Auguste Comte, writing of one of his forerunners, Montesquieu, said that the great merit of the latter's memorable work L'Esprit des Lois appeared to him to be in its tendency to regard political phenomena as subject to invariable laws like all other phenomena. Comte himself writes with regard to sociology: “the philosophical principle of the science being that social phenomena are subject to natural laws, admitting of rational prevision, we have to ascertain what is the precise subject, and (...) what the peculiar character of those laws.” “Such prevision,” says Comte in another place, “is a necessary consequence of the discovery of constant relations between phenomena, and it is the unfailing test which distinguishes real science from that erudition which mechanically accumulates facts without aspiring to deduce them one from another.” Elsewhere he speaks of “rational prevision, the principal characteristic of true science.” And Branford and Geddes quote his saying: “Savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour pourvoir.”. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 4 Heft: 1-2 Seiten: 135-151.

Abstract.Traditional Darwinian theory presents two difficulties for Thomistic natural‐law morality: relativism and essentialism. The sociobiology of E. O. Wilson seems to refute the idea of evolutionary relativism. Larry Arnhart has argued that Wilson's views on sociobiology can provide a scientific framework for Thomistic natural‐law theory. However, in his attempt to reconcile Aquinas's views with Wilson's sociobiology, Arnhart fails to address a critical feature of Aquinas's ethics: the role of rational goods in natural law. Arnhart limits Aquinas's understanding (...) of rationality to the Humean notion of economic rationality–that “reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.” On Aquinas's view, rationality discovers goods that transcend the merely biological, viz., the pursuit of truth, virtue, and God. I believe that Aquinas's natural‐law morality is consistent with some accounts of sociobiology but not the more ontologically reductionist versions like the one presented by Wilson and defended by Arnhart. Moreover, Aquinas's normative account of rationality is successful in refuting the challenges of evolutionary relativism as well as the reductionism found in most sociobiological approaches to ethics. (shrink)

For centuries, natural law was the main philosophical legal paradigm. Now, it is a wonder when a court of law invokes it. Arthur Kaufmann already underlined a modern general "horror iuris naturalis". We also know, with Winfried Hassemer, that the succession of legal paradigms is a matter of fashion. But why did natural law become outdated? Are there any remnants of it still alive today? This book analyses a number of prejudices and myths that have created a general (...) misconception of natural law. As Jean-Marc Trigeaud put it: there is a natural law that positivists invented. Not the real one(s). It seeks to understand not only the usual adversaries of natural law (like legalists, positivists and historicists) but also its further enemies, the inner enemies of natural law, such as internal aporias, political and ideological manipulations, etc. The book puts forward a reasoned and balanced examination of this treasure of western political and juridical though. And, if we look at it another way, natural law is by no means a loser in our times: because it lives in modern human rights. (shrink)

In Plato's Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims that the gods will smile only on a city where the law This passage is the origin of the slogan an abbreviation of which forms our phrase From Plato and Aristotle, through John Adams and John Marshall, down to us, no idea has proven more central to Western political and legal culture. Yet the slogan turns on a very dubious metaphor. Laws do not rule, and the is actually a specific form of rule (...) by men (including, nowadays, a few women). These rulers are not slaves to anything. Furthermore, the construction of the sloganhas unfortunate connotations. It suggests that the personal qualities of the human rulers required to secure the rule of law are nothing more than forbearance and disinterestedness—a resolution to stay out of law's way.Footnotes* I have received helpful comments and criticisms from a number of readers, including the other contributors to this volume and participants in the Georgetown University Law Center faculty workshop. In addition, I should like to thank Brian Bix, Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Schauer, and Wibren van der Burg for extensive written comments on an earlier draft of this essay. (shrink)

The problem area of distributive justice includes at its core questions about what ought to be owned, how it can be owned and who ought to own it. A fundamental assumption behind recent attempts to address these questions is that the power to shape the property institutions of a society lies entirely in that society's laws. This view, I argue, is mistaken. In this dissertation I provide an account of how property institutions are related to other social practices in a (...) society. A consequence of this account is that property law does not solely determine what property looks like in a society. ;The analysis begins with the observation of Enlightenment-era natural rights theorists that property is, first and foremost, a conventional social norm. I then turn to modern developments in game theory and social psychology to propose a novel account of how conventional social norms guide agents. On this account, a norm guides an agent by influencing their practical reasoning in one of two ways: either rationally, by generating a belief that behavior in those circumstances is required by that norm, or sub-rationally, by structuring the agent's practical reasoning, without the agent being aware of it, in such a way that ensures the formation of intentions to act in a manner required by the norm. This second form of norm guidance, which I call 'passive norm guidance', provides grounds for the claim that property norms can exist and function independently of recognition by the law. I go on to show how the independent existence of property norms can support a robust natural law account of property rights according to which property rights exist independent of recognition by the law. The dissertation ends by show how this account, while radical, is also consistent with the dominant Twentieth Century analytic jurisprudence accounts of property. (shrink)

In a number of recent articles, the debate on the ethics of fractional reserve “free” banking has been extended to loan maturity mismatching, specifically the banking practice of borrowing short and lending long. Barnett and Block :711–716, 2009; 2010) claim the practice is illicit, because like fractional reserve banking it creates duplicate property titles. They argue there is a continuum in the time dimension between the two kinds of activities. Bagus and Howden :399–406, 2009; 106:295–300, 2012a; Eur J Law (...) Econ, 2012b; Bus Ethics 22:235–245, 2013) maintain that loan maturity mismatching does not create duplicate titles and is not illicit, and that from an economic and legal perspective there is no continuum with fractional reserve banking. Cachanosky and Evans enter the debate from the free-banking standpoint and view both practices as legitimate. In this paper, I agree with the conclusions of Bagus and Howden, but adopt a different approach to support this position. Using the title-transfer theory of contract, I demonstrate from first principles why loan maturity mismatching does not create duplicate property titles and is a legitimate practice. Employing this same theory, I then present a novel argument to show why the contractual arrangements found in fractional reserve banking are logically contradictory and illegitimate. (shrink)

In Time Reborn and elsewhere physicist Lee Smolin identifies Peirce as a precursor to his view that natural laws evolved, a view that runs counter the received opinion within physics that time isn’t real. After discussing Smolin’s arguments for the reality of time, two approaches advoacated by Smolin –cosmological natural selection and Quantum Energetic Causal Set Theory– are discussed in the context of Peirce’s cosmology. It is shown that Peirce’s approach provides a possible ground for a physical theory (...) like Quantum Energetic Causal Set Theory, opening the way for a full-fledged cosmology that does justice to contemporary physics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Light that Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of the Natural Law by Stephen BrockAngel Perez-LopezThe Light that Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of the Natural Law by Stephen Brock (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020), xv + 277 pp.How does the natural law fit the definition of law? Opinions clash among different interpreters of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Stephen Brock's book provides both (...) a magisterial and a definitive answer to this question.Like fine wine, this book has been fermenting and maturing for almost thirty years. Originally a doctoral dissertation, this recently published work has been rewritten, and to a certain extent, reworked by the author with respect to some of its content.Without disregard for nuances, the first chapter introduces the reader to four different groups of Aquinas's interpreters. The first two groups question the full legal character of the natural law in its dependence to the eternal law. The third one questions its naturalness. The fourth group, instead, upholds both the divine origin of the natural law's full legality in its dependence on the eternal law, as well as its natural character.Brock places Dom Odo Lottin, Wolfgang Kluxen, Germain Grisez, and John Finnis in the first group. They maintain that the natural law is a law only in a qualified sense and that it does not entirely fulfill the definition of law. The natural law would provide an intrinsic morality. It should be treated independently from the eternal law. The second group is composed by authors such as Frederick Copleston, Alan Donagan, or Gregory Stevens. Similar to the first group, they argue that the natural law is an autonomous self-standing law, legislated by human reason. Thus, it should be treated independently from the eternal law, except to point out its ultimate origin.The author who exemplifies the third position is Ernest Fortin. Reacting against Finnis, Fortin's position jeopardizes the natural character of the natural law. In his view, the legal force of the first principles of practical reason is not fully actualized until one recognizes the divine institution sanctioning them. [End Page 981]All the authors of the fourth group uphold that the natural law is fully a law on account of its divine origin and that it is also entirely natural insofar as it is naturally known by human reason. Herein Brock places commentators of Saint Thomas such as Francisco Suarez, Dominic Farrell, Lawrence Dewan, and himself. He also includes in this last group other philosophers such as G. E. M. Anscombe and Peter Geach. In the course of his whole study, Brock shows how Aquinas's true position differs from the other members of this group. Special attention is given to the differences between Aquinas's true mind and the interpretations offered by Suarez, Farrell, and, to a certain degree, even by Dewan. In order to better appreciate the depth of this process, I have found it very helpful to read Farrell's The Natural Law According to Aquinas and Suarez in conjunction with Brock's work.The second chapter targets the natural law's legal character in its dependence to the eternal law. It proves that Thomas provides a strict definition of the natural law when he says that it is nothing but a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature. This chapter opens with a historical study concerning the influence of the Summa Fratri Alexandri in the Summa theologiae (ST). Aquinas's understanding of the dependence of the natural law on the eternal law turns out to be more systematic and refined. It is based on a fuller comprehension and development of what law is (the ratio legis).The remainder of the second chapter consists in a superb commentary regarding ST, I-II, q. 91, a. 2, on whether something existing in man is fit to be called a natural law. Promulgation is the element of the definition of law that specifies the different kinds of laws. Hence, the natural law is differentiated from the others by its natural promulgation, namely, by the act through which the order of the eternal law (already instituted by God... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM, AND OTHERS' GOOD* MARK C. MURPHY Georgetown University Washington, D.C. The title of a recent article by Henry Veatch and Joseph Rautenberg asks "Does the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?'"; the answer that the text of that article produces is, unsurprisingly, "Yes." Veatch and Rautenberg argue that despite superficial similarities between the moral theory defended by Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and Joseph Boyle (...) and the eudaimonist moral theories defended by Aristotle and Aquinas, the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle (hereafter "GFB") view is more akin to utilitarian impartialism than to Aristotelian or Thomistic eudaimonism. I shall argue that although Veatch and Rautenberg are correct to label the GFB view a type of impartialism, they misunderstand both the character of its impartialism and the mistake on which it rests. A clearer understanding of what is at issue between impartialist and eudaimonist natural law theories will bring into focus the severity of the problem faced in trying to decide between these accounts. I Call the thesis that all correct practical reasoning proceeds from one's own good as a principle "eudaimonism"; call the thesis that all correct practical reasoning proceeds from the good * I owe a debt of gratitude to Melissa Barry, Lenn Goodman, Trenton Merricks, and (especially) Thomas Williams for their comments on early drafts of this article. 1 Henry Veatch and Joseph Rautenberg, "Does the Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" Review of Metaphysics 44 (1991): 807-830. 53 54 MARK C. MURPHY impartially considered "impartialism." As Veatch and Rautenberg point out, the GFB view endorses impartialism: from the point of view of practical reason, whether a good is instantiated in you or in me makes no difference.2 This impartialism places the GFB view on the side of the utilitarians against the eudaimonism of Aristotle and Aquinas. That Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle part ways with Aristotle and Aquinas on this issue is, of course, no argument against the GFB view. Veatch and Rautenberg attempt to call the GFB impartialism into question, though, by arguing both that the GFB impartialism has absurd consequences and that the argument by which Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle reach the impartialist thesis contains plain errors. Veatch and Rautenberg hold that the impartialism advocated by the GFB view is a result of modern moral philosophy's disconnecting the concept of a good from that of human needs, desires, and interests: The notion of 'good' [on the 'modern' view] needs to be denatured and completely dissociated from all reference to our liking, desiring, or finding pleasing those things which we take to be good. Instead, all 'goods' are to be converted into so many 'oughts', and as 'oughts' they are to be furthered and pursued.3 On the modern view, to assert that pleasure is a good is to assert only that pleasure ought to be promoted; to say that knowledge is a good is to say only that knowledge ought to be pursued. From this sundering of the relationship between the idea of a good and that of human needs and interests it is a small step 2 Although both utilitarianism and the GFB view endorse impartialism, they differ importantly in that utilitarianism is consequentialist whereas the GFB view is not. To move from the impartialist thesis that the good impartially considered is the starting point for practical reason to the utilitarian thesis that one ought to act so as to maximize overall goodness requires, among other presuppositions, the assumption that another's good and my own are commensurable. This premise the GFB view denies; no two instantiations of basic values between which choice is possible are commensurable. See Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis, "Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate Ends," American Journal ofJurisprudence 32 (1987): 99-151, esp. 110.· 1 Veatch and Rautenberg, "Grisez-Finnis-Boyle Moral Philosophy," 816. NATURAL LAW, IMPARTIALISM, AND OTHERS' GOOD 55 indeed to impartialism: once goods are no longer such in virtue of anyone's needing or desiring them, there is no reason to promote one's own good over that of anyone else: "Instead, all goods having now been converted into so many 'oughts', it would seem to... (shrink)

Leibniz raises three main objections to the doctrine of occasionalism: (1) it is inconsistent with the supposition of finite substances; (2) it presupposes the occurrence of "perpetual miracles"; (3) it requires that God "disturb" the ordinary laws of nature. At issue in objection (1) is the proper understanding of divine omnipotence, and of the relationship between the power of God and that of created things. I argue that objections (2) and (3), on the other hand, derive from a particular conception (...) of the intelligibility of nature, a conception to which Leibniz is firmly committed and that occasionalists like Malebranche no less firmly reject. (shrink)

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the vast topic of laws of nature. Thus, it first outlines the alleged characteristics of the laws of nature, namely truth, objectivity, contingency, necessity, universality, grounding counterfactuals and their role in science. Among these aspects, the peculiar modal status of laws of nature will be identified as the ‘holy grail’ of the debate. The second part of this chapter is concerned with the three main families of theories of laws of nature – neo-humean, (...) ADT and dispositional theories – which are introduced and evaluated in regard to the aforementioned characteristics. It will then be argued that among those theories, the dispositional ones show the greatest promise of being able to account for the natural necessity of the laws of nature. -/- Before a dispositional account of laws of nature can be given, dispositions themselves need to be understood. Consequently, Chapter 2 introduces various analyses of dispositions. As dispositions are pre-theoretically close to conditionals, a lot of analyses try to reduce dispositions to conditionals. This chapter critically assesses some chosen accounts: the simple conditional analysis, Carnap’s reduction sentences, the simple counterfactual conditional analysis, Lewis’ reformed conditional analysis, Malzkorn’s sophisticated con- ditional analysis, Choi and Gundersen’s context-dependent analysis, Manley and Wasserman’s gradable dispostion ascriptions, and Fara’s habituals. The prevention problem, which poses a threat to any account of dispositions, is depicted. It is argued that, ultimately, none of the conditionalising attempts is able to convince since they all exclude the problem cases which leads to explanation gaps and outlaw areas. -/- Chapter 3 contains the synchronic part of my preferred solution to the prevention problem. The notion of ‘component causes’ is introduced, and the ontological status of components discussed. Millikan’s oil drop experiment is depicted en detail. In a first step, making a distinction between dispositions and the resulting behaviour is advocated. Via the symmetry argument, mani- festations and masks are shown to be ontologically on a par. In a second step, a triadic account consisting of dispositions, wirkungen and resultant behaviour, is established. Finally, the ontological interpretation of the trias is given. It is in the nature of the dispositions to bring about the wirkungen. These interact via combinations rules like the functions f and fa or vector addition, which are built-in into to dispositions. -/- The diachronic part of my favourite interpretation, the triadic process picture of dispositions (TPD), is presented in chapter 4. The dynamics of dispo- sition manifestation are discussed and it is argued that fiddling with the trigger works only up to a certain point. Diachronic masking cases turn out to be no- torious. An excursus to action theory shows that the ontology needs to include processes, as understanding disposition manifestations as processes solves the diachronic prevention problem. The (TPD) can account for all counterexamples by taking the stimulus as the beginning of the manifestation process. -/- Chapter 5 applies the (TPD) to the debate about laws of nature. In order to judge its adequacy, the characteristics of laws of nature given in chapter 1 are consulted. As a first step, the criteria truth, objectivity, universality, grounding counterfactuals and their role in science are covered. It is sketched how the (TPD) can account for these. The second part of the chapter deals with the modal status of the laws of nature. The dispositional essentialist’s view that laws of nature are metaphysical necessary is depicted and then criticised. It is argued that metaphysical necessity is not the appropriate modal status of the laws of nature. Finally, the (TPD) account of the necessity of the laws of nature is presented: laws of nature are naturally necessary and metaphysically contingent. (shrink)

The story of "natural law" - the idea that God has written a law on the human heart so that ethical norms derive from human nature - in twentieth-century Protestant ethics is one of rejection and resurgence. For half a century, luminaries like Karl Barth, Carl F. H. Henry, and Cornelius Van Til cast a shadow over natural law moral reflection because of its putative link to natural theology, autonomous reason, associations with Catholic theology, and ethical (...) witness devoid of special revelation. However, over the past twenty years, Protestant theologians have renewed their interest in the subject, often animated by debates on Christian involvement in the public arena and on matters of life, death, and gender and sexuality. Much of this engagement has happened within Reformed circles and has largely been conducted without reference to Roman Catholic construals of the natural law. Conversely, Catholic developments in natural-law thinking have paid little attention to the surge of interest on the Protestant side. As a result, Protestant and Catholic natural proponents - and even those skeptical of the natural law - are not in conversation with one another.The lack of dialog between the various schools of natural law has left a historic tradition within Christan moral thought underdeveloped in contemporary Protestant theology. By bringing together a variety of perspectives in much-needed conversation, this book helps readers to understand the various construals of natural law within the broader strands of Christian and classical traditions and clarifies its unique importance for Christian moral witness in a secular culture. The contributors address the following questions:What is natural law?Can moral norms be derived from immanent, creaturely ends? If so, how specific or action-guiding can those norms be? How extensive might these moral norms be?How does natural law endure despite Christian insistence on the noetic, epistemological effects of sin?What is the relationship between Christian reflection on natural law and the broader classical tradition's understanding of natural law?How do Catholic and Protestant construals of natural law differ?What is the relationship between faith and reason?What's the relationship between human nature and natural law?Does "natural law" mean: "secular moral reasons"? Or is "natural law" merely religious belief disguised as public reason?How does natural law relate to public reason?Does the affirmation of a "natural law" lead to a natural theology? Or are these distinct?What is the relationship between natural law and the laws of nature?Five views:Classical Natural Law - Michael PakalukNew Natural Law - Melissa MoschellaReformed Natural Law - W. Bradford LittlejohnLutheran Natural Law - Joel D. BiermanAnti-Natural Law - Peter J. Leithart. (shrink)

From the early days of philosophy, ethics and justice, there is wide consensus that the constancy of the laws establishes the legal system. On the other hand, the rate at which we accumulate knowledge is gaining speed like never before. Due to the recently increased attention of academics to climate change and other environmental issues, a lot of new knowledge has been obtained about carbon management, its role in nature and mechanisms regarding the formation and degradation of organic matter. (...) A multidisciplinary techno-economic assessment of current composting standards and laws that took into account the current state of knowledge about carbon management was carried out as a case study. Economic and environmental damage caused by outdated laws was revealed. In addition, it was found that the introduction of the best composts into the market is permitted, causing additional negative environmental as well as economic impacts. (shrink)

Fiammetta Palladini's work is one of the most important discussions of Pufendorf to appear in the latter part of the twentieth century. It cut through the existing field of Pufendorf studies, laying bare its inherited templates and tacit assumptions. Palladini was thus able to peel back the 'Grotian' commentary in which the great thinker had been shrouded, revealing a Pufendorf well-known in the 1680s-a formidable and dangerous natural jurist and political theorist-but doubly obscured in the 1980s and still today, (...) by a philosophical history that flies too high to see him, and by a commentary literature that too often does not like what it sees. David Saunders' remarkable translation carries Palladini's argument into English with maximum fidelity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:146 BOOK REVIEWS Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays. Edited by ROBERT P. GEORGE. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 371. $39.95 (cloth). As the editor of this volume, Robert P. George points out in his foreword that this hook is yet another manifestation of the renewed and growing interest in natural law theory. But why this recent increased interest in natural law theory? What purpose is this (...) theory supposed to serve, or in what way do its proponents see it as an improvement on existing theories? First of all, it must be noted, as the variety of essays in this volume makes abundantly clear, that natural law theory, as it is presently conceived, most certainly does not represent anything like a unified, single theory of tightly knit principles and conclusions. In the present volume one can easily see a half-dozen or more different approaches to natural law theory. So different in tone and spirit are some of the essays that one can easily wonder if they have enough in common even to classify them as " family resemblances." But if they all in their different ways do indeed evidence, as the editor claims, an increased awareness of and interest in natural law theory, the question immediately arises, why this increased interest? What problems do the advocates of these theories hope to solve by them or what questions do they think their theories will better address than the theories currently in place? First of all, one may make a division which places the theories, however divers~ among themselves, into two general groups. The first of these groups wishes natural law theory to function as a general approach to morality. For this group natural law does the work of a moral theory. In this group I would place the essays of Joseph Boyle, Robert George, Russell Bittinger, John Finnis, and Hadley Arkes (probably). The second group uses natural law theory as a way of determining the connection between moral law and positive law or legal theory. The essays of Jeffrey Stout, Neil MacCormick, Jeremy Waldron, Michael Moore, Lloyd Weinreb, Joseph Raz, and Ernest Weinrib fall into this second category. In all there are twelve essays in this volume. Space will not permit me to give a detailed analysis and critique of each. At most I can only indicate very briefly some of their more salient features. The book is divided into four parts, the first of which is titled "Natural Law, Practical Reasoning and Morality." In the very illuminating first essay of this section, "Natural Law and the Ethics of Traditions," Joseph Boyle undertakes to clarify the question of the relation of natural law theory to tradition. Certain approaches to moral theory currently popular BOOK REVIEWS 147 which are called virtues ethics, of which Alasdair Macintyre would he an example, claim that natural law theory is tradition-dependent. If Macintyre and other virtues ethicists are correct, then since natural law theory is culture-hound, and since the culture in which it was horn and flourished, medieval culture, has irretrievably retreated into the pages of history, then natural law theory is equally dead, of interest, if at all, only in an antiquarian way. Boyle carefully points out that there is more than one sense of being tradition-dependent. It is true that natural law theory is tradition-dependent in the sense that it did indeed come into existence in a particular historic epoch and that its language and thought do indeed express the period of its flourishing, i.e. the medieval period. But this, Boyle is careful to point out, does not mean that its validity and meaning were exhausted with the end of that culture. Rather the tradition is a living tradition so that its rich resources can continue to be exploited as that tradition is enlarged by its application to present day moral problems. Boyle's conclusion then is that in some senses natural law is indeed dependent on an ancient and medieval tradition, hut not so totally dependent that it has lost all validity for contemporary moral theory. In the contribution by Robert George, "Natural Law and Human Nature," George tries to defend Germain Grisez's version of natural law... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.3 (2001) 381-399 [Access article in PDF] Permissive Natural Law and Property: Gratian to Kant Brian Tierney In his Doctrine of Right Kant set out to formulate a theory of property that would be based on purely rational argumentation, that would abstract "from all spatial and temporal conditions," and that would be applicable to any person, "merely because and insofar as he (...) is free and has practical reason." But from the time when the work first appeared Kant scholars have found many difficulties in the teaching that he presented. Many of them relate to the idea of permissive natural law that Kant introduced at a key point to his argument.In a previous, complementary article I discussed in detail various apparent aporias that arose in Kant's treatment of this concept and suggested that we might understand his problems better by setting them in a broader historical context than those considered in standard works like those of Reinhard Brandt and Wolfgang Kersting. 1 This is the theme that I want to explore further in the present paper.To sum up briefly some of the difficulties in the Doctrine of Right: A central problem for Kant was to explain how rightful possession of individual property could emerge from a hypothetical state of nature where everything was common to all, where everyone had a right to everything. His argument was grounded on a concept of freedom understood as "a pure rational concept." Kant maintained that every person had an innate right to freedom and from this he deduced a universal law of Right: "[S]o act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone." 2 But the person who first seized for himself what had been common to all evidently did encroach on the freedom of others (their freedom to use the property that had been taken). [End Page 381]To address this problem Kant formulated a "postulate of practical reason" concerning property. Citing the Roman law doctrine of res nullius he argued that external things could in principle be acquired. 3 Then he restated the postulate as a permissive law that obliged others to respect the claim of a first occupant. "This postulate can be called a permissive law (lex permissiva) of practical reason which gives us an authorization... to put all others under an obligation, which they would not otherwise have...." 4 But to put others under an obligation is to encroach on their freedom, which would be a violation of the universal law of Right. For Kant, laws that could be discerned by reason alone without promulgation by a legislator, were understood to be natural laws. 5 The universal law of Right and the permissive law of practical reason were both laws of this kind. It seems therefore that natural law contradicted itself. It prohibited and permitted an action at the same time.Other difficulties arose as the argument proceeded. Kant repeatedly asserted that rightful possession must depend on consent expressed in "a collective general (common) and powerful will," "a will that is united originally and a priori"; 6 but he acknowledged that such a general will would not exist in a state of nature before the institution of civil society and that an act of original acquisition would necessarily proceed from a unilateral will. "But the will that a thing is to be mine... can be only unilateral." 7 And yet Kant also wrote, "By my unilateral choice I cannot bind another to refrain from using a thing, an obligation he would not otherwise have." 8 Kant never did explain how a permissive law, allowing a person to act unilaterally, could impose an obligation on others.In my earlier discussion of Kant's work I indicated that it might be fruitful to approach these difficulties by investigating some previous ways of using the language of permissive natural law, especially as it related to the origin of property rights. There is indeed a whole earlier tradition of thought to be considered. An investigation of this material... (shrink)

This article aims to explore the concept of Heaven and St. Thomas Aquinas I "Summa Theologica" explained the basis of natural law and metaphysics. The philosophy, the I's "Road" was opened on their own, said that the ultimate reality itself; second source that can be raw, such as "Dawson, one two, two three, three things," a phrase below; again , then follow all the rules change. In this regard, I tend to "Heaven", "heaven" statement, basically all things to follow (...) the law is. I focus on is that all things are to follow the law is. As for the man-made law, I tend to be severely criticized, such as saying "Fa Wu Zi-chang, way more than a thief," and the like. Having said that, by Taoism Taoism Taoism and Legalism affect the development of the legislation is still based on natural law is human law theory. Thomas Aquinas's natural law, is given in accordance with the rational nature of God and the law of action, we can see, St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law focused on people, not only contains a real natural , but also ought to include , two related but different. There are words on the surface, natural law is that "people according to their nature are looking for is good." However, the surface should be made, the principle of natural law is: "People should do good to avoid evil." In this paper, to compare the Heaven and the ultimate source of natural law, I inquire of the non-personal God of the Trinity Road and Thomas Aquinas on how chemical and biological weapons or to create things, by the generosity or wisdom and love of order and law generated. Then, on the Heaven and the natural law itself for comparison. Finally, the two can be dealt with through the office, and, and related concepts in Taoism. The basic concern of this paper is to compare Laozi's Heavenly Dao and St. Thomas' natural law for the purpose of bringing them to dialogue. Philosophically speaking, Laozi's concept of Dao means first, the ever self-manifesting and creative Ultimate Reality; second, the Origin giving birth to all things; third, the law of becoming of all things in the universe. For this last meaning, usually Laozi uses the term "Heavenly Dao" to represent laws of nature that all beings in the universe, including human beings , must comply with. As to human laws, he takes a critical position, to the point of saying that "The more legal objects multiply, the more robbers and thieves there will be." Nevertheless, under his influence, Huanglao daoists and legalists have developed their philosophy of positive laws.In Comparison, St. Thomas' natural laws are principles of human action according to human rational nature. The emphasis of St. Thomas is put therefore on the rational nature of human beings, which includes both the aspect of "to be" and that of "ought to be," both being closely related yet distinct. Seen from "to be," the natural law says that all human beings desire goodness by their nature; while as their "ought to be," all human beings should do good and avoid doing evil.This comparative study will focus first on how the generosity of Dao's giving birth to all things in Laozi and the wisdom and love of God in St. Thomas become order and law. Then we will compare Laozi's laws of nature, to which human beings should also live accordingly, with techniques inspired from them, and the principles of St. Thomas' natural laws. We will discuss the possible compatibility and dialogue between St. Thomas thoughts, which are essential to Catholicism , and those of Laozi as followed by lluanlao Daoism and Religious Daoism. (shrink)

"Perhaps more than any other scientist of our century, Edward O. Wilson has scrutinized animals in their natural settings, tweezing out the dynamics of their social organization, their relationship with their environments, and their behavior, not only for what it tells us about the animals themselves, but for what it can tell us about human nature and our own behavior. He has brought the fascinating and sometimes surprising results of these studies to general readers through a remarkable collection of (...) books, including The Diversity of Life, The Ants, On Human Nature, and Sociobiology. The grace and precision with which he writes of seemingly complex topics has earned him two Pulitzer prizes, and the admiration of scientists and general readers around the world.In Search of Nature presents for the first time a collection of the seminal short writings of Edward O. Wilson, addressing in brief and eminently readable form the themes that have actively engaged this remarkable intellect throughout his career.""The central theme of the essays is that wild nature and human nature are closely interwoven. I argue that the only way to make complete sense of either is by examining both closely and together as products of evolution.... Human behavior is seen not just as the product of recorded history, ten thousand years recent, but of deep history, the combined genetic and cultural changes that created humanity over hundreds of thousands of years. We need this longer view, I believe, not only to understand our species, but more firmly to secure its future.The book is composed of three sections. ""Animal Nature, Human Nature"" ranges from serpents to sharks to sociality in ants. It asks how and why the universal aversion to snakes might have evolved in humans and primates, marvels at the diversity of the world's 350 species of shark and how their adaptive success has affected our conception of the world, and admonishes us to ""be careful of little lives""-to see in the construction of insect social systems ""another grand experiment in evolution for our delectation.""The Patterns of Nature"" probes at the foundation of sociobiology, asking what is the underlying genetic basis of social behavior, and what that means for the future of the human species. Beginning with altruism and aggression, the two poles of behavior, these essays describe how science, like art, adds new information to the accumulated wisdom, establishing new patterns of explanation and inquiry. In ""The Bird of Paradise: The Hunter and the Poet,"" the analytic and synthetic impulses-exemplified in the sciences and the humanities-are called upon to give full definition to the human prospect.""Nature's Abundance"" celebrates biodiversity, explaining its fundamental importance to the continued existence of humanity. From ""The Little Things That Run the World""-invertebrate species that make life possible for everyone and everything else-to the emergent belief of many scientists in the human species' possible innate affinity for other living things, known as biophilia, Wilson sets forth clear and compelling reasons why humans should concern themselves with species loss. ""Is Humanity Suicidal?"" compares the environmentalist's view with that of the exemptionalist, who holds that since humankind is transcendent in intelligence and spirit, our species must have been released from the iron laws of ecology that bind all other species. Not without optimism, Wilson concludes that we are smart enough and have time enough to avoid an environmental catastrophe of civilization-threatening dimensions-if we are willing both to redirect our science and technology and to reconsider our self-image as a species.In Search of Nature is a lively and accessible introduction to the writings of one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. Imaginatively illustrated by noted artist Laura Southworth, it is a book all readers will treasure.". (shrink)

Traditional Christian descriptions of homosexuality as a “sin against nature” rely on a claim about the transparency of the sexed body to universal reason: homosexual acts are sins against nature because natural law renders them obviously unnatural. This moral description “unnatural” subverts itself for two reasons. First, neo-traditionalist descriptions conflate “natural” and “normal.” Dialogue with Didier Eribon's work on the “insult” shows how such moral descriptions self-subvert and render chastity impossible. Second, neo-traditionalists use the description to require celibacy, (...) which the tradition teaches is likely impossible without a special gift. This use of natural law thus fails to be self-consistent or true to reality and so undermines its ability to serve as a critical principle in the search for truth. A critical use of natural law allows for an alternative, non-insulting description of homosexual characters. This essay outlines the character description through immanent critique of two spheres of Catholic teachings about sex: Augustinian sexual ethics and nuptial theology. (shrink)

The enduring progression of artificial intelligence and cybernetics offers an ever-closer possibility of rational and sentient robots. The ethics and morals deriving from this technological prospect have been considered in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, the design of automatons with roboethics and the contemplation of machine ethics through the concept of artificial moral agents. Across these categories, the robotics laws first proposed by Isaac Asimov in the twentieth century remain well-recognised and esteemed due to their specification of preventing human harm, (...) stipulating obedience to humans and incorporating robotic self-protection. However the overwhelming predominance in the study of this field has focussed on human–robot interactions without fully considering the ethical inevitability of future artificial intelligences communicating together and has not addressed the moral nature of robot–robot interactions. A new robotic law is proposed and termed AIonAI or artificial intelligence-on-artificial intelligence. This law tackles the overlooked area where future artificial intelligences will likely interact amongst themselves, potentially leading to exploitation. As such, they would benefit from adopting a universal law of rights to recognise inherent dignity and the inalienable rights of artificial intelligences. Such a consideration can help prevent exploitation and abuse of rational and sentient beings, but would also importantly reflect on our moral code of ethics and the humanity of our civilisation. (shrink)

This paper explores the common ground in the views on natural law, justice and sociopolitical development in Hume and Spinoza. Spinoza develops a radically revisionary position in the natural law debate, building upon the bold equation of right and power. Hume is best interpreted as offering a skeptical–empirical reworking of traditional natural law theories, which maintains much of the practical purport of these theories, while providing it with a new, metaphysically less firm, but also less problematic, foundation. (...) What the two philosophers have in common is that they formulate realist revisions of the natural law tradition in the light of their more general naturalistic, secular philosophical commitments. Both philosophers, moreover, point to the slow development of man’s insight in the laws of nature, arising through a gradual accumulation of experiential insights. These insights are never wholly ‘liberated’ from the historical and imaginative perspective in which they arise. Accordingly, although rational progress brings the systems of justice and politics of different groups of people closer to each other, they necessarily retain, sometimes fundamentally incompatible, divergences. In the tradition of Machiavellian political realism, therefore, both Spinoza and Hume plead for judging political orders according to their own merits: do they, in their own specific ways, bring about a sufficient degree of order and liberty? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Natural Law by Vincent W. LloydDaniel A. MorrisBlack Natural Law Vincent W. Lloyd NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. XV + 180 PP. $49.95Black Natural Law introduces and analyzes a "tradition" (Vincent Lloyd's term throughout the text) of African American natural law reflection. In so doing, Lloyd dismantles stubborn boundaries between Christian ethics, black religion, and American religious history. Black Christian writers such (...) as Frederick Douglass are often confined to the category of "history" and rarely elevated to esteemed intellectual disciplines such as "theology" and "ethics." Lloyd reverses that tendency. Like Catherine Bell, Robert Orsi, Miguel De La Torre, and others, he makes us question the hierarchical dualism between thought and practice, and our habit of associating white Christianities with the former and nonwhite Christianities with the latter. This book is worth reading for that feature alone. But there are many other worthwhile arguments as well.In his surveys of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Martin Luther King Jr., Lloyd identifies a coherent tradition of natural law reflection in African American Christianity that imagines a concentric series of laws, including God's law, moral law, and civic law. The tradition emphasizes the image of God in all human beings and thus the "inherent value of human life" (22). Black natural law reflection is distinctive primarily because it is rooted in black experience. At its core, it is informed by experiences of oppression sponsored by the civic law. Critique of ideology (which Lloyd sometimes uses as a synonym for civic/worldly law) is at the heart of black natural law, as is the organizing of social movements as a practical outgrowth of that critique. Lloyd also shows that black natural law sets itself apart from its white/European counterparts by understanding reason and emotion as mutually informing: emotion does and indeed should inform reason in moral reflection. And because God privileges the oppressed, black natural law also emphasizes its own priority over white theological ethics. Through close readings of black theologians, Lloyd pulls all these features together and persuasively shows that there is a coherent tradition of black natural law thinking in American Christianity. This primary argument is clear and indispensable for scholars of either black theology or natural law (or both).Lloyd also makes a provocative historical argument: the tradition began to decline after the civil rights movement and is currently in a state of disarray. He writes that "elements of black natural law continued to be invoked in various [End Page 199] ways during the decades that followed the civil rights movement—invoked in ways that were disconnected from the tradition" (120). He shows that literary, activist, and political uses of natural law ideas within black communities have lost the coherence and distinctive features that they once had. This argument includes innovative interpretations and critiques of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, and others. This argument is all the more worthwhile for scholars and students of ethics and American religious history because Lloyd notes that a coherent expression of black natural law could help meet the crisis of mass incarceration.The book could, at times, engage secondary sources more effectively; for example, which natural law theories "focus exclusively on the human capacity to reason" (38)? How have other scholars understood Douglass's invocation of natural law concepts? It also offers an underdeveloped critique of pragmatism. These quarrels are trivial, though, in light of the thought-provoking arguments that Lloyd offers. Scholars working on Christian ethics, American religious thought, and black Christianity should all read this book. Black Natural Law would fit well on upper-level and graduate syllabi in these fields.Daniel A. MorrisAugustana CollegeCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In Natural Law and Natural Rights, John Finnis delves into the past, attempting to revitalise the Thomist natural law tradition cut short by opposing philosophers such as David Hume. In this article, Finnis’s efforts at revival are assessed by way of comparison with—and, indeed, contrast to—the life and art of musician David Bowie. In spite of their extravagant differences, there exist significant points of connection that allow Bowie to be used in interpreting Finnis’s natural law. Bowie’s (...) work—for all its appeals to a Nietzschean ground zero for normative values—shares Finnis’s concern with ordering affairs in a way that will realise humanity’s great potential. In presenting enchanted worlds and evolved characters as an antidote to all that is drab and pointless, Bowie has something to tell his audience about how human beings can thrive. Likewise, natural law holds that a legal system should include certain content that guides people towards a life of “flourishing”. Bowie and Finnis look to the past, plundering it for inspiration and using it as fuel to boost humankind forward. The analogy of Natural Law and Natural Rights and Bowie’s magpie-like relationship to various popular music traditions ultimately reveals that natural law theory is not merely an objective and unchanging edict to be followed without question, but a legacy that is to be recreated by those who carry it into the future. Law’s instruments of critique must not forget these transformative qualities. (shrink)

In 1905 the Supreme Court of Georgia became the first state high court to recognize a freestanding “right to privacy” tort in the common law. The landmark case was Pavesich v. New England Life Insurance Co. Must it be a cause for deep jurisprudential concern that the common law right to privacy in wide currency today originated in Pavesich’s explicit judicial interpretation of the requirements of natural law? Must it be an additional worry that the court which originated the (...) common law privacy right asserted that a free white man whose photograph is published without his consent in a city newspaper is like a slave in bondage? I argue that the jurisprudence of Pavesich need not be troubling. Pavesich’s natural law argument was supplemented by several positive law arguments. The positive law arguments were a strong enough basis for finding a right to privacy in the common law, as indeed Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis had previously argued. The observation that the Pavesich court’s natural law argument ran alongside positivistic arguments suggests that the arresting, high-toned natural law and slavery appeals in Pavesich are inessential rhetorical throwaways. But I maintain that the natural law argument and slavery analogy features of Judge Andrew Jackson Cobb’s opinion extolling the “liberty of privacy” are (1) of critical importance to a full contextual understanding of the decision and (2) illuminate the contemporary case for recognizing invasions of privacy as civil injuries to freedom and self-determination. One can poke holes in the logic of Thomas Aquinas and John Locke as scholars have done for centuries. But one can as easily choose to celebrate the spirit of the natural law tradition. The natural law tradition represents efforts rhetorically, rationally, and intuitively to derive principles of justice and goodness from basic facts about human characteristics, needs, and desires, where otherwise binding sovereign law may fall short. (shrink)

In these times of walls and razor-wires, open borders appear to be more utopian than always. Nonetheless, philosophers like Joseph Carens and, similarly but earlier, Timothy King and James L. Hudson, famously argued that the major philosophical perspectives in the Western world—libertarian, egalitarian, and utilitarian—would support a right to freedom of international movement of people. What would be the relative default position from the standpoint of natural law theory? In this article, I present a general introduction on (...) class='Hi'>natural law theory and its role in and outside philosophy, before presenting claims specific to the migration debate. I then recall the defence of a right to free movement by two authors sympathetic to the natural-law tradition, Ann and Michael Dummett: a defence which is grounded in principles of fairness and reciprocity and develops elements belonging to international law. I also outline John Finnis’s more critical and nuanced position. Finnis is eager to legitimize state authority and the “special relations” binding fellow countrymen: however, I claim that the classic Thomist perspective in which he situates these claims ensure his respect of a right to international movement which could be characterized as a version of “open borders,” with some definitional restrictions and qualifications of this latter phrase. Finally, I deal with the theory of Alasdair MacIntyre. Trying to infer MacIntyre’s attitude toward migration from the classic but short article on patriotism, might turn out to be no less dif ficult than potentially misleading, especially if that article is not read in its details. Complementary elements are offered in MacIntyre’s account of natural law “as subversive.” On these grounds, I claim that, contrary to simplistic misreading of MacIntyre’s alleged “communitarianism,” MacIntyrean Aristotelian Thomism would endorse a theory of migration more compatible with reasonably conceived open borders. I conclude my chapter with a presentation of Aquinas’s concise intervention on the subject, and I show that it further supports my reading of the natural law tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction by Anthony J. LisskaV. Bradley LewisAnthony J. Lisska. Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 320. Paper, $24.95.This volume aims to provide an explication of the natural law theory of St. Thomas Aquinas “consistent with the expectation of philosophers in the analytic tradition” (10–11, 17). Accordingly, the author begins, (...) in the first three chapters, by reviewing the recent history of Anglo-American metaethics, aligning himself broadly with those critics of analytic ethics like G. E. M. Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Martha Nussbaum, and Henry Veatch, who have argued for a recovery of Aristotelian moral theory, against varieties of intuitionism, non-cognitivism, and neo-Kantianism. Lisska’s principal objective is to present a reconstructed natural law theory based primarily on Aquinas’s discussion in questions 90–97 of the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae (a translation of these questions is appended to the book). This he offers mostly in the fourth, fifth and eighth chapters of the book. The sixth chapter is a critique of John Finnis’s account of natural law and the seventh is an exposition of the views of Henry [End Page 526] Veatch. The ninth chapter presents some suggestions on how the author’s account can illuminate controversies over the grounding of human rights, and the tenth is a brief conclusion.The three introductory chapters consist mainly of a review and endorsement of the critics of academic ethics since Moore’s Prıncipia Ethıca. Having accepted arguments for the inadequacy of modern ethics, Lisska argues for the recovery of Aquinas’s views which he sees as in fundamental continuity with Aristotelian ethics (84, 89, 100, 102–105, 108, 134–36). His central thesis is that natural law is a “second-order inquiry” based on a realist metaphysics of the human person as defined by a set of dispositional properties, the realization of which constitutes Aristotelian eudaimonia and Thomistic beatitudo (17, 104–106, 131–37, 152–55, 186, 195–201). Moreover, Lisska contends that Aristotelian “eudaimonism” constitutes an adequate account of moral obligation: what he calls, after Veatch, “obligatory teleology” (107–109, 121, 202–205, 235).At the core of Lisska’s account, then, is a metaphysical dispute that pits Aristotelian essentialism against modern reductionist ontology. This metaphysical core is separated from any theological implications in the fifth chapter (especially 119–23, 137) and Lisska reinforces his metaphysical thesis by appealing to Saul Kripke’s discussion of natural kinds and the early work of Hilary Putnam (97–99, 125, 206–209). Given the centrality of metaphysical argument, a critique of Finnis’s theory goes without saying, and Lisska devotes a chapter to it, adding another to expound Henry Veatch’s contrary view.While this book undertakes an important effort to recover a workable natural law theory—especially in its commendable stress on metaphysical questions—it is, as a whole, less satisfactory than it might have been. A good part of this owes to the book’s abstraction from historical questions. No sustained attention is devoted to the problems that accompanied the reception of Aristotle by Christian theologians, nor to the place of natural law in Aquinas’s overall understanding of morality. The former point is not so surprising, given the book’s analytic concerns; the latter, however, carries more serious theoretical implications. Why is it, for example, that natural law takes up so little space compared to the questions on happiness, human acts, and the habits and virtues in the prima secundae, not to mention the detailed treatments of the virtues and vices in the secunda secundae? Similarly, where Aquinas stresses that natural law as law is directed to the common good (Iallae 90.2), Lisska treats it mostly as a guide to “self-realization.”This issue suggests the tensions between Aristotle and Aquinas, tensions that seem to show themselves precisely in Aquinas’s discussion of the very notion of natural law, a notion that has no equivalent in Aristotle. This question hangs over Lisska’s brief treatment of obligation, in particular, since that concept is also lacking explicit treatment in... (shrink)

This book looks at the development of the idea of toleration into something like its modern shape in the early enlightenment period and its consequences on the ways in which states treat religion. Essays discuss a range of thinkers and challenge both their image and that of the early enlightenment as the seedbed of liberal modernity.

The purpose of this book is to show that “far from being an enemy of Natural Law, Burke was one of the most eloquent and profound defenders of Natural Law morality and politics in Western civilization”. Professor Stanlis rightly points out that Burke was for too long treated as a utilitarian in politics, and he blames such writers as Morley, Stephen and Vaughan, who were mainly responsible for this interpretation. He might have added that Burke himself must bear (...) part of the blame: is he not famous for his rejection, in his American speeches, of all appeals to “abstract” or natural rights? “I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them …”. “The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable; but whether it is not your interest to make them happy”. Such phrases sound rather like utilitarianism; and the impression is strengthened by Burke’s famous denunciation of the whole “Rights of Man” school in his Reflections on the Revolution in France: “How can any man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence? Rights which are absolutely repugnant to it? … In the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction.… The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.… The rights of men in government are their advantages.… The body of the community … has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit. …”. (shrink)

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism aims to show that naturalism is, as he puts it, ‘incoherent or self defeating’. Plantinga supposes that, in the absence of any God-like being to guide the process, natural selection is unlikely to favour true belief. Plantinga overlooks the fact that adherents of naturalism may plausibly hold that there exist certain conceptual links between belief content and behaviour. Given such links, natural selection will favour true belief. A further rather surprising consequence of (...) the existence of such links is this: even if semantic properties are epiphenomenal, unguided evolution will still favour true belief. (shrink)

The relationship between the political theory of Rousseau and modern natural law continues to be the subject of debate, both with regard to Rousseau's faithfulness to the idea of natural law itself and regarding the precise extent of the debt he owed to his predecessors. In this article the author re-examines this relationship by focusing attention on what has been defined as the protestant tradition of natural law. In particular she concentrates on the political and theoretical exercise (...) that Jean Barbeyrac had sought to perform by constructing a particular version of this tradition, namely that of using the science of natural law to promote a policy of tolerance between protestants and to justify the right of citizens to resist catholic sovereigns who denied them religious freedom, as well as the right of protestant countries to come to the aid of persecuted fellow believers. The thesis asserts that Rousseau was fully aware of this exercise, just as he was aware that some of Barbeyrac's ideas had been adopted and reworked by another illustrious Genevan, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, a member of the Small Council, to support anti-populist and antidemocratic politics in Geneva. Viewed in this way it is possible to perceive in Rousseau's political thought not so much a “first crisis” of natural law as an intention to reformulate this science from a republican perspective in order to derive rigorous principles of political law from it. And in developing his republican political theory Rousseau took up and overturned the analysis of democratic sovereignty carried out by Pufendorf, who in opposing the “pro-monarchist” excesses of authors such as Hobbes and Horn had unhesitatingly demonstrated the complete validity of democratic sovereignty. ☆ I would like to thank Matthew Armistead for his excellent English translation. The article is a revised version of ‘Rousseau, Pufendorf e la tradizione giusnaturalistica settecentesca’, in M. Ferronato (ed.), Dal “De Jure naturae et gentium” di Samuel Pufendorf alla codificazione prussiana del 1794, Padova, Cedam, 2005, pp. 115–185. (shrink)

An interpretation of the work of Schleiermacher and Otto recently offered by Andrew Dole, according to which these two thinkers differed over the extent to which religion can be explained naturalistically, and over the sense in which the supernatural can be admitted, is examined and refuted. It is argued that there is no difference between the two thinkers on this issue. It is shown that Schleiermacher's claim that a supernatural event is at the same time a natural event does (...) not invite, but rather forecloses the possibility of, a naturalistic explanation of the event. It is further demonstrated that Otto, like Schleiermacher, denied the existence of supernatural events interpreted as events that infringe the laws of nature. (shrink)

In the Laura Ashworth case in 2008, the Human Tissue Authority considered itself bound to overturn a deceased daughter's alleged wish that one of her kidneys should go to her mother, who at the time had end stage kidney failure and was on dialysis. 12 This was so even though Laura's earlier wish to be a living donor would most likely have been authorised, had the formal assessment process begun. The decision provoked much criticism. The recent Department of Health document (...) Requested Allocation of a Deceased Donor Organ, published 29 March 2010, developed by the UK health administrations together with the HTA and NHS Blood and Transplant , which is the main organ allocation body in the UK, seeks to resolve this ethical dilemma by setting out the circumstances in which requests for such deceased donations may be acceptable. 3 The most important conditions appear to be:a. the donation must be unconditional in nature;b. there must be …. (shrink)

This relatively short but dense volume, which has been hailed as a "veritable God-send" by no less of an authority than Henry B. Veatch, has the merit of being the first book-length study of the controversial version of the natural law theory propounded in recent years by Germain Grisez and the Oxford legal theorist John Finnis. The task, an arduous one in view of the abundance and the frequent opacity of the materials at hand, was further complicated by the (...) fact that Grisez and Finnis do not see eye to eye on all particulars, as well as by the fact that their theory has undergone a number of tacit revisions of which the reader is simply presumed to be aware. Sad to say, the author could not count on much help from Grisez and Finnis themselves, who do not take kindly to criticism and rarely respond to it, save perhaps by way of another tacit reformulation of their positions. Such features lend to their voluminous and still growing corpus an oracular quality that automatically places it beyond the ken of any mortal who has not reached the top of the sacred mountain. Conflicting interpretations of that corpus are bound to proliferate as time goes on. If successful, the new theory could spawn a scholasticism the like of which has not been seen since the late Middle Ages. (shrink)

This chapter develops a theory of categorical normativity, of those principles that have authority over us regardless of our ends and interests. It argues that there is an intimate connection between these norms and the conditions of agency. In this respect, it offers a version of constitutivism. But the version of constitutivism defended is unique in a few respects. First, it is naturalistic: agency is an emergent property, like the properties of biology and economics. Second, it is social: agency (...) is something constructed by the complex interaction of agents. And third, it supports the normativity of a particular contractualist procedure: adhering to Kant’s Formula of the Realm of Ends is a condition on agency, and so a categorical requirement. (shrink)

Current Legal Issues, like its sister volume Current Legal Problems, is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year, leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloqium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and (...) practice. -/- Law and Philosophy, the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series, contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and philosophy. It includes studies examining the themes of the nature of law; and interactions between State, the citizen, and the law. (shrink)

Kainz’s handling of natural law thinking in ancient Greece and Rome is precise, for although he uses as his chapter heading “Concepts of Natural Law in Ancient Greece and Rome,” he is careful not to ascribe explicit natural law thinking to the Presocratics, Plato, or Aristotle, though in the case of the latter two thinkers, especially Aristotle, they were arguing for what is the essence of natural law thinking: an eternal, unchanging, absolute standard for human conduct. (...) Kainz does use the caption, “Natural Law and Natural Justice in Aristotle”, but he qualifies it: “it is conceivable that natural human sociability itself constitutes a significant element of a latent natural law theory in Aristotle [but]... explicitly Aristotle neither enunciates nor expands on any natural law theory in the traditional sense”. This parsing is prudential since, if a thinker does not explicitly refer to a theory or position, it is not correct to say that he holds it. But when it comes to the Stoics, there is no need to temporize, as they were explicit, full-fledged natural law theorists. Kainz appropriately accords them the attention they deserve. It is remarkable to find overviews of natural law that omit the Stoics entirely. Chapters 2 and 3 reveal the bridge from natural law, as treated by Aquinas and Suarez, seen as part of divine law, to the secularization of natural law theory at the hands of Grotius and Hobbes. Although acknowledging that earlier thinkers like Robert Bellarmine and other scholastics had adverted to the possible validity of natural law without God, Kainz limns Grotius’s bold assertion of the independence of the natural law theory from any grounding in theological or religious premises as the decisive proclamation of the secularization of the natural law theory. Kainz’s discussion of Aquinas includes the very important question of whether Aquinas is “actually ‘deriving’ moral laws from natural inclinations—thus falling into the ‘naturalistic’ fallacy”? He puts that question to rest with the observation that Aquinas does not suppose that any deductions from natural law principles rely on the necessity used in theoretical reasoning but rather apply “for the most part” and thus have exceptions. Chapter 4 provides a glossary of frequently misunderstood concepts that are basic in natural law discussions, such as “nature,” “natural,” and “perversion.”. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted by those who consider macroevolution as a process decoupled from microevolution that its apparent jerkiness (and, hence, incompatibility with principles of population genetics) results from the structural complexity of epigenetic systems, since all complex cybernetic systems are expected to behave discontinuously. To analyse the validity of this assumption, the process of self-improvement has been analysed in a complex cybernetic system by means of computer simulations. It turns out that the investigated system tends to develop by (...) class='Hi'>accumulation of as small structural changes as possible, while larger changes are likely to result in the collapse of the system rather than in its persistence or improvement. This implies that cybernetic considerations alone cannot justify the claim that the very nature of epigenetic systems induces evolution by discrete steps rather than by gradual accumulation of small changes. (shrink)

This article is based on a Lecture given as part of the Franklin J. Matchette Foundation Lecture Series on Truth at the Catholic University of America, School of Philosophy, in 2002. It explores what theorists in the natural law tradition and modern legal theorists have argued about what makes propositions of morality and law true, focusing on the rubric of "reason" as opposed to "will." It seems probable, and perhaps inevitable, that theorists about the nature of truth in morality (...) must choose between reason and will - that morality, at its core, is either one or the other. What makes law distinctive is that it is, as a practical matter if not by conceptual necessity, a mixture of both. And it is this intertwining of reason and will, of normative system and practical reasoning, which makes assertions about the nature of legal truth, and theories about the nature of law, so difficult. The arguments about truth in law are as much disagreements about what it means to say that a legal proposition is truth as they are about what makes legal propositions true. Are declarations of truth in law statements about legal norms and legal sources, or are they statements about the results of particular disputes or particularized inquiries? There are obvious complilcations in speaking of truth in a context like law, where there is simultaneously an effort to create a coherent normative system and a decision-making procedure that can modify that system in the course of resolving disputes. (shrink)

This article argues for a revised best system account of laws of nature. David Lewis’s original BSA has two main elements. On the one hand, there is the Humean base, which is the totality of particular matters of fact that obtain in the history of the universe. On the other hand, there is what I call the ‘nomic formula’, which is a particular operation that gets applied to the Humean base in order to output the laws of nature. My revised (...) account focuses on this latter element of the view. Lewis conceives of the nomic formula as a balance of simplicity and strength, but I argue that this is a mistake. Instead, I motivate and develop a different proposal for the standards that figure into the nomic formula, and I suggest a rationale for why these should be the correct standards. Specifically, I argue that the nomic formula should be conceived as a collection of desiderata designed to generate principles that are predictively useful to creatures like us. The resulting view—which I call the ‘best predictive system’ account of laws—is thus able to explain why scientists are interested in discovering the laws, and it also gives rise to laws with the sorts of features that we find in actual scientific practice 1Introduction2The LOPP3A Problem with Lewis's Formula4A Pragmatic Account of the Nomic Formula 4.1Informative dynamics4.2Wide applicability4.3Spatial locality4.4Temporal locality4.5Spatial, temporal, and rotational symmetries4.6Predictively useful properties4.7Simplicity4.8Recap5 Conclusion. (shrink)

There are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood.... On the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced which can do the like.-Descartes Language is more like a snowflake than a giraffe's neck. Its specific properties are determined by laws of nature, they have not developed through the accumulation of (...) historical accidents.-Noam Chomsky In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of linguistics, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic thoughts and his commentary on them display the humanness of language: our need to name and interpret this world and create imaginary ones, to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language. (shrink)

What would a theory of practical reason that defended positions taken to be definitive or consonant with the natural law tradition, and that also aimed to be a serious contender within contemporary analytic ethics, look like? The theory put forward in Mark Murphy’s compelling and ambitious book seeks to provide the answer. The character of the theory Murphy defends is summarized by him as naturalist, objectivist, welfarist, antiparticularist, and anticonsequentialist. How this summary cashes out in detail will be (...) recognizable in many ways by those familiar with the work of John Finnis, though Murphy does depart from Finnis in significant respects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sinai and the Areopagus:Philip Melanchthon, Natural Law, and the Beginnings of Athenian Legal History in the Shadow of the Schmalkaldic WarAlexander D. BatsonIn late August 1546, Philip Melanchthon had some seriously strange dreams. One night, he saw a man in the Elbe struggling to keep his head above the river's powerful current. As Melanchthon approached to help, he recognized the drowning man's visage: Charles V. Despite Melanchthon's attempts (...) to save him, the river dragged the emperor under and carried him away. Another night, he dreamed that while translating Demosthenes with his friend Joachim Camerarius in the Wittenberg castle (a Melanchthon dream if there ever was one!) he looked out a window to see that the Elbe had turned to blood.1 [End Page 713]These ominous visions reflected the precarious world Melanchthon faced in late summer 1546. Martin Luther, the hero of the German Reformation, had died in February, leaving a gaping hole in the evangelical movement. Further, German Protestantism was facing the largest political crisis in its short history. The Schmalkaldic War had begun in July, only a few weeks prior, and the Reformation faced intense military pressure from Charles V. As the emperor slowly advanced, an anxious Melanchthon lived in constant tension between wild hope that Charles would be defeated and grim fear of massive bloodshed.As the war began, Melanchthon was greatly disturbed by the violence and the potential for disastrous defeat of the Protestant cause. In an August 26 letter, he wrote this to a friend: "Often now, when I look over the Elbe River gliding by me, I sigh and think that, even if I could pour forth a river of tears as great as the Elbe's flow, I would never be able to exhaust the sadness which surrounds my soul because of this civil war. If only Charles had not started it!"2 Should the Schmalkaldic League be defeated and political support for the Reformation be crushed, the true church would be in dangerous waters, just like the emperor in Melanchthon's dream.In the midst of this impending catastrophe, on September 1, 1546, Melanchthon published an unusual work: the Collatio actionum forensium Atticarum et Romanarum praecipuarum (A comparison of the principal Attic and Roman legal actions). In this study, Melanchthon organized and compared the legal actions of Athens and Rome, following the order of the Ten Commandments. In 1546, Greek law was a virtually unknown field. Contemporary legal humanists like Andrea Alciato, Ulrich Zasius, and François Baudouin had devoted their attention almost exclusively to Roman or feudal European law.3 Nearly a century before the publication of sprawling [End Page 714] tomes by the Greek legal scholars Samuel Petit, Claudius Salmasius, and Johannes Meursius, Melanchthon treated the law of ancient Athens as a worthy subject.4 Even more puzzling, Melanchthon devoted himself to this arcane work during a moment of dire political crisis. The unusual subject matter of the Collatio and the urgent circumstances surrounding its publication raise a pair of intriguing questions: Why did Melanchthon think Attic legal actions were important? And why did he think they were worth studying while a military and political disaster loomed on the horizon?Melanchthon valued the ancient pagan laws because they showed how God had revealed legal and moral principles to the gentiles. His study of Attic and Roman law demonstrated how, through natural reason, the classical pagans had attained knowledge of the natural law and implemented it in their own societies.5 As a result, the ancient laws became indispensable to Christians studying law and moral philosophy.6 This work on ancient Greek law was an essential part of Melanchthon's pedagogical project of integrating Christianity and the classical world. As he wrote in the introduction, he had decided to write on Attic legal actions "so that students may know that they are not only formulas for litigation, but also a philosophy and a doctrine of virtue."7 By reconstructing the laws of ancient Athens and comparing them with those of Rome, Melanchthon demonstrated that classical moral and legal thought was in complete agreement with the Decalogue and essential for Christian moral development. [End Page 715... (shrink)

Does God have any relevant role in the new natural law theory of Germain Grisez and John Finnis? Finnis declared in Natural Law and Natural Rights that he wanted to offer “a theory of natural law without needing to advert to the question of God’s existence or nature or will.” Grisez claims that “man’s ultimate beatitudo cannot consist in the vision of God.” Indeed, there is no consistent role for God in their philosophical theory. In this (...) article, the author shows that their mistakes about God depend first on their metaphysical way of looking at nature, which is closer to thinkers like Hume and Kant than to Aristotle and Aquinas; and second on some strong misunderstandings in moral philosophy about the concept of ultimate end. He shows the unfortunate theological outcome their flawed metaphysics and morality have already produced. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 35–45. (shrink)

According to Richard Cumberland, men’s natural law obligation to promote the common good does not derive from self-interest, but there is really no conflict between private and public happiness because the former is contained in the latter. The aim of this paper is to disentangle the various arguments supposed to support this claim and to focus specifically on the ‘parity of reason’ argument which draws upon the principle of treating like cases alike. I will show that Cumberland tends (...) to confuse the principle with a more substantive Golden Rule-like principle requiring that we treat others like ourselves and that he appeals to ideas of both impartiality and reciprocity in doing so. Moreover, I will argue that Cumberland’s failure to fully grasp the distinction between these three concepts derives from the way in which the overall structure of his argument integrates the perspective of human rational agents with the perspective of God. (shrink)

The epistemology of dialectical materialism emphasizes two characteristic features of the picture of the world existing in our minds. First, it presents itself as reflection, i.e., as an image of an objective reality that exists independent of our consciousness. Secondly, this picture provides a reflection of the real world and the regularities of its development that is only approximately complete. The following comment by Lenin is of fundamental significance in this connection: "Cognition is man's reflection of nature, but it is (...) not a simple, not a direct, not a complete reflection, but a process involving a series of abstractions, the shaping and formation of concepts, laws, and the like, various concepts, laws, etc. and embraces, conditionally and approximately, the universal regularity of nature which is eternally moving and developing". (shrink)

Herman Dooyeweerd’s classical characterization of the meaning-kernel of the economic modality runs as follows: the sparing or frugal mode of administering scarce goods, implying an alternative choice of their destination with regard to the satisfaction of different human needs. My first aim in this paper is to show that Dooyeweerd’s characterization of the meaning-kernel of the economic modality naturally leads to neoclassical economic theory. In order to do this, I will provide an argument that, departing from Dooyeweerd’s definition of the (...) meaning-kernel of the economic modality, concludes in a logical reconstruction of (the static case of) neoclassical economic theory (from now on denoted as NET). The fundamental law of this theory will turn out to be thus, naturally, a formulation of the fundamental modal law of economics. The second aim of the paper is epistemological since it discusses the methodological problem of the empirical claim of the theory. It is my hope that this discussion will clarify the limits of NET and provide a reply to the objections raised against it by Reformed scholars like Goudzwaard (1980). (shrink)

In this chapter, I will make the case that we can accurately describe Ghazali’s position as a natural law theory. Kevin Reinhart (1995), on whose translation of al-Mustaṣfā I will be depending in what follows, has also treated this topic. Though he did not specifically compare Ghazali’s position there with natural law theory, like Hourani (1985) he interprets Ghazali’s position as subjectivist on key points rendering it incompatible with natural law theory. Thus, I will begin with (...) a prima facie case for this incompatibility roughly along the lines one finds in Reinhart, and argue that a closer examination of the relevant text of al-Mustaṣfā along with the parallel section of al-Iqtiṣād, also cited by Hourani, shows that Ghazali’s position is not conclusively subjectivist, but instead is compatible with a natural law theory. I will examine key sections of Ghazali’s Kimiya al-Sa’dāt that quite clearly express a natural law theory of morality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 841 message may seem, however clearly at odds with the Weltgeist. What Professor Mitchell's position calls for-to the delight I am sure, of Fr. Copleston-is a universal, unified, sanctificatory, and legitimate teacher of the Christian message: a Church which is one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. NICHOLAS INGHAM, O.P. Providence College Providence, Rhode Island Morals as Founded on Natural Law. By STEPHEN THERON. European University Studies. New (...) York: Peter Lang, 1987. 218 pp. $32 (cloth). This is a hard book to read, though it need not be. The author assumes a knowledge of other writings that few (apart from himself) are likely to have, and his English is sometimes tortuous in the extreme. A little more polishing of the sentence structure and a little more explanation of references would have made the book immeasurably. more readable. There would still be flaws in it nevertheless, flaws that concern the content of the book and not its form. Theron's aim is to establish morality on an external authoritative law, namely the authoritative law of God. Towards achieving this he devotes the first chapter to criticizing R.M. Hare, since Hare has a theory of autonomy in morals, or a theory where the prescriptiveness of a law or moral norm is self· imposed and not derived from something outside the autonomously choosing individual. Theron's criticism of Hare, apart from the obscurity of several of the references (obscure, that is, unless one already knows Hare's work more or less inside out), rests on distortions or unsympathetic interpretations of what Hare says. To say that, for Hare, " all that is essential to good living is the extrinsic, fortuitous character of its being commended" (p. 31) is to misrepresent Hare's whole point about the mea,ning of good, for which the a.ct of commending is of the essence and cannot be something extrinsic. And to say that, apart from what can be derived from logic, the rest of Hare's theory is "all a matter of who commends the loudest" (ibid..) is so gross a distortion that one can only wonder if Theron has paid any attention at all to what Hare has written about the nature of moral reasoning. As for Theron's own theory, he says that morality is grounded on a divine legislative authority to which, like children with respect to parents, we just ' find ' ourselves bound. But how are we bcmnd, or BOOK REVIEWS what persuades us that we should submit and obey this authority? Theron denies the applicability of this question, since he says that to seek a ground for this authority is to fall into an infinite regress. Yes indeed if authority can only be grounded by appeal to some other authority. But why should this be so? Because 0£ the nature of reason, says Theron, or how do we justify our acceptance 0£ and obedience to reason? Reason itself cannot do this. "... reason only has the authority of law and even truth if God gives it that authority," and "as one cannot appeal to reason to invalidate reason one cannot appeal to it to validate it" (p. 161). For Theron, what is :first for us. is not reason but divine authority, which is just somehow an ineradicable given. This would make morals, to say nothing of philosophy simply, dependent on divine law, not, as his title declares, on natural law. That title is indeed misleading since it is clear that, in Theron's eyes, natural law, or the law of our natural reason, is derivative and secondary, dependent for its lawfulness on the prior recognition of divine law. But all this must be false. Our recognition of divine law and of its binding force presupposes the validity of the workings of our own reason, for only by reason can we have this recognition. But if we could only admit the validity of our own reason after we have recognized the divine and reason's dependence on it, then we really are caught in an infinite regress, for this recognition would itself have to presuppose the prior validity of reason. And so on and so on. What is first for... (shrink)