New and Traditional Natural Law Theories

[qfnol31]

I've asked this before, but I would like to bring up the discussion again because I think I have found someone who knows what I'm talking about.

Cam, I have actually studied some of the more prominient subscribers, most especially Rice. I believe that the Traditional Natural Law theory is actually the same as when it was first fully stated by Thomas. I don't think there has been much development. Now I wish to discuss the difference with you, and I was wondering if you might want to give a better description of the NNL theory. Thank you.

[Cam42]

I don't really have time to get into it now, however.....

New Natural Law is the theory originating with Grisez; it focuses on “basic human goods”, such as human life, which are self-evidently intrinsically worthwhile and states that these goods reveal themselves as incommensurable with one another.

It is not disharmonious with tradtional Natural Law theories, but complimentary.....sure, there is development, but there is nothing that is inherently un-Catholic about it.

To get a good understanding of this position, please refer to:

[i]Way of the Lord Jesus[/i] by Germain Grisez.
[i]The Ethics of Authenticity[/i] by Dr. Charles Taylor

Two good resources to start.

[qfnol31]

Take your time, I have years.

I don't think they're quite complimentary, but I do agree that neither is the "Catholic" view, though I have disagreements with one.

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Aug 6 2005, 03:23 AM']Take your time, I have years. 

I don't think they're quite complimentary, but I do agree that neither is the "Catholic" view, though I have disagreements with one.
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You don't need to be so veiled. I know that it is the New Natural Law theory that you have taken issue with.

Natural law, or right reason, rests on the self-evident truths of fundamental goods and supposes that human action can be directed toward what is morally right by practical reason. According to Aquinas,
[quote]"Good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle in the practical reason is one founded on the notion of good." Summa Theologica, I—II, 94, a.2.[/quote]

This is precisely what Dr. Grisez has started to promote. Here is a document from Pope Pius XI that speaks to New Natural Law.....while it is applied by New Natural Law theorists, it is relevant, nonetheless....

[url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html"]MIT BRENNENDER SORGE[/url]

As if to confirm the perceived dangers of natural law in the eyes of many professional opponents to religion, who often think that a thing is wrong on no other grounds than that a religious authority thinks it right, the Holy Father devoted a large section of [url="http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0222/_INDEX.HTM"]Veritatis Splendor[/url] to its elaboration, clarification, and representation. This presentation of the understanding of natural law is one of the clearest and most brilliant in its long literature. From now on, it must be included in every discussion of the topic. John Paul II argued that there were absolute truths and things that were intrinsically evil, no matter who did them. Any society based on pure political will that chooses in its constitution or legislation principles or fosters practices contrary to the natural law, the Holy Father suspected, will find itself in the deepest of moral and political trouble, even when it calls its resulting troubles by any other name but the truth of what they are. To name the truth of regimes and to acknowledge the real nature of our souls remain moral and political projects of the greatest difficulty when done honestly on the basis of laws we do not make for ourselves, on the basis of natural laws.

Charles Rice has published another kind of book on natural law that has long been needed, his Fifty Questions on the Natural Law: What It Is and Why We Need It. I will not accuse him of imitating either the Baltimore Catechism or the new General Catechism of the Catholic Church but that question and answer format allows a more systematic and articulated approach. Actually, The General Catechism is also something that should be read by anyone interested in the background to studies on natural law as the Catechism clarifies just what belongs to revelation and what is reason's relation to it in the mind of the Catholic Church.

A crucial aspect of natural law is precisely its relation to revelation. Strauss in a famous passage did not want to consider St. Thomas' natural law as really philosophical because it is said to arise in revelation. This relationship of reason to divine and natural law is a basic philosophic issue and it quite well represented in the literature. Related to this side of the question is the extent to which we find natural law in the Protestant tradition. It is there, though in a more attenuated and nuanced fashion. No doubt it must be said, however, that one of the very best books ever written on natural law was C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. For the most part, even though natural law is older than Christianity, natural law is looked upon as a particularly Catholic preserve. This exclusivity is perhaps ironic since one of the main reasons Catholics are interested in natural law is because it is a non-religious link to non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-theists. The Catholic tradition has taken great pains to argue on what it calls a natural law basis precisely to grant reason its objective due. Indeed, the validity of reason and its proper grounding is essential for revelation. What is perhaps perplexing about the historic interest in the natural law philosophic tradition as not having per se a religious origin is the abandonment of reason itself in some sections of modernity and what is now called post-modernity. In one sense, this turn of philosophic events has left reason more and more to the theists, perhaps even to the Catholic theists, an ironic result that is well worth pondering.

Natural law, of course, is not merely a scholarly enterprise. Indeed, if that is all it were, it would be of only passing interest. Rather, as Veritatis Splendor suggests, natural law refers to a way of life, to a quest for right living. Moreover, it claims to know in what right living consists. Natural law in a sense is a kind of moral and intellectual but private declaration of independence. We can hardly repeat today those famous words that refer to self-evident truths, to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," without pangs of conscience, as it is so evident that we have as a people distanced ourselves from this declared foundation. This awareness makes it more clear that the quiet, out-of-the-way effort to keep this tradition alive not merely as something to be studied but as something to be lived is one of the great tasks of civilization, of knowing what it is, of preserving it, of furthering it.

Most of this were notes from my class with Dr. Grisez, but I have altered them to make them more readable. Here are some more Catholic thinkers who ascribe to this kind of thinking....it is a who's who of orthodox Catholic thought.

Brendan Brown
Leo Brown
William Carroll
Henri DeLubac
James Schall
Germain Grisez
Charles Rice
C.S. Lewis
Jacques Maritain
Josef Piper
Yves Simon

oh yeah...Karol Wotlya.....Pope John Paul II

Every single one is a Thomist. Every single one finds complimentarity in NNL and tradtional thought. Read their works.....I have years too.

[qfnol31]

[quote]You don't need to be so veiled. I know that it is the New Natural Law theory that you have taken issue with.[/quote]

I had hoped that there would be more people to discuss with.

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Aug 6 2005, 02:54 PM']I had hoped that there would be more people to discuss with.
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Considering that you addressed this to me, I was assuming that it would start out between us and move from there....

If anyone else wants to jump in, then great....

[Cam42]

bump for anyone who wants to jump in.....

[qfnol31]

Since this is such a large issue, should we begin by discussing the nature of intention and how it changes the act?

[Cam42]

if you like....although I would like to give it a day or so more, to see if anyone will jump in.

[Cam42]

Ok, so here is a thought.

Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis claim that the natural law theory as originally developed by St. Thomas was hijacked by later moral theologians who add to it certain accretions of argumentation that distort its original intent. They attribute to the hijackers the view that Thomist theory claims that the natural law is somehow deduced from certain metaphysical features of the world, in particular a metaphysical account of the human agent and his natural end. Finnis argues that this distortion was fatal to natural law theory because it left the theory vulnerable to later objections, classically stated by Hume, which charge that in this transition from metaphysics to law there is a breach of a logical gap between fact and value-or the descriptive and the normative. If natural law theory is what the revisionists say it is, then Hume and his followers are right: it has at its core a simple logical fallacy. Finnis argues, however, that the revisionists are wrong; Aquinas in fact held the view that the first principles of natural law, far from being derived from metaphysical features of the world, are instead self- evident. If they are self-evident, then Humean charges are irrelevant and natural law theory can avoid what many regard as the most serious modern objection to it.

So, while the move toward NNL is interesting it hinges on:

[url="http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/FS/FS094.html#FSQ94OUTP1"]Summa Theologiae I-II: 94[/url]

Here is where the discussion can really start.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Could you elaborate on the relation between a metaphysical basis for Natural Law and the Humean opposition of matters-of-fact to relations-of-ideas?

The only reason I ask is because I see no contradiction in adopting a metaphysically based teleology as the starting point of a theory of Natural Law. Given your response above, it seems the only way a person would be led to reject such a basis is if one actually accepted Hume's academic skepticism as correct philosophy.

[Winchester]

As far as metaphysically based teleology, metal really isn't used in large quantities to make televisions. Plastics and silicon comprise the majority of electronic devices, although metal is essential.

[Cam42]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Aug 9 2005, 03:30 PM']Could you elaborate on the relation between a metaphysical basis for Natural Law and the Humean opposition of matters-of-fact to relations-of-ideas?

The only reason I ask is because I see no contradiction in adopting a metaphysically based teleology as the starting point of a theory of Natural Law. Given your response above, it seems the only way a person would be led to reject such a basis is if one actually accepted Hume's academic skepticism as correct philosophy.
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I don't really have time to get into it now, but NNL is not accepting Hume's idea, but rather it is a combat against it. NNL simply recognizes the idea that Hume was wrong, and approaches it from a neo-thomistic way.

[Guest JeffCR07]

nifty

[qfnol31]

Cam, when I took moral theology we used Veritatis Splendor most, and it was complemented by Rice's book. So I do have a little bit of background in that sense. However, I do not think that Vertatis was necessarily in favor of NNL.