On natural law and theory of biology

John Lunstroth

This is the first or second of a series of posts on how the theory or philosophy of biology links with ideas of health through theory of law. In other words, it is about human norms.

Below is John Finis’ definition of natural law. I am continuing to read about justice, and recently finished Martha Nusbaum’s Frontiers of Justice (2006). That indirectly led me to Finnis (Natural Law and Natural Rights, 1980), Joseph Raz (The Authority of Law, 1979), and rereading Brian Tierney (The Idea of Natural Rights) and Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics). I am reading around and through Finnis, and dipping into the others as I feel inclined for other points of view or to check his references.

A note, before proceeding, on my impression of Raz. His opening essay is, on his own account, a “very abstract analysis of authority.” In and of itself it is problematic, but it is his move in the second chapter that bears comment. In the chapter on authority he argues for the idea of authority in people. He does not address the idea of role, although it is very much present, nor does he move much into the idea of social structures. He wants very much to identify something that is located in a human body. Having worked hard to make his argument, about it being something in bodies, he opens chapter 2 with a summary argument that because authority is a source of protected utterances, and the law is or issues protected utterances, the law is authority as well. This appears to be an argument by analogy, but one in which he compares the acts of an intentional biological creature with those of something institutional, the law. He did not hint in the discussion about personal authority that later he would be addressing issues of institutional authority, but perhaps he will. At this point his argument is deeply flawed by failing to address the issue of social order and social institutions; of how authority is, in the sense he wants to address, a feature of institutions, not individuals; that such authority derives from a theory of justice, not a crabbed and reductionist account of the meaning of the word “authority”. This is a nice lead-in to Finnis’ description of natural law:

There is (i) a set of basic practical principles which indicate the basic forms of human flourishing as goods to be pursued and realized, and which are in one way nor another used by everyone who considers what to do, however unsound his conclusions; and (ii) a set of basic methodological requirements of practical reasonableness (itself one of the basic forms of human flourishing) which distinguish sound from unsound practical thinking and which, when all brought to bear, provide the criteria for distinguishing between acts that (always or in particular circumstances) are reasonable-all-things-considered (and not merely relative to a particular purpose) and acts that are unreasonable-all-things-considered, i.e., between ways of acting that are morally right or morally wrong – thus enabling one to formulate (iii) a set of moral standards. (p. 23)

It is important to have a clear idea of what natural law is for a number of reasons (if you are someone to whom ideas of morality and law [ethics] are important), and this definition serves as a useful reference point, although it is inherently limited. One of the reasons that I intend to develop in this series of posts is the relationship between a theory or philosophy of biology and political health. Since population health is a function of political health, these ideas link medicine, intention/responsibility, “public” and political health. This inquiry will or should provide a foundation for an ethics of public health, among other thing. It also provides a means to frame ethical problems of other social institutions such as the intelligence community.

Here are some points I think it is important to gather from the definition:

1. It is Aristotelian. Finnis, apparently joined by Macintyre, prefers Aquinas’ development of Aristotle as a basis for developing a neo-Aristotelian theory, but the reliance on the structure defined by A is indisputable and ultimately important as we are provided with the words of the Philosopher himself in which to search for understanding, and by which to illuminate decisions taken by Finnis in articulating his theory.

2. Nussbaum is also in this tradition, although Finnis is not referenced in her book probably because they have had at least one major pissing contest.

3. Finnis intends his definition to be an ahistorical statement, true for all time. Finnis limits his theory to humans, although Nussbaum rightly, following Aristotle, extends the theory to all living things.

4. Everything about the theory is linked to the idea of flourishing (eudaimonia). Only living things can flourish. Living things are born, take in food, develop, get sick, and die. To flourish means to live well. Flourishing, then, is the “ought” for every living thing. It is not good to do things that degrade, inhibit or otherwise interfere with flourishing; it is good to do things that promote and result in flourishing. Flourishing is The Good for or of living things.

5. That the foundation of the theory appears to be located in the individual life raises two sets of questions: (a) In a profound way the foregoing appears to be a biological theory, a theory of the organism. But why is not being propounded by scientists since biology is a science? (b) On the other hand, of what relevance is it to political theory? Flourishing appears to be about individuals, not communities.

6. This is a theory about doing things, about things that could happen in the future as a result of a decision made also in the future. It is, as are all ethical and moral inquiries, about figuring out not only the best way to make the decision, but the best decision to make. It is predictive. However, stating the problem in this fashion suggests there is a qualitative difference between the past, the present and the future, that things, situations or events are discretely bound in something called time. As we examine some of the implications of the theory this proposition will strained to the point of failure in some contexts.

7. I will look at some other theories of natural law later.

8 The issue of whether non-living things have something by which it can be said they flourish is interesting. I am not speaking of something like the Gaia Hypothesis, which is about the earth as a living organism because it clearly includes and can be measured by living things. In what sense is it meaningful to speak of a rock flourishing, for example? Humans, and perhaps other animals, are immensely interesting and perceptive, considered as a whole; therefore there are meaningful ways to approach that issue, which I will also come back to later.