Natural Law Theory: Some Features And A Bug

In a recent debate, Dr. Dustin Crummett raises several objections to natural law theory (NLT) as an account of human ethics. I’d like to briefly address these and explain why, in my view, popular versions of NLT avoid some and fall prey to others.

Objection: NLT doesn’t allow for other regarding reasons/NLT is egoistic.

Reply: According to NLT, good human action and good reasons for acting are determined by the practical dispositions proper to a happy human life. This amounts to a form of egoism if it entails that a person should perform a certain action if and only if, and because, that action serves the aim of their own happiness. 

However NLT does not require any commitment to the claim that we should perform an action because it contributes to our own happiness. Even if it is true that good actions are actions that contribute to one’s own happiness, this does not entail that actions are good *because* they contribute to this end. Additionally, NLT can allow for the possibility of good actions that lead to a great deal of suffering and harm. For instance, when presented with the opportunity to steal someone else’s food during a famine, refusing to do so might lead an individual to starve. Nevertheless, NLT can maintain that their refusal is right since it manifests an essential virtue of flourishing human life. This remains true despite the fact that, in the particular case, their action leads to immense suffering. 

Lastly, it may be true that flourishing human beings help people simply because they are in need. In this case, NLT implies that human beings should help people because they are in need. In other words, it implies that we have other-regarding reasons that are not derived from or dependent upon egoistic ends. Therefore, NLT doesn’t entail egoism and can allow for other-regarding reasons.

Objection: The NLT view of happiness/flourishing is false. Intrinsic teleology doesn’t exist and even if it did, this wouldn’t explain human ethics and morality.

Reply: Teleological judgements are an inextricable aspect of our conception of living things as such. In order to recognize something as alive, we must recognize it as engaging in (or capable of engaging in) certain vital processes such reproduction, digestion, etc. However, these processes are realized in vastly different ways depending on the life form in question. Our capacity to recognize any individual as a creature engaged in these processes depends upon recognizing it as an instance of some life form that, in good cases, brings about such processes in a particular way. 

This is why, despite their massive difference, we can recognize chimpanzee reproduction and eagle reproduction as instances of the same vital process. Furthermore, this is what enables us to recognize healthy creatures from sick or defective ones. Without a conception of what it is to be a healthy creature that is informed by the nature of the creature in question, we cannot grasp what would count as illness or injury for that creature. This implicit grasp of flourishing and defect for any living creature is the intrinsic teleological framework required by NLT. Its reality is secured by our recognition of any thing as being alive. 

Furthermore, counterfactual scenarios pose no problem for the view on their own. If it somehow turned out that we were radically defective in some way, this would simply constitute an a posteriori refutation of NLT. But if intrinsic teleology is an essential feature of human life, counterfactual scenarios where it is absent or different than it actually is are metaphysically impossible and can’t be used as evidence for the independence of ethics and teleology. 

Objection: It is unclear how NLT derives the categorical wrongness of using some faculty contrary to its end. 

Reply: One key problem facing versions of NLT that make such a claim is the fact that biological faculties as such do not clearly have any “proper end”. This follows trivially from the fact that biological faculties are not agents and cannot, on their own, be directed towards any end whatsoever. To be a good biological faculty is simply a matter of being the kind of faculty possessed by good instances of the relevant life form. If biological faculties have proper ends, these must derive from the ends that flourishing agents, according to their nature, use such faculties to achieve. Consequently, moral truths cannot be derived from any alleged “purpose” assigned to various faculties. Although the presence of a certain faculty might be explained by its role in achieving some end, being a good biological faculty is not. 

Nothing about human nature entails that there are categorical facts concerning the permissible ends for our specific biological faculties. Furthermore, even if a good human being is one which uses certain faculties in specific ways, this does not entail that using those faculties for other, “contrary” purposes constitutes a natural defect. Just like human beings can differ in many ways without being defective, a faculty can be used for many purposes without being damaged. Proponents of the so-called perverted-faculty argument have given no good reason to think that homosexual activity is a defect or that flourishing human beings use their reproductive faculties solely to reproduce. Consequently, there is no good reason to accept versions of NLT that make these assumptions.

The Case For Neo-Aristotelian Ethics

I wanted to lay out what I take to be the three main reasons to be a Neo-Aristotelian. For those who are interested in reading further, I highly recommend Reasons Without Rationalism and Knowing Right From Wrong by Kieran Setiya. 

Broadly construed, the Neo-Aristotelian approach to ethics (NA) can be characterized by the claim that ethical and moral truths are truths about the nature of a given form of life. For instance, how a human being should act is simply a matter of how a flourishing instance of human life would act. 

Neo-Aristotelianism offers the best account of the following subjects:

1. Moral-Knowledge 

A viable account of our moral-knowledge must explain how our moral attitudes are reliably and non-accidentally true. The requirement for non-accidental reliability is needed in order to avoid the possibility of a mere coincidental sort of reliability that is insufficient for knowledge. For instance, suppose I were to take a pill that randomly determined my dispositions to form certain moral attitudes. In this case, even if my moral attitudes still happened to be reliably true, they would not count as knowledge because their reliable was  merely accidental. 

To qualify as knowledge, moral truths must, in some appropriate sense, help explain why we form reliably true moral attitudes or be explained on the same basis. Many popular forms of moral naturalism and non-naturalism characterize moral truths in a way that prevents them from directly explaining our moral attitudes and, consequently, cannot adequately account for our moral knowledge.

By contrast, Neo-Aristotelianism can meet the demand for non-accidental reliability in the following way: Generic truths about the nature of a given type can provide a non-necessitating explanation for truths about tokens of that type. One truth about human nature is that human beings normally form moral attitudes that reflect the practical dispositions of a flourishing human being. Since human nature determines ethical/moral truths and explains the moral attitudes of individual humans, it is no accident that those moral attitudes are reliably true. Consequently, Neo-Aristotelianism provides a satisfactory account of moral knowledge while many popular alternatives do not. 

2. Moral Motivation

The second reason to endorse Neo-Aristotelianism is similar to the first. A core aim of any plausible ethical theory is to account for how and why moral truths as such explain our actions. An adequate theory must explain how it is possible for us to act morally because an action is the morally right thing to do. Even if an ethical theory can account for why we should act morally, it may nevertheless fail to provide a satisfactory account of why we do act morally. 

For example, suppose I have an irreducible, non-natural moral reason to help someone in need. If the only reason why I am motivated to help people in need is because humans were naturally selected to have such a motivation, then irreducible, non-natural moral reasons themselves have no impact on why we act, even when we do act for moral reasons. In other words, even if we act for the right reasons, those reasons may play no role in an explanation of our practical motivations. We should prefer a theory which explains how it is no mere coincidence that we can be motivated by our moral reasons to act. 

Neo-Aristotelian ethics provides this explanation by identifying the explanation of our practical motivations with the goodness of those motivations. The reason why an individual is moved to help someone because they are in need is, or can be, because human beings, by their nature, form such practical dispositions. Since, according to NA, acting for good reasons is just a matter of acting for reasons that a good instance of the human life form would act for, NA allows moral truths to explain why we act for good reasons.

3. The Standards Of Practical Reason

A plausible constraint on standards that determine what counts as a good F of some kind is what Kieran Setiya has called The Difference Principle:

“If Fs are a kind of G, and being a good F is not simply a matter of being an F that is a good G, there must be something in the distinctive nature of Fs to explain or illuminate the difference.”

With respect to human actions, the relevance of difference principle arises due to the fact that our motivations for acting are, at a minimum, human character traits. In the absence of further considerations, the standards for evaluating human character traits are determined by what traits are natural for human beings as such. In light of the difference principle, unless something about the nature of practical reasoning provides a unique standard for distinguishing good motivations for acting from bad motivations, they should be distinguished by appealing to human nature. In short, if NA is false, practical reason must supply a unique evaluative standard for practical motivations. The nature of practical reason provides no such unique standard, so NA is true. 

Ethical rationalists have objected to this claim on the grounds that practical reasoning as such is constitutively directed towards what agents take to be good to do. If this were the case, good practical motivations would be determined by the nature of practical reasoning as such. However, ethical rationalism is false. It is perfectly possible for an agent to act for no reason at all or for a reason they do not take to be good. For instance, I might head to the cafe because it is my lunch break. In acting because it is my lunch break, I do not need to take my reason for acting to be good. Nevertheless, I am clearly still acting intentionally. Therefore, it is not the case that practical reason is constitutively directed towards what agents take to be good to do. 

In conclusion, the difference principle, along with reflection upon the nature of practical reason, establishes that practical motivations should be evaluated, like other character traits, on the basis of human nature. Having good practical motivations and acting well are a matter of how a good human would act. 

The three points presented above provide what are, to my mind, powerful evidence in favor of Neo-Aristotelianism. By providing a unified account of moral knowledge, moral motivation, and the standards of practical reasoning, NA succeeds where many popular alternatives fail.