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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Natural Law: A Realization in Class
Graduate school is starting to get good. Tonight in my seminar course we talked about, among other things, natural law and its role in the philosophical roots of anthropology (appropriately, our text is Adams’ The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology). Essentially, the notion of a natural law (whether it be divinely ordained or not) has been around for centuries even in the context of human society and culture. In other words Greek philosophers onward have always been wondering whether or not there are universal human governing principles that dictate how we act culturally and within society. A fair yet very broad definition of natural law would have it as the idea that there are universal rights and wrongs regardless of the basis of such universals and that societies act and progress within this framework. The book goes into much detail about the variants of natural law and how these have influenced the development of anthropological thought.
With that out of the way, I had one of those epiphanic moments that both delights and humbles the individual. In the course of attempting to digest and understand the rather dense material presented in Adams’ volume I didn’t get a chance to really contemplate the meaning of natural law and how it fits into my own personal worldview. I hope to expand on that here and explain why I believe that there is no such thing as a natural law, divine or otherwise.
My unbelief automatically precludes a divine source of natural law so that didn’t take much thought or deliberation. I was left with the possibility of a natural law whose source is nature itself or at least something not divine or supernatural. Therein lies the problem: roughly a third of a three-hour class meeting was devoted to discussing natural law and not even a vague idea of what its source may be was produced, if indeed natural law does exist. Adams had the same problem and avoided tackling the question presumably because there is no clear answer, as the history of debate surrounding natural law attests to. I was struck by the similarity between attempting to define natural law coherently and attempting to explain the existence of God coherently: it can’t be done. There are inherent contradictions and circular reasoning that cannot be escaped. I realized that natural law was impossible and that human beings are governed by nothing more than their own free will and the environments in which they live.
I voiced my opinion in class to little reaction because I feel we were becoming quite fatigued with the issue, but it did resonate with at least one of my colleagues who followed up with me during the break. I explained to her that I am beginning to view natural law as a religion in itself with its own set of contradictions and inescapable circle of reason (as I mentioned above). Some might argue that opposition to murder and an incest taboo are cultural universals. Indeed they appear to be but I reject the notion that they have any sort of underlying chain of continuity connecting them to all societies. I reject natural law for a number of reasons but I will mention only the most important now because my brain is tired. First and foremost, to subscribe to natural law is to deny the ingenuity, uniqueness, and free will of all human beings. Just as I don’t believe that a supernatural deity had anything to do with the creation of the earth and its inhabitants so I don’t believe that we as a species are governed by a similarly ethereal notion of natural law.
Posted by Will at September 14, 2005 12:31 AM in Graduate School
Comments
Being Devil's Advocate for a moment, there may not be 'natural law', but could certain behaviours be selected for? A society which doesn't condemn motiveless killing may not have a long lifespan as a unit. How would you distinguish these favoured behaviour patterns from natural law?
Natural law wouldn't preclude the ingenuity, uniqueness, and free will of all human beings. Humans love to think their way around rules, consider the ingenious ways for justified killings whether they be sacrifice, ethnic cleansing or the criminal justice system.
Posted by: Alun at September 14, 2005 06:53 PM
Good question…I think they distinguish themselves. Why would a society’s condemnation of motiveless killing (to use your example) be confused with natural law? This is a contradiction I ran into while thinking about this: if a society as a whole acts a certain way is that act considered universal, at least within that society? To take it further, if every mentally sound individual on the planet has a feeling that murder of a defenseless person is wrong in most cases is that a universal? I would argue no because there is a certain degree of socialization that’s involved in developing a sense of right and wrong. Anything that’s not socialization or influenced by environment could be said to be a biological mechanism of self preservation.
Posted by: Will at September 15, 2005 12:53 AM