From Natural Law To Liberty For All

Objectivity
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” Note, Jefferson did not say a free people claim their rights as derived from a Constitution, for the rights enumerated in the Constitution must be a reflection of the rights found in natural law. When you ask people about equality, they often reply, “we’re equal before the law,” and they’re right, we are equal before the law according to the Constitution. However, the real question is, are we equal in reality, as a law of nature, which the Constitution then reflects and secures as law?

Subjectivity
A negative answer to the latter question lands morality in subjectivity. Subjectivity is the basis for might makes right, which runs counter to a rationally based ethic; an ethic which all persons are rationally obligated to uphold, and which forms the basis for freedom and true happiness. The logic of subjectivity goes like this, If value and morality are purely subjective, that is, exist only in your head and not as a reflection of reality, then when you say that such and such is wrong you are really saying you feel or imagine such and such is wrong *even though it's really not*. The 'really not' logically accompanies every expression of your subjective moral view *if value and morality are purely subjective.* Now, when I say 'really' I mean 'in truth', and I accept the classic definition of truth: 'the conformity of the mind to reality.' Therefore, to take the subjectivist line looks like this, in real terms: Think of an atrocity -- take the holocaust for example; most likely, you believe it's appalling and just plain wrong. However, if you take the line [subjectivist x] takes, you will be saying, "I feel the holocaust was wrong, but it really wasn't." Or, "I think dragging homosexuals behind my car is wrong, but it's really not." This is monstrous thinking, and it’s patently false.

Natural law
Invariably, discussions about the natural law produce some form of this common response, “but desire x IS natural because people are born with the inclination; plus, such desires exist in the animal kingdom”. However, if natural law is to mean anything, then clearly we cannot say that just because a person is born with a certain tendency that therefore it is natural; likewise, we cannot point to animals and say that what is natural for them is natural for us – clearly, we cannot do this. No, the meaning of natural law -- what Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Aquinas, and other great proponents of natural law knew it to mean -- starts from the premise that man is a rational animal, that it is part of our nature to rationally govern our mere animal desires according to an outline, an over-all goal. The rational part, if you’ll notice, allows us a certain insight into the skin, so to speak, of other rational animals – we can speak for other people, for our rationality is in some way common. For instance, according to the self-evident principles of rational thought, we can say that any given person is in error if they state that a finite part is greater than the whole of which it is a part; likewise, if another person affirms that two and two equal six we can speak for them and say that they are wrong.

However, many people want to treat morality as if it somehow escapes our ability to speak from within each other’s skin; but this is simply nonsense. There are certain things we can say with certainty about other human beings concerning moral choices. We can say, for instance, that acting on the anorexic aversion (not acting to eat normally) is bad for human beings, but we can also say it is wrong. It is wrong for you to starve yourself, because it is wrong for me to do so; since we share the same essential nature I cannot say that something, which adversely affects what is essential to my being, is ok for you, since it effects what is conceptually indistinguishable from my own nature (your essence). We’ll return to this a bit later.

Equality
When the Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, this is a statement -- concerning equality (not creation) -- of Natural Law: objective fact. But what does it mean? How is each individual who differs in appearance, talent, ability, contribution, sex, etc.; how are we all *equal? Simple, we're equal in essence*, in WHAT we are: "rational animals." Again we turn to Jefferson, "We believe that man (is) a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights, and with an innate sense of justice." The "rational" part of "rational animal" places us above mere animal instincts, and allows us to govern our actions and form habits according to an outline, or plan, based on what we know is good and basic to our human nature. This "governance" of our desires and actions, forming firm dispositions, or habits, is called virtue. It’s interesting, and probably no strange coincidence, that Jefferson mentions “justice” in his quote; indeed, for the entire grand edifice of objective morality rests squarely upon the question of the nature of justice -- a problem which was formulated by Plato some two-thousand-plus years ago, and to which there is only one solution.

Justice – A Problem
“If I can get away with anything – even by the help of a magic ring which can make me invisible – , why should I be just towards other people?” That is Plato’s Ring of Gyges dilemma, and Mortimer Adler says it is one of the “most difficult questions about justice that have ever been raised” (http://radicalacademy.com/adleronjustice.htm ). Mr. Adler also goes on, in the aforementioned link, to present an answer, one I’m going to paraphrase, a bit later, in light of what preceded in this essay, and with the addition of an important concept, which flows from equality and natural law: the common good. But first:

Defining Liberty
I think most people have at least a vague understanding of the difference between liberty and license. I think most people tend to think of “liberty” and equality at least implicitly in these terms:

“Liberty to act on one’s behalf must be fenced off by the equal liberty of others, so that freedom for one individual doesn’t become oppression for a second.” – M. Stanton Evans

I left off earlier speaking about our rationality -- our intellect and our will; that herein lies the basis for discovering the difference between what’s natural for man and what’s natural for animals. The difference is that man not only has instincts and inclinations, he knows about them, and can arrange them according to an outline, according to a “pursuit.” But this “pursuit” is not spontaneous, we have warring tendencies within us, tendencies which have to be disciplined, which take a tremendous effort to tame. Here’s an illustration:

Let’s imagine millions of people suddenly transported to an undiscovered country -- the result would be chaos; this raw state would need a governing body to establish and maintain peace, or harmony. In order for this government to be a fair government, it would have to “fence off liberty to act with the equal liberty of others.” It would have to tame, so to speak, those “tendencies” which would oppress others, in order to have peace.

Likewise, this taming is precisely what man has to do at an individual level with the inner disharmony of his soul: we have to fence off the liberty of warring tendencies within ourselves, which would otherwise oppress us, would keep us from attaining what is truly good for us. In a word, we have to practice Prudence, Moderation and Courage, and do so to the extent that there is harmony within the soul, that there is contentment regardless of external circumstances. Such harmony, or inner liberty, naturally results in the recognition of another human being as an end in himself, and of humanity as, in Kant’s words, a “Kingdom of Ends.” Good will is the logical consequence of the recognition of all human beings as “ends in themselves”, and is what we call Justice. Our solution to the problem of Justice is almost at hand, we need only consider one more objection.

Moral Imperatives -- Categorical Vs. Hypothetical
In our earlier discussion under Natural Law, we touched on a fascinating characteristic of rationality; it allows us a perspective that all rational beings ought to share, otherwise their minds are in error. This perspective is, in fact, an absolute perspective, that is, it is universally true. We used the example of a self-evident principle -- that a finite whole is greater than the parts of which it is composed -- and said we could do the same with morality. To a subjectivist, however, we’ve entirely begged the question.

A subjectivist will say that all “oughts” are dependent on ifs, and will add that you cannot make any outside observations that will produce a (rationally) imperative “ought.” In other words, they’ll say that no matter how often you observe people relating to other people in a way we consider good, you can never say that therefore people ought to act in such a way; to do so, they say, is merely expressing your own preference. Let me put this another way.

The philosopher Hume pointed out that you cannot say the sun ought to rise tomorrow because there’s no contradiction in saying the opposite, thus no rational imperative not to. For Hume, and most philosopher’s after him, it followed that if you could not find an ought in the descriptive world – the world you could observe, thus describe – you certainly could not find one in the prescriptive world, which involves a person’s will, and how he ought to act. The most you can say is that if you want this or that outcome, then you ought to act this or that way; the “if”, however, is, according to them, entirely hypothetical -- as opposed to necessary (imperative). This being the case, you cannot speak for anyone else and say that what he or she is doing is right or wrong.

The problem with Hume -- as with the new atheists like Hitchens, Dawkins, etc., and, I might add, with the economists and business owners of our day -- is that he takes up a purely hypothetical perspective to begin with. Hume doesn’t exist in a purely third person point of view; neither, obviously, do we. If we’re going to take up a purely hypothetical position to begin with then obviously, any firm basis we look for within it can be no less hypothetical. But even when we attempt to speak “from the perspective of nowhere”, it is we who are taking up that perspective, it is we who are bringing our faculties of knowledge to the equation, so it quite reasonably follows that we must include this fact, and all it entails, in our equation.

The Common Good
By now, if I’ve succeeded, there should be a basic image materializing in your mind -- a sort of alignment or focus, which is come to by the whittling away of non-essentials. So far, I’ve attempted to communicate this image in three different ways.

1.) From the fact that we are rational animals we see that an essential equality exists between all such members of our class, which excludes non-essentials (For the sake of illustration, let’s pretend we can create perfect triangles in reality, triangles of all manner of sizes and colors at either right angles or various degrees of acute or obtuse angles. They would all be different yet each would share the same essential nature with every other -- the same essential nature would define each as a triangle. Therefore if I said all such triangles are created equal when clearly some are larger and/or more to our liking in shape and color, then in what way could I possibly assert that all triangles are created equal? Well, if I went on to define their essential nature and said "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all triangles are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inherent properties, that among these is the property that the sum of angles is always 180 degrees"; if I put it that way it would make perfect sense to talk about equality. We’ve whittled away “non-essentials”).

2.) We saw that, both in society and in our own conflicting desires, true liberty comes by fencing off (whittling away) unbridled liberties (licenses) in conformity with a purpose.

3.) We’ve also intimated that there’s a fixed perspective, which, when you strip away all non-essential colorings, all preferential, purely subjective shadings, is, for every rational being, inescapably furnished with its own facts and laws.

Picking up where I left off in my criticism of Hume, and with the point of #3 in mind, it’s important to understand that there’s an essential and unchanging degree of first person perspective in any objective truth claim or observation – this holds for everyone, regardless of their field. This means that, in addition to facts we arrive at by observing them from the outside, there are also facts that are just as real, which, in fact, are conditions for the former, which we arrive at by experiencing them from the inside. Seeing logical connections, having universal ideas; these we know are identical in other minds, which have truth. A mind, which does not see that a finite whole is greater than its parts, does not have truth; this I can say absolutely, for its’ opposite is unthinkable.

So, is there another principle, whose opposite is unthinkable, and which we can find from the inside of experience in regard to the question of morality? We’ve already established that justice unites us in good will to every other rational being by virtue of our equality, the only thing that remains is to remove the hypothetical if, so that we say not “if we wish to have good will towards ourselves then we ought to have good will towards others,” but “since we are rationally obligated to have good will towards ourselves, therefore we ought to have good will towards others.” This we can do by, as you’ve guessed, finding a principle, a fact, from the inside of experience, whose opposite is unthinkable; namely, the fact that our will desires one thing for the sake of itself and nothing else: happiness (defined as "that state of human well-being which leaves nothing more to be desired”). As Mortimer Adler put it, "try finishing the question, I want happiness because...": it cannot be done. Our will necessarily desires happiness, but is free to choose the means; yet only the means, which are true properties of happiness (the good), ought to be chosen -- to deny this is to deny that our will desires happiness for the sake of itself alone.

From the fact of our common first person perspective that we desire happiness for the sake of itself alone, it follows that the true properties of happiness are, in essence, the same for everyone – that there is a common good; that I cannot claim a non-essential, which violates the common good, as part of my obligation to myself and to others.

Liberty For All
In conclusion, I hope to have shown that it is only from this progression -- Natural law, to equality, to justice, to the common good, that we can finally end at liberty for all, and that we can rationally oppose that philosophy, which runs counter to true liberty: might makes right.