Divine love and human dignity
Nicholas Wolterstorff, a Christian philosopher now teaching at Yale, has a new book, Justice: Rights and Wrongs, which has been reviewed very favorably in the TLS by John Cottingham. The reviewer says that the book “swims against the tide of the prevailing secularized conception of philosophy. While it is unmistakably a contribution to mainstream philosophical debates about justice and rights, ir refers frequently and unashamedly to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. What is more, it accords God a central place in the argument.” After reviewing the Old and New Testaments for what they have to say about justice, Wolterstorff is said to argue the “remarkably ambitious thesis: that without these texts, and the Christian world-view that arose out of them, the framework for formulating a theory of rights would simply not have been available.” Cottingham remarks: “It would be hard to deny the decisive influence of Christianity on the development of Western moral thought, but the majority of contemporary moral philosophers would nevertheless strongly resist the suggestion that our modern conception of justice and rights requires a theistic underpinning.” But that is W’s claim: “it is impossible to develop a secular account of human dignity adequate for grounding human rights.” In his view, “‘God loves… each and every human being equally and permanently’; and if this is true then ‘natural human rights are grounded in that love’; since they ‘inhere in the bestowed worth that supervenes on being thus loved.’” Cottingham concludes:
On any showing, this book is a formidable achievement, intellectually rigorous yet emotionally engaged, and combining meticulous conceptual analysis with a rich historical grasp of the roots of our moral culture. Its arguments offer a serious challenge to the complacency of contemporary secularism, implying as they do that our culture of rights could only have come into existence supported by a metaphysical framework that exhibits each human being, whatever their flaws and defects, as loved redemptively by God. The conclusion, if valid, is a disturbing one, given that acceptance of the Christian metaphysical framework appears to be steadily eroding. If that is the case, and Wolterstorff’s account is correct, then the future outlook for our culture of rights looks bleak.
(The late philosopher Leszek Kolakowski maintained a similar position on the linkage, historical and conceptual, between religious beliefs and human rights.)
There is an interesting interview with Wolterstorff at The Christian Century here.
Perhaps “Commonweal” could arrange a review?
I doubt such a book would have been given such recognition even 15 years ago. Maybe Dawson’s God book did some good — it showed just how terribly ignorant supposedly educated people can sometimes be about religious matters.
The times they are a changin’.
Oops — Dawkins, that is.
Hello Father Komonchak (and All),
Thanks for alerting us to this work. I for one would love the opportunity to review this work for Commonweal (assuming the editors would be interested). I’m a Roman Catholic and a professional philosopher whose research specialty is the analysis of justice according to the traditions of the Sophists, the Epicureans, the Hobbesians and their successors – some of my friends and colleagues express amazement at me because they know I do my best to practice a Christian life and the Catholic faith and yet I do all my research on about the most a-religious view of justice there is. But I have always thought any adequate account of justice must be “theism free” in order to appeal to those of us who are not theists. I’m looking forward to seeing Wolterstorff’s arguments – I’d love to see fresh arguments that God is indispensable to analyzing justice, even if accepting them would pull the rug out from under my own research.
Prof. vanderschraaf:
In his “Christian Century” interview, Wolterstorff refers to Brian Tierney’s argument in The Idea of Natural Right that we didn’t have to wait until the Enlightenment for the idea of subjective rights to appear. Have you read the book? I’m surprised at how little attention the book has received; but perhaps it’s been noticed in the scholarly literature.
This book is (no surprise) wonderful. For what it’s worth, I reviewed it in “First Things” a few months ago, and said (among other things) that “For all of us who aspire to, or even just admire, the perhaps not so outrageous vocation of Christian scholarship, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice is an inspiration.” The review is available online, and I’d definitely welcome thoughts and reactions from any of you: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/003-righting-wrongs-and-wronging-rights-19
In the early 14th century there was a notable debate between Pope John XXII and William of Ockham regarding the Franciscans’ ownership of property. Pope John even argued that Adam had a moral right to property, specifically to the Garden of Eden because ownership is essential to human existence. (Ockham disagreed and was later condemned as a heretic because he denied there are moral, not simply legal, rights to property.)
Though I haven’t yet read “Justice: Rights and Wrongs,” Cottingham’s review certainly whets my appetite. I’m also glad that Fr. Komonchak made reference to the Christian Century inteview.
Yes, it would be good if someone, e.g., Prof. Vanderschraaf review it in Commonweal. I’m also interested in comparing Woplterstorff’s position with Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age.” Let me also recall the good work that Louis Dupre has done.
From where I sit, I think that not the least important of what Wolterstorff has done is to make a theistic case that is not dependent upon the Thomistic tradition. It’s no criticism to say that the Thomistic tradition carries lots of perhaps unnecessary freight when it’s encountered by non-believers. Cottingham is right in saying that Wolterstorff is swimming against the stream, but the current that mainline Thomists are up against is even stronger.
Finally, wouldn’t it be nice if our Catholic clergy showed more evidence of having at least a passing acquaintance with philosophy, enough of an acquaintance to realize that what today so often passes for seminary education is not sufficient to equip them to do justice to big questions such as Wolterstorff raises.
Hello Fr. Komonchak (and All),
Thank you for the response. I only learned of Wolterstorff’s new book last evening via your post, so no I have not yet read it (but look forward to doing so). According to the Amazon entry, Justice: Rights and Wrongs only came into print this June, so I suspect that this book has not yet made much of an impact in the philosophy profession. The reviewers at First Things, Christian Century and the other periodicals noted in the Amazon entry probably had galley manuscripts of the book to study so that they could complete and publish their reviews as soon as possible after the book appeared in print.
At least in philosophy it usually takes between one and two years after publication for reviews of a book to start appearing in the academic philosophy journals. Reviews of Wolterstorff’s new book in such journals will probably start appearing in mid-2011.
Prof. Vanderschraaf: I know that Wolterstorff’s book is only just out. It was Brian Tierney’s book on the origins of rights-talk that I was wondering about–that is, whether you have read it. Sorry I was unclear.
Human rights in an uncreated universe are are the last resort of the godless sentimentalist.
Here are a few more sentences from Cottingham’s review of Wolterstorff: “If ratiional choice (Gewirth) or mental creativity (Dworkin) is the criterion, how can this explaini why every human, qua human, should be regarded as having inherent worth? In the Christian world-view, by contrast, ‘God loves … each and every human being equally and permanently’; and if this is true then ‘natural human rights are grounded in that love’; since they ‘inhere in the bestowed worth that supervenes on being thus loved.’
Philosophical critics are sure here to raise the question of how exactly love can ‘bestow worth.’ The vexed issue known as the ‘Euthyphro problem’ … asks whether love (even of a divine sort) can in itself make something valuable. Without an answer to this, it is not clear that Wolterstorff’s appeal to God has succeeded in providing a philosophical underpinning for the notion of equal human worth. That said, the vision of a loving heavenly father is certainly a moving expression of the thesis that each of us is, as Wolterstorff puts it, is ‘irreducibly precious.’ And our experience of parental and conjugal love does seem to give some support to the idea that attachment or commitment to someone can endow that person with a certain moral status.”
The so-called “Euthyphro problem” is this: Are things good because commanded by God, or are they commanded by God because they are good? The usual reference is to moral or ethical matters: Is stealing wrong because God forbids it? Or does God forbid it because it is wrong? I don’t think that this is the same question as the one that Wolterstorff is addressing, which strikes me as an ontological one. I also don’t think that Cottingham’s question here can be addressed apart from the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation along with the developed idea of God in that tradition: as intelligent, just, good, merciful, etc. There are many things whose worth depends on what we think of them; that is, we determine their worth or value or dignity, so there probably are other examples one could offer besides parental and conjugal love..
St. Thomas drew a distinction: We tend to love things because they are good or beautiful; God’s love creates the beauty or goodness he loves. It is a beautiful and beautifully developed thesis, with its supreme realization in Christ and his self-sacrifice for us: “This is how God proves his love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5: 8-9). Which has its ethical consequences: Paul says one should not eat meat sacrificed to idols if doing so were to cause “a brother for whom Christ died” to perish (1 Cor 8:11; see Rom 14:15: You must not let the food you eat bring to ruin him for whom Christ died).
Hello Fr. Komonchak (and All),
Silly me, I simply misread your earlier message – you were not unclear. To respond to your original question, no I’m afraid I had not even heard of Tierney’s book. This work looks interesting from its online sample materials, but it is somewhat out of the scope of my own research so that’s a reason I don’t know the work in my own case. (I have never even seen Tierney cited in the literature I study.) Also, my impression is that the main intended audience of this work are professors of law and theology, and we philosophers are infamous for not studying works we think are outside our discipline. (I try not to be guilty of this all the time but here is an example of a work I should have known about!)
At least among the larger part of the philosophical profession in North America, natural law is not central, and studies that look like they are entirely historical are also not central. I’m not suggesting that Tierney’s study is merely a history of the evolution of the concept of a right or that such historical studies are not valuable, only that I think one in my particular discipline could easily miss Tierney’s book altogether or get the impression from a look at the table of contents that this is “merely” a book in the history of law and theology and then wrongly overlook Tierney.
My impression is that natural law, both scholastic and modern, is making a belated comback in the philosophy profession, so maybe that will spur more interest among we philosophers in works like Tierney’s.
“. ..And our experience of parental and conjugal love does seem to give some support to the idea that attachment or commitment to someone can endow that person with a certain moral status.””
If a child is not loved in the womb, as some are not, then why would it have a right to life??
Peter –
I suspect that the reason natural law ethics is making something of a comeback is probably because Anscombe was also a linguistic analyst and had a better understanding of how language works than most non-analytic philosophers do. Instead of talking about “natural law” she talked about “virtue ethics”, which made her ruminations quite palatable to non-Thomists. (Philosophers have antipathies to certain words such that their minds clamp shut if they so much as hear them whispered.) Now the semi=Aristotelian Martha Nussbaum talks about “capability ethics” and gets away with it quite nicely.
If only natural law philosophers would find a substitute word for ‘soul” they might persuade their colleagues to open their minds to Aristotle. But I”m hopeful. Only this week i saw the term “soul” used on a distinguished psychology blog, and not one person called for the user to be reported to his dean.
Hello Ann (and All),
I have certainly seen some philosphers I greatly admire suggest in print that one must be a Roman Catholic in order to accept natural law as the true account of morality (and consequently they don’t take natural law seriously). Some of the outstanding working philosophical natural law theorists (some of whom I know personally) deny this vigorously. It’s been a matter of controversy for centuries to what degree, if any, classical natural law requires specific religious beliefs. But overall I think you are right about contemporary philosophers being more open to considering work that’s billed as falling in the virtue ethics tradition or following Nussbaum’s and Sen’s capabilities approach than work that’s billed as falling in the natural law tradition (which I think is somewhat of a misnomer since I think there is more than one natural law tradition).
I’ve wondered if the recent resurgence in interest among philosophers in natural law theory is also spurred in part by current controversies over questions in sexual and biomedical ethics and allied public policy issues. To give only one example, the best arguments I have seen in opposition to legalizing same sex marriage are those of John Finnis, whose work in this area has been key in sparking an interesting new philosophical literature on the so-called “new natural lawyers”.
I gather that Wolterstorff’s new work does not fall squarely in the natural law tradition. Maybe his work will consequently receive a wider readership among moral and political philosophers.
I would like to go back to Kononchak’s original, core proposition, which I believe is logically prior to and underlying of any debates over natural law, since it proposes a notion that is essential to the history and intellectual tradition of Western civilization, religious or secular. “‘God loves… each and every human being equally and permanently’; and if this is true then ‘natural human rights are grounded in that love’.” This is, of course, taken out of Genesis 1′s then most radical vision that humanity, male and female, is created as God’s image. One couple (therefore, there can be no racism). Male and female (therefore there can be no sexism). From this the equality of all humans, and therefore the theological/philosophical basis of what we mean by justice, emanates. So, Komonchak is right in grounding the Enlightenment, the American Revolution and modern, secular notions of equal justice for all on Sacred Scripture as interpreted over the centuries by Jews and Christians alike. The Scriptures do presume a heterosexual normality. But, extremely interestingly, homosexuality or lesbianism never figure in a biblical story as a major sin that causes God to punish. The sin of Sodom is rape, not homosexuality. The Ten Commandments prohibit adultery, which means just that. Not anything else.
Think about it.
Gene Fisher
. “‘God loves… each and every human being equally and permanently’; and if this is true then ‘natural human rights are grounded in that love’.”
Why? Because 1) they have intrinsic value and *therefore* He loves them? Or is it because 2) He loves them and *therefore* they are valuable?
If 1) then the question becomes; what is this value and how do we know it?
If 2) then to be valuable is to be loved. I don’t see any necessary connection between God’s loving us (in spite of ourselves) and the necessity that we respect each other.
Prof. Vanderschraaf: The sentence you cite is Prof. Wolterstorff’s, not mine, although I do agree with it.
Ann: I suppose things will depend on what kind of necessity one desires. In the OT links are made between what God has done for Israel and what Israel is to do. In the Gospels, from the extraordinary generosity of the master’s forgiveness of the huge debt of his servant is derived that servant’s obligation to forgive the paltry debt owed him by a fellow servant: “I forgave you your debt…; should you not have dealt mercifully with your fellow servant?” There is no necessary logical link that moves from the recognition that one has been mercifully treated to the requirement that one deal with one’s fellows in the same way. No logical link, but is there not some kind of link, ending with an “ought”: “Should you not have forgiven as you were forgiven?”
An “ought” also enters into the revealing exchange between resentful older son and prodigal father: “All these years I slaved for you and never once disobeyed you. But you never gave me even a little goat to celebrate with my friends.” “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we have to celebrate. Your brother was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found.” In the older son’s world of slavish obedience to orders for the sake of reward, there is no room for the father’s “We have to celebrate!” But in the world defined by the father’s love that “have to” is obvious. Love sees things that must be done that non-love overlooks. “The heart has reasons that reason does not know.”
“There is no necessary logical link that moves from the recognition that one has been mercifully treated to the requirement that one deal with one’s fellows in the same way. No logical link, but is there not some kind of link, ending with an “ought”: ”
JAK –
You hit the nail on its head. So where/what is the link? This is why I never got into ethics. (I had one bad undergraduate course and that was more than enough floundering in it for me.) The foundations of ethics have yet to be discovered. I’m quite sure they will involve that “ought” which is not simply a matter of truth. Ethical judgements must end in goodness or beauty (really the same thing so far as I can see), and I strongly suspect “ought” has to do with what is signified by that elusive concept “fitting”. IYes, concepts also signify. See Ockham.)
For some reason I tend to think that jig-saw puzzles have a lot to teach us about fittingness. (If you’re going to do a linguistic analysis, always start with the literal or root meaning of a word.) But on the face of it, fitting a jig-saw piece into the jig-saw puzzle is objectively thoroughly trivial. Also “fittingness” is a very dangerous idea. What is fitting to you can be abominable to another — consider Auschwitz.
So how can we discover the objective bases of what is truly fitting/moral? Or is fittingness just another ethical dead end? The center does not hold because there is no center.
Ann
Plato (somewhere in the Theaetetus) says that we should aim to be as godlike as possible. Aristotle said something similar in NE Book 10. Christ revealed in his own person what it is to be “godlike” in way that Plato never imagined. And he called upon the rest of us to follow him. So by the grace of God becoming godlike is incumbent upon us all. But God shows mercy. So then should we. Of course this argument will not persuade one who does not already believe. If you were to say that “love your fellow human being as yourself” is the foundation of any satisfactory social ethic, I would agree. I don’t think by reason alone you can prove that this is something one ought to do. But I would also say that by reason alone one cannot show that it is not some thing that one ought to do or at least aspire to do. I would like to think that this thought, if it does not quite motivate to action, could at least in many lead to an uncomfortable conscience.
“Fittingness” in Aquinas (convenientia) refers to an intelligibility that is not necessary. E.g., with regard to the Incarnation: where St. Anselm sought “necessary reasons” that would show why it had to occur, Aquinas sought arguments (and there were many of them) that showed how fitting it was but fell short of a demonstration of its necessity. Aquinas was most critical of those who claimed to show necessity where none could be found (because things depended on the free choice of God), because it gave unbelievers the opportunity to ridicule Chirstianity because of the weakness and non-probative character of the arguments advanced. He referred to this as causing the irrisio infidelium, the mockery of non-believers. One example was the arguments offered to prove that the world had to have a beginning, which Aquinas did not believe could be demonstrated.
So in the two parables of Jesus to which I referred, the “oughts” can’t be logically demonstrated, but those who inhabit the world the parables open and love as the parables urge sense so supreme a fittingness that it amounts to a very exigent “ought”. “We have to celebrate!” “You should have forgiven your fellow servant!” These oughts describe how we should live if the world is as Jesus describes it. Only in that world, that kind of world, can the ought be experienced, and then only by those attuned to it.
You ask: “So how can we discover the objective bases of what is truly fitting/moral?” That way of posing the issue seems close to the idea of “objectivity” that Lonergan called “mere delusion”, that is, the idea of some “‘objective’ criterion or test or control.” Later in , he has this: “If one considers logical proof to be basic, one wants an objectivity that is independent of the concrete existing subject. But while objectivity reaches what is independent of the concrete existing subject, objectivity itself is not reached by what is independent of the concrete existing subject. On the contrary, objectivity is reached through the self-transcendence of the conctete existing subject, and the fundamental forms of self-transcendence are intellectual, moral, and religious conversion. To attempt to ensure objectivity apart from self-transcendence only generates illusions.” A footnote quotes Newman: “Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude; first shoot round corners and you many not despair of converting by a syllogism.”
Take the difference between older son and father in the parable. Which one of them is right, “objectively” right? Is there an “objective” ought, as the father says; or is there no “objective” ought? Can some third party, say a moral theologian or philosopher of ethics, settle the issue “objectively”? I don’t think so.
Sorry that I’m coming so late to this interesting discussion. Let me raise two separate questions.
1.Cottingham says that Wolterstorff’s arguments imply “that our culture of rights could only come into existence supported by a metaphysical framework that exhibits each human being…as loved redemptively by God.” If so, and if “the acceptance of the Christian metaphysical framework is steadily eroding…then the future outlook of our culture of rights looks bleak.” I ask: If this metaphysical frameworrk was historically decisive for the coming into existence of “our cultural of rights,” does it follow that this culture’s continued existence is similarly dependent? I don’t see that it does follow logically, but it does give one pause.
2.Does the imputation of actions to someone as his or her morally good or bad deed logically imply that there is some universal standard according to which the imputation is warranted, even if any articulation of such a standard is always formulated by some fallible person at some particular time and place> I think that there is this logical implication.
Fr. Komonchak, is what I say here compatible with Lonergan’s distinction concerning objectivity that you mentioned above?
Some comments –
* Sounds to me like Wolterstorff is not a philosopher in Thomas’ sense, anyway. W. appeals to revelation to ground his view, which is fine for believers, but what do we do in a democracy which includes nonbelievers? It’s well and good to say that the Bible was the source of our assertion of rights for all people, but what do you say to an atheist libertarian who demands a reason to love a serial murderer? And what rational grounds for asserting the existence of rights are there for non-believers who’d just as soon be rid of much of the epopulation?
The aporia for democracies is to ground an ethics without a God. I rather doubt that charity can be demanded without a God because by definition charity is non-necessary. Sure, it is to society’s advantage sometimes to be generous, but can/should it ever be required? IF so, when? Justice seems as far as a democracy can go.f
* If you can prove that a benign God exists and that He is a loving God; and if you think that finite goods are good to the extent that they are like God, then it would follow that we ought to love as God loves. But without revelation, just what does that mean — to love as God loves? Even the Greek philosophers didn’t get to a notion of a loving, personal God.
““Fittingness” in Aquinas (convenientia) refers to an intelligibility that is not necessary”
JAJ –
IF that is all it means, then it is simply what is gratuitous. In aesthetics it means something more specific (that which completes or enhances, etc.), and I suspect it ought to mean more in ethics. Consider what would begratuitous and NOT fitting — singing an dramatic Verdi aria during a different piece of music, e.g., the slow middle movement of a Beethoven symphony.
Looking at the root “convenientia” it would seem to be some sort of coming=together but an appropriat. one. Unfortunatley, the origin of the word “fit” isn’t known.
“You ask: “So how can we discover the objective bases of what is truly fitting/moral?” That way of posing the issue seems close to the idea of “objectivity” that Lonergan called “mere delusion”, that is, the idea of some “‘objective’ criterion or test or control.” ”
JAK –
I find this Lonerganian description of “objectivity” in this snip far removed from the ordinary referent of the term (realitie whose existence is independent of being thought). What he says in the snip above sounds positively Humean.
In this snip he sounds like Plato: ” “If one considers logical proof to be basic, one wants an objectivity that is independent of the concrete existing subject. But while objectivity reaches what is independent of the concrete existing subject, objectivity itself is not reached by what is independent of the concrete existing subject.” See? Ultimately the only way he gets to things is through a participation theory.
Here he seems to have turned rather Kantian: ” On the contrary, objectivity is reached through the self-transcendence of the conctete existing subject, and the fundamental forms of self-transcendence are intellectual, moral, and religious conversion.”
At anu rate, in what does he ground moral goodness? Does he think that it is a characteristic (or identical with) the good thing itself and therefore “objective” in the ordinary sense of “objective”? Or does he think that the knowing subject somehow constitues the good by his own action? Or what?