Distinguish, distinguish, distinguish!  “Natural” is one of those polyvalent words that get us into tangles if we don’t keep its various senses straight.

By the “natural,” the classical natural law thinkers meant what pertains to our nature, our creational design.  For example, the power to reflect on our purposes is called natural because we are endowed with it; honoring parents is called natural because it is fitting for us; and friendship is called natural because we need it in order to flourish.

But in the modern period, people came to call things natural if they are simple, spontaneous, unlearned, unrestrained, unimproved, or unmodified by law or custom.  This is what people have in mind when they say it is more natural to babble than to speak, to eat with one’s fingers than to use utensils, to bang two rocks together than to play bongo drums, to push to the front of the line than to wait for one’s turn, or to have sexual intercourse entirely without care or commitment.

Notice that things that are natural in the modern sense are usually profoundly unnatural in the classical sense.  For example, the modern thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke called anarchy our “state of nature” or natural condition because they thought government was an invention; we didn’t have it at first.  Why did they think it had to be invented?  Because anarchy was so violent and inconvenient.    But to a classical thinker, the very fact that anarchy is so violent and inconvenient shows that it isn’t our natural condition.  The state of affairs most suited to the complete and appropriate unfolding of our natural potentialities is richly articulated by customs and upheld by just laws.  Whether we had all these things from the first is beside the point.

So when the modern thinkers denied that man is naturally political, they might have thought they were disagreeing with the classical view, but they weren’t even properly addressing it.  They meant something different by the “natural.”

A recent headline in the Wall Street Journal announces, “Twitter CEO Costolo struggles to define vision.”

All right, it’s a business publication.  Still, am I the only person who finds it diverting to associate the word “Twitter” with the word “vision”?

History presents to us two nearly opposite meanings of freedom.  Among the classical thinkers (bearing in mind that not all ancient thinkers were classical), the term referred not to the absence of government, but to a certain kind of governance, whether over a multitude of people, a single man, or an aspect of a man.

Thus, in the political sense, the people of a republic were called "free" because they collectively ruled themselves (rather than being under the thumb of a tyrant).  In the domestic sense, a freeman was called "free" because he ruled himself (rather than being ruled by a master).  In the moral sense, a virtuous man was called "free" because he was ruled by the principle that most fully expressed his nature, this being his reason (rather than being ruled by his desires).  And in the religious sense, a Christian was called "free" because he served the Author of his being, in whose image he was made, apart from whom he could not truly be himself, for to be alienated from the one in whose image I am made is to be alienated from my own being.

By degrees, the meaning of the term changed.  So long as they do not think too deeply about the matter, modern people tend to regard freedom not as freedom from the wrong kind of rule, but as freedom from rule.

In the political sense, this would make the people of a republic freer than the people of a tyranny only if they happened to make fewer rules for themselves than a tyrant would.  In fact, the only true freedom would be anarchy, which has no rules at all, although freedom in this sense turns out to be inconvenient.  In the domestic sense, a freeman would be freer than a slave not because he ruled himself, but only because he was more nearly able to do as he pleased -- if, in fact, he was more nearly able.  In the moral sense, a virtuous man would be freer than a vicious one only if his reason happened to put less constraint on his will than his base desires did.  The only true freedom would be following whatever impulse one happened to have at the moment; however one might dress this up by calling it “autonomy,” as though we were gods, the condition is less superhuman than subhuman.  In the religious sense, a person would be free only if he served nothing and no one.  Since in this view of things, God looks like a tyrant, some suppose that the only free spirit is the atheist.  Carrying the line of reasoning still further, some take the view that not even the atheist is truly free, if he serves the cause of atheism.

The culmination of the idea is that no one is truly free unless he does what he does merely because he does it; unless he has no particular reason for doing anything at all; unless his choices are meaningless.  In this sense, freedom is not so much inconvenient as futile, and human existence is absurd.  Which is just what some people conclude.

Query:

The phenomena you describe as the “revenge of conscience” seem a reality in our day.  I find it difficult to be optimistic about the course of events.  Forgive me if the question is too personal, but do you possess a melancholic nature?  And where do you think things are heading?

Reply:

It is personal, but I get it so often -- especially from people tempted to melancholia -- that perhaps I should reply.  Both optimists and pessimists think they know what is going to happen on earth, but optimists think it will be good and pessimists think it will be bad.  By these definitions I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist, because I don’t think I know is going to happen on earth.  By straight-line extrapolation, the near future looks bad, so it is easy to be melancholy.  But if there is one thing we can learn from history, straight-line extrapolation is always wrong.

True, so much damage has been done to our moral culture that it may take generations to repair it, and it is good to be prepared for the possibility that things will get a good deal worse before they get better.  But I do not think it is possible for them to go on getting worse with no end.  True, we have developed such elaborate social technologies to put off the natural consequences of our manner of life that when the day of reckoning finally comes, it is likely to come with great force.  But mercy brings good even from affliction; it is doing so now.

The great thing is to act with love toward those within reach of our actions, have courage, be cheerful, trust God, and not worry about how He is doing His job.  “Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

I wish I had a line in my CV for every time I’ve heard reputedly intelligent persons – sometimes even ethical theorists -- dismiss moral realism with the line, “Who gets to say what’s moral?”

What does a person have to believe to consider such a trite remark a crushing rejoinder?  Maybe the argument would run something like this:  (1)  There are no universally true moral precepts.  (2)  Or if there are, they are so mysterious that no one can be expected to know them.  (3)  Therefore you shouldn’t impose your moral precepts on me.  (4)  Proposition 3 is a universally true moral precept, and you ought to know it.  (5)  So I get to impose it on you.

Or maybe like this:  (1)  If anything were really right or really wrong, I wouldn’t like it.  (2)  Therefore nothing is really right or really wrong.  (3)  And it’s really wrong to think that anything really is.