Gentle readers:  Not long ago, I was interviewed by Marco Casanova for the Desert Streaming Podcast, and the interview has just been uploaded.  The topic is “Anchored in the Body: Understanding Identity in a Post-Human Age.”  You can go straight to the podcast, or go to my Talks page to see what else there is to see and hear.  Hope you enjoy it!

The word “philosophy” comes from the Greek words for love of wisdom.  Often, though, what we call philosophy isn’t really love of wisdom, but merely love of unsettling received opinions.  This love is often connected with contempt for any beliefs we can’t give reasons for.

Ah, but there are reasons and reasons.  The sort of reason one has in mind when he demands “Why do you believe so and so?” is a reason for so and so which the other fellow believes with even greater confidence than he believes so and so itself.  But there is a problem with demanding that in every case.

Certainly we can demand it in some cases.  I believe that if two glasses have the same amount of milk, and that if I add the same amount of additional milk to each, then they will still have the same amount of milk.  Why do I believe that they will?  Because equals added to equals are equal.   I am much more confident that equals added to equals are equal, than I am about my perceptions of milk.  Very good.

But why do I believe that I am sitting at my desk, writing about the matter?  Sure, I could give “reasons” of a sort.  I believe that I seem to be doing that.  I believe that I remember sitting down.  I believe that don’t remember getting back up.  But although I am confident of those reasons too, I couldn’t say that I am more confident about them than I am that I am sitting at my desk.  They aren’t that kind of reason.

In fact, I seem more confident of some of my beliefs than I am of any of the reasons I might give for holding them.  For example, I could certainly trace my belief “It’s wrong the twist the baby’s arm” to still deeper premises.  But is that why I believe it?  Probably not.  And that’s okay.  It is wrong.

Matters of common sense which we believe even more than any of the reasons we might give for believing them are sometimes called “Moorean beliefs,” after the late philosopher G.E. Moore, who wrote about them in a famous article entitled “A Defense of Common Sense.”  I happen to be thinking about them today because of a new book by Brian Besong, which defends natural law sexual ethics in terms of Moorean beliefs.

The book, called Sex in Theory, is coming out in August, and I know about it because I was asked for a blurb.  “At the very least,” I wrote, “a good moral theory should be able to explain our most obvious and deeply rooted beliefs and intuitions about right and wrong.  Analytical philosopher Brian Besong convincingly shows that by this test, most theories of the rights and wrongs of sex spectacularly fail the test. Utilitarianism, for example, can’t explain the problem with bestiality, and Kantianism can’t even tell what is right about the natural intercourse of husband and wife. Exactly one theory passes the test:  Natural law.  This book is a truly fine contribution not only to the theory of sexuality, but to the renaissance of the natural law tradition.”

Very interesting.  It’s not an easy read for non-philosophers, but I recommend it.

“The science is finally settled on this one,” reads this magnificent specimen of reasoning: “people who consistently make good decisions enjoy an undeniable and unfair advantage in life.”  No, it is not a satire.

Silly me, I always thought making good decisions is “merely a matter of luck.”  Amazingly, say the authors, it’s not!  Then could it have something to do with prudence?  Not that either!  What a relief!  But why doesn’t it?  Because actually, good decisions result from a “virtuous cycle.”

A virtuous cycle sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?  Wrong again.  “Good decisions lead to better outcomes,” we find, “which in turn provide more opportunities and resources to make even better decisions in the future.”  But by definition, all such advantages are “ill-gotten,” because deriving benefit from good decisions is unfair to everyone else.  This is why “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

And that’s not all.  Consider that virtuous cycle again.  If good decisions lead to good results, and if good results lead to still more good decisions, ad infinitum, then we have a “compounding accumulation of ill-gotten advantages.”

“Compounding” – where have we heard that word before?  Why, that’s just like compound interest!  And you know what that implies!  As the authors explain, “You need not have listened to many Warren Buffett lectures to get the less than subtle hint that this good decision-making is inextricably linked to capitalism.”

For the sake of equity, from now on I will try to make all my decisions foolishly.

I’m so glad that “the science is finally settled on this one.”

Ismism – four syllables, “izzum izzum” -- is the bad mental habit of criticizing a proposition not on its own terms, but in terms of the “ism” which one takes it to express.

For example, suppose Sheila is concerned that young people who marry are tying the knot later and later in life.  Brian snorts, “You’re one of those conjugalists.”  Then he criticizes Sheila for other beliefs which he himself associates with so-called conjugalism.  For instance, he protests “I don’t think everyone has to marry.”  But Sheila didn’t say that everyone has to marry.  She may not even think so, and it doesn’t follow as a conclusion from her premise.  Ismism is guilt by association:  “Your belief must be wrong, because I, personally, group it with other beliefs I consider wrong.”

The terminology of “isms” is sometimes convenient, and I sometimes use it myself.  For example, I might say that Marx criticized capitalism, by which I mean an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned, the owners compete in a free market, and they gain wealth by reinvesting a portion of their profits.  It would be cumbersome to repeat that definition over and over even though we have a single word as a placeholder.  This way of speaking isn’t ismism.  It’s just verbal shorthand.

But “ism” talk should be used sparingly.  I meet people who can spout all day about, say, femin-“ism,” conservat-“ism,” or fasc-“ism,” but who can’t give a clear answer if I ask them to tell me what they take feminist principles to be, in what ways conservative views are different from non-conservative views, or how their opponents’ beliefs make them fascists.

Query:

I am trying to develop a more rigorous understanding of natural law and ontology of morals and political philosophy.  If you wouldn’t mind answering -- Does the natural law tradition justify a belief in limited government?  Does it justify the basic Golden Rule?  How does reason demonstrate the existence of a Creator?  How does it demonstrate the reality of inexorable ethical commands?  Is there a particular natural law philosopher who approached these issues from a deistic standpoint?  Finally, how do natural law philosophers ground the cardinal virtues in nature?

Reply:

That’s are a lot of questions, but perhaps I can answer them briefly.  I offer more detailed discussion in other things I’ve written.

Does the natural law tradition justify a belief in limited government?

The classical natural law tradition leaves most questions about the design of government to prudence.  However, even short of prudence we can still say something.  As St. Thomas Aquinas explains, an unjust law is really not a law at all, but rather an act of violence.  By itself, this doesn’t tell you how to limit government, but it certainly makes it wise to have some limits and safeguards -- to take some constitutional precautions so that the government doesn’t degenerate into tyranny – for no government has authority to deviate from the natural law or to violate natural rights.  Natural rights are those things which are due to us as a matter of justice, just because of the nature that we share with each other.

Now the same form of government isn’t necessarily best everywhere; for example, St. Augustine suggests that if the citizens are so corrupt that they sell their votes, they should lose the right to select their own officials.  In general, though, St. Thomas argues that the best form is “mixed” -- partly monarchy, insofar as one person is at the head; partly aristocracy, insofar as wise persons are selected to share some of the burden of rule; and partly democracy, insofar as these wise persons are chosen both by the people and from the people.  (He thinks there is biblical justification for this conclusion too.)  Our own original form of government might be considered a complicated mixed form, because of the relation among president, senate, and house of representatives, chosen ultimately by vote of the people.  I add the word “ultimately” as a reminder that in most cases the citizens are involved only indirectly.  For instance, the citizens choose electors, who choose the president, who nominates judges, who are confirmed by the senate, whose members are chosen by the citizens.

Does natural law justify the basic Golden Rule?

The Golden Rule is a fundamental axiom of reason which is binding for all rational creatures.  Behind it is the idea that law is a “rule and measure” of acts.  Now things of the same kind should be measured in the same way; we don’t use a yardstick to measure temperature, or a thermometer to measure distance.  Since all things of the same kind should have the same measure, all creatures of the same rational nature – and that’s all of us -- should also have the same measure.  I can’t have one moral rule for me and a different one for you.  The Golden Rule follows.

Notice, though, that the Golden Rule doesn’t generate the whole of morality by itself.  To properly do unto others as I would have them do unto me, I also have to know both what’s good for them and what’s good for me.  Also, in order to understand ethics we have to consider not only the rules we need to follow, but also the virtues we need to possess.  The classical natural law tradition tries to take account of all of these things too.

How does reason demonstrate the existence of a Creator?

There are lots of excellent arguments for the existence of the Creator.  Probably the most well-known is the argument to a first cause:  Every contingent being (everything that might not have been) requires a cause or explanation of its existence, a reason why it is.  But if that cause is also a contingent being, then it needs a cause too, and so does that cause, and so does that cause, and so on.  Now an infinite regress of causes or explanations or reasons why – A is caused by B, which is caused by C, which is caused by D, on to infinity – makes no sense, and wouldn’t explain anything.  Therefore there must be a first cause, and the first cause must be not contingent but necessary.  In other words, rather than being something which didn’t have to exist, it must be something which can’t not exist.  We call this first cause God.

The many different arguments for God’s reality, for example the arguments from beauty, from morality, from order, from desire, and from the governance of the universe, take various other observations as their point of departure.  The most accessible introduction to the subject is contained in the chapter “Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God,” in Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Kreeft and Tacelli are philosophers at Boston College).  I explain the so called “Five Ways” in Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on the One God.

How does reason demonstrate the reality of inexorable ethical commands?

At the bottom of all reasoning about what to do are certain fundamental principles which are per se nota, “known in themselves.”  For example, we can’t not know that we should do good and pursue it, with the good, for us, being what creatures of our kind naturally desire –that which we are designed to desire, that which fulfills us.  A second example is that we can’t not know that it is wrong to do another person gratuitous harm.  You mentioned a third one -- the Golden Rule – and we can’t not know that either.  Moral basics like these can’t be “demonstrated” or proven, but they don’t have to be, because they are what we use to prove everything else.  In that way, they stand in relation to the more detailed moral rules of everyday life in the same way that geometrical axioms stand to geometrical theorems.  We don’t necessarily know that we know them, but they are latent in the structure of our intellects.

There is a difference, of course, for in geometry, we begin with the axioms, but in moral reasoning, we usually work back to the axioms when our conclusions are challenged.  Imagine what it would be like if we had to begin at the beginning whenever we had a practical decision to make.  “Should I cross the street now?  Let’s see.  First, good is to be done …”  Perhaps in a few weeks you might arrive at a conclusion, but by that time the traffic would have changed, and you’d have to start all over.

Is there a particular natural law philosopher who approached these issues from a deistic standpoint?

Do you mean deistic or theistic?  A theist is someone who believes in one God.  A deist is someone who believes in one God but also denies divine revelation.  The mainstream of the classical natural law tradition has been theistic, and most of the work has been done by Christians who accept both natural law and divine revelation.  The greatest such thinker, in my view, is Thomas Aquinas.  However, some revisionist natural law thinkers, such as Thomas Jefferson, have been deists.  For a discussion of what divine revelation adds to the natural law, see this article.

How do natural law philosophers ground the cardinal virtues in nature?

A virtue is a disposition of character, a “habit of the heart,” which assists us by guiding choice, so that we can live the way rational creatures of our kind need to live in order to attain our natural end.  The virtue of prudence, or practical wisdom, assists us by putting the moral intellect itself in order.  The virtue of courage assists us by putting our emotions under that ordering influence.  The virtue of temperance assists us by putting our appetites under it, and the virtue of justice assists by putting our actions toward others under it.  These four virtues are called “cardinal” or “principal,” not because they are the only ones, but because subordinate virtues depend on them.  We work them up in ourselves by doing the known right thing over and over, until it becomes second nature.  Each one is at the head of a whole collection of other virtues, such as patience.

Because “man is ordained to an end of eternal happiness which is inproportionate to man's natural faculty,” Christian natural law thinkers also believe in a second set of virtues, called not cardinal but “spiritual” or “theological.”  The most important of these are faith, hope, and charity.  Faith means assenting to what God has divulged -- believing it, trusting it, being glad of it.  Hope means orienting all our actions toward the goal of eternal life which He has set before us.  Charity means loving our neighbors the way God loves them -- not merely recognizing God’s image in them, but delighting in it.

The spiritual virtues differ from the cardinal virtues in several ways which are germane to your question.  One is that we couldn’t have found out about them just by natural reason; we need revelation.  Another is that they aren’t grounded in what we can do by our own natural powers, but in grace.  In other words, we can’t work them up in ourselves just by moral effort, for we need the inpouring help of the Holy Spirit.

Yet His grace isn’t alien to our nature, for in at least three ways it builds upon it.  The first is that we naturally desire it – this is implicit in our longing for complete fulfillment.  The second is that we are naturally able to receive it – provided that God grants it to us.  The third is that in order to receive the gift, our nature must cooperate with it.  Think of the matter this way:  If God throws me a rope, I still need to hang on.

Just as a host of subordinate everyday virtues depend on the four cardinal virtues, so a host of subordinate spiritual virtues depend on the three spiritual virtues.  If you call the cardinal virtues the Big Four, you can call the principal spiritual virtues the Big Three.

I hope these quick answers give you a little boost!  Happy studies!