Reactions to Natural Rights and Fusionism Topic
Jonathan Rowe on Feb 22nd 2007
Thanks to Julian Sanchez for linking to my post on Locke and Natural Rights. Sanchez’s post seeks to answer every other point that Feser made in his article, while he “outsources” the point on Locke to me.
Feser replied to my post in the comments here, to which I replied here.
Finally, Sandefur has a great take on Locke and liberty. I agree with the overall point that he makes which I take to be that what Locke was arguing in 1689 context is different than where libertarians have taken his ideas. And I think he would agree with me, contra Feser, that there is no inherent problem with how libertarians — indeed our Founders themselves — have tweaked/built upon Locke’s ideas to allow man more liberty to do things which Locke himself would not agree with.
Filed in The Bench, The Bureau
Feser, Rowe, and Sandefur make important historical distinctions, but all seem a bit lost when dealing with “right action.” For Feser, right action is based principally on the Thomistic revision of Stoicism’s “natural law theory,” in which, “traditional morality rests on a set of objective metaphysical truths knowable through reason.” The problem with such statements is that they are nonsense. “Objective metaphysical truths” simply do not exist. They dwell in the imaginations of certain people who still believe in Essences and Plato’s Reality (ours is just a shadow).
A priori reason can make any and every metaphysical claims it wants (and has), but introduce any empirical factor into the reasoning, which most modern individuals prefer over the World of Essences according to Plato’s Eternal Reality, and the whole of such metaphysics come tumbling down. Aquinas’s own exquisite discourse on angels is a tour d’ force of the imagination, but angels still have not been proved to exist or proved to be true. We’d no more establish our values on the heads of pins (or how many angels can dance upon them) than we find “objective metaphysical truths.” Freser may wish to live in medieval times, but most of us prefer modern thought to Thomistic metaphysics, to “kicking the tires” rather than fanciful contemplatoin of the hierarchies of angelic orders (assuming such darlings exist).
The whole “natural law tradition” commits the naturalistic fallacy or Hume’s is/ought distinction or both. For a thorough discussion of this fallacy, see: Hume’s “A Treatise on Human Nature,” III, i, 1, and G. E. Moore’s “Principia Ethica,” esp. Chap. II & IV. I won’t repeat the obvious defects here. Only Catholicism remains committed to this Thomistic archaism.
Sandefur’s distinctions would have benefitted enormously from a proper use of two terms: (1) ethics, (2) morality. He conflates both under “ethics.” While both are concerned with “right action,” ethics (arete), as Sandefur correctly observes, is the flourishing of the individual within society (i.e., eudaimonia). This is a lifelong process in which individuals develop prudence, courage, temperance, and justice as an integral part of their being — esp. as citizens in an Athenian demos. One develops these highly-personal skills through habituation by imitating the wise behaviors of wise individuals and using the practical syllogism. The form of reasoning (i.e., the practical syllogism) is where the universal premise is accompanied by a particular premise to determine a wise conclusion to each “right action.” As such, ethics is intrinsically teleological in its orientation — toward acting toward a right conclusion.
“Morality” approaches “right action” entirely differently. It is always rule-governed and therefore always deontological, rather than teleological. Perhaps, Kant’s categorical imperative, the Utilitarian calculus, or J. S. Mill’s “harm principle” best illustrate the difference of morality and ethics. Using the “harm principle,” one has a duty (obligation) not to knowingly and willingly harm another. It’s not a matter of achievement, like arete, but like most moral prescriptions, it is stated in the form of rules: “Do no harm.” Morality is thus often a negative claim not to act or behave in certain ways, because a duty exists to proscribe it. Even the Utilitarian Calculus is couched in these terms: “Maximize the good, minimze the bad.” Kant’s categorical imperative follows the same form: “Act only on universifiable maxims that apply to everyone in all cases.”
Thus, ethics concerns a “way of life,” human flourishing, while “morality” imposes limits on that life which causes duties and obligations to others that are determined by the convention of rules. Both have “right conduct” as their objective, but each does so from entirely different orientations: One from the need to flourish as an individual in society, the other from the duty to obey certain moral rules and conventions as an obligation. Once this distinction is evident, the discussion can be seen in better contrast than conflating both under one or the other term. Locke seems to use the ownership of the self by a deity to be a moral obligation, not an ethical decision to do x vs. y.
The problem with Locke’s formulation: What if deities do not exist? What if x-deity disagrees with y-deity? Or x-follower disagrees with y-follower? One can appreciate Locke’s intent to avoid Hobbes’ “all-embracing state” by consigning human ownership to a deity and the individual to estate-holding (so the individual is precluded from hypothecating himself to the state), but that effort fails without a divine metaphysics to support it. Without clearcut proof of a deity, and the right deity, and a right interpretation of that deity, otherwise Locke’s claims are just smoke and mirrors like Aquinas’s angels.
Finally, Freser never specifies what “traditional morality” he means. Judaic? Christian? Islamic? Greek? Egyptian? If he approves of the Greek arete (virtues), pedophilia is something he should embrace, because the man-boy relationship was not only a sexual partnership but a mentoring commitment. If he’s embracing the Decalogue as normative and “traditional,” some of us might quarrel about a Sabbath Rest. Jihad and Islam? Hellfire asceticism and Christianity? So, his oblique “traditional morality” needs to be explicit, and it cannot be grounded in the “natural law tradition,” because the whole tradition is a fallacy and dependent on a priori metaphysics that few will grant is reasonable (dare I say intelligible?). Finally, the teleological/deontological divide between ethics/morality is important to these discussions if only for clarity (and because the differences are significant).
Freser wants conservatives to impose “traditional morality” upon society, which forces him to break with libertarian “fusionism” and Mill’s “harm principle” as the only social morality (the freedom from moral and religious tyranny must scare him terribly). Does his traditional morality include slavery? Patriarchy? Feudalism? Aristocracy? Natural law fallacies? All of which are very, very “traditional,” which is why the American experiment was equally radical in precluding the same. And would he bar adultery because women are men’s chattel (per the Decalogue) or because it’s being unfaithful and why is being unfaithful a moral principle that the state needs to legislate and/or arbitrate? Unless it causes harm? But then Mill’s harm principle is sufficient, or is something missing? (Hint: Adam Smith and David Hume also require Empathy and Benevolence, but how does one legislate empathy or benevolence? Or is it an ethical and moral dispostion of a different order?)