The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations by E. B. F. Midgley (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 495 There does not seem to be enough external or internal pressure to make college faculties take any independent action on thes'e problems. And one cannot expect to lay the responsibility on book publishers. University presses, in particular, perhaps because they have worked so hard to be accepted as professionals in the book publishing field, are not really very flexible in their format. In the final analysis, a large share of the burden may lie with the unlikeliest group of all: the authors. Those of us who work in these areas are usually so grateful to find a publisher that we do not want to make any trouble. In the present circumstances, though, we may have to assume as much responsibility for our books as for the ideas we put into them. University of Washington Seattle, Washington JOHN BOLER The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations. By E. B. F. MIDGLEY. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1975. Pp. 607. The inadequacy of modern juridical positivism is felt in many areas of human responsibilities and nowhere more, perhaps, than in the areas of the new biological and nuclear technology where decisions concerning human life and death and the survival of the human race disturb consciences and create fear. Who and on what grounds can make such decisions? Who and for what reason can still declare a war? There is a growing awareness among scholars and scientists that at least part of the problem of ethical dilemmas confronting modern man stems from the separation between the technological advances and a sound teleological principle concerning their use. There is a moral vacuum in the modern technological possibilities. Mr. Midgley's book reflects upon and attempts to correct such a vacuum in the realm of international relations, focussing particularly on the issue of war. The book, hardbound, photolithographically printed from typewritten copy, with notes, bibliography and an index, is the product of both study and experience. Mr. Midgley's familiarity with both scholastic and modern philosophy is clearly manifested, and his work in the department of defense in Great Britain's Civil Service must have been a valuable experience . He returned to research work at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is presently a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Aberdeen. Convinced that the classical and especially thomistic conception of natural law may still play a role in the present crisis, the author is critical of contemporary superficial and wasteful ways of dealing with fun- 496 l300K llEVIEWS damental problems of human existence. " Current approaches," he writes in the Introduction, " are variously based upon juridical positivism, upon purely behavioural analysis of the international process, upon game theory techniques, upon amoral or pseudo-rational models of the international system, upon an eclectic attitude which depends upon some esoteric notion of 'good judgment' unrelated to any traditional wisdom, upon situation ethics, or upon paradoxical notions of the so-called antinomies of diplomatic -strategic conduct. All these approaches inevitably lapse either into inconclusiveness or into contradictions to the extent that they are not based upon any definite philosophy of man, a fortiori, not upon a true philosophy of man." The need for some fundamental and truly human criteria in guiding the praxis of international relations calls, once again, for a philosophy of man. Although the writing of another history of political theories is not what the author has primarily in mind, a research of this kind is bound to be largely historical. Modern positivism itself is the result of a historical chain of various ideologies. Consequently the book covers a long sequence of political philosophers and their ideas, from Aquinas and his first neoscholastic commentators through rationalism and contract theories to the modern liberalism and positivism. Some names, such as Suarez, Vitoria, Grotius, Puffendorf, Wolff, Hume, Kant, and Weber, will be quite familiar to students of political thought; others, especially more contemporary ones like Toparelli, Sturzo, Aron, Delos, and a number of contemporary thomistic commentators, may be less so. References are made also to the papal encyclicals and the Vatican II documents on peace, war and international relations in general. In studying the natural...