards by which to morally and ethically judge human conduct, but it wouldn’t fall prey to the “is-ought” problem. You’re not saying that the “natural” purpose of Y is X, therefore Y always ought be done in accordance with X. Rather, you’re saying that using Y in accordance with X brings H, and because one ought to act in ways that bring H, one ought to use Y in accordance with X.
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Isn’t that implied in natural law? That God designed us to function this way, and we are happiest when doing as God intended? When we say that acting against the natural law is sinful, doesn’t that mean that doing so cuts us off from sanctifying grace, and therefore makes us unhappy?
Bringing in “what God intended” and “sanctifying grace” moves us beyond natural law and into moral theology, so I wouldn’t reference them in a purely philosophical argument.
Sorry, I guess I’m not clear on your assumptions. Are you talking about natural law morality with no assumption about God’s existence or intentions whatsoever? Basing it purely on what results in happiness in the temporal sphere, without reference to how God wills that we should conduct ourselves?
I thought the whole point of natural law (in the Catholic context) was to discover what God wills that we should do, based on the design inherent in created things. In that context it’s a given that we should do God’s will, whatever that might turn out to be.
Can you set me straight so I’m clear on what we’re talking about? : )
I’m speaking of natural law as a proposed moral standard which can be discovered by human reason unaided by revelation. The problem with bringing in the idea of what God intends is that the “is” of nature doesn’t lead us to firm conclusions about God’s intentions. One might assume that what nature suggests is good for natural fulfillment is what God intends, but this assumption can, at the philosophical level, remain only that–an assumption. One might assume God wants human beings to live according to their nature: another might assume that God wants human beings to rise above their nature, take control of it, even change it.
“another might assume that God wants human beings to rise above their nature, take control of it, even change it.”
If this is what God wanted, it would be our nature; by definition God is the Final End.
However, if our nature was “to change our nature”…this would be rather nonsensical and circular, as the only thing we could then change our nature to would be to make our nature “to NOT change our nature” or to some concrete fixed category. If “changeability” is our nature, the only thing that nature could change TO would be “non-changeability.” That’s the paradox you’re proposing: if we were still changeable, we wouldn’t really have essentially changed.
However, if our nature was “to change our nature”…this would be rather nonsensical and circular, as the only thing we could then change our nature to would be to make our nature “to NOT change our nature” or to some concrete fixed category.
Perhaps this nonsense and circularity speaks to the limitations of categories like “nature.”
Not really. All it speaks to is the contradictions of trying to define something as undefined.
Kyle,
If we consider “natural law as a proposed moral standard which can be discovered by human reason unaided by revelation”, I believe that Agellius’s initial response to you is pretty much still on the right track if you take God out of the picture. In other words, in my opinion, what brings “human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness” is part and parcel with “it is good to act in accord with one’s nature.”
Consider: Humans have a digestive system in order to nourish ourselves, and so it is good for humans to eat — and that also happens to bring human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness; humans have a rational element and so it is good for humans to live in community — and that also happens to bring human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness.
In “A Sinner’s” response below this one, I think he’s getting at the same thing I’m saying here.
“based on the consequences their use has for human fulfillment, well-being, and happiness”
And what constitutes fulfillment depends on what we think the essence of a human being is, in other words, what is human nature.
If it is Reason/meaning-making, than things which render the meaning (of desire, etc) unintelligible or circularly-defined…is not fulfillment of that end or nature.
“Rather, you’re saying that using Y in accordance with X brings H, and because one ought to act in ways that bring H, one ought to use Y in accordance with X.”
Even more simply, you’re cutting out the middle man and saying that “ought” simply means that which IS fulfilling. There is no is/ought distinction. Ought is a sort of subset of is, the subset of conditions which make human fulfillment true.
I agree that the meaning of human fulfillment depends on the meaning of being human or human nature, but the ascent from the latter to the former requires additional support. You have to make the case that acting according to human nature or an alleged aspect of it results in fulfillment.
You seem to be taking “fulfillment” in some subjective sense. That’s not what I or the Church means.
Acting according to human nature by definition “fulfills” human nature because that’s what “to act in accord with” means!
To be a “good human” is to fulfill the essence “human” well. Likewise, to be a “good refrigerator” is to fulfill the essence “refrigerator” well. The essence of a refrigerator is to refrigerate. If it does not cool things well, it is a bad refrigerator, because it does not fulfill the essence of “refrigerator.” It may be a good cabinet or supply closet, but it’s a bad refrigerator.
If we assume Reason or (to be unnecessarily postmodernist or existentialist, for your sake) “meaning making” is the essence of Human, then to render desire etc more intelligible makes one a better human (because one is fulfilling the essential defining feature of “human” better), and to render things unintelligible is to be a bad human, because one is not living up to the essence of human.
Nature has to be interpreted before one can come to conclusions about the fulfillment of nature. We also have to ask if the fulfillment of nature is really the ultimate fulfillment? Is nature absolute and essential or can it change?
It can’t change in itself, because the nature or essence is the eternal form. The category of “rational animal” (to use the scholastic terminology here, I’m not saying that’s the be-all and end-all) is a discrete category, an Idea, that will always exist, that will always be conceivable. Whether this is always how we define “human” can change, I suppose, but that’s just semantics, just a question of swapping words or labels or changing the field of ideas they cover (just look at the “gay marriage” debate, which is entirely asinine on both sides exactly because it is entirely semantic).
If being “good people” is the goal (and, by definition, that’s what morality is about: how to be a good person), the nature of a human person is assumed to be constant. As long as we identify as human, of course. Is it possible that we could conceivably become “transhuman” or something like that? And that then fulfillment of our nature would be to be a “good transhuman” (whatever the essence of transhumanity was) rather than a good human?
Perhaps. However, the very act of becoming transhuman (in a secular sense; it’s arguable, of course, that divinization in grace is transcending our own nature, of course, and that such transcending is part of the very essence of humanity as free and “open ended” creatures) would make us a bad human in the process and thus be an immoral choice. And of course; if a TV becomes a good fish-tank…in the process it has become a bad TV, or not a TV at all! If we became good transhumans, the human, our self, would be utterly destroyed in the process, and thus with it any possibility of being a good human.
Interesting. Permit me to explore this with you further. If the human species evolved into a type of being that reproduced in a way other than sexually and that ceased to be male and female, would the human species still be human or would such a change move into your transhuman category? In other words, is “sexually reproducing” an aspect of the “essential, eternal form” of human nature?
The scholastics define man as nothing more than a “rational animal” (ie, a conscious free subject with a body)…so I’m not sure if sexual reproduction would be essential to humanity.
I’d tend to say that extrapolating to our nature as relational beings makes it important that our bodies are descended from relational pairs, but if we evolved into a procreative system something like the Amphibiosans on Futurama (http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Amphibiosan) I’m not sure how compromised that would be.
However, while that’s an interesting theoretical conversation in itself, it really has little to do with this one. As you yourself point out, the idea of “natural law” as regards sexual morality is not really about the natural BIOLOGY of reproduction (whose relevance is more indirect), as it is about humanity’s rational nature, and the question of how the higher appetite (the organizing essential principle of Reason) relates to the lower appetites, to desire etc (and, thus, the good, which is the object of desire by definition).
What you seem to be hinting at is the idea that maybe humans could evolve beyond the bootstrapping of sex and procreation, or something like that.
However, this is erroneous. As long as man remained rational (that is to say, man)…there must needs be an intelligibility to his desires and enjoyments. A Reason. Meaning that is transcendent.
As such, imagining that human beings may not reproduce sexually is one thing. Imagining that we could get to that point, but then still retain the vestigial desire and then co-opt it to get off just for fun…would not be moral. Indeed, at that point the proper object of our reproductive desire/pleasure (assuming we still reproduced at all) would presumably be whatever new method we used, with the End remaining the same.
But continuing to arbitrarily desire “going through the motions” of the old, yet gutted of their Reason/purpose/meaning/content/substance just because that reward-circuit is still there in the brain…is the very problem with contraception and stuff even today: desire is taken out of its holistic context or fragmented and then instrumentalized as an end in itself. Of course, this notion of the good as desire-for-desire’s-own-sake, as itches entertained merely for the satisfaction of scratching them, is self-enclosed, non-transcendent and ultimately atheistic or nihilistic.
I’ll add this to perhaps help flesh out what I mean:
If humans no longer needed air, presumably we wouldn’t breath nor feel the urgency of suffocation for not doing so. If we no longer needed food, presumably we would not get hungry (and thus, presumably, would never have the pleasure of hunger-sated). If we did not need sleep, we would not get tired nor would sleeping be a desirable activity any longer. If we didn’t need to go to the bathroom, presumably we would no longer be overcome by feelings of urgency causing us to run off to the toilet to release.
There’s no reason sex should be imagined as any different.
A Sinner – I’m pretty sure I’m following you, but I’m curious whether you think a sound natural law argument can be made in support of an absolute forbidding of contraception or the practice of homosexuality. If so, would you appeal to the biological telos of human sexuality to make your case?
No, I’d probably appeal to the intelligibility of sexual desire.
How can there be a concept of morality at all without some awareness of teleology as a feature of things? Without teleology, what does the word “good” even mean? Is the end a matter of arbitrary choice such that that which lead to the end is good? How can there be any evaluation of ends if matters are thus?
Purposes we see in “nature” may not be normative, necessarily, but that doesn’t mean that no end can be normative. Obviously there are reasons for saying one ought to do X. All I’m denying is that something like biological purpose in itself, with no other considerations, gives us one of these reasons.
Kyle,
I think I agree with your position –
it would certainly be a morally rather very monodimensional world without the ‘ought’.
LOL the fact that after ~5Mio years of more or less freely hopping around this fine planet we have not come up with a focused ‘normative’ is also quite telling.
Unlike Religion, Science for example is such a universally powerful framework since we very much allow for change and full incorporation of new understanding.
In my opinion we should take the hint from the scientific experience that every time a group is interested to limit the next logical scientific step that group seem to fail to do so.
IMHO why is it so difficult to understand that changing circumstances and societal understanding do profoundly influence the human experience beyond the strictly physical.
What was ‘natural’ for a men my age and social position 100 years ago is no longer ‘natural’ now. How does one define ‘natural law’ with that kind of moving target.
I’m not sure the world of science is substantially less “pluralistic” than the world of religions. Science has it’s accepted method, but you still see a lot of debate about what should be considered normative.
I maintain that there is no issue of “ought.” What “is” implies (going forward) is an imprecisely calculable probability.
Do you maintain that there is no such thing as “ought”?
I maintain that “ought” is a social construct, not a natural one. As such, it is mutable. I also maintain that “natural law” is a human concept, every bit as much as is statute law. Natural is read into, not out of, nature.
Of the many cultural critiques of Natural Law that I could give, and have given here, perhaps the most redolent is this. Is nature so hot?? A lot of things in “nature” are cruel and stupid, and to the extent that we, as humans, participate in them, we are similar. In some ways we are an opus contra naturam, but in other ways, quite in line with nature. Only fools and psychopaths are literal all the time, and about everything. It is the art and artistry that brings life and love, and delight.
Once again, as I’m sure has been pointed out a million times, “nature” in this context means “essence,” NOT wild, non-artificial, etc.
The natural law is about what is the essence of being human and thus how to live up to that essence in order to be a GOOD human.
@ A Sinner –
“Once again, as I’m sure has been pointed out a million times, “nature” in this context means “essence,” NOT wild, non-artificial, etc.”
Perhaps. But it hasn’t been demostrated that there is any such thing as “essence” transcending that which is bloody in tooth and claw. There are as many different versions of metaphysics as there are cultures. Your idea of “natural law” is based on, and necessitated by, Aristotle’s idea of a god who is unmoving other than for his thought, which provides the essence of a thing. That’s quite a different god than the Judeo-Christian God who changes His mind all the time, who is a Triune God, and who deals extensively with time and motion, beginnings and endings, causes and effects.
At the very least, essences exist in human minds. Whether you think it is also in the Mind of God is a somewhat different question, but WE have an Idea of Human, and it is obviously identified in human consciousness with ourselves, with who and what we are.
And morality is the idea of being a Good Human. Now, “good” is the object of desire by definition, and happiness is the state of being-well. But to decide how to Be well, we have to decide what is essential to our Being (which in the case of humans, can only mean our Human Being).
Obviously, if you don’t believe that there is any essential organizing feature of what is a human being (ie, reason and free will), or that the essence can only be determined by individual valuing or choice, or is a totally arbitrary construct in a materialistic universe, there can be no arguing with you from this perspective. However, “this” perspective assumes, as most people do, that Humanity is a real thing and, even if it is a construct, that it is a construct we value, identify with, with an internally consistent definition that can either be lived up to or not lived up to, that can be “be-ed” well, or not well.
@ A Sinner
I concur with my friend Rodak’s point. But I want to put it in a different perspective perhaps. “Nature” as a concept is at this point in Western Culture far past the point where any group can hem it in to mean one sort of thing or other. Of course one has a legal right to do, but that is true but trivial. Conceptually however, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that one’s particular view of “Nature” can even potentially be understood at all abstracted from all the other possible meanings.
The irony is that the modern practitioners of “Natural Law thinking” are the ones that are the MOST aware of this conceptual permeability. The Finnis-George-Arkes cabal is trying to use this permeability to smuggle in Thomistic thought as if it had anything to do with how “nature” was used in the modern era starting circa with Bacon. But they are only doing this because they know — intellectual pop culture mavens that they are– that there is an essential fuzziness now, and that they will get away with it; because a lot of people, including people editing books at famous University Presses, have never really apparently gotten down to it to read a basic unflappable summary of philosophical ideas, even a good Catholic one like Copleston. It is all about, by contrast, whatever current obsession is going on, reactionary or otherwise. That such chicanery should be going on even at the highest levels shows conclusively, even though perversely, that the whole matter of “nature” is hopelessly vexed and unusable in societal deliberations today. Ironically, they have proven it, while trying to “prove” something else. Law of unintended consequences yet again!
If the WORD “Nature” is an issue for people, or the permutations of evolving concepts associated with that word, fine. I don’t think anyone would really have a problem renaming it “Essential Law” or “Definitional Law” or “Law Based on What Human Means” or something like that.
@ A Sinner,
Well, I have to admit, that is a very good response, as it gets to the linguistic nature of the whole matter. I concede your point here. But with this very heavy proviso. Once we have given up on using “Nature” a lot of this becomes more variable. What human beings have in common is a nature. We all know that, because we all die, and suffer and live and rejoice. But once you speak of laws– having given up on the the natural part of it — you are in a realm where there is great variety. Please note: I am not a relativist. I do not think we can live with anarchy or without law. But laws do change, whereas “nature” does not. One can say the understanding of nature changes, and has a lot. But anyways, you have agreed to give up on it. We are left with is law then. It is important. But in the modern world its neutrality is paramount. But that standard, a whole lot of Catholic reasoning is simply nonsensical and pure bunk. Thanks for agreeing to it…. sort of.
Oh please. I was only responding to your “critique” that we can’t, in fact, define “nature” because of how the word has been obfuscated and muddled. Call it the “Law of Human Nature” then or something.
A Sinner: I’m enjoying your explanations. Very elucidating!
@ A Sinner –
Can a human being reason more extensively than can a monkey? Yes. But a monkey can reason–at a suitably simian level. I can watch my cat decide between doing A or B. “Free will?” Ditto. A dog’s free will needs to be trained out of it, just as the free will of a human child has to be subdued by “socializing” exercises. Human beings are smarter but slower than cheetahs, and weaker than gorillas, but only by degree. Any student of cultural anthopolgy will have learned after the first half-hour that ideas of what makes of human being a “good” human being are almost wholly culturally determined. I’m not sure where you see the constants that aren’t either biological or social in origin.This is true, even if you resort to metaphysics and theology.
Your understanding of Reason and Free Will are extremely palsied then.
As I’ve intimated earlier in the thread, what is meant by these terms in tradition is perhaps better expressed in the modern world by using words like “Meaning-Making” and “Agency.” Among animals, only humans are Subjects.
When you speak of what makes a good human being culturally determined you still seem to be imagining “good” as something super-added to “human” as if we’re talking about a “red car” or a “hot potato.” But I am talking about “good human” in the sense of (as I’ve said) a good refrigerator as one that refrigerates well, or a good hammer as one that hammers well; that is to say, intrinsic to the category, not an extrinsic imposition (a bad refrigerator may still be a good piece of decor, for instance).
Indeed, in what our last end, our happiness, consists concretely (even in the general sense) is a point of much disagreement. Natural Law theorists do not shy away from this fact or pretend it isn’t true (ala Aquinas’s articles here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm ).
Indeed, the disagreement my itself be taken as indicative of the fact that the human will is attracted to a variety of goods, that the ends of desire are concretely disparate (even if, by definition, we can identify the object of desire in general as “the good”) and this, indeed, is what makes the need for morality at all: desires are varied and goods are in conflict. Furthermore, different people and different cultures value this or that good more or less. The need to identify (or even, you might say, simply to construct) an organizing central principle or standard by which to identify what is most central to our Well-Being as humans becomes then apparent.
@ A Sinner –
It’s not that my concepts of “reason and free will are “palsied” (whatever that may mean), but rather that yours have are kept drastically stripped down and narrowed so as to make them conform to the theories of a pagan Greek philosopher who lived thousands of years ago and believed in a different god than the One you believe in. These ideas were interpolated with legitimate Christian ideas, I suppose, in order that early Christian theologians would be able to hold their own in disputations with pagan philosophers. Apparently they weren’t content, as was St. Paul, to be thought foolish. Today, that ploy has turned itself inside-out.
If you’re just going to stick to that line rather than engaging my points, then I can’t do anything about that. There’s no denying that the ends of desire are many, that there are many disparate goods that appeal to the human will. This is and has been the central moral problem for all cultures, in some form or another. “We can act in different ways, so which should we choose?”
First of all I really appreciate your patient, respectful and clear comments.
I am not knowledgable enough to add to this debate in a philosophical substantial way but it occurs to me that the basic problem is less one of having different ideas what is (or is not) ‘nature’ or ‘natural’ or ‘natural law’
– no the issue is that some hijack ‘natural law’ and pretend that they and only they are in position to determine what is ‘commonly’ understood to be the essence of natural law. The issue is laws change.
To pretend that this is not so is just that – wishful thinking.
Of course we all have out dreams – we all have our comfort zones –
For some it is very comforting to ‘know’ that – to take an example -homosexuality is all wrong according to the ‘wellknown’ divine natural laws.
Turns out plenty contemporary humans actually disagree – now what?
For me ‘natural law’ is a concept that does imply a certainly that simply is not there. All the renaming etc. will not help the concept is flawed.
Once again, natural law has never denied that there is widespread disagreement on just what constitute’s man’s last end and final good. The Summa article I linked to has articles addressing several different notions/aspects of the Good that different philosophies/cultures at the time had made the “organizing principle” of their notion of the good life (specifically Aquinas explores the possibilities of: wealth, honor, fame and glory, power, health of the body, pleasure, knowledge and virtue, other created goods).
Natural Law has NEVER pretended there was some sort of intuitive universal certainty in this regard, in fact the whole endeavor STARTS from this widespread disagreement about what constitutes the final end or organizing principle of the Good Life.
‘Natural Law has NEVER pretended there was some sort of intuitive universal certainty in this regard’ – that is perhaps correct academically speaking in the broader philosophical context but does not exactly reflect the catholic understanding of natural law. To get back to Kyles statement:
“You cannot, for example, derive an absolute conclusion about the rightness or wrongness of contraception from factually-based conclusions you’ve reached about the natural (biological, etc.) purpose of human sexuality. ”
Most certainly interested parties very much pretend that there is some universal certainty regarding such questions.
Kyle, how does a natural law argument based on consequences differ from consequentialism, or does it? (I apologize if this sounds cheeky, I’ve just learned to beware of assumptions whenever natural law is discussed.)
Consequentalism reduces the moral calculus to a calculus of the consequences: it doesn’t consider the morality of the object chosen in itself, only as relative to the ends of which the object is chosen. Consequentialism is really a form of relativism: anything goes provided the consequences are good. There are no intrinsically evil acts. For natural law, there can be. Acts that are contrary to human nature are, in themselves, immoral, regardless of the benefits.
@ A Sinner –
I can’t engage in your points until you do something more than repeatedly restate them. I have engaged them: I’ve attempted to refute them. You then restate them and belittle my points with words like “palsied.” I have presented, in direct response to your points, what I believe to be concrete evidence that they are nothing but philosophical jargon which no longer pertains to the real world as we have come to know it in the intervening centuries since the heyday of Aristotle.
But you can’t move from your spot, can you? Your intellectual foot is pretty much nailed to the floor by those beliefs which you perceive to be necessary qualifiers for you to receive your ultimate reward. And this you call “free will.”
You haven’t demonstrated that they are “nothing but philosophical jargon which no longer pertains to the real world” though. You’ve asserted that, certainly, but I’ve seen no “evidence” of what you say.
It seems to me what I’m saying starts with asking some very basic questions that are hardly specific to Aristotle: what it means to be human, what it means to live a good life, in what our happiness consists.
I think it would be very hard to demonstrate that such questions are anything other than universal to the human experience.
Rather, if you wanted to demonstrate what you are attempting to argue, you’d have to present a counter-theory regarding what constitutes “goodness,” a “human,” a “good human,” “happiness” and “fulfillment,” etc.
@ A Sinner –
It would seem that you’ve never considered the concept “human” from any perspective other than your own.
You are asking me to consider in a comment box that which most of the literature, scripture, and scientific research has considered over the past 10 millennia. If you think that Mitt Romney and an isolated inhabitant of the Amazon basin have nearly everything in common–particularly with regard to abstractions such as “good” and “happy” and “fulfilled”–then you don’t know much. What Mitt Romney and that Amazonian hunter-gatherer have in common is almost entirely biological.
@ A Sinner –
To put it another way: your concept of “essence” is founded upon a mystical intuition; it is finally not susceptible to proof using logic. This is fine, but it has no practical application in this world of manifold appearances. What we deal with on a daily basis may not be, in an ultimate sense, “real”; it may not even partake of real “being,” but we need to deal with it in concrete terms, based on our shared perceptions, or else walk away from the whole show and become full-time mystics.
“Essences” are the ONLY thing logic deals with. Logic requires categories or terms to be DEFINED in a circumscribed way such that concrete objects under evaluation can be said to either meet or not meet the categorical definition. A triangle is “a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments.” That’s the essence of a triangle. From there, we can look at other shapes and see if they fit this category. One can then also extrapolate from that definition and, combined with other postulates, come up with geometric proofs and such.
Admittedly, philosophizing about human subjectivity is bound to not be so neatly objective or straightforward (and, indeed, even in geometry there is disagreement about postulates and about which structures of syllogism are valid!) Obviously, if we are discussing from the perspective of subjective consciousness and desire, we are speaking in a categorically different way. Nevertheless, it is possible (and, indeed, necessary) to come up with definitions for the categories in question and then to test other ideas for internal consistency relative to those definitions.