The natural law outlook

This book entitled Goodness and Nature is concerned with the question of naturalism in ethics. Naturalism is the view that good and bad, right and wrong, are real matters of fact or knowledge that can in principle be determined by some reference to ‘nature’. This question is among the most important that any student of modern moral philosophy has to face. This book’s search for a solution to its difficulties, however, has required going outside the limits within which that question was originally posed. In fact, it is one of the principal messages of the book that it is these limits themselves that constitute most of the problem. The effort to think beyond the limits of modern moral philosophy has, in my case at any rate, proved to be also the effort to think back into an ancient tradition of philosophy which flourished for so many centuries beforehand, and which modern philosophers have largely rejected. For this reason this book is an unashamedly ancient book. It might even be called an essay in discarded ideas. There are, of course, differing views about how to approach the problems raised by modern moral philosophy. It is my conviction that a return to ancient ideas is the most helpful and the most fruitful, as will, I hope, become evident from the way my argument develops from the first to the final chapters. The ancient tradition that I am following provides, I contend, just the concepts and distinctions necessary to resolve the puzzles that have gathered themselves about the question of naturalism. These puzzles are genuine and philosophically instructive; that is why they need to be faced and answered squarely. To argue round them, or to dismiss them before getting to grips with them, is to run the risk of hindering philosophical understanding. Accordingly, the early chapters of this book are concerned with writings that appeared and provoked most controversy several decades ago. For this seeming anachronism I make no apology; it is in these writings that the puzzles find their most instructive, not to say classic, expression. A Supplement to this edition of Goodness and Nature is appended in a separate file. The Supplement that did not appear in the book when it was first published but its addition is meant to provide more of the background and evidence for the argument presented in chapter 5 of the book, the chapter entitled ‘Historical Origins’. That chapter can, to be sure, stand by itself in its place in Goodness and Nature independently of the Supplement. But since it makes claims, and presents a progression of thought, that are relatively controversial within the context of the debate about naturalism in ethics, it may excite an interest and a skepticism that some readers may wish to have more fully satisfied or answered. The Supplement is meant to supply that wish. The chapters and their contents cover the same ground as was covered in chapter 5 of Goodness and Nature but in greater detail, ranging over a fuller review of the important thinkers, and spelling out more of the relevant elements and implications. The Supplement can, therefore, stand by itself too, and need not just be read as an addition to Goodness and Nature (even though it contains several references to that book). In any event, interested readers should find on the Contents page of the Supplement enough information about what the Supplement contains to guide as well as, one hopes, to spark interest. The book with supplement is also available from my website aristotelophile.com and in print from Amazon.com

Faith and Philosophy, 2003

2014

Ethical naturalism, the theory claiming that natural facts and especially facts concerning human nature play a justificatory role in ethics, is not very popular amongst moral philosophers. Especially in countries where Kant's influence is large, the charge of naturalistic fallacy is often made against it. The aim of this paper is to show that this charge misses the point: every ethical theory is at a certain level based on pure facts, natural or not, and natural facts concerning human nature are particularly suited for this role. The arguments in favour of ethical naturalism rely on a concept of human nature that includes basic desires related to ends we ought to pursue, as Aristotle and the Scholastics already saw long ago.

In addressing the present theme, I take up something familiar to all students of the Subtle Doctor. Scotus's distinction between nature and will has been the object of many studies, some focusing on the text of his Qy.aestiones super libros Metaplrysicorum IX q. 15, others ranging over the entire Scotistic corpus, and still others treating Scotus in relation to earlier and later figures in the Franciscan and non-Franciscan traditions of later thirteenth and early fourteenth century philosophy. Although one might think the subject matter in question has been all but exhausted in these earlier studies, there may be something to be gained from reviewing the findings to date and focusing upon an element that seems, in many ways, to be taken for granted, namely, the notion of nature in the dichotomy of natura I voluntas. What will emerge from the present study is that, if we pay close attention to Scotus's texts, he hints that the notion of nature he has in mind is found within the Aristotelian tradition and, following out the lead thus given, we shall find that there is a reading of nature in the texts of Avicenna that seems at least partially to explain Scotus's interpretation. Once we have examined how nature in this sense is, though broadly speaking Aristotelian, actually much closer to modern notions of nature than o ne might ordinarily suspect, we shall perhaps see why Scotus's thought remains a rich source for subsequent speculation, not simply in the area of action theory and the metaphysics of morals, but also within the arena of natural philosophy.

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 2019

In this paper we compare two different contexts-the legal and the scientific-in which the concept of law is prominent. We argue that the acute philosophical awareness, in the early modern period, of the difficulties surrounding the law concept in the scientific context, and the various responses to these difficulties, are rooted in an earlier tradition of jurisprudential concerns over the concept of natural law in its legal sense. We seek to show, further, that each one of the various philosophical accounts of the concept of natural law (in both of its senses) is embedded in a metaphysical and theological context, so that different visions of God yield different accounts of the meaning of the natural law idiom in science as well as legal theory.

2009

Philosophy and Society, 2022

The concept of natural law is fundamental to political philosophy, ethics, and legal thought. The present article argues against reductionist view of natural law and shows that as early as the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, three main ideas of natural law existed, which run in parallel through the philosophical works of many authors in the course of history. The first two approaches are based on the understanding that although equipped with reason, humans are nevertheless still essentially animals subject to biological instincts. The first approach defines natural law as the law of the strongest, which can be observed to hold among all members of the animal kingdom. The second conception presents natural law as the principle of self-preservation, inherent as an instinct in all living beings. The third approach, also developed in antiquity, shifts the focus to our rationality and develops the idea of natural law as the law of reason within us. Some Christian thinkers who consider the origin of reason in us to be divine identify the law of reason inherent in us with God’s will. This paper gives a brief exposition of the development of these three concepts of natural law in the philosophical tradition with emphasis on the intertwining of these three concepts, which we, however, understand as primary and essentially independent. The paper concludes with an overview of 20th-century authors who exclusively focus on only one of the three concepts. The aim of this article is to argue against these one-sided interpretations mostly based on Thomistic tradition and to uphold the independence and distinctness of the three historical conceptions of natural law.