Orthodox philosopher David Bentley Hart argues in First Things that the terms of the harmony between cosmic and moral order are not as precisely discernible as natural law thinkers imagine. Edward Feser promptly replies in a First Things blog:
Now I have nothing but respect for Prof. Hart and his work. But this latest article is not his finest hour. Not to put too fine a point on it, by my count he commits no fewer than five logical fallacies: equivocation, straw man, begging the question, non sequitur, and special pleading.
Because these two are philosophers, I probably couldn’t get away with saying “Hart has his own Wikipedia article and you don’t, Feser, so neener, neener, neener!” That would be, if not a fallacy strictly speaking, a shameless ad hominem.
In fact, I think Feser has the better overall argument, a conviction buttressed by his own blog’s engagement with Rod Dreher’s pre-Feser commendation of Hart’s position.
Feser:
As I noted in my response to Hart, what natural law theorists of either of the two main contemporary stripes (“old” and “new”) maintain is that there are objective moral truths that can be known through purely philosophical arguments, entirely apart from divine revelation, scriptural authority, or ecclesiastical diktat. They do not deny that the philosophical arguments in question are controversial and sometimes difficult for the average person to understand.
In this respect, natural law arguments are no different from the arguments of Rawlsian liberals, utilitarians, libertarian economists, feminists, or what have you — all of which are, needless to say, also controversial and sometimes difficult for the average person to understand, but all of which also make no reference to revelation, scripture, etc. And that is the point. If these other arguments have a place in debates over public policy despite their controversial nature, then there are no grounds for excluding natural law arguments. In particular, the moral conclusions the critics of natural law don’t like — concerning abortion, “same-sex marriage,” or whatever — cannot be excluded on the assumption that they have no justification other than an appeal to religious authority. For that assumption is false.
Now Dreher is right to maintain that the specific philosophical theses that natural law theory rests on, however rationally defensible, are going to meet a great deal of resistance in a culture in which materialism, individualism, and allied doctrines are widely and lazily taken for granted. That is one reason why, in my own work, I have emphasized that it is the entire set of false metaphysical assumptions (about causation, substance, essence, etc.) that have come to define modern thought that the defender of natural law (and of natural theology and traditional philosophical anthropology, for that matter) has to challenge. There is no short cut.
But that entails only that the work of the natural law theorist is more difficult than it would have been in previous generations, not that it isn’t worth doing ….
Philopsophers, like bloggers, put their pants on one leg at a time, too (at least if they’re male philosophers), and Hart may be predisposed by his Orthodoxy to dismiss Thomistic natural law theory, Thomas Aquinas having post-dated the Great Schism (which could invite the “not invented here” response) and the scholastic mindset – in religion especially – being alien to the Orthodox mindset (which aversion runs deeper and is more ineffable).
But while I fear that some of the big cultural battles of The Culture Wars have been lost by my side (a fear Dreher shares and Hart reinforces), something in me can’t give up arguing for the older view anyway. Maybe it’s because I was dabbling in Natural Law arguments even when I was a Protestant, and tended to credit them as based on general revelation (roughly the basis of philosophy) rather than special revelation (roughly the basis of religion).
Dreher can’t give up arguing, either, even as though he says arguments don’t work. His, then, may be a more heroic posture than mine:
This is why I don’t have any faith in the natural-law-based arguments against same-sex marriage. It’s not that I disagree with them necessarily; it’s that a) they are hard for ordinary people conditioned by our culture’s modes of thought to grasp, and b) partly because of this, they (understandably) prompt a, “So what?” response.
Feser is having none of it:
But suppose the liberals or secularists of generations past had taken a similar attitude. Suppose that, in light of the conservative and religious sensibilities then prevalent, a liberal or secularist in 1970, 1980, or 1990 had written:
This is why I don’t have any faith in [feminist, Rawlsian, utilitarian, libertarian, or gay liberationist] arguments [in favor of abortion, acceptance of homosexuality, or] same-sex marriage. It’s not that I disagree with them necessarily; it’s that a) they are hard for ordinary people conditioned by our culture’s modes of thought to grasp, and b) partly because of this, they (understandably) prompt a, “So what?” response.
Obviously, had such an attitude won the day and the liberal arguments in question not been relentlessly propagated by the intelligentsia — in academic journals, in the classroom, and in the simplified journalistic form that ultimately influences popular culture and electoral politics — then the sensibilities Dreher identifies would never have come into being in the first place.
So there’s no short cut, but the worthwhile work of the natural law theorist is more difficult than it would have been in previous generations.
Thanks, Coach. I needed that. Keep it up and you may get your own Wikipedia article.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 