Universal Ethic-Convergences 4-Graeco-Roman Sources

1.2. The Graeco-Roman sources of the natural law

18. The idea that a natural right exists prior to any positive legal laws is already to be found in the classical Greek culture with the exemplary figure of Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus. Her two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, battled between themselves in their quest for power and were both killed. Polyneices, the rebel, was condemned to remain unburied and to to be burnt with fire. But Antigone, to fulfill the duty of the piety towards her dead brother, appealed against the public prohibition of burial issued by king Creon by citing to the “unwritten and unchanging law.”

CREON:
And yet you dared to break those very laws?
ANTIGONE
Yes. Zeus did not announce those laws to me
And Justice living with the gods below
sent no such laws for men. I did not think
anything which you proclaimed strong enough
to let a mortal override the gods
and their unwritten and unchanging laws.
They’re not just for today or yesterday,
but exist forever, and no one knows
where they first appeared. So I did not mean
to let a fear of any human will
lead to my punishment among the gods.(14)

19. Plato and Aristotle apply the distinction advanced by the Sophists between the laws that have their origin in convention, that is to say a pure positive decision (thesis), and those that have validity “by nature.” The first are neither eternal nor valid in any general way, and they are not obligatory upon all. The second are obligatory upon all men, always and everywhere.(15) Some Sophists, like Callicles of Plato’s Gorgias, referred back to this distinction to dispute the legitimacy of the laws instituted by the human polis or city-state. To such laws they opposed their idea, narrowed and wrong, of nature reduced solely to a physical component. In this manner, against the political and legal equality of the citizens in the polis, they supported what seemed to them the most evident of the "natural laws": those with greater might ought to rule over the weaker.(16)

20. Nothing of this in Plato and Aristotle. These two do not oppose natural right and the positive law of the polis. They are convinced that the laws of the polis or city-state are generally good and constitute the actualization, more or less achieved, of a natural right conformed to the nature of the things. For Plato, the natural right is an ideal right, a rule for the lawgivers and for the citizens, a rule that concurs as the foundation and the value of the positive law.(17) For Aristotle this supreme rule of morality corresponds to the realization of the essential form of nature. That is moral which is natural. The natural right is unchanging; the positive right changes relative to peoples and different epochs. But the natural right it is not placed in opposition to positive right. It it is embodied in positive right, that is, it is the application of the general idea of justice to social life in its variety.

21. In Stoicism, the natural law becomes the key concept of a universal ethic. That which corresponds to nature is good and ought to be done, with nature understood in both a psycho-biological and rational sense. Every man, regardless of the nation from which he comes, ought to integrate himself like a part of the whole of the universe. He should live according to nature.(18) This imperative presupposes that an eternal law, a divine Logos, exists, one which is present in a cosmos filled with rationality, and which is found in the human reason. It is in this way that, for Cicero, the law is "the supreme reason within nature that commands us to do what we ought to do, and prohibits its opposite."(19) Nature and reason constitute the two sources of our knowledge of the fundamental moral law, a law which is of divine origin.

(14) Sophocles, Antigone, v. 449-460 (trans. Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, available at http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Sophocles/Antigone.htm).

(15) Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, I, XIII, 2 (1373 b 4-11) : "The particular law (nomos idios) is that every group of men determines in relation to its members, and these types of laws divide themselves in unwritten laws and written laws. The common law (nomos koinos) is one which conforms to nature (kata physin). In fact there is one right and one wrong, common in nature, which all recognize through a species of divination, even if there is no communication or reciprocal convention. So it is seen the Antigone of Sophocles declares that it is just to bury Polyneices, whose burial was forbidden, affirming that such burial is right, being in conformity with nature"; cf. also Nichomachean Ethics, V, 10.

(16) Cf. Plato, Gorgias (483 c-484 b) [Callicle’s Discourse] : “Nature, in my opinion, herself proclaims the fact that it is right for the better to have advantage of the worse, and the abler of the feebler. It is obvious in many cases that this is so, not only in the animal world, but in the states and races, collectively, of men—that right has been decided to consist in the sway and advantage of the stronger over the weaker. For by what manner of right did Xerxes, march against Greece or his father against Scythia? Or take the countless other cases of the sort that one might mention. Why, surely these men follow nature—the nature of right—in acting thus; yes, on my soul, and follow the law of nature—though not that, I dare say, which is made by us; we mold the best and strongest amongst us, taking them from their infancy like young lions, and utterly enthrall them by our spells and witchcraft, telling them the while that they must have but their equal share, and that this is what is fair and just. But, I fancy, when some man arises with a nature of sufficient force, he shakes off all that we have taught him, bursts his bonds, and breaks free; he tramples underfoot our codes and juggleries, our charms and “laws,” which are all against nature; our slave rises in revolt and shows himself our master, and there dawns the full light of natural justice. (trans. from Plato, Gorgias, Perseus).

(17) In the Theaetetus (172 to-b), the Socrates of Plato explains the inauspicious political consequences of the relativist thesis attributed to Protagoras, according to which every man is measure of the truth: "And likewise in affairs of state, the honorable and disgraceful, the just and unjust, the pious and its opposite, are in truth to each state such as it thinks they are and as it enacts into law for itself, and in these matters no citizen and no state is wiser than another . . . . But in the other class of things—I mean just and unjust, pious and impious—they are willing to say with confidence that no one of them possesses by nature an existence of its own; on the contrary, that the common opinion becomes true at the time when it is adopted and remains true as long as it is held.” (trans. from Plato, Theaetetus, Perseus)

(18) Cf., for example, Seneca, De vita beata, VIII, 1: "It is necessary to follow nature as a guide; reason observes it and consults it. Therefore it is the same thing to live happily and to live according to nature.” (Natura enim duce utendum est: hanc ratio observat, hanc consulit. Idem est ergo beate vivere et secundum naturam).

(19) Cicero, De legibus, I, VI, 18: "Lex est ratio summa insita in natura quae iubet ea quae facienda sunt prohibetque contraria."

Universal Ethic-Convergences 3-African Traditions and Islam

16. In the African traditions, the fundamental reality is life itself. That is the most precious good, and the ideal of the man consists in living sheltered from the worries even up until old age, but above all in remaining, even after the death, a life force continually reinforced in and with one’s progeny. In fact, life is seen as a dramatic experience. The human being, a microcosm within macrocosm, lives intensely the drama of the confrontation between life and death. The mission which completes him, which ensures him the victory of life over death, orients and determines his entire ethical task. So man ought to identify, in the consequent ethical horizon, all the allies of life, to grapple them to his cause so as to ensure the actual survival which is simultaneously the victory of life. This is the deep meaning of the traditional African religions. The African ethic reveals itself as an anthropocentric and vibrant ethic: the desired acts are those susceptible of favoring openness to life, of preserving it, of protecting it, of developing or increasing the potential life of the community; these are the acts that are considered good. Those acts considered harmful to the life of the individuals or the community are judged as evil. The traditional African religions thus appear essentially anthropocentric, but careful observation united with reflection indicates that the place accorded to living man and the cult of the ancestors constitute an enclosure within the same boundaries. The traditional African religions reach their summit in God, source of the life, Creator of everything that exists.



17. Islam considers itself the restoration of the original natural religion. It sees in Mohammed the last prophet sent by God to lead definitively men again toward the right way of life. Mohammed however was preceded by others: "there is not a people but a warner has gone among them.”(12) Islam attributes to itself therefore a universal vocation and it addresses itself to all men who are considered "naturally" muslim. The Islamic law, indissolubly public, moral, and religious, is understood as a law given directly by God. The Muslim ethic is therefore fundamentally a morality of obedience. To do good means to obey the commandments; to do ill means to disobey them. Human reason intervenes to recognize the revealed character of the Law and to extract from it the concrete the legal implications. True, in the 9th century, the mu`tazilah or mutazilite school proclaimed the idea according to which "the good and the evil is in the thing itself," that is to say, some behaviors are good or bad in themselves, prior to the divine law commands them or forbids them. The mutazilites maintained that human beings could know through the use of reason what is good or bad. According to them, man knows spontaneously that injustice or lying is bad, and that it is obligatory to return a loan, to remove oneself from harm, or to show appreciation to one’s benefactors, the principal one of which is God. But the Ash’ari school or asharites, which are dominant in the Sunni orthodoxy, support a contrary theory. Proponents of occasionalism who do not recognize any consistency in nature, they advance the notion that only the positive revelation of God defines good and evil, the just and the unjust. Between the prescriptions of this divine positive law, may be found significant elements of the moral patrimony of humanity, and they bear significant relationship with the Decalogue.(13)



(12) Qur'an, sura 35, 24; cf. sura 13, 7. (Shakir, M. H, trans.)
(13) Qur'an, sura 17, 22-38: "Do not associate with Allah any other god, lest you sit down despised, neglected. And your Lord has commanded that you shall not serve (any) but Him, and goodness to your parents. If either or both of them reach old age with you, say not to them (so much as) "Ugh" nor chide them, and speak to them a generous word. And make yourself submissively gentle to them with compassion, and say: O my Lord! have compassion on them, as they brought me up (when I was) little. Your Lord knows best what is in your minds; if you are good, then He is surely Forgiving to those who turn (to Him) frequently. And give to the near of kin his due and (to) the needy and the wayfarer, and do not squander wastefully. Surely the squanderers are the fellows of the Shaitans and the Shaitan is ever ungrateful to his Lord. And if you turn away from them to seek mercy from your Lord, which you hope for, speak to them a gentle word. And do not make your hand to be shackled to your neck nor stretch it forth to the utmost (limit) of its stretching forth, lest you should (afterwards) sit down blamed, stripped off. Surely your Lord makes plentiful the means of subsistence for whom He pleases and He straightens (them); surely He is ever Aware of, Seeing, His servants. And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and yourselves (too); surely to kill them is a great wrong. And go not nigh to fornication; surely it is an indecency and an evil way. And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause, and whoever is slain unjustly . . . . And draw not near to the property of the orphan except in a goodly way till he attains his maturity and fulfill the promise; surely (every) promise shall be questioned about. And give full measure when you measure out, and weigh with a true balance; this is fair and better in the end. And follow not that of which you have not the knowledge; surely the hearing and the sight and the heart, all of these, shall be questioned about that. And do not go about in the land exultingly, for you cannot cut through the earth nor reach the mountains in height. All this -- the evil of it -- is hateful in the sight of your Lord."

Universal Ethic-Convergences 2-Other Oriental Traditions

14. Generally Buddhism is defined by the four "noble truths" taught by Buddha after his illumination: (1) reality is suffering and dissatisfaction; (2) the origin of suffering is desire; (3) the ceasing of suffering is possible (with the extinction of desire); (4) there is a road that leads to the cessation of suffering. This road is the "noble eightfold path" that consists in the practice of the discipline, of meditation, and of wisdom. On the ethical plane, good action is summarized in the five precepts (śīla, sīla) : (1) not to harm any living being nor take any life; (2) not to take what has not been given; (3) not to engage in sexual misconduct; (4) not to engage in false or untrue speech; (5) not to ingest intoxicating products which decrease the dominion over one’s self. The deep altruism of the Buddhist tradition, which translates itself in a deliberate attitude of non-violence, friendly benevolence, and compassion, reaches thereby the golden rule.



15. The Chinese civilization is deeply is marked by the Taoism of Laozu or Lao-Tse (6th century B.C.). According to Lao-Tse, the Way or Dào is the primordial principle inherent in the entire universe. It is an elusive principle of permanent change under the action of two opposite and complementary poles: the yīn and the yáng. It is expected that man wed himself to such a natural process, to accede to the flow of time, by adopting an attitude of non-action (wú-wéi). The search for harmony with nature, indissolubly material and spiritual, is therefore at the heart of the Taoist ethic. As for Confucius (571-479 B.C.), ("Master Kong"), in the context of a period of deep crisis, he attempted to restore order with the respect toward rites that are founded on a filial piety which should be at the heart of all social life. In fact, social relations were modeled on familial relationships. Harmony is achieved with an ethic of the right measure, in which the ritual connection (the li), which engages the human being into natural order, is the measure of all things. The ideal to reach is the ren, the perfect virtue of humanity, achieved by the dominion over one’s self and benevolence towards others. "'Docility' (shù) is that not perhaps the key word? That which you would not want done to you, do not inflict on another."(11). The practice of this rule indicates the Way of Heaven (Tiān Dào).



(11) Confucius, Analects 15, 23.

Universal Ethic-Convergences 1-Hindu Traditions

Chapter I: Convergences

1.1. The Wisdom and Religions of the World

12. In different cultures, men have progressively elaborated and developed traditions of wisdom in which they express and transmit their vision of the world, and also their perception reflecting the place that human beings occupy in society and in the cosmos. At the forefront of all these conceptual theoretizations, these wisdoms--often of religious nature--transmit an experience that identifies that which helps and that which hinders the full development of one’s personal life and happy advancement of social life. These constitute a sort of "cultural capital" available in the search for a common wisdom necessary to answer contemporary ethical challenges. According to the Christian faith, these traditions of wisdom, notwithstanding their limits and sometimes their errors, display a reflection of the divine wisdom which operates in the hearts of men. They deserve attention and respect, and they are able to have great value as preparations for the reception of the Gospel.

The shape and the extent of these traditions can vary considerably. Nevertheless, they are testimony of the existence of a patrimony of common moral values shared among all men, however may be the way in which such values are justified within any particular vision of the world. For example, the “golden rule” ("Do not do to others what you do not want done to you" [Tobit 4:15]) is found, in one form or another, in the greater part of the wisdom traditions.(7) In addition, there is general agreement that recognizes that the great moral norms not only apply to a specific human group, but apply universally to every individual and to all peoples. Finally, many traditions recognize that these universal moral behaviors are demands that stem from the nature of the human being: they express the manner in which man should insert himself, in a creative and also harmonious way, into a cosmic or metaphysical order which is greater than he is, and which provides meaning to his life. In fact, this order is seen as impregnated with an immanent wisdom. It is the bearer of a moral message that men are in a position to discover.


13. In the Hindu traditions the world—the cosmos, like human society—is regulated by an order or a fundamental law (dharma) which is necessary to respect so as not to provoke serious imbalances. It is in this manner that dharma defines the socio-religious obligations of man. Specifically, the moral teaching of Hinduism is to be found in light of the fundamental doctrines of the Upanishads: the belief in an indefinite cycle of transmigration (samsāra), with the idea that good or bad actions done in the present life (karma) have influence on successive lives. Such doctrines have important effects on the behavior towards others: they imply one should have a high degree of goodness and of tolerance, a sense of disinterested action to the benefit of another, as well as the practice of non-violence (ahimsā). The main current of Hinduism distinguishes two bodies of texts: Šruti ("that which is understood," that is to say, revelation) and smrti ("what is remembered," that is to say, tradition). The ethical prescriptions find themselves above all in the smrti, most particularly in the dharmaśāstra (the most important of which are the mānava dharmaśāstra or the Laws of Manu, dated 200-100 B.C.). Besides this basic principle, according to which "the immemorial custom is the transcendent law approved from the sacred writings and from the codes of the divine legislators; so every man of the three main classes that respects the supreme spirit that is in him, should always conform himself diligently to the immemorial custom,"(8) is found a practical equivalent to the golden rule. "I will say this to you, that this is the essence of the greatest good of the human being. The man who puts into practice the religion (dharma) of universal non-harm (ahimsā) gains the greatest Good. That man who is dominated by three passions--lust, anger and greed--who is able to renounce them in relation to his being, acquires success. ... That man who considers all creatures the same as himself, who treats them as if they were his very self, and he who disposes of the punitive rod and dominates completely his anger, the possession of happiness will be assured him. ... He will not do to another what he considers harmful for himself. This is the sum of the rule of virtue. ... Neither the fact of refusing or giving, in plenty and in unhappiness, in the agreeable and in the disagreeable, he will adjudge all the consequence as if the other was his proper self.”(9) Diverse precepts of the Hindu tradition parallel the requirements of the Decalogue.(10)



(7) Cf. St. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, III, XIV, 22 (Corpus christianorum, series latina, 32, 91): "The precept: 'Do not unto others that which you do not want done to you,' cannot in any manner vary as a function of the diversity of persons." ("Quod tibi fieri non vis, alii ne feceris”, nullo modo posse ulla eorum gentili diversitate variari."). Cf. Die «Goldene Regel» religionsgeschichtlich Untersucht, Leipzig, 1929; A. Dihle, Die Goldene Regel. Eine Einführung in die Geschichte der antiken und frühchristlichen Vulgarethik, Göttingen, 1962; J. Wattles, The Golden Rule, New York - Oxford, 1996.

(8) Mānava dharmaśāstra, 1, 108 (G. C. Haughton, Mānava Dharma Śāstra or The Institutes of Manu, Comprising the Indian System of Duties, Religious and Civil, ed., by P. Percival, New Delhi, 1982(4), 14.

(9) Mahābhārata, Anusasana parva, 113, 3-9 (ed. Ishwar Chundra Sharma and O. N. Bimali; transl. according to M. N. Dutt, vol. IX, Delhi, Parimal Publications, 469).

(10) For example: "Tell the truth, to say things that are pleasing, not to declare a disagreeable truth, and not to pronounce a compassionate lie: this is the eternal law." (Mānava dharmaśāstra, 4, 138, p. 101); "Consider always the action of striking, of injuring, and of killing the good of one's neighbor as the three most fatal things in the series of the vices provoked by anger." (Mānava dharmaśāstra, 7, 51, p. 156).

Universal Ethic-Introduction 3

10. It is true that the expression "natural law" has been the source of a many misunderstandings in actual practice. At times, the term is used to refer to the simple submission and passive resignation to the physical laws of nature, while human beings, justly, seek rather to dominate and orient these fixed and determined laws for their own benefit. At times, it is presented as an objective fact which is imposed from the outside upon one’s personal conscience, independently from the work of the reason and of subjectivity, and so is suspected of introducing an insupportable type of heteronomy to the dignity of the free human person. At other times, in the course of its history, Christian theology has equated natural law positions with anthropological viewpoints that subsequently have shown themselves to have been culturally and historically conditioned. But a deeper understanding of the relations between the moral subject, nature, and God, along with a better appreciation of the historicity that pertains the concrete applications of the natural law, come together to dissipate such misunderstandings. Today it is also important to propose the traditional doctrine of the natural law in terms that better manifest the personal and existential dimensions of the moral life. It is necessary also to insist more significantly the fact that the expression of the requirements of the natural law are inseparable from the effort of the entire human community to overcome selfish and factious tendencies, and to develop a global approach with an “ecology of the values,” without which human life risks the loss of authentic integrity and the appropriate sense of responsibility for the well-being of all.

11. The idea of the natural moral law assumes numerous common elements of the great religious and philosophical wisdom of humanity. So Chapter 1 of this document begins with the recalling of such “convergences.” Without any claim to be exhaustive, it indicates that this great religious and philosophical wisdom is testimony of the existence of a moral patrimony, widely held in common, that forms the basis of every dialogue on moral matters. Even more, they suggest, in one way or another, that this patrimony expresses a universal ethical message immanent in the nature of things which men are in a position to decipher. The document then recalls some essential points of reference of the historical development of the idea of the natural law, and cites some modern theories of morality which are partially at the origin of the contemporary difficulties in accepting such a notion. In Chapter 2 ("The perception of common moral values"), our document describes how, taking leave from the simplest data of moral experience, the human person arrives immediately at some fundamental moral goods, and is able to form as a consequence precepts of the natural law. These do not constitute a complete code of untouchable prescriptions, but provide permanent and normative principles that inspire and are at the service of the concrete moral life of persons. Chapter 3 ("The foundations of the natural law"), passing from the common experience to theory, deepens the philosophical, metaphysical, and religious foundations of the natural law. It aims at answering some contemporary objections, in particular with respect to the role of nature in personal acts, and answering questions regarding the possibility of nature providing a moral rule. Chapter 4 ("The natural law and the State") explains the guiding role of the precepts of the natural law in political life. The doctrine of natural law possesses already coherence and validity on the philosophical plane of reason which is common to all men, but Chapter 5 ("Jesus Christ, completion of the natural law") demonstrates that the natural law gains its fullest sense within salvation history. In fact, Jesus Christ, sent by the Father, is, with his Spirit, the fullness of all law.