St. Paul says, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

St. Paul’s statement that he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law leads some to the mistaken conclusion that the rest of those commandments are unnecessary – that if only I do it lovingly, for example, I may commit adultery.

On the contrary, the commandment of love and the particular commandments are interdependent.  We learn from the commandment of love the point of the particular commandments and the spirit in which they should be practiced; but we learn from the particular commandments what genuine love actually requires.  Adultery is of such a nature that it cannot be committed lovingly; love is of such a nature that it loathes the very thought of adultery.

Tomorrow:  The Apple and the Worm

I suppose it is obvious that our rational inclinations include everything pertaining to seeking the truth, especially the most important truth, the truth about God.  As the eyes seek to see, as the lungs seek to breath, so the mind seeks to deliberate and attain knowledge.

Surprisingly, Thomas Aquinas suggests that the family of tendencies that belong to rationality has a second branch too:  Everything pertaining to “living in society,” for example, avoiding unnecessary offense.  Why doesn’t he group the inclination to live in society with the inclinations we share with animals?  Aren’t many animals naturally social?

The answer is that just because we are rational, human society is a radically different kind of thing than the “society” of cows.  For us, to be social is not just to belong to an association for finding food or avoiding predators, important as those things are, but to belong to a partnership in pursuit of the truth.  Seeking and knowing the truth is not a private endeavor; it is not the kind of thing that can be done apart from community.

This fact has far-reaching implications for the ordering of human society.  It’s too bad we don’t often think about them.

Sunday:  Getting the Point

As an acorn is targeted upon becoming an oak, so in other cases, for a being with a nature to seek its particular good is to aim at what perfects, fulfills, or completes it -- what it is made for, what it is ordered to, what fully actualizes its potentiality.  Not even an addict who craves heroin seeks destruction as such; he seeks some lesser good that he mistakes for his greatest good but that really destroys it.

So often, when people say they are seeking fulfillment, what they mean is merely “I am trying to get what I desire.”  They assume that this will be fulfilling, even when what they desire is destructive of their nature.  Our natural inclinations are not what we happen to crave, but what we are made to pursue, what the unfolding of our inbuilt potentialities requires.

When all goes well, our natural inclinations and our cravings correspond, yet the match can certainly fail.  Those who suffer physical or psychological disorders may subjectively long for things that are bad for them; so may the immature; so may those who are habituated to vice.  Just as a ball may roll up instead of down an inclined plane if some other force is acting on it, so a person may not desire what he is naturally inclined to desire -- but this in no way shows that he is not naturally inclined to desire it.

Tomorrow:  How You Are Different from a Cow

The original “Is and Ought" post

Not only is it possible to make inferences from is to ought, that is, from descriptive premises to evaluative conclusions -- but it is also possible to make inferences from ought to is.

An example of an inference from is to ought:

Pregnancy is not a disturbance of natural function, but is itself a natural function.  Hence it is wrong to view it as view it as a disease which can be "treated" by abortion.

An example of an inference from ought to is:

Lying is wrong.  This precept discloses to us that the social practice of conversation is ordered to the mutual discovery of truth -- to a cooperative endeavor to bring thought into alignment with how things really are.

Tomorrow:  Of Acorns and Men

When I show my students the following passage, some of them are unable to take it in.  They think the author must merely mean that pregnancy increases the risk of certain illnesses.  No, that is not what he is saying.  Read it again carefully.  I’ve added boldface for emphasis.

The foregoing discussion should allow us to abandon the erroneous assumption that pregnancy is per se a normal and desirable state, and to consider instead a more accurate view that human pregnancy is an episodic, moderately extended chronic condition with a definable morbidity and mortality risk to which females are uniquely though not uniformly susceptible and which:

-- is almost entirely preventable through the use of effective contraception, and entirely so through abstinence;

-- when not prevented, is the individual result of a set of species specific bio-social adaptations with a changing significance for species survival;

-- may be defined as an illness requiring medical supervision through (a) cultural traditions, functional or explicit, (b) circumstantial self-definition of illness or (c) individual illness behavior;

-- may be treated by evacuation of the uterine contents;

-- may be tolerated, sought, and/or valued for the purpose of reproduction; and

-- has an excellent prognosis for complete, spontaneous recovery if managed under careful medical supervision.  [He means the woman gives birth to the child.]

Accordingly, the open recognition and legitimation of pregnancy as an illness would be consistent with the individual self-interest of those experiencing pregnancy, good standards of medical practice, and the continued survival of human and other species.

This is the entire conclusion of an article by abortionist Warren M. Hern, M.D., "Is Pregnancy Really Normal?"  But his opinion is not really unusual; he merely states it more bluntly than most people who think his way do.

Tomorrow:  Is and Ought Again