Unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed law to the State and to society, that is to say a juridical order derived from revelation.Whether or not that is an accurate portrayal of history, it does represent the aspiration of natural law, that it is accessible to any and all without resort to religious faith or revelation.
Unfortunately, natural law has fallen out of favor. Pope Benedict acknowledged this:
The idea of natural law is today viewed as a specifically Catholic doctrine, not worth bringing into the discussion in a non-Catholic environment, so that one feels almost ashamed even to mention the term.
Pope Benedict blamed Positivism and the "unbridgeable gulf" it created between 'is' and 'ought'. According to this view, modernists, following David Hume, have elevated scientific reasoning above all else holding all competing claims to tests of scientific validity.
However, modern societies are awash in competing belief systems that are rooted in nothing more than emotionalism and common agreement. We are constantly subjected to laws and regulations that have not the slightest scientific basis. Courts do not strike down laws on scientific grounds.
To give just one example among many, egalitarianism is a widely held modern ideal that has no basis whatsoever in science. Nature is decidedly inegalitarian but for egalitarians that is unacceptably Darwinian.
If Positivism truly reigned we would have none of that. Far more commonly we find modern morals are rooted in subjectivism. Subjectivism substitutes emotion for reason as a basis for morality. Something is wrong if it feels wrong.
But genuine subjectivism, too, is an incomplete answer. Raw subjectivism would be nothing less than anarchy with each person following his own intuition about right and wrong. Instead, what we encounter is a hierarchy of ideas loosely rooted in history but always evolving in ways that seem almost designed to avoid a consensus and morality plays involving various perceived injustices demanding correction.
Then, too, there is the hierarchy of thinkers centered in university social science departments giving rise to what could most charitably be called a secular magisterium complete with its own system of anathema and excommunication with public shaming of deviants. Subjectivism is given a scientific veneer by social science researchers such as Michael Ruse2 and Jonathon Haidt3 in the form of moral sentimentalism which essentially claims that morality is a product of sentiment and taste, not of reason and knowledge.
To appreciate the paradox of moral sentimentalism, imagine a world in which Ruse and Haidt like chocolate so much that they are willing to have people who disagree with them executed by the state or at least thrown in jail for enjoying vanilla. They readily acknowledge that this is nothing more than a matter of taste. But their preference for chocolate is so strong that they cannot abide anyone who might disagree and choose differently. This is an indulgence of monumental proportions. Not only the indulgence of taste but an indulgence of vengeance against violations of fashion.
What leads people to abandon reason for subjective sentiment in moral reasoning? Certainly logical positivism plays a crucial role. Positivism is the sword that is wielded against moral reasoning and subjective sentiment is the shield that defends their alternative choices.
What is the modern problem with natural law? Why do natural law arguments carry so little weight in today's culture, politics, and law? It certainly doesn't help that natural law, as Catholics understand it, is rooted in medieval scholasticism and little improved since. Fundamentally the problem is that natural law requires a humility before nature and the human condition. That is, itself, intolerable to the modern mind and unsuited to perpetual political action.
- ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI, Reichstag Building, Berlin Thursday, 22 September 2011.
- Michael Ruse, "Evolutionary Ethics: A phoenix arisen", 1986.
- Jonathon Haidt, "The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment", 2001.
