Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:44:59.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thomistic Natural Law as Darwinian Natural Right*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Larry Arnhart
Larry Arnhart
Affiliation:
Political Science, Northern Illinois University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The publication in 1975 of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology provoked a great controversy, for in that work Wilson claimed that ethics was rooted in human biology. On the first page of the book, he asserted that our deepest intuitions of right and wrong are guided by the emotional control centers of the brain, which evolved via natural selection to help the human animal exploit opportunities and avoid threats in the natural environment. In 1998, the publication of Wilson's Consilience renewed the controversy, as he continued to argue for explaining ethics through the biology of the moral sentiments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Winter 2001 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Wilson, Edward O., Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 3, 129, 563.Google Scholar

2 Wilson, Edward O., Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).Google Scholar

3 Arnhart, Larry, Darwinian Natural Right; The Biological Ethics of Human Nature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).Google Scholar

4 “Ius naturale est, quod natura omnia animalia docuit.” Justinian, , Justinian's Institutes, ed. and trans. Birks, Peter and McLeod, Grant (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 1.2.Google Scholar

5 For the history of Ulpian's remarks in medieval thought, see Crowe, Michael Bertram, The Changing Profile of the Natural Law (The Hague, The Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1977), 43–51, 142–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Crowe finds Aquinas's use of Ulpian's definition of natural right puzzling, because Crowe wants to interpret natural law in a Kantian way, as a set of purely rational principles set apart from animal nature.

6 In my translations of Aquinas's Latin, I have tried to be as literal as possible.

7 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 94, a. 2.Google Scholar

8 Aquinas, Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle's “Nicomachean Ethics,” secs. 9, 21, 94, 106–7.Google Scholar

9 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, I, q. 59, a. 1Google Scholar; I, q. 80, a. 1; I–II, q. 1, a. 2; I–II, q. 6, a. 1–4; I–II, q. 26, a. 1; I–II, q. 35, a. 1; I–II, q. 41, a. 3.

10 Ibid., I–II, q. 94, a. 2; I–II, q. 95, a. 4, ad 1; II–II, q. 57, a. 3; Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle's “Nicomachean Ethics,” sec. 1019.Google Scholar

11 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 46, a. 5Google Scholar; I–II, q. 51, a. 1; I–II, q. 63, a. 1.

12 Aristotle, , Generation of Animals, 767b24–769b31.Google Scholar

13 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, I, q. 78, a. 4Google Scholar; I, q. 80, a. 1; I, q. 83, a. 1; I–II, q. 6, a. 2; I–II, q. 40, a. 3; I–II, q. 58, a. 1; Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle's “De Anima,” secs. 629, 874.Google Scholar

14 For a good survey of the evidence in Aquinas's writings that supports this conclusion, see Barad, Judith, Aquinas on the Nature and Treatment of Animals (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1995)Google Scholar. For the argument that Aquinas's view of human nature and natural law is rooted in a “biological paradigm,” see Lisska, Anthony J., Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 68, 96–109, 131, 189–91, 198–201, 218–22, 258.Google Scholar

15 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 57, a. 3Google Scholar; Suppl., q. 41, a. 1; Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle's “Nicomachean Ethics,” sec. 1019.Google Scholar

16 Aquinas, , Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 3, chap. 123.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., bk. 3, chaps. 122–23.

18 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, Suppl., q. 41, a. 2Google Scholar; Aquinas, , Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 3, chap. 123.Google Scholar

19 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, Suppl., q. 65, a. 1Google Scholar; Aquinas, , Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 3, chap. 124.Google Scholar

20 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, Suppl., q. 54, a. 3Google Scholar; Aquinas, , Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 3, chap. 125.Google Scholar

21 Aquinas, , Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 3, chap. 123.Google Scholar

22 Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle's “De Anima,” secs. 395–98, 631–35, 643–50, 803–4, 812–46.Google Scholar

23 See Weisheipl, James A., ed., Albertus Magnus and the Sciences (Toronto, Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980).Google Scholar

24 Magnus, Albertus, On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, trans. Kitchell, Kenneth F. Jr., and Resnick, Irven Michael (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 587.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 1415–18.

26 Ibid., 766–73, 1420–25.

27 Ibid., 1420–21.

28 Ibid., 58–62, 64–67, 93, 745–47, 1420, 1446–47.

29 Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 401Google Scholar; Finnis, John, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 82, 103, 116, 147–48, 153–54.Google Scholar

30 McInerny, Ralph, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1982), 36–38, 56.Google Scholar

31 See Arnhart, , Darwinian Natural Right.Google Scholar

32 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 56, 139, 152, 166–67, 183, 220.Google Scholar

33 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), x.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 5–6, 11–12.

35 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, chaps. 14–15.Google Scholar

36 Hobbes, Thomas, De Cive, chap. 1.Google Scholar

37 Hobbes, , Leviathan, chap. 17Google Scholar; Hobbes, , De Cive, chap. 5, par. 5Google Scholar; Hobbes, Thomas, De Homine, chap. 10.Google Scholar

38 On Hobbes's dualism, see Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, trans. Sinclair, Elsa M. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 7–9, 168–70.Google Scholar

39 Kant, Immanuel, “Speculative Beginning of Human History,”Google Scholar in Kant, , “Perpetual Peace” and Other Essays, trans. Humphrey, Ted (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1983), 49–60Google Scholar; Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, trans. Pluhar, Werner S. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987), sees. 83–84.Google Scholar

40 See Greene, Robert A., “Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral Sense,” Journal of the History of Ideas 58, no. 2 (04 1997): 173–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 300–304, 321–27Google Scholar; Ross, Ian Simpson, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 48–59, 159–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Smith, , Theory of Moral Sentiments, 340–41.Google Scholar

43 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1976), 2:687.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 9–16.

45 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, 1155a3–b16Google Scholar; Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle' s“Nicomachean Ethics,”Google Scholar secs. 1538–50.

46 Smith, , Theory of Moral Sentiments, 116–17, 129–30, 145.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., 326.

48 Ibid., 320.

49 Ibid., 270–72, 319–20.

50 Finnis, , Aquinas, 62, 74–76, 78.Google Scholar

51 Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a36–b6.Google Scholar

52 Aristotle, , De Anima, 433a10–31Google Scholar; Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a36–b6.Google Scholar

53 Aquinas, , Commentary on Aristotle's “De Anima,” secs. 395–98, 631–35, 643–50, 803–4, 812–46.Google Scholar

54 Smith, , Theory of Moral Sentiments, 129, 142, 145, 219Google Scholar; Smith, Adam, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. Meek, R. L., Raphael, D. D., and Stein, P. G. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 141–43, 438.Google Scholar

55 Smith, , Lectures on Jurisprudence, 150–60.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 163–66, 446–47.

57 Mandeville, Bernard, The Fable of the Bees (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 1:330.Google Scholar

58 Darwin, Charles, Charles Darwin's Notebooks, 1836–1844, ed. Barrett, Paul H. et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 537–38, 558, 563–64, 587–89, 618–29.Google Scholar

59 Mackintosh, James, Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (Edinburgh, Scotland:Adam and Charles Black, 1836).Google Scholar

60 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1871), 1:81–82.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., 1:70–106, 2:390–94.

62 Ibid., 1:70.

63 Ibid., 1:70–71; Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Beck, Lewis White (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 90.Google Scholar

64 Darwin, , Descent of Man, 1:80.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., 1:80–86.

66 Darwin, Charles, “The Origin of Species” and “The Descent of Man” (New York: Modern Library, 1936), 485–86, 896.Google Scholar

67 Darwin, , Descent of Man, 1:82, 1:93, 1:106, 1:161–66.Google Scholar

68 Smith, , Theory of Moral Sentiments, 76–89, 94, 106.Google Scholar

69 Darwin, , Descent of Man, 1:70, 1:88–89, 1:391–92, 2:390–92.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., 1:72, 1:165–66.

71 Mivart, George Jackson, “Darwin's Descent of Man,” reprinted in Hull, David, ed., Darwin and His Critics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 354–84.Google Scholar

72 Huxley, Thomas, Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays (New York: D. Appleton, 1894), 31, 44–45, 59, 68, 75–77, 80–85Google Scholar; Mivart, George Jackson, “Evolution in Mr. Huxley,” Popular Science Monthly 44 (05 1893): 319–33.Google Scholar

73 See Farber, Paul Lawrence, The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 58–69.Google Scholar

74 Williams, George, “A Sociobiological Expansion of Evolution and Ethics,” in Paradis, James and Williams, George, eds., Evolution and Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 213.Google Scholar

75 See Stroup, Timothy, Westermarck's Ethics (Abo, Finland: Abo Akademi, 1982)Google Scholar; and Arnhart, Larry, “Westermarck's Ethics as Darwinian Natural Right” (paper presented at the International Westermarck Symposium, Helsinki, Finland, 11 19–22, 1998).Google Scholar

76 See Fox, Robin, The Red Lamp of Incest, 2d ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Wolf, Arthur P., Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association: A Chinese Brief for Edward Westermarck (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

77 Westermarck, Edward, The History of Human Marriage, 5th ed., 3 vols. (New York: Allerton, 1922)Google Scholar; Westermarck, Edward, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1906)Google Scholar; Westermarck, Edward, Ethical Relativity (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1932).Google Scholar

78 For an example of how a Westermarckian anthropological naturalism can support Thomistic natural law, see Davitt, Thomas, The Basic Values in Law, rev. ed. (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

79 Westermarck, , History of Human Marriage, 1:22, 1:38, 1:53, 1:71, 3:365.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., 3:104, 3:107, 3:206, 3:221–22; Westermarck, , Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 2:387–92.Google Scholar

81 Westermarck, , History of Human Marriage, 2:82–239Google Scholar; Westermarck, , Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 2:364–81.Google Scholar

82 See Wolf, , Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association, 506.Google Scholar

83 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, trans. Bell, James Harle, von Sturmer, John Richard, and Needham, Rodney (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 30–31.Google Scholar

84 Westermarck, , Ethical Relativity, 109.Google Scholar

85 Westermarck, , Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 1:10.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., 2:742.

87 See Lewontin, Richard C., Rose, Steven, and Kamin, Leon J., Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 137Google Scholar; and Kitcher, Philip, Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 280, 348.Google Scholar

88 Westermarck, , History of Human Marriage, 2:82, 2:88, 2:192, 2:201–3.Google Scholar

89 Wolf, , Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association, 497–515.Google Scholar

90 Ibid., 435–38.

91 Ibid., 388–422.

92 See Durham, William H., Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 293–309.Google Scholar

93 Wilson, , Consilience, 3–13.Google Scholar

94 Ibid., 164.

95 Wilson, Edward O., On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 63–64Google ScholarPubMed; Wilson, , Consilience, 132–33, 161–63.Google Scholar

96 Wilson, , Consilience, 238–56.Google Scholar

97 Wilson, , On Human Nature, 37–39, 68–69, 229Google Scholar; Lumsden, Charles J. and Wilson, Edward O., Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 37, 71, 85–86, 147–58, 238, 357Google Scholar; Lumsden, Charles J. and Wilson, Edward O., Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 64–65, 115, 119, 124–27, 133–38, 175–80Google Scholar; Ruse, Michael and Wilson, Edward O., “Moral Philosophy as Applied Science,” Philosophy 61, no. 236 (04 1986): 173–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, , Consilience, 173–80Google Scholar

98 Wilson, , Consilience, 112–15Google Scholar; Damasio, Antonio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1994).Google Scholar

99 On psychopaths as moral strangers, see Arnhart, , Darwinian Natural Right, 211–30.Google Scholar

100 For surveys of some of the biological research on human mating and parenting, see ibid., 89–160.

101 For instances of this ambiguity, see Wilson, , Consilience, 55, 67–68, 70–71, 83–86, 109, 162–65, 167, 172–73, 240, 255, 263, 266, 276–77, 297–98.Google Scholar

102 Ibid., 255.

103 Ibid., 238–39, 248, 251.

104 Aquinas, , Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 91, a. 4.Google Scholar

105 Ibid., I–II, q. 100, a. 11.

106 Ibid., I–II, q. 100, a. 1.

107 Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2; Suppl., q. 42.