Abstract
In this chapter, Jason A. Heron asks whether a Thomistic perspective on the natural law is of any use to ethicists, religious and secular, interested in both normativity and contextualization. Heron draws on the work of Thomas Aquinas, Vincent W. Lloyd, Richard Rodriguez, Michael Baxter, and Cristina Traina. The chapter argues that the Thomistic natural law tradition should be a critical dialogue partner in the conversation about moral normativity and social context. The natural law tradition provides ethicists with an effective way of speaking about the human capacity to speak in a variety of subsidiary moral registers indexed to the various social contexts in which humans act. The chapter contends that this subsidiary structuring of moral speech enables human communities to navigate the tensions of normative moral claims and context-dependent descriptions of choice and action.
I am indebted to Sandra Brown and Aimee Huntley for their invaluable research assistance at Mount Marty College library. I thank my colleagues Paul Anders, S. Theresa Lafferty, OSB, Ty Monroe, and John Badley for being willing to read the chapter for me. The editors of this collection provided invaluable feedback and support.
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Notes
- 1.
This is not to say that Christian philosophical and theological inquiry, rooted in the natural law or not, does not care about equality. But as should become clear throughout what follows, Christian ethics in the modern era has most often been consumed with contesting secular, liberal forms of liberty and fraternity. Moreover, I am not claiming that equality is not somehow a concern of law (eternal, natural, or human). It very much is.
- 2.
This distinction of focus within Christian theology and philosophy has its counterparts in social and political philosophy. For the past few decades, liberal and communitarian schools of thought have been producing a great deal of energetic work that remains relevant to US-national and global socio-political questions. This work is not necessarily Christian, though Christians are implicated in responding to it. In some cases, Christians are directly involved in the work. Most notably, Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas have been associated with a communitarian critique of liberalism. The contours of this distinction in social and political philosophy are relevant to my concerns here. But they also extend beyond my scope.
- 3.
Thus, I will not here provide a fundamental account of the reality of the natural law. Cf. Levering (2008, 22–68); McInerny (1997, 40–8); Porter (2005, 231–324). Neither will I provide a moral, historical, or legal/political account of how the natural law is at work in positive law in a given context. Cf. Hittinger (2003, 63–112, 115–33, idem 2000, 169–92).
- 4.
The use of “particular” and “general” with regard to ethicists here should not stand in as commentary one way or another on my views concerning whether Christianity is one “religion” among many other “religions.”
- 5.
All citations are taken from Aquinas (1981). Citations will be given in text following standard conventions.
- 6.
Cf. Pieper (1987, 117–33), where Pieper describes Aquinas’s effort to join “Aristotle” and the “Bible” (and everything those two loaded terms mean in Aquinas’s context).
- 7.
The question of grounding or foundations is most explicitly contested in the realm of human rights, a topic that extends far beyond the scope of my work here. Regarding the foundations of human rights, the literature is vast and contentious. Cf. Donnelly (2013, 55–71). Donnelly offers a philosophical and historical introduction to the nature of the contention regarding foundations along with his own reflexively foundationalist account rooted in a historicist and Rawlsian liberalism. Cf. also Steiner and Alston (2000, 323–402), for an interdisciplinary and historical account with pertinent texts of the debate about rights, their origin, and whether they are absolute or contingent. Amy Gutmann argues that a plurality of foundations is actually a boon to those who would defend human rights against various detractors (Gutmann 2001, vii–xviii, especially at xix–xxi).
- 8.
Jean Porter’s work is critical here, as it works out in detail the significance of the relationship between first principles in speculative and practical reasoning. Cf. especially Porter (2016, 153–61, 222).
- 9.
We could extend our analysis of this portrait of natural virtue by suggesting that, across cultures, we observe formal agreement on what virtues are necessary for flourishing. But across those same cultures, the content that fills these formal virtues varies more or less. I am not prepared here to weigh in on this suggestion. But I thank Bharat Ranganathan for raising the question.
- 10.
Aquinas saw the natural law and the virtues as fundamentally compatible on account of his teleological anthropology. The natural law inclines us to our end. The virtues comprise the way to, and in some sense the character of, that end. Without this teleological anthropology, a natural law ethic and a virtue ethic are at cross purposes. Cf. Hittinger (1992).
- 11.
The introduction of a grammatical analogy would seem to complicate, if not completely nullify, the “natural” in natural law. I will address this problem below.
- 12.
- 13.
Cf. Lloyd (2016). More on these below.
- 14.
- 15.
John Rawls’s sensitivity to this problem is one of the animating principles of his monumental contributions to political theory. Cf. Rawls (1999, 347–96).
- 16.
For an introduction to concerns regarding natural law and legal theory, see essays by MacCormick, Finnis, Waldron, and Moore in George (1992). Of particular note in this selection is Waldron’s, “The Irrelevance of Moral Objectivity,” 158–87.
- 17.
According to Lloyd, the latter reduction is performed representatively by Jeffrey Stout, who seeks to make natural law intelligible “beyond conservative Catholic circles” by making natural law something like the law of an ideal system, “only a portion of which we now know but all of which we can aspire to learn by the ‘end of inquiry’ ” (157).
- 18.
For Lloyd, the representative pluralizer is Cristina Traina. Lloyd’s reference is to Traina’s important book, Feminist Ethics and Natural Law. From my perspective, this is a misreading of Traina’s work. Her project has affinities with what Lloyd seeks to accomplish in Black Natural Law and to what I am attempting here, especially with regard to the relationship between descriptive and normative ethics and their relationship to natural law. Cf. Traina (1999, 12–17; 288–314).
- 19.
The contextual concern here is of ongoing interest to ethicists, especially those who are provoked (one way or another) by the incorporation of ethnography into ethics. For an introduction to this concern in ethics, cf. Elizabeth Bucar and Stalnaker (2014, 365–7); Dunn (2017); Lewis (2010); and Miller (2016, 39–46).
- 20.
Lloyd writes that both black and Catholic natural law traditions use language that is “robust.” This approach to natural law “takes natural law language to be part of a style of ethical-political engagement. In general terms, this involves an ascent from social conventions to a higher authority that is made possible by an aspect of human nature – for theists, the aspect that is in the image of God” (Lloyd 2016, 158).
- 21.
Cf., Lloyd (2016, 156). By contamination, Lloyd means the ways in which a version of the Catholic natural law tradition has been, from his perspective, co-opted by neo-conservative politics in the United States. Cf. ibid., viii, 148–58.
- 22.
Lloyd writes, “In the black natural law tradition, […], what is essentially human is rather more complex. It includes the capacity to reason, but also the capacities to feel and imagine – these are all ways that we participate in God. Crucially, the black natural law tradition is committed to the view that no worldly description of the human suffices. Just as God exceeds all worldly descriptions, the image of God in humanity exceeds all worldly descriptions” (xi). Thus, from a Catholic perspective, Lloyd adopts a “negative anthropology.” This latter phrase is not Lloyd’s, but is instead St. John Paul II’s, used to critique modern, liberal anthropology as essentially a void or a surd. Interestingly, Lloyd here offers us a rather different “negative anthropology”—one we could call apophatic in as much as negativity is what invites us to pursue ineffability. Lloyd’s anthropology, like John Paul II’s, is advanced in the face of an inadequate (and from Lloyd’s perspective as a black man, unjust) anthropology. The (in)compatibilities of Lloyd’s perspective and my own Catholic perspective are thus radical, and so, fruitful.
- 23.
Here it is worth noting that, in addition to its clear affinity with various liberationist projects, Lloyd’s work is generative of potential points of dialogue with John Rawls’s work and the tradition of Catholic social teaching. Cf. Rawls (2001, 65–70, 86–8); and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2004, 246–7).
- 24.
Emphasis original.
- 25.
Rodriguez later makes a similar point regarding “black English.” He writes: “I have heard ‘radical’ linguists make the point that black English is a complex and intricate version of English. And I do not doubt it. But neither do I think that black English should be a language of public instruction. What makes it inappropriate in classrooms is not something in the language itself but, rather, what lower-class speakers make of it. Just as Spanish would have been a dangerous language for me to have used at the start of my education, so black English would be a dangerous language to use in the schooling of teenagers for whom it reinforces feelings of public separateness. […] Thus the supporters of bilingual education want it both ways. They propose bilingual schooling as a way of helping students acquire the classroom skills crucial for public success. But they likewise insist that bilingual instruction will give students a sense of their identity apart from the English-speaking public” (462).
- 26.
Lloyd goes on to reference MacIntyre’s work here on the traditioned discernment on what counts as a good reason.
- 27.
There are probably ways to expand this list of Christianity’s potential captivities. But these four suffice for our purposes here. Also, note that the captivity of Christianity expressed by the notion that it is one “religion” among many can work both historically and psycho-biologically. From the post-liberal perspective, it is problematic to assign Christianity a conventional place in the long human story of cultural/social/religious practices throughout history. And it is also problematic to assign Christianity a conventional place in the long human story of personal and communal efforts at pursuing a “sense” of the transcendent somehow rooted in our biology. Both the historical and the psycho-biological are intimately intertwined. But they are also distinguishable as areas of study: namely, as a part of anthropology and as a part of the philosophy of religion, respectively.
- 28.
The list of embodied practices may be proliferated, but representative candidates are liturgy, Eucharist, confession, prayer, and hospitality.
- 29.
Built into Hauerwasian virtue ethics are several key components worth noting for the way they distinguish Hauerwas’s vision of virtue from other accounts: a MacIntyrean account of traditions and practices; a Wittgensteinian account of culture and language; and a Barthian account of the radical divergence between the ways of the world and the way of the Church.
- 30.
Though it extends far beyond my concerns here, it is important to note that this concern regarding accommodation to secular forms of moral reasoning opens the door to significant metaethical questions regarding internal justification, translation, dialogue, immanent critique, and epistemic relativism. Cf. Jung (2015, 52–60) where Jung examines Hauerwas’s “Wittgensteinian realism” and its consequences for Christianity’s relationship to non-Christian traditions in Hauerwas’s thought.
- 31.
Both Lloyd and Hauerwas rely on MacIntyre’s early thought in After Virtue and Whose Justice, Which Rationality? for their conception of traditions and the possible relations between them. I do not mean to imply that either After Virtue or Whose Justice, Which Rationality? is principally concerned with critiquing the natural law tradition. I only mean to note how MacIntyre’s early work on tradition sets certain parameters for both Lloyd and Hauerwas. That MacIntyre turns later to consider natural law more explicitly does not seem to matter to the way post-liberals continue the Hauerwasian project or the way they rely on MacIntyre. For a robust discussion of the consequences of MacIntyre’s thought for a Catholic vision of the natural law, cf. Cunningham (2009).
- 32.
The co-authored essay argues that the “tension between Christianity and the modern liberal state cannot be resolved by the legal separation of church and state, but that Christians can negotiate this tension faithfully by placing themselves under the authority of Christ the King.” This essay makes a case against the notion that a state could be neutral with regard to religion. It also highlights Fr. Max Josef Metzger, founder of the Society of Christ the King, as a model for someone whose life and martyrdom in Nazi Germany demonstrate what it looks like when a Christian sees embodying Christ’s kingdom, rather than mediation with earthly politics, as his primary end.
- 33.
I nearly wrote here about “how persons deeply and lovingly embedded in their traditions can and must speak, despite our peculiar commitments, with those analogously embedded in other traditions.” I opted to remove the negative prepositional phrase because I am increasingly convinced that dialogue with others is constitutive of Christian self-understanding. I mean “self-understanding” in a variety of registers, not least of which are Christ’s evangelical mandate in Matthew 28, prayer to the Triune Lord and the saints, the tradition of the Christian apologiae, the tasks of Christian theology and philosophy, and the practice of the sacrament of confession. In each of these iterations of Christian dialogue with others, the dialogue is not by necessity always already taking place on the terms set by the other. Instead, a complex of peculiar terms defines each form of dialogue. In none of these iterations is the Christian commanded to or capable of demanding or taking by force anything from the other. And in each of these iterations, the Christian must remain open to the surprising possibility of the other if the Christian is to remain faithful to Christ.
- 34.
In the interest of space and focus here, I will leave to this footnote the role MacIntyre’s work on “plain” persons and the “plain” politics of “plain” practical reasoning plays in Baxter’s vision of natural law, reasoning, and politics. Baxter’s essay offers a brief but insightful summary of MacIntyre’s work in this area, most of which is to be found in MacIntyre (1998, 2006a, b).
- 35.
The use of the verb, “commingled” cannot help but draw the Christian mind to Christological controversies regarding the relationship of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ. Baxter might have suggested that in the life and action of the Catholic Worker in South Bend, plain and theological politics were hypostatically united without confusion or separation. If this Christological refinement of the description holds, then we might wonder if Hauerwas’s theological politics, in its more obstreperous forms, is Eutychean. It seems that Baxter’s read leads in this direction, in as much as the problem with theological politics as Hauerwas has conceived it in the past is that plain practical reasoning and plain politics are a “drop of honey” in the “ocean” of theological politics.
- 36.
So, the state cannot deprive parents of their responsibility to educate their own children. And those same parents cannot decide to charge a toll to drive on their neighborhood street.
- 37.
So, parents who care about education could devote themselves to initiatives to improve public schools. And the city could devise mechanisms whereby local concerns—say, about the quality of some residential pavement—were efficiently communicated in the most appropriate direction.
- 38.
Baxter is careful to emphasize this same point. If any Christian movement embodies the politics of Christ’s kingship, the Catholic Worker can be said to.
- 39.
Cf . Mundra (2017). Here, Mundra explores the connection between naturalism and normative claims. See especially pp. 4–8 where Mundra engages Donald Davidson and Willard Quine on the necessity of sympathy for others’ positions, accurate interpretation, and normative claims.
- 40.
For the broader discussion of equality and its relationship to justice, cf. pp. 116–31 and 131–45. The first selection is a careful historical treatment of the relationship between justice, equality, and the right both in Aquinas, his contemporaries, and their sources. The second selection is a treatment of equality, right, and obligation, especially with a view to the consonances and dissonances between a Thomistic account of rights and various contemporary views of human rights.
- 41.
Traina goes on to say that ethics needs to do this “inductively, developing and refining descriptions in the midst of the cross-cultural struggle for concrete flourishing. It is here that the Roman Catholic natural law tradition can prove helpful.”
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Heron, J.A. (2019). Natural Law, Freedom, and Tradition: A Catholic Perspective on Mediating Between Liberty and Fraternity. In: Ranganathan, B., Woodard-Lehman, D. (eds) Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Christian Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25193-2_6
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