WEBVTT NOTE 2. Natural Law as 'Science' 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Chapter 2 Natural Law as Science 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:12.000 It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term 3 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000 nature as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. 4 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.000 An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground. 5 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:27.000 This we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple, as well as the world in general. 6 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:34.500 Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water, behavior 7 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:39.680 that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen and water. 8 00:00:39.680 --> 00:00:43.720 There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. 9 00:00:43.720 --> 00:00:47.240 Why then cavil at the concept of nature? 10 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:53.520 The world, in fact, consists of a myriad number of observable things or entities. 11 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.320 This is surely an observable fact. 12 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:03.080 Since the world does not consist of one homogeneous thing or entity alone, it follows that each 13 00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:08.800 one of these different things possesses differing attributes, otherwise they would all be the 14 00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:10.480 same thing. 15 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:17.360 But if A, B, C, etc. have different attributes, it follows immediately that they have different 16 00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:19.280 natures. 17 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:25.460 It also follows that when these various things meet and interact, a specifically delimitable 18 00:01:25.460 --> 00:01:29.060 The observable and definable result will occur. 19 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:36.740 In short, specific delimitable causes will have specific delimitable effects. 20 00:01:36.740 --> 00:01:42.380 The observable behavior of each of these entities is the law of their natures, and this law 21 00:01:42.380 --> 00:01:46.820 includes what happens as a result of the interactions. 22 00:01:46.820 --> 00:01:52.480 The complex that we may build up of these laws may be termed the structure of natural 23 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:54.200 law. 24 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:57.500 What is mystical about that? 25 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:03.040 In the field of purely physical laws, this concept will usually differ from modern positivistic 26 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:07.720 terminology only on high philosophical levels. 27 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:12.120 Applied to man, however, the concept is far more controversial. 28 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:18.640 And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only 29 00:02:18.640 --> 00:02:22.300 entity, the only being that cannot have one? 30 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:28.300 And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and 31 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:29.840 reflection? 32 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:35.280 If all things have natures, then surely man's nature is open to inspection. 33 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:40.660 The current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary 34 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:43.740 and a priori. 35 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:50.500 One common flip criticism by opponents of natural law is, who is to establish the alleged 36 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:52.660 Truths About Man. 37 00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:57.340 The answer is not who, but what, man's reason. 38 00:02:57.340 --> 00:03:03.460 Man's reason is objective, that is, it can be employed by all men to yield truths about 39 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:05.100 the world. 40 00:03:05.100 --> 00:03:09.060 To ask what is man's nature is to invite the answer. 41 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:12.140 Go thou and study and find out. 42 00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:18.340 It is as if one man were to assert that the nature of copper were open to rational investigation, 43 00:03:18.340 --> 00:03:24.380 and a critic were to challenge him to prove this immediately by setting forth on the spot 44 00:03:24.380 --> 00:03:28.980 all the laws that have been discovered about copper. 45 00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:33.940 Another common charge is that natural law theorists differ among themselves and that 46 00:03:33.940 --> 00:03:38.580 therefore all natural law theories must be discarded. 47 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:44.380 This charge comes with peculiar ill grace when it comes, as it often does, from utilitarian 48 00:03:44.380 --> 00:03:45.980 and Economists. 49 00:03:45.980 --> 00:03:52.380 For economics has been a notoriously contentious science, and yet few people advocate tossing 50 00:03:52.380 --> 00:03:56.060 all economics, therefore, into the discard. 51 00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:03.260 Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute. 52 00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:08.940 The responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions 53 00:04:08.940 --> 00:04:11.640 and make up his own mind. 54 00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:16.740 He does not simply say, a priori, a plague on all your houses. 55 00:04:16.740 --> 00:04:21.440 The fact of man's reason does not mean that error is impossible. 56 00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:27.960 Even such hard sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes. 57 00:04:27.960 --> 00:04:30.320 No man is omniscient or infallible. 58 00:04:30.320 --> 00:04:34.900 A law, by the way, of man's nature. 59 00:04:34.900 --> 00:04:40.560 The natural law ethic decrees that for all living things, goodness is the fulfillment 60 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:44.400 of what is best for that type of creature. 61 00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:48.280 Goodness is therefore relative to the nature of the creature concerned. 62 00:04:48.280 --> 00:04:55.080 Thus, Professor Cropsey writes, The classical natural law doctrine is that each thing is 63 00:04:55.080 --> 00:05:00.320 excellent in the degree to which it can do the things for which its species is naturally 64 00:05:00.320 --> 00:05:02.040 equipped. 65 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:05.120 Why is the natural good? 66 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:10.320 Because there is neither a way nor a reason to prevent ourselves from distinguishing between 67 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:16.400 and useless and serviceable beasts, for example, and the most empirical and rational standard 68 00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:22.400 of the serviceable, or the limit of the thing's activity, is set by its nature. 69 00:05:22.400 --> 00:05:27.720 We do not judge elephants to be good because they are natural, or because nature is morally 70 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.160 good, whatever that would mean. 71 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:34.980 We judge a particular elephant to be good by the light of what elephant nature makes 72 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:46.500 In the case of man, the natural law ethics states that goodness or badness can be determined 73 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:52.300 by what fulfills or thwarts what is best for man's nature. 74 00:05:52.300 --> 00:05:58.860 The natural law then elucidates what is best for man, what ends man should pursue that 75 00:05:58.860 --> 00:06:04.780 are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature. 76 00:06:04.780 --> 00:06:10.980 In a significant sense, then, natural law provides man with a science of happiness, with the 77 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:15.000 paths which will lead to his real happiness. 78 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:21.200 In contrast, praxeology or economics, as well as the utilitarian philosophy with which this 79 00:06:21.200 --> 00:06:27.780 science has been closely allied, treat happiness in the purely formal sense as the fulfillment 80 00:06:27.780 --> 00:06:34.380 of those ends which people happen, for whatever reason, to place high on their scales of value. 81 00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:42.380 Satisfaction of those ends yields to man his utility or satisfaction or happiness. 82 00:06:42.380 --> 00:06:50.380 Value in the sense of valuation or utility is purely subjective and decided by each individual. 83 00:06:50.380 --> 00:06:59.380 This procedure is perfectly proper for the formal science of praxeology or economic theory, but not necessarily elsewhere. 84 00:06:59.380 --> 00:07:08.340 For in natural law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees. 85 00:07:08.340 --> 00:07:14.660 Value here is objective, determined by the natural law of man's being. 86 00:07:14.660 --> 00:07:21.620 And here, happiness for man is considered in the commonsensical, contentual sense. 87 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:27.700 As Father Keneally put it, this philosophy maintains that there is in fact an objective 88 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:34.260 of Moral Order within the Range of Human Intelligence, to which human societies are bound in conscience 89 00:07:34.260 --> 00:07:41.160 to conform, and upon which the peace and happiness of personal, national and international life 90 00:07:41.160 --> 00:07:43.220 depend. 91 00:07:43.220 --> 00:07:48.340 And the eminent English jurist, Sir William Blackstone, summed up the natural law and 92 00:07:48.340 --> 00:07:52.260 its relation to human happiness as follows. 93 00:07:52.260 --> 00:07:58.580 This is the foundation of what we call ethics or natural law, demonstrating that this or 94 00:07:58.580 --> 00:08:04.660 that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that 95 00:08:04.660 --> 00:08:10.380 the performance of it is a part of the law of nature, or, on the other hand, that this 96 00:08:10.380 --> 00:08:16.420 or that action is destruction of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature 97 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:19.220 forbids it. 98 00:08:19.220 --> 00:08:24.680 But using the terminology of natural law, psychologist Leonard Carmichael has indicated 99 00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:31.740 how an objective, absolute ethic can be established for man on scientific methods, based upon 100 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:36.420 biological and psychological inquiry. 101 00:08:36.420 --> 00:08:43.040 Because man has an unchanging and an age-old genetically determined anatomical, physiological 102 00:08:43.040 --> 00:08:45.480 and Psychological Makeup. 103 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:51.000 There is reason to believe that at least some of the values that he recognized as good or 104 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:57.060 bad have been discovered or have emerged as human individuals have lived together for 105 00:08:57.060 --> 00:09:00.740 thousands of years in many societies. 106 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:06.080 Is there any reason to suggest that these values, once identified and tested, may not 107 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:10.320 be thought of as essentially fixed and unchanging? 108 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:15.780 For example, the wanton murder of one adult by another for the purely personal amusement 109 00:09:15.780 --> 00:09:21.560 of the person committing the murder, once it is recognized as a general wrong, is likely 110 00:09:21.560 --> 00:09:24.840 always to be so recognized. 111 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:29.880 Such a murder has disadvantageous individual and social effects. 112 00:09:29.880 --> 00:09:35.840 Or to take a milder example from aesthetics, man is always likely to recognize in a special 113 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:51.320 One common philosophic objection to natural law ethics is that it confuses or identifies 114 00:09:51.320 --> 00:09:55.180 the realism of fact and value. 115 00:09:55.180 --> 00:10:01.160 For purposes of our brief discussion, John Wilde's reply will suffice. 116 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:08.000 In answer we may point out that their natural law of view identifies value not with existence, 117 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:13.200 but rather with the fulfillment of tendencies determined by the structure of the existent 118 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:14.200 entity. 119 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:21.120 Furthermore, it identifies evil not with non-existence, but rather with a mode of existence in which 120 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:26.360 natural tendencies are thwarted and deprived of realization. 121 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:31.820 The young plant, whose leaves are withering for lack of light, is not non-existent. 122 00:10:31.820 --> 00:10:36.740 It exists, but in an unhealthy or privative mode. 123 00:10:36.740 --> 00:10:39.660 The lame man is not non-existent. 124 00:10:39.660 --> 00:10:44.780 He exists, but with a natural power partially unrealized. 125 00:10:44.780 --> 00:10:49.900 This metaphysical objection is based upon the common assumption that existence is fully 126 00:10:49.900 --> 00:10:52.460 finished or complete. 127 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:57.060 But what is good is the fulfillment of being. 128 00:10:57.060 --> 00:11:03.060 After stating that ethics, for man as for any other entity, are determined by investigating 129 00:11:03.060 --> 00:11:11.580 verifiable existing tendencies of that entity, Wilde asks a question crucial to all non-theological 130 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:12.780 ethics. 131 00:11:12.780 --> 00:11:17.140 Why are such principles felt to be binding on me? 132 00:11:17.140 --> 00:11:22.220 How do such universal tendencies of human nature become incorporated into a person's 133 00:11:22.220 --> 00:11:25.580 Subjective Value Scale 134 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:32.300 Because the factual needs which underlie the whole procedure are common to man, the values 135 00:11:32.300 --> 00:11:34.860 founded on them are universal. 136 00:11:34.860 --> 00:11:41.580 Hence, if I made no mistake in my tendential analysis of human nature, and if I understand 137 00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:48.100 myself, I must exemplify the tendency, and must feel it subjectively as an imperative 138 00:11:48.100 --> 00:11:51.660 urge to action. 139 00:11:51.660 --> 00:11:57.340 David Hume is the philosopher supposed by modern philosophers to have effectively demolished 140 00:11:57.340 --> 00:11:59.500 the theory of natural law. 141 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:07.860 Hume's demolition was two-pronged, the raising of the alleged fact-value dichotomy thus debarring 142 00:12:07.860 --> 00:12:14.940 the inference of value from fact, and his view that reason is and can only be a slave 143 00:12:14.940 --> 00:12:17.060 to the passions. 144 00:12:17.060 --> 00:12:22.700 In short, in contrast to the natural law view that man's reason can discover the proper 145 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:30.140 ends for man to follow, Hume held that only the emotions can ultimately set man's ends, 146 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:36.220 and that reason's place is as the technician and handmaiden to the emotions. 147 00:12:36.220 --> 00:12:42.420 Here Hume has been followed by modern social scientists since Max Weber. 148 00:12:42.420 --> 00:12:47.860 According to this view, people's emotions are assumed to be primary and unanalyzable 149 00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:49.860 givens. 150 00:12:49.860 --> 00:12:55.420 Professor Heselberg has shown, however, that Hume, in the course of his own discussions, 151 00:12:55.420 --> 00:13:01.860 was compelled to reintroduce a natural law conception into his social philosophy, and 152 00:13:01.860 --> 00:13:08.620 particularly into his theory of justice, thus illustrating the jibe of Étienne Gilson. 153 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:13.220 The natural law always buries its undertakers. 154 00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:19.700 For Hume, in Hesselberg's words, recognized and accepted that the social order is an indispensable 155 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:26.660 prerequisite to man's well-being and happiness, and that this is a statement of fact. 156 00:13:26.660 --> 00:13:32.340 The social order, therefore, must be maintained by man. 157 00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:38.340 Hesselberg continues, But a social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive 158 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:44.240 conceive what it is and what its advantages are, and also conceive those norms of conduct 159 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:50.020 which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely respect for another's 160 00:13:50.020 --> 00:13:55.520 person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice. 161 00:13:55.520 --> 00:13:59.820 But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. 162 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:05.500 And justice is the necessary support of the social order, and the social order is necessary 163 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:12.920 to Man's Well-Being and Happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and 164 00:14:12.920 --> 00:14:21.260 regulate the passions, and not vice versa. Heselberg concludes that thus Hume's original 165 00:14:21.260 --> 00:14:27.380 primacy of the passions thesis is seen to be utterly untenable for his social and political 166 00:14:27.380 --> 00:14:33.760 theory, and he is compelled to reintroduce reason as a cognitive normative factor in 167 00:14:33.760 --> 00:14:37.120 and Human Social Relations. 168 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:42.560 Indeed in discussing justice and the importance of the rights of private property, Hume was 169 00:14:42.560 --> 00:14:48.280 compelled to write that reason can establish such a social ethic. 170 00:14:48.280 --> 00:14:54.200 Nature provides a remedy in the judgment and understanding for what is irregular and uncommodious 171 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:56.260 in the affections. 172 00:14:56.260 --> 00:15:01.760 In short, reason can be superior to the passions. 173 00:15:01.760 --> 00:15:06.600 We have seen from our discussion that the doctrine of natural law, the view that an 174 00:15:06.600 --> 00:15:12.680 objective ethics can be established through reason, has had to face two powerful groups 175 00:15:12.680 --> 00:15:18.480 of enemies in the modern world, both anxious to denigrate the power of man's reason to 176 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:21.340 decide upon his destiny. 177 00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:28.300 These are the Fidaists who believe that ethics can only be given to man by supernatural revelation, 178 00:15:28.300 --> 00:15:35.240 and the skeptics who believe that man must take his ethics from arbitrary whim or emotion. 179 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:41.420 We may sum up with Professor Grant's harsh but penetrating view of the strange contemporary 180 00:15:41.420 --> 00:15:47.460 alliance between those who doubt the capacity of human reason in the name of skepticism, 181 00:15:47.460 --> 00:15:53.460 probably scientific in origin, and those who denigrate its capacity in the name of revealed 182 00:15:53.460 --> 00:15:55.020 religion. 183 00:15:55.020 --> 00:16:00.900 It is only necessary to study the thought of Ockham to see how ancient this strange alliance 184 00:16:00.900 --> 00:16:01.980 is. 185 00:16:01.980 --> 00:16:07.320 For in Ockham can be seen how philosophic nominalism, unable to face the question of 186 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:13.500 practical certainty, solves it by the arbitrary hypothesis of revelation. 187 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:19.220 The will detached from the intellect, as it must be in a nominalism, can seek certainty 188 00:16:19.220 --> 00:16:23.100 only through such arbitrary hypotheses. 189 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:28.660 The interesting fact, historically, is that these two anti-rationalist traditions, that 190 00:16:28.660 --> 00:16:33.660 of the liberal skeptic and the Protestant revelationist, should originally have come 191 00:16:33.660 --> 00:16:37.220 from two opposite views of man. 192 00:16:37.220 --> 00:16:43.620 The Protestant dependence upon revelation arose from a great pessimism about human nature. 193 00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:48.900 The immediately apprehended values of the liberal originate in a great optimism. 194 00:16:48.900 --> 00:16:55.140 Yet, after all, is not the dominating tradition in North America a Protestantism which has 195 00:16:55.140 --> 00:17:00.060 been transformed by pragmatic technology and liberal aspirations?