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Can Natural Laws be Derived from Sociability?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
The article questions whether it is possible to derive natural laws from human sociability. It examines the work of Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, and concludes that there are certain natural laws that can be derived from the social character of human beings. Some of these hold across all societies and at all times (semper et ad semper) whereas others hold only in general but are subject to exceptions (semper sed non ad semper). The article concludes by confronting an anti-social and immoralist challenge to the idea of natural laws of sociability.
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- Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Aristotle, Pol I.2.1235a.
2 This is the problem alluded to in Nicomachean Ethics [hereafter NE] VIII.3.1156b; on human sociability see e.g. NE I.7.1097b.
3 NE VIII.5.1157b: ‘By loving their friend they love what is good for themselves, for the good person in coming to be a friend, comes to be a good for his friend…’
4 Ibid, VIII.1.1155a; VIII.4.1157a; on the use of pros hen analogy see VIII.6.1158b; VIII.4.1157a-b. Aristotle recognises three types of friendship, that based on pleasure, that based on usefulness and that based on goodness (the virtue of friends); the use of pros hen analogy can extend the meaning of any (or all) of these three types, but in the current context refers to the third kind, that of goodness: see e.g. NE VIII.6.1158a-7.1159a.
5 Ibid, VIII.1.1155a.
6 Ibid, VIII.1158a; Plato, Laws V.739b-d. Thus as the proximity of relationship intensifies, in a sense, the demands of justice, so is it more dreadful to defraud a friend rather than an ordinary citizen, or to aid a stranger rather than one's brother: NE VIII.9.1160a. For more is owed (as a matter of friendship) to the one rather than the other. But these and other cases lie within a domain in which the discussion can be only as precise as its subject matter: IX.2.1165a; I.3.1094b.
7 NE, IX.6.1167a-b.
8 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [hereafter ST] I-II.91.2c & ad 2.
9 See Romans 2:14: ‘when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves…’ Two further purposes may be mentioned. First, natural law explains how, despite cultural differences, all political communities share certain core values (such as protection of the innocent, punishment and restraint of criminality, etc.); second, it explains the basis on which one should obey the positive state law (even when unjust), and on which it should, in severe circumstances, be disobeyed: see esp ST I-II.96.4c & ad 3; I-II.97.1 ad 2; II-II.117.6c.
10 ST, I-II.90; I-II.63.1c & I-II.63.2 ad 2.
11 NE III.2.1112a; also V.1.1129a (the discussion of justice will follow the same method as that relating to other virtues).
12 Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIX.24. According to the first definition, where there is not justice, there is no association united by a common agreement as to what is right, and therefore ‘no commonwealth’: De Civitate Dei XIX.23. Cf Aristotle, NE VIII.9.1159b: ‘There seems to be some kind of justice in every community, and some kind of friendship as well.’
13 See O'Donovan, O, Common Objects of Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002), 21Google Scholar.
14 De Civitate Dei IV.4.
15 See O'Donovan (n 13), 23. See also Aquinas, ST I-II.94.2c: ‘being’ is the first thing the mind apprehends, and is included in everything else the mind comprehends, including (therefore) ‘good’, the primary term of practical reason, and bonum est quod omnia appetunt.
16 De Civitate Dei XIX.3: ‘There can be some kind of life without virtue, whereas virtue cannot exist without life…’
17 NE, II.9.1109b: ‘How far and to what extent someone must deviate before becoming blameworthy it is not easy to determine by reason … [S]uch things are particulars and judgment about them lies in perception.’ See also De Civitate Dei XXI.5 (on miracles).
18 De Civitate Dei XIX.11; XIX.14.
19 Ibid, XIX.12.
20 Ibid, XIX.13.
21 Ibid, XIX.14; for the qualification see e.g. XIX.13.
22 Aristotle, Pol I.1; also Hobbes, Leviathan XIII.
23 See principally Aristotle, NE IX.9.1170b; Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIX.14; Epistle 137, §17; De Doctrina Christiana I.8, 26-27 & 35.
24 De Civitate Dei XIX.14.
25 Ibid, XIX.5. See especially XII.28: ‘There is nothing as social by nature as [the human] race, but as discordant [i.e. anti-social] through its vice.’ See also Markus, RA, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of Saint Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1970) 95Google Scholar & generally Appendix B. The furthest Augustine will go in the direction of natural human sociability is his recognition of the household as the basis for community: ‘Every human being is part of the human race, and human nature is a social entity, and has naturally the great good and power of friendship. For this reason God wished to produce all persons out of one so that they would be held together in social relationships not only by similarity of race but by the bond of kinship. The first natural bond of human society therefore is that of husband and wife…’ (De Bono Coniugali 1)
26 Ibid, XIX.14.
27 Ibid, XIX.16; De Bono Coniugali I.
28 De Civitate Dei, XIX.5; see also XIX.3.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid, XIX.1. Augustine's response to his sources is measured: ‘we ought to judge according to the facts of the case rather than attaching great significance to knowing what other men have thought of them’ (XIX.3); they ‘endeavour to contrive for themselves an entirely false happiness by means of a virtue that is as false as it is proud…’ (XIX.4); see also XIX.1; XVIII.41; VIII.7-8; Epistle 1.
31 Ibid, XIX.5.
32 Ibid, XIX.1.
33 Plato, Gorgias 507e.
34 On the tendency of false goods to clash with one another see Aristotle, NE I.8.1099a.
35 See Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio III.17.48.167; De Civitate Dei XI.17 & XIX.4; De Natura Boni IV.
36 On the threefold nature of sin (suggestion, pleasure, consent) see Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte I.12.35.
37 De Civitate Dei XIX.27.
38 Gorgias 469c; 527b.
39 For the underlying principle (as an instance of scandalum) see ST I-II.96.4c.
40 This approximates to the life lived for the sake of honour, described by Aristotle in NE I.5.1095b, and rejected by him as disclosing the ideal or best mode of life. See Aquinas, De Malo II.4 obj 2.
41 Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae I.26.49.
42 Ibid, I.27-28.
43 See also Aquinas, ST I-II.84.2; also I-II.74.4c & ad 4: the cause of all sin is inordinate self-love.
44 Plato, Gorgias 482e-483a.
45 Ibid, 489a-b; also Laws I.626a.
46 NE I.3.1094b.
47 ST I.113.1c; I-II.9.5 ad 3; I-II.93.6c; I-II.94.4c; I-II.94.6c; SCG III.160.
48 ST I-II.71.2c; see also Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio III.13: ‘every vice, simply because it is a vice, is contrary to nature.’
49 Ibid; also I-II.85.4c (‘every being and every good itself depends on its form, from whence it derives its species.’)
50 Ibid, I-II.71.2 ad 3.
51 Ibid, II-II.154.1c.
52 Ibid, II-II.154.11c.
53 Ibid, I.20.1 ad 1. It is in this sense unlike divine will.
54 Ibid, II-II.155.1 ad 2. Concupiscence itself is not inherently out of order: I-II.82.3 ad 1; I-II.85.3 ad 3. See also I-II.77.6 ad 2 (‘Good emotion following on the judgment of reason increases merit.’); also I-II.46.5c.
55 Ibid, I-II.91.2c; I-II.93.5 ad 1.
56 Ibid, I-II.94.1c; a disposition known as synderesis: I-II.94.1 ad 2.
57 Sent II.24.2.3 ad 3; ST I-II.93.2c.
58 ST I-II.94.6c; also I-II.85.4c.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid, I-II.85.2c & ad 1: the very root of the inclination is neither diminished nor destroyed.
61 Ibid, I-II.94.2c.
62 Aquinas, Sententia Libri Politicorum, Proemium §4 (‘… among [human] societies there are various degrees and orders…’); also I.1.13.
63 Aquinas, Sententia Libri Ethicorum, I.1.4.
64 Domestic/civil rule as opposed to despotic: Sent Libri Pol I.1.13.
65 ST II-II.50.3c.
66 See De Regno I.2.14; ST I-II.97.4c.
67 Sententia Super Metaphysicam XII.12.2633-34.
68 ST II-II.65.2 ad 2.
69 Sent Libri Eth VIII.12.1720.
70 Ibid, VIII.12.1711.
71 ST supp 67.1c.
72 Ibid, I-II.94.2c.
73 See e.g. Sent Libri Pol I.1.36; ST I-II.72.4c; SCG III.117.
74 Ibid, I-II.72.4c.
75 Ibid.
76 See e.g. ST II-II.38.1 ad 3 (on perjury and false suits).
77 See Hart, , The Concept of Law 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon 1994) 193ffGoogle Scholar.
78 Aquinas, SCG III.34.2; also ST II-II.29.3 ad 3.
79 ST II-II.58.6c.
80 Ibid, I-II.100.5c; II-II.122.6 ad 2.
81 See Grotius, De Iure Belli ac Pacis I.2.7(9); I.3.6.
82 ST I-II.96.4c.
83 Nevertheless, Aquinas states that ‘The human being is not ordered to the political community in all that he is and has, so it ought not to be the case that his every action has merit or demerit in relation to the political community’: ST I-II.21.4 ad 3.
84 Ibid, II-II.57.1c.
85 See Sent III.30.2c; ST II-II.23.1 ad 2.
86 Sent III.27.2.4.3c; also ST II-II.117.6; Sent III.30.5 ad 3; ST II-II.114.4; Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIX.14.
87 Aquinas, De Perfectione Spiritualis Vitae XIII.9.
88 See Aquinas, De Caritate 8c; (contrast Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 192.)
89 Aristotle, NE II.6.1107a; see also Eudemian Ethics II.3.1221b.
90 NE III.1.1110a.
91 Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte II.18.59.
92 Aquinas, ST II-II.33.2c.
93 Aquinas, De Malo II.4c; ST I-II.18.3c & 9c.
94 ST II-II.66.5 (and is also contrary to charity: II-II.66.6c).
95 Ibid, I-II.94.4c.
96 Ibid, I-II.71.5 ad 3.
97 Ibid, II-II.110.3 ad 4: ‘it is unlawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any kind of danger. But it is lawful to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back.’
98 Ibid, II-II.38.1c & ad 3 (it is a mortal sin to oppose the truth of justice in court).
99 Ibid, II-II.41.1c (fighting is always sinful, but may become venial or mortal depending on the circumstances).
100 Ibid, I-II.95.2c. Compare I-II.104.1c: ‘ut non habeant vim obligandi ex sola ratione, sed ex institutione’: such laws do not possess obliging power from reason alone, but from their institution. Such determinations are not exceptionless; it may be a moral requirement to break such laws if they are grossly unjust (e.g. by commanding one to perform an immoral act): ST I-II.96.4c & ad 2.
101 Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals §IX.2.
102 ST I-II.94.2c; Aristotle, Metaphysics α.1.980a.
103 Plato, Republic VIII-IX.
104 See NE IX.4.1166b.
105 Ibid, VIII.4.1157a.
106 See Gorgias 505d, amongst a host of other examples.
107 Ibid, 513c.
108 Ibid.
109 See Finnis, J, ‘Discourse, Truth and Friendship’ in The Collected Essays of John Finnis I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 44Google Scholar.
110 Ibid, 48.
111 NE I.3.1095a.
112 ST I-II.94.6c; I-II.94.1sc, citing Augustine, De Bono Coniugali XXI.
113 ST I.79.12c & ad 3.
114 Gorgias 483b, 491e.
115 Ibid, 483a.