A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory by Russell Hittinger (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 348 A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory. By RussELL RITTINGER. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987. Pp. vi +232. $26.95. Dr. Hittinger's book causes us to remember how genuinely delicate and refined is the balance between reason and faith in St. Thomas' view of human knowledge and its relationship to reality. This enabled St. Thomas to develop with discernment his notion of the natural law, because St. Thomas understood that an act of genuine intellection distinguished in order to unite, not separate. Therefore, there was an intrinsic unity to truth and a unity to philosophical experience which reflected reality-something which has gotten lost in the contemporary morass of interminable dialectics. Have the contemporary attempts to retrieve a notion of the natural law succeeded in maintaining this balance? If such attempts have not succeeded in maintaining the requisite balance, what are the consequences of the loss of this balance for the success of their endeavor? When in the history of philosophical experience this balance cannot be maintained, one is forced to move in one of two directions. The first is towards a kind of fideism in which the fundamental questions raised by reason are only resolvable by the faith; thus philosophy is absorbed into theology. The second is towards the claim that reason can answer all that is answerable (which may be very limited) and thus faith becomes subordinate to reason. The latter either leads to rationalism or a variety of positivism. For Rittinger what appears to be a contemporary attempt to retrieve natural law moral philosophy has proven itself unable to avoid a fideistic solution to moral philosophy; for faith in the end resolves all the fundamental issues raised in regard to moral philosophy. The beginning of the discussion of moral philosophy and man as the author of his actions was very carefully placed in the writings of St. Thomas. It is only after St. Thomas had established certain fundamental truths and principles in natural theology and the philosophy of human nature that he begins to discuss moral philosophy. St. Thomas first established the existence of a personal God, who is both the efficient and final cause of all finite being. God's being is also discovered to be identical to truth, goodness, and beauty. God is recognized as that which all men seek even though only the beatific vision will present this to the intellect and will with an all-consuming necessity. "Beings" are ordered in two ways, as parts of totality, and as things to an end. The ordering of things to an end is the most important, since the final cause is the cause of all the other causes. Therefore an identification of the final cause makes all the other causes and the 344 BOOK REVIEWS order in things intelligible. Also it is only after a great deal is known about human goods, and human nature, and the ordination of human goods that St. Thomas is ready to begin a discussion of the first principle that states the good is to be pursued or the good is to be done. St. Thomas has also established, through reason, that man by nature desires and should desire in justice to give God his due. There· fore religion properly understood is natural to man. The above pro· vided St. Thomas with the knowledge prerequisite for the development of a natural law moral philosophy. If one perceives that we are at a juncture in the history of philosophy where one no longer can develop or defend the kind of knowledge that is a prerequisite to the successful development of a natural law ethics, then this must he faced with all its consequences. Is a natural law ethics still viable? This is true even if one believes that any attempt to establish such knowledge would drag the ethician into an in· terminable debate in regard to the is-ought dilemma announced by Hume or the positivist rejection of metaphysics and the philosophy of nature. Is the direct or indirect avoidance of dealing with these issues acceptable? The inventors of the new natural law theory attempt to replace the knowledge required for the...