R. J. Snell, writing for Public Discourse, tries to answer the question of whether natural law is persuasive to anyone not already convinced:
First, natural lawyers needn’t convince or persuade anyone, for in an important way natural law cannot be proven—law is the condition of intelligible action. Instead, our task is to have our interlocutors pay attention, not to us and our arguments, but to themselves. My failure to persuade someone of the natural law happens only if they (a) will not pay attention to themselves, or (b) if they do not understand themselves. Of course, I have neither power nor responsibility over another’s capacity to know themselves, so I’ll politely decline any such obligations for my ethics. In fact, since natural law is pre-theoretical, depending not on a system of concepts but rather on self-understanding, the more I grant that a theory must be able to persuade, the more that alternative theories such as deontology or utility fall while natural law survives, for they actually must provide a proof whereas I make no such claim, asking only for my interlocutor to advert to his performance.
But those who aren’t yet convinced about natural law do treat it as just another theory among others. So it seems that anyone who isn’t already on board with natural law will probably not be convinced, especially if they’re looking for persuasive reasoning.
April 18th, 2012 | 11:30 am
One can still disagree about what conclusions follow from that foundation, though, even in Snell’s conception.
April 18th, 2012 | 12:07 pm
Snell seems almost to be saying that asking if natural law is convincing is like asking if logic is convincing. A logical argument attempting to prove the validity of logic would require belief in logical argument in order to be accepted as proof.
I would like to know about natural law theory. What seems to me the problem with Catholic natural law theorists is that the “natural” in natural law, as far as I can tell, is taken to be “prelapsarian” nature (and prelapsarian human nature)—that is, nature and human nature as it existed before the Fall of Adam and Eve. In the light of modern science, the concept of nature and human nature before the Fall is extraordinarily problematic.
April 18th, 2012 | 12:43 pm
Mr. Misula,
I think that Snell’s point about natural law not being a theory among others is a statement about what it is that has implications for how it can be argued and discussed, regardless of how the unconvinced treat it. The point is that, unlike other “theories,” if natural law is true, it can only be argued by reference to the nature of the person to whom the argument is directed. Rather than arguing a set of principles, it is directed at mining the interlocutor for what, at some level, he already knows.
It is also important to note that in arguing from natural law, as Snell points out, if someone is unconvinced, it is not because that person has an insufficient grasp of the argument but because the person is not looking closely enough at himself, his desires, and how he feels when he does certain things versus how he feels when he does others. Thus a good natural lawyer, rather than merely pushing a theory, should be pushing interlocutors to take seriously themselves and their own experience, which will lead them to discover the natural law.
David Nickol, my (albeit limited) understanding of natural law and the fall is that the fall did not remove the natural law from our hearts, but, rather, that the fall gave us the ability to erect walls that prevent us from fully accessing it. For instance, when I do something contrary to the natural law, I virtually always feel at a deep level that that thing cannot make me happy or even less consciously, I feel a certain sense of panic or dread or something. But I can ignore that feeling by turning my attention to something else; my choice to ignore it may not even be conscious, and, indeed, in some instances I have been doing it so long that ignoring it is habit.
And I believe that sometimes this habit can become so ingrained that we cannot even admit that the thing is wrong. But what the natural law tells me is that, regardless of outward appearances, every person with whom I interact has the same experience that something is not right with acts that contradict the natural law. Thus, I can help someone listen to the part of themselves that knows the natural law. But they still know it. As J. Budzisewski (sp?)’s book title makes clear, the point of natural law is that it is what we can’t not know.
April 18th, 2012 | 12:50 pm
So, you are trying to convince someone of something. In order to convince them you choose to use natural law. Thus, you must convince them of natural law. Since they do not understand natural law, you have to teach them about it. Sometime much later, it is completely unclear whether or not you ever convinced them of the the original something, but they are now fantastically clever at constructing philosophical models, and have two and half-hour answers (that start with the word suppose) to incredible simple moral questions.
From what I can see, natural law fosters an unfortunate myopia. Those who want to engage with others in conversation take the trouble to learn the language. Natural law scholars are instead like English speakers demanding everybody learn to speak American.
April 18th, 2012 | 1:27 pm
David Nickol has hit on the central flaw in Natural Law. As Pascal observed, “We do not understand the glorious state of Adam, nor the nature of his sin, nor the transmission of it to us. These are matters which took place under conditions of a nature altogether different from our own, and which transcend our present understanding.”
And again, “Thus, without Scripture, which has only Jesus Christ for its object, we know nothing and see only obscurity and confusion in God’s nature and ours.”
He concludes, “Man without faith cannot know the true good, nor justice.”
As to human laws, he asks “On what shall man found the order of the world which he would govern? Shall it be on the caprice of each individual? What confusion! Shall it be on justice? Man is ignorant of it.”
Hence, he is a thorough-going positivist: “He who obeys them [the laws] because they are just, obeys a justice which is imaginary and not the essence of law; it is quite self-contained [elle est toute ramassée en soi], it is law and nothing more.”
April 18th, 2012 | 11:44 pm
And reply to Pascal here by Dr. Groothius http://www.apologetics315.com/2008/12/douglas-groothuis-defense-of-natural.html
April 19th, 2012 | 9:13 am
I often ask students, “How many of you broke the speed limit coming to class today?” Every hand goes up. Then I ask, “How many of you cheat your friends in order to get ahead?” No hands. Notice that they cheerfully admit to breaking the criminal law, but not the moral.
In other words, as R.J. Snell puts it, they need merely to “advert to their performance” to recognize natural moral laws.
Dear Michael PS: Does the fallen state mean that Christians can only discuss moral laws with fellow Christians? If natural humans, even apart from saving grace, cannot understand moral reasoning, then moral arguments are in vain.
Fortunately, there is the “First Grace,” as Russell Hittinger calls it: the grace of nature, created by God.
(Accepting this line of thought usually also entails that we have to call out “Total Depravity” as the crock of bologna it is.)
April 19th, 2012 | 12:55 pm
Craig Payne
Portalis, one of the commission that drew up the Civil Code and, like Pascal, very devout, in the high Augustinian fashion, says that “Christianity, which speaks only to the conscience, guides by grace the little number of the elect to salvation; the law restrains by force the unruly passions of wicked men, in the interests of public policy [l’ordre public]” Like Pascal, he thought the two have very little to do with each other.
By way of illustration, Portalis points out, as an example, that the New Testament, which teaches the way of perfection, forbids divorce and remarriage; the Law of Moses, which was the civil law of the Jewish commonwealth, permitted it.
Rollin, too, another follower of St Augustine, has a very interesting passage: “Theft was permitted in Sparta. It was severely punished among the Scythians. The reason for this difference is obvious: the law, which alone determines the right to property and the use of goods, granted a private individual no right, among the Scythians, to the goods of another person, whereas in Sparta the contrary was the case.” And he gives a couple of Scriptural examples : “Nothing is more common than the existence of similar rights to the goods of another person; thus, God has not only given the poor the power to gather grapes in the vineyards and to glean in the fields and to take away whole sheaves but has also granted to every passer-by without distinction the freedom to enter as often as he likes the vineyard of another person and to eat as many grapes as he wants, in spite of the owner of the vineyard. God Himself gives the first reason for this. It is that the land of Israel belonged to Him and that the Israelites enjoyed possession of it only on that onerous condition.”
For these writers, there is human law and divine positive law, but they reject, by implication at least, a Natural Law.
April 19th, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Dear Michael PS: Thank you for the lead toward these writers; I will look them up and consider them.
If we start arguing natural law, I think we will get into a rousing chorus of “Duelling Scriptures.” I would just like to direct those interested to a modern writer, familiar to FT readers: find “Natural Law for Lawyers” by J. Budziszewski. Despite the title, it is actually a short and compelling introduction to the subject.
April 19th, 2012 | 3:30 pm
Dear Craig Payne
I suppose it depends on how one views the effects of the Fall. After all, Aristotle says that we learn the nature of something by examining mature/perfect specimens, not immature or damaged ones.
If, as Pascal maintains, Adam’s nature is “wholly different from ours and which transcends our present understanding [une nature toute différente de la nôtre, et qui passent l'état de notre capacité présente.]” then we have no way f knowing our true nature – “True nature being lost, everything becomes its own nature; as the true good being lost, everything becomes its own true good.”
This I take to be the meaning of his insistence that “Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ [nous ne nous connaissons nous-mêmes que par Jésus-Christ] I do not think this is intended hyperbolically.
I rather fancy that proponents of Natural Law are suppressing the factor that is doing all the work; they are seeking a rational justification for conclusions drawn from Revelation
April 19th, 2012 | 4:15 pm
Well, I will grant that it is certainly a “form” of revelation–a general revelation, available for the most part to natural reason.
You are correct that the debate hinges around how one views the effects of the Fall on the noetic faculties of humans. For Orthodox, the effect of the Fall is primarily mortality. For Catholics, the Fall damages our will and our tendencies toward sin, and destroys our natural innocence, but it does not destroy our rational faculties any more than it destroys our arms or legs.
I suppose this is why natural law tends to appeal more to Catholics than post-Calvin, post-Barth Protestants. But even Calvin and Barth (toward the end of his life) made some allowances for natural revelation.
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