You keep using that term, I don't think it means what you think it means...

Before I get into this week's topic, I'll take a moment to review some of the older philosophical posts. In going back over them, I found several cases where I seemed to be making an argument which I didn't intend to make. And, in others I don't seem to have a point at all. This is all fine. I am learning how to put these ideas down in writing more effectively, and that was always going to involve starting less effectively.

The worst case was, I think, the long quotations post. It was supposed to be about differences in general, but it comes across as though I argue that one case of a superficial difference rules out the possibility of anything being substantively similar. That is not what I intended. This post came from a couple of conversations I had, which typified others. In one, I asked a theology professor if supposed similarities between different religious traditions might in fact be deceptively similar and not really the same thing at all. His response was to put any criticisms to the idea that different cultures could share basic commonalities inevitably leads to incommensurability, and that different cultures were bound to constant conflict. I thought he was overstating his case and not really addressing the possibility that differences might be real, no matter what the consequence. And, another conversation in which I tried to argue from the Huston Smith idea that the world's "religions" are really all the same thing. That is an extreme generalization of Huston Smith, but it helps clarify my point. In that conversation, a well-meaning friend was trying to argue that things like zen and stoicism really were the same thing, supplying me with my point in the post. So, in the post, I was trying to show that even though some ideas seem similar, they can be different. And that we can't really be respectful of these ideas if we don't recognize that.

The Altruism post, one that I still like, had similar issues in argumentation, in that I was casually trying to cover ideas, and in doing so I fail to address a possible but inaccurate reading of the argument. In a more rigorous method, this would be fairly damning.

The post on objectivity seems to have no real point. I suppose all I was trying to do was recount how my own ideas about objectivity were formed, and in doing so explain what I think it is (or isn't, actually). It may have been an attempt to show how philosophical reflection and insight can be a less that straightforward progression. Oh well, I still am generally happy with this post.

But, in that, I want to get on to making a new point. One that I have been thinking about for a while. Now that I know to avoid certain tendencies I have, I should be able to write better, but maybe I'll only accomplish an over abundance of caution, and not be able to say anything at all.

On to the post.

As gay marriage continues to be a major current topic, we are almost certain to be subjected to a total misunderstanding of one of the most important ideas in history, Natural Law. A simple Google News search for the term Natural Law reveals that the groups most likely to refer to it are conservative bloggers or conservative news providers. (For the sake of civility, I'll leave out the letters to the editor I found.) I had planned to write about the misuse of the term in general without reference to gay marriage, but the results were so overwhelming I found it acceptable to go ahead and address it specifically. This article is a fair representation of how the term is abuse. Basically, the idea is that "marriage" as between one man and one woman is a more "natural" expression of God's law.

While the connection to religion helps explain the prevalence of conservatives referring to this misunderstanding of Natural Law, its misuse isn't limited to them. Here, a group of reasonably well education, very clever people make the same mistake. Not to suggest that conservatives can't be clever, or aren't educated. But, while one can imagine the negative consequence of groupthink explaining the way conservatives use the term, the creators of that PEL podcast should have known better. Yet they make incessant references to Natural Law being "God's Law."

And, to add a personal note, I once received a terrible grade on a long paper that I put serious effort into. It was on Natural Law, and the TA who graded it literally thought that Natural Law was only about physics or other scientific principles. He clearly didn't even bother to look up the term Natural Law.

Unless you haven't guessed already, Natural Law doesn't actually refer to God's Law. That is usually referred to with the highly technical philosophical term "religious law" or as the codified legal tradition of the religious group that defined it (sharia law, levitical law, etc.) Natural Law was developed by super religious zealots like Aristotle and Cicero (as if). And, yes, it involves God and looking at nature for understanding. But, it is most assuredly  not God's Law. It is, rather, a temporal, changeable, and imperfect expression of what could be described as the absolute, abstract principles of law that were set down by God. 

Law can never issue an injection binding on all which really embodies what is best for each; it cannot prescribe with perfect accuracy what is good and right for each member of the community at any one time....The variety of man's activities and the inevitable unsettlement attending all human experience make it impossible for any art whatsoever to issue unqualified rules holding good on all questions at all times. - Plato "Statesman"

Now, I am not claiming that all law derives from God. There are plenty of legal theories. But, if you claim that something is Natural Law, like "traditional" marriage, then you are making at least some appeal to the idea that there are absolute ideas of justice. And, that they can at least be supported, in a temporary way, through law. In other words, Natural Law isn't how God's word implements itself in the world, it is what we, through speculation and insight, uncover by understanding what is good, changeable as it is. Or, as Thomas Aquinas said it:

From the preceding we may gather the definition of law. It is nothing other than a reasonable direction of beings toward a common good, promulgated by the one who is charged with the community. - Aquinas, Summa Theologica Question 94

 So, if "traditional marriage" were "Natural Law," it could in fact change. And it would be based on what we find as good, not only what we observe in nature (though, it should be stated, homosexuality is found in other species). And, moreover, it isn't even that traditional. It wasn't even until 900 years ago, hardly the entire history of human society, that it even had much to do with love.

So, to recap, this wasn't about gay marriage. It was about Natural Law. I am trying to explain that the way people are using it is wrong and I use gay marriage to demonstrate that.

However, I found so many people using it wrong in the same way, I am beginning to think maybe there is a whole alternate way of thinking about Natural Law that I am  not aware of. But I am pretty sure that there isn't. I looked it up. This is something that TAs who grade papers on this subject or students who are recording podcasts on social contract theory should learn to do too. Although, it is forgivable. We all make mistakes like this. Even the cleverest and best educated of us.