10 April 2013

Natural Law and Humility, Part 1: Moral Debate in a Pluralistic Society


Public discourse on the issue of morality is essentially at a standstill.  Think about the last time that you had a conversation with someone about the issue of right and wrong in a particular instance where that person did not already agree with your perspective.  If your experience is anything like mine, the conversation was not very productive.  One derailing question often asked is "who gets to make the rules?"  This question is built on a number of assumptions about power.  The old canard argues "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely," yet this is not a logically necessary adage.  In other words, power is not the actual problem.  The problem is the corruptibility of human nature.  If we could imagine, like Plato, an incorruptible leader whose interest is the public good (and who had perfect knowledge of what is really in the interest of the public good), we could trust him or her with the power to make the rules for everyone else without skewing them to benefit him or herself.

Because no human person (with notable exceptions) is incorruptible, the question seems academic and we end up arguing again "who should make the rules?"  This is an intelligent question to ask.  The rule maker gets to build society in his or her own image, so we had better know what that image might be.  Again, this is an intelligent question to ask, but it is also the wrong question to ask if we want to talk about right action or actually make good rules.  The politics of morality is not morality, so any time we spend arguing about who makes the rules is time away from seeking the best rules.  What we should really seek the answer to is "what are the right rules?"

Again, we run into trouble with this question.  It assumes that we have a standard by which to argue for and against moral positions.  Many today believe that such standards are impossible due to the wide variety of systems of belief in the world today.  This perspective suggests that there is no standard that can be adopted by a pluralistic society.  I submit that this perspective is completely mistaken.  "Natural Law" is an outgrowth of Western philosophical reasoning, nurtured by the values of Christian society.  Even so, it has a universal appeal.  To take one example, Natural Law is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to as grounds for overturning the unfair laws of his time.  He did not argue that he should be put in power himself, nor that only black leaders could create laws that would be fair to black people.  Such arguments have little appeal outside of the group surrounding the individual who makes them.  Instead, Dr. King appealed to the idea found in the nature of human beings that all individuals have equal worth without regard for their race, etc.  Others could agree with this argument because it matches their own observations of life and values, suggesting that there is such a "rule," so to speak, in human nature.  Natural Law seeks to find in the nature of reality the grounds for its moral arguments.

Natural Law thinking played a large part in the formation of our society, allowing this nation of immigrants to coexist in a more peaceful way than can be found elsewhere in the world or throughout history.  Unfortunately, Natural Law has been forgotten or actively rejected at this time in history, leading to the segmentation of the population into groups based on emotional causes.  This state of affairs is possible in part because those who could best use their reason to argue morality have chosen to remain silent, perhaps due to a false understanding of humility.  Endorsing the idea of Natural Law is not a prideful attempt to legislate beliefs or to disenfranchise others.  The ability to reason and observe is the only prerequisite to participating in public discourse about Natural Law.  Instead, Natural Law is a method for making the best decisions possible by building rational consensus in a world of scattered perspectives.  Rules will be made no matter what, but without recourse to the standard of Natural Law, we will have more of the moral chaos that every observant individual sees in our culture today.

Part 2 will further discuss the relationship between reason and emotion, and how those seeking humility can find an ally in the Natural Law.