Video of Marvin Olasky Interviewing Me

Comment from a student:  "The Pope is thought to be pretty progressive.  Has he softened the Church’s stance on moral issues?”

Pope Francis believes what the Church has always believed, but I think he may be trying too hard to say it nicely.  The problem is that true love desires our true good.  If what we want isn’t our true good, then what true love wants for us sounds harsh no matter how you put it.  If you overdo the soft words -- “Who am I to judge?” -- people think you have softened the doctrine itself -- “He’s saying it’s not wrong.”

A convert I know from the time of John Paul II’s papacy says that before her conversion, “I asked myself what the true Church would look like.  She would tell the truth, and the whole world would hate her for doing so.  When I looked at the Church, that’s what I saw.”

Tomorrow:  A Dialogue on Natural Law, Part 5 of 10

You speak of what we “can’t not know,” but surely children don't already know the natural law.

Correct.  When we speak of things we can't not know we have in mind people who have reached the age of reason.  That's why I've sometimes described the natural law as what we can't not know "or can't help learning."  Although I suspect that even children know more than you think.  When Billy steals Susan's cupcake, Susan knows enough to cry "Not fair!", and Billy knows enough to lie about it.

You mean so that he won't be spanked.

Right.

But doesn't that show he doesn't know he did wrong?

No.  It shows that violating one known duty gives Billy an immediate motive to violate another.

So you think even pretty young children know some of the natural law.

Yes.  Some of it.

But not all of it.

Not all.

But if children don't know all of it, then it isn't innate knowledge after all.

Who said it was?

Don't all natural law thinkers say it is?

No.  That's a common misconception.  When you say "innate," you mean something like "born with us."  How could the newborn baby know that gratuitously hurting people is wrong, when he doesn't even know that there are people?

But if the so-called first principles aren't innate, then how can you call them "first"?

They aren't first in the order of time, but in the order of reason.  They are the unprovables from which proofs are built.  The reason it takes a long time to know things like "Gratuitously hurting people is wrong" is that it takes a long time to form concepts of gratuitousness, hurting, people, and wrong.  Our minds are so made, however, that as soon as we do grasp these concepts, we immediately recognize that gratuitously hurting people is wrong.  The technical expressions are that although the precept is not innate, it's per se nota, "known in itself," "underived."

I don't buy that.  If everyone knows certain precepts, it's only because everyone is taught them.

In that case it's mighty strange that everyone is taught the same precepts.  How do you explain the fact that the same ones are taught everywhere?

The same ones aren't taught everywhere.  Christians restrict a man to one wife; Muslims permit up to four.

We were talking about basics, not details.  Show me a society that doesn't recognize the institution of marriage!

But that's only for the preservation of the species.

I thought you were trying to tell me that there isn't any natural law.  Now you're trying to tell me why there is.

No, what I mean is that I concede the reality of instincts.  All this talk of "conscience" is just mystification.

Morality is not an instinct.  If it were, we might think we should resist it, but we wouldn't be able to.  The facts are just the opposite.  We can and do resist it, but think we shouldn't.

So maybe it's not an instinct; call it a predisposition, or just prudence.  It's still about preservation.  We want our kind to survive.  Sometimes what is needed for survival goes against my personal wishes, that's all.

Who do you mean by "our kind"?  What helps a family to survive might not help the larger society to survive.  What helps society to survive might not help a particular family to survive.

I mean our species.  I'm talking about the human race.

That's a little arbitrary, isn't it?  Don't people want their families and their societies to survive too?  Besides, morality isn't about whether the human race survives, but about what kind of survival it gets.  We marry; guppies don't.  We don't eat our young; they do.  Yet neither species is in danger of extinction.

A Dialogue on Natural Law, Part 5

Mondays are my student query days.

Question:

I’ve been arguing with some of my friends about marriage and family.  When I bring up a certain scholar’s findings, they say “His data and inferences are worthless because he’s cooperated in a project of the Vatican.”  I don’t know how to answer that.  Has he really done work with the Vatican?

Reply:

So what if he did?  You will never gain your point by playing defense.  Whether the scholar has worked with the Church is the wrong question.

Turn it around.  Ask your friends, “Where do you get the nerve to ask make such a lazy and bigoted remark?  You haven’t identified any problems with his data or inferences.  You’ve merely revealed that you despise people who disagree with you.”

Evangelicals and Catholics are the last groups in America which one can insult without consequences.  Make it have consequences.

Tomorrow:  A Dialogue on Natural Law, Part 4 of 10

It would be much easier to agree upon the answers if only people would take the questions seriously.

Not long ago, at the reception following a talk I had attended about the revival of classical architecture, I met a friendly and intelligent fellow who described himself as liberal, recognized that he was in largely conservative company, and said he was glad to chat because didn’t understand why all his liberal friends were such relativists.  I thought that was promising.

You won’t be surprised that the conversation turned to abortion.   You won’t be surprise that he was pro.  But he was intrigued to hear that once upon a time I had been pro-abortion too.  What had changed my mind? he asked.

I told him there had been a lot of reasons, but the first was the arbitrariness of claiming that the child is one kind of thing one minute after leaving the womb and another kind of thing one minute before.  We have rights because of the sort of being that we are.  So at what point did a human individual come into being?  Pushing the threshold back, I told him that I hadn’t been able to find a truly fundamental change until I hit conception.  Before that there isn’t a human individual, only an egg and a sperm.  After that, there is.

He made it rather difficult to get the argument out.  The first objection came right at the beginning, when I said we have rights because of what we are.  He said he didn’t want to discuss such metaphysical questions as what we are.  I suggested that indecision is a form of decision – that by trying not to think about metaphysics we merely trap ourselves in bad metaphysics that we don’t know we believe.  This point made no impression on him.  He was a relativist, like his friends, but didn’t realize it.

I asked, “But don’t you find it arbitrary to say the child has rights a minute after birth but not a minute before?”  He answered, “You have to draw the line somewhere.”

Tomorrow:  Make It Have Consequences

You saying playing fair is a natural law.  But some people don't play fair.

I haven't argued that people always obey these precepts.  I've only argued that they know them.

If they don't always obey them, then how do you know that they know them?

Because even when they don't obey them, they betray the telltale signs of guilty knowledge.  For example, they make excuses.  They try to convince everyone that they are playing fair and the others aren't.

But if there are things we "can't not know," then how is it even possible to make excuses?

People make excuses by using what they can't not know.  All folk know that you ought to return a favor, so to rationalize not returning one they pretend either that they did return it or that it wasn't a favor.  All folk know the wrong of deliberately taking innocent human life, so in order to rationalize murder they play games with the meaning of "deliberate," "innocent," "human," or "life."  Excuses are not evidence that people don't know the natural law, but that they do.

What about people who really don't know what they "can't not know?"

How do you know they don't know it?

Because they say they don't.

Like relativists, thieves, and abortionists?

Well, yes.

I don't believe them.

So when someone denies that he knows the natural law, your only answer is "That just proves you're in denial."

Not at all.  Everyone knows that it's wrong to cheat.  If someone tells me that he has no such knowledge, it's true that I don't believe him.  But I don't confuse denying it with "being in denial."  For evidence that he really is in denial, I look elsewhere.  For example, see how quickly he complains of injustice when someone tries to cheat him.

Here's someone who doesn't know what he "can't not know":  The cannibal.  He doesn't know that he shouldn't murder.

It is most unlikely that he doesn't know the wrong of deliberately taking innocent human life.  What is much more likely is that he doesn't think the people in the other tribe are human.

What good is it to honor human life if you don't know who is human?

I didn't say he doesn't know that the people in the other tribe are human.  I said he doesn't think that they are.  Deep down, even the cannibal knows better.  Otherwise, why does he perform elaborate expiatory rituals before he takes their lives?

Suppose you're right, and people do know the moral basics.  Then why is it necessary to remind them?

Are you asking why moral education is necessary?  All the forms of training from parental discipline on up?

Yes.  If we already know what moral education has to tell us, then what purpose does it serve?

Moral education serves at least five purposes.  It reinforces what we know, because the mere fact that we know something is wrong is not enough to keep us from doing it.  It elicits what we know, because we know many things without noticing that we know them.  It guards what we know, because although deep conscience cannot err, surface conscience can err in all too many ways.  It builds upon what we know, because only the most general and basic matters of right and wrong are known to us immediately, and second knowledge must be added to first.  Finally, it confronts us about what we know, because sometimes we need to be told "You know better."

 A  Dialogue on Natural Law, Part 4