Remi Brague shows why in all his books about the medieval synthesis, as it developed out of the ancients and made way for the moderns. I think Brague would be somewhere between Deneen’s hard anti-liberalism and the rapprochement position you are trying to work out, Jason: his thesis is that modernity’s great contributions (the individual, natural rights, etc., etc.) do come out of the Catholic middle ages, but that modernity has appropriated them by means that are more Muslim than Christian. Modernity has done to late medieval Catholic political philosophy what the Muslims did to the ancient world: it has assimilated key Catholic insights, even as it has made a show of total repudiation, leaving no traces behind.

I see you hedge on what Zuckert means too – interesting. You should say more some day (or have you elsewhere?)

But I am tempted enough to point out that Socrates did not consider himself simply a part of the regime. We might even be hard pressed to find a better example of an “individual”. Insofar as we mean his example as ancient political thought, it is hard for to see how that thought emphasizes the common good over and against the individual. Athens certainly didn’t think so anyway.

I also do not think there is much in common between Modern individual autonomy and Catholic individual dignity. As Hobbes shows, the claim of the former entails no duty to respect the latter. I know that Zuckert appears to claim to overcome this problem in his reading of Locke, but I think his argument does not quite do what he seems to claim it does (as I think he well knows).

I.e. the “one’s life ought not be city fodder” of ancient natural right really means:

“as only the truly philosophic can know, one’s life ought not be city fodder.”

P.S. Great post, Jason. The other Patrick should respond; perhaps Matt will prod him to.

On the other side, Hobbes account of our right to everything, is hard to call even a thin endorsement of human dignity.