Man as a Universal: The Moderate Realism of the Natural Law

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A UNIVERSAL HUMAN NATURE? There are some that would deny such a thing, not on the grounds that there are no such things as humans, but that there are no such things as universals. The existence of a universal human nature is a sine qua non of the existence of a natural law. As Yves Simon puts it in his The Tradition of Natural Law:

Whether there is such a thing as a universal human nature is a question that cannot be dodged; it is a question that must be settled before proceeding to the discussion of natural law. . . . [I]t is meaningless to argue seriously about natural law without having ever raised the question of the universals. . . . It is vain and unprofitable to argue about the universality of natural right or natural law without a minimum of logic concerning the universals, concerning, the meaning of universality . . . .

Simon, 6, 160. To be able to accept or understand a theory of natural law, we must have an understanding of universals such as "man." More, we have to have a realistic, not an idealistic or a nominalistic notion of universals. What does all this mean?

Detail of Placque on Pioneer Space Probe Depicting "Humanity"

Socrates is a man. When we say "man," when we predicate "man" of the individual Socrates, is it a mere description of the individual or is it also a referent: does it only describe Socrates or does it also refer to something real "external" to, and independent of, Socrates and in which he participates? If it does refer, then what is it it refers to? By saying "man," do we refer to a universal or merely to a set? Is a particular man, say Socrates, "man" because he is a member of the set of individuals we classify as "men"? Or is Socrates "man" because he participates in the entirety in this thing called "man"? Philosophers called this latter sort of referent a universal. It is either a type (e.g., "humanness"), a property (e.g., "whiteness"), or a relation (e.g., in betweeness). In this case, when we say that Socrates is a man, the term "man" is a universal of type.

We may break the philosophical understanding of universals into three general schools of thought: realist, idealist, and nominalist. The realists believe that universals have a real existence. The realists may be broken further into two general groups, Platonic (universalia ante rem) realists and Aristotelian (universalia in rebus) realists sometimes called moderate realists. The Platonic view is that universals (the "form") are real and exist independently of and collateral to the particular thing that participates in it. The Aristotelian view is that universals are real, but do not exist independently of the particular thing that participates in the universal. The universal inheres in the particular. The universal only exists in the individual that embodies it. We understand the universal through the process of abstraction.

The idealist or conceptualist believes that universals are realities in the mind only (concepts alone), and have no extra-mental existence, whether independent or not of the particular. The nominalist goes further and rejects that universals are real in any sense, and only accepts the existence of individuals or particulars. For a nominalist, something like "humanity" does not have a real existence; it is but a "name" or a "term" (The Latin word for "name" is nomen, from which the word nominalist comes. An alternative name for nominalist is also a terminist). In terms of whether the universals are real or not, the idealist or conceptualist position collapses into the nominalist or terminist position.

The problem [of universals] may be expressed by considering two interrelated questions. First, can our concepts be grounded in reality if it is the case that universals do not exist in some manner in cognition-independent reality? Second, can the nature of the entities in cognition-independent reality be thoroughly individualized if it is true that our conceptual classifications reflect something real? [Platonic] Realism says "no" to the first question; nominalism says "no" to the second. Moderate [Aristotelian] realism, in contrast, answers both questions affirmatively.

Douglas J. Deny Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, "Ethical Individualism, Natural Law, and the Primacy of Natural Rights," in Ellen Frankel Paul, et al. eds., Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 35 n. 5. Put simply, when we say "Socrates is a man," the Platonic Realist would say that the most important reality is not Socrates, but "man." The nominalist would say that the most important reality (in fact the only reality) is Socrates, and not man. The moderate realist would say that both man and Socrates are important realities, as the reality of man expresses itself in and through Socrates.

It is important to distinguish a universal from a set or collection. A universal can be predicated, in its whole meaning, to each of its subjects or parts. A universal can be identified in its entirety in any one of its parts or subjects. This is not true of a set or collection. A set or collection cannot be identified with any one of its parts or components; it cannot be predicated of any of its parts. Is "man" a universal in which individual men and women share, or is it a set or collection of individual men and women? Clearly, at least in ordinary usage, "man" is a universal in which individual men and women participate, and not merely an individual member of a set or collection of men and women that have existed, that currently exist, and that will, in the future exist. To see the distinction between a universal of the whole and a set, we can look at the way we predicate the universal and the set on an individual.

The Senate is a "set" of senators; it is what we get when we aggregate a group of senators. Suppose that Smith is a member of the Senate; he is a senator. Though he is a member of the Senate, Senator Smith cannot be said to be a Senate, or to contain within himself the Senate, or to be senate. This is so because a set (Senate) cannot be predicated of any of its parts (Senator Smith).

The matter is markedly different when say that Socrates is a man. It means more than merely that he is a member of the set of men. Since the term man is a universal whole, it may be predicated on Socrates in its entirety. This is so because a universal can be predicated in its entirety upon any parts or subjects since they in some manner participate in and are expressive of that universal. So we can say that Socrates is a man, that Socrates has within himself humanness (manness), that Socrates is man.

Socrates is man, unlike Senator Smith, who is not senate.

We participate in a universal in a manner different than we participate in a set. Thus, the thinking behind the depiction of the humans in the "Pioneer Plaque," designed by Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Frank Drake, is highly unphilosophical. The physical makeup of the man and the woman were determined through a computerized analysis of the "average person," something a nominalist would think of. The universal "man" is not determined by averaging individual men and women. Under the classical view of natural law, "man" is not a set or aggregate of men and women.

Under the classical view of natural law, "man" is a universal whole, a reality that exists outside of us and independent of us, but one that expresses itself and is found only particular or individual men and women. In the view of the natural law, each and every man, woman, child, and fetus from the first moment of conception participates in the universal whole that is man. As such, each individual person participates in the nature of man and shares in the dignity of that universal concept, the attendant duty that comes with it to learn of what it is to be "man," what is the end or purpose of "man," and what kind of activity conforms to and is expressive of "man." In short, the universal is what allows for an objective human nature and an objective law that stems from that universal and objective human nature in which we participate.

This is the viciousness of the Darwinian thesis: that man has an evolving nature, and therefore there is no such thing as a universal in any individual "man." Man is process. Becoming.

Darwinian Rejection of Universal

This human nature, this universal in which we participate, is a "given," it is not one that we make for ourselves. We discover it, we uncover it. We do not invent it or create it. We are servants to the universal, and through our adherence to the natural law that is part of it we find our freedom to become what we are.

Man Created By God: Source of Universal

We are not masters of the universal. Outside of it we are no longer free, but act as if we are something we are not. And there is no question of becoming "superhuman" when we act outside of it. We have no ability to become more than what we are. We only have the ability to be what we are or to be less than what we are. Therefore, we become inhuman, indeed subhuman, when we act outside of the universal.

Stoic Precursor of the Natural Law: "Life in Agreement With Nature" in Zeno, Cleanthes, Posidonius, Hecato, Chrysippus

DIOGENES LAERTIUS, IN HIS LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, Book VII, 87-89a, gives a good synopsis of the Stoic moral teaching that the highest purpose or good of human life was to live in accordance to nature (homologoumenos te physei zen). This was not an individual, idiosyncratic, subjective nature--a law of one--involving the rejection of reason like that of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists. Though Emerson states that "No law is sacred to me but the law of my nature" (R. W. Emerson, Essays, 1st Series, (Ticknor & Fields: Boston 1863), 44), he does not take nature in the manner of the Stoics. For the Stoics, the referenced nature is universal, common, objective, binding upon all men without exception; it is based upon reason, the distinguishing feature of man relative to the brute creation. That is why the motto of the Stoics was "follow nature," and the motto of the Transcendentalists, though Emerson attributed it to the Stoics but gave it a different twist, was "obey thyself."

The Stoa Poikile, the Painted Porch

Those who walked the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Porch, therefore believed they had a duty to something outside their whim and sentiment. The Stoic believed he had a duty, as Kierkegaard would later put it, to the universal. The Stoics taught the doctrine that the divine or eternal plan was reflected in divine law, and that law would be found in the nature of that being. Thus, life in accordance with nature meant conformity to the divine or eternal law and divine will. Ultimately, this conformity with nature resulted in virtue, which led to happiness, as the person would be directed to his true, authentic, and designed good.

As Michael Bertram Crowe puts it in his The Changing Profile of the Natural Law:

In a word, Stoicism is an eclectic system marked by a stern and practical moral bent. The real business of philosophy is the moral conduct of man . . . . Virtue is the primary object of philosophy; ethics, therefore, is the most important branch. . . . Specifically this knowledge is knowledge of the world-order or of the universal law to which the individual must submit himself--and here is the point of insertion of the natural law in the system. We must know nature in order to follow nature's law; the universal law is the law of nature and the Stock morality is epitomised in the maxim: "Live according to nature" (homologoumenos te physei zen).

To quote Diogenes Laertius on the Stoics and their standard, "life in agreement with nature,":

This is why Zeno was the first (in his treatise On the Nature of Man) to designate as the end "life in agreement with nature" (or living agreeably to nature) [τέλοςεἶπε τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν], which is the same as a virtuous life, virtue being the goal towards which nature guides us. So too Cleanthes in his treatise On Pleasure, as also Posidonius, and Hecato in work On End. Again, living virtuously is equivalent to living in accordance with experience of the actual course of nature, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe. And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature, or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe, a life in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason which pervades all things, and is identical with this Zeus, lord and ruler of all that is. And this very thing constitutes the virtue of the happy man and the smooth current of life, when all actions promote the harmony of the spirit dwelling in the individual man with the will of him who orders the universe. Diogenes then expressly declares the end to be to act with good reason in the selection of what is natural. Archedemus says the end is to live in the performance of all befitting actions. By the nature with which our life ought to be in accord, Chrysippus understands both universal nature and more particularly the nature of man, whereas Cleanthes takes the nature of the universe alone as that which should be followed, without adding the nature oftheindividual.

(R. D. Hicks translation, from http://www.molloy.edu/sophia/seneca/DL_stoicism.htm)

87 Διόπερ πρῶτος ὁ Ζήνων ἐν τῷ Περὶ ἀνθρώπου φύσεως τέλοςεἶπε τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ κατ' ἀρετὴν ζῆν·ἄγει γὰρ πρὸς ταύτην ἡμᾶς ἡ φύσις. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ Κλεάνθης ἐντῷ Περὶ ἡδονῆς καὶ Ποσειδώνιος καὶ Ἑκάτων ἐν τοῖς Περὶ τελῶν(Gomoll 1). πάλιν δ' ἴσον ἐστὶ τὸ κατ' ἀρετὴν ζῆν τῷ κατ'ἐμπειρίαν τῶν φύσει συμβαινόντων ζῆν, ὥς φησι Χρύσιππος ἐν τῷ 88 πρώτῳ Περὶ τελῶν· μέρη γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ἡμέτεραι φύσεις τῆς τοῦὅλου. διόπερ τέλος γίνεται τὸ ἀκολούθως τῇ φύσει ζῆν, ὅπερἐστὶ κατά τε τὴν αὑτοῦ καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῶν ὅλων, οὐδὲν ἐνεργοῦνταςὧν ἀπαγορεύειν εἴωθεν ὁ νόμος ὁ κοινός, ὅσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ ὀρθὸςλόγος, διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος, ὁ αὐτὸς ὢν τῷ Διί, καθηγεμόνιτούτῳ τῆς τῶν ὄντων διοικήσεως ὄντι· εἶναι δ' αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὴν τοῦεὐδαίμονος ἀρετὴν καὶ εὔροιαν βίου, ὅταν πάντα πράττηται κατὰτὴν συμφωνίαν τοῦ παρ' ἑκάστῳ δαίμονος πρὸς τὴν τοῦ τῶν ὅλωνδιοικητοῦ βούλησιν. ὁ μὲν οὖν Διογένης τέλος φησὶ ῥητῶς τὸεὐλογιστεῖν ἐν τῇ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἐκλογῇ. Ἀρχέδημος δὲ τὸπάντα τὰ καθήκοντα ἐπιτελοῦντα ζῆν. 89 Φύσιν δὲ Χρύσιππος μὲν ἐξακούει, ᾗ ἀκολούθως δεῖ ζῆν, τήντε κοινὴν καὶ ἰδίως τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην· ὁ δὲ Κλεάνθης τὴν κοινὴνμόνην ἐκδέχεται φύσιν, ᾗ ἀκολουθεῖν δεῖ, οὐκέτι δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐπὶμέρους.

(Greek text from http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/dl/dl07.html)

To be sure, there were problems with the Stoic view both in theory and practice. To name a couple, the Stoic doctrine was pantheistic and advanced some questionable moral values (e.g., suicide, most notably). However, the Stoic concept of the natural law, despite its faults, was not fundamentally unsound, and, much like the Greek to whom St. Paul preached, could be baptized and infused with the spirit of the Gospel. The doctrine of the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Porch, found easy venue in the Ecclesia Christou, the Church of Christ. And so, as Crowe puts it,

The Stoic philosophy, then, has come to articulate the nature law in a new and systematic way, a way that will survive, not only in its phraseology but in a great part of its structure, into the Christian and later formulations of the doctrine. And not alone the explicit teaching on the natural law, but other Stoic moral doctrines, such as that of evident principles, common to all men and prior to experience, principles that include a certain knowledge of good and evil, the elements of the virtues, the recognition of the goodness and eternity of God, will be taken up, corrected and developed by Christians. And so the claim of the Stoics to be the founders of the doctrine of the natural law will be substantiated. This formative influence of Stoicism was transmitted to the Fathers and later to the scholastics by Cicero and by the Roman law.

(Michael Betram Crowe, The Changing Profile of the Natural Law (Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague, 1977), 30-36.

The Ecclesia Christou, the Church of Christ