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Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority

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Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority. By PorterJean. William B. Eerdsman Publishing Company2010. Pp. 400. $19.80. ISBN: 0-802-86563-1.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

R. George Wright
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Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 2010 , pp. 609 - 619
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Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2010

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References

1. For some of her relevant prior work, see, e.g., Porter, Jean, The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (Westminster John Knox Press 1990)Google Scholar; Porter, Jean, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ'g Co. 2005)Google Scholar; Porter, Jean, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ'g Co. 1999)Google Scholar; Porter, Jean, Does the Natural Law Provide a Universally Valid Morality?, in Intractable Disputes About the Natural Law: Alasdair Macintyre and Critics 53 (Cunningham, Lawrence S. ed., Univ. Notre Dame Press 2009)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, however, all citations in the text of this review essay will be merely by page number reference to the book under review.

2. Professor Porter does not seek to address explicitly all of the broad range of contemporary approaches to political and legal authority not grounded in natural law theory. For some prominent such examples, see Klosko, George, Political Obligation (Oxford Univ. Press 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wellman, Christopher Heath & Simmons, A. John, Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? (Cambridge Univ. Press 2005) (debate format)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief survey, see Edmundson, William, State of the Art: The Duty to Obey the Law, 10 Legal Theory 215 (2004)Google Scholar. For a broader discussion, see Contractarianism and Rational Choice: Essays on David Gauther's Morals by Agreement (Vallentyne, Peter ed., Cambridge Univ. Press 1991)Google Scholar. For further work referring to traditional natural law themes in the context of obligation and authority in non-standard ways, see Braybrooke, David, Natural Law Modernized (Univ. Toronto Press 2003)Google Scholar; Murphy, Mark C., An Essay on Divine Authority (Cornell Univ. Press 2002)Google Scholar. Professor Porter does explicitly address the contemporary natural law theory of, among others, Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford Univ. Press 1980)Google Scholar; see also George, Robert P., In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2001)Google Scholar; Hittinger, Russell, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural law in a Post-Christian World (Intercollegiate Stud. Instit. 2007)Google Scholar.

3. See Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, aphorisms 66 & 67, at 27 (Anscombe, G.E.M. trans., 3d ed., Oxford Blackwell 1991)Google Scholar.

4. Consider the following report: “[A] few years ago, Stephen Hawking summed up scientists’ prevailing attitude toward the status of life in the universe: ‘The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet.’” Davies, Paul, Cosmic Jackpot: Why our Universe is Just Right for Life 222 (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2007)Google Scholar (quoting Deutsch, David, The Fabric of Reality 177-78 (Viking 1997))Google Scholar.

5. Cf. Pierre Simon Laplace made the statement “Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis,” Today in Science History, http://www.todayinsci.com/L/Laplace_Pierre/LaplacePierre-Quotations.htm (last visited December 7, 2010)Google Scholar. This is actually a complex issue; a technically sufficient purely secular theory of natural law might be strengthened, or enhance its long-term motivating power for broad altruism for many people, by an appropriately complementary, credible divine metaphysics. See, e.g., Perry, Michael J., The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries ch. 1 (Oxford Univ. Press 2000)Google Scholar.

6. We set aside the problem of whether a gradual loss of belief in our genuine capacity for autonomy will eventually erode our commitment to autonomy as a moral and political value, even though somewhat different senses of the term “autonomy” may here be in play.

7. For the contemporary secularist, of course, each of these Scholastic assumptions may seem implausible or incoherent. Professor Porter's formulation can be found at (53).

8. This is not to suggest that an oak tree is inherently worthier than an acorn, or that analogous gradations of basic worthiness or fundamental dignity somehow obtain among persons. See Waldron, Jeremy, God, Locke, and Equality (Cambridge Univ. Press 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. For broader development, see Moore, Michael S., Law as a Functionalist Kind, in Natural Law theory: Contemporary Essays 188 (George, Robert P. ed., Oxford Univ. Press 1992)Google Scholar.

10. For a very concise summary of several of the above themes, see (235-36).

11. Some leading writers today, perhaps professed metaethical objectivists, also see the objectivity of morals as already a matter of, and within, normative or substantive ethics. For general discussion, see, e.g., Kramer, Matthew, Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine (Wiley-Blackwell 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nagel, Thomas, The Last Word (Oxford Univ. Press 2001)Google Scholar; Dworkin, Ronald, Objectivity and Truth: You'd Better Believe It, 25 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 87 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. See, e.g., Blackburn, Simon, Ruling Passions: a Theory of Practical Reasoning (Oxford Univ. Press 2000)Google Scholar; Kalderon, Mark Eli, Moral Flctionalism (Clarendon Press 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gibbard, Allan, Thinking How to Live (Harv. Univ. Press 2008)Google Scholar; Joyce, Richard, The Myth of Morality (Cambridge Univ. Press 2007)Google Scholar; Mackie, John, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Penguin 1977)Google Scholar; Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, & Solidarity (Cambridge Univ. Press 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, Moral Skepticisms (Oxford Univ. Press 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timmons, Mark, Morality Without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism (Oxford Univ. Press 2004)Google Scholar.

13. See, e.g., Finnis, John, Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth (Cath. Univ. Am. Press 1991)Google Scholar; Perry, supra note 5, at ch. 4.

14. We hereby, of course, set aside all issues raised by the Establishment Clause.

15. See, e.g., Wood, Allen, Kant's Ethical Thought 151 (Cambridge Univ. Press 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. See, e.g., Black, Hugo L., The Bill of Rights, 35 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 865 (1960)Google Scholar, along with Justice Black's dissenting opinions in Cohen v. Cal., 403 U.S. 15, 27 (1971) and Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 515 (1969).

17. Note, though, that it would be much more difficult to build a convincing purely secular consequentialist case in favor of an absolute rule against lying, especially if we define “lying” in broad but familiar terms. Note also that other possible candidates for absolute rule status have difficulties of their own. A commandment of universal love, for example, may seem appropriately exceptionless, but oddly, it is also of course rarely adhered to. To a surprising extent, each candidate for the status of an exceptionless norm must be treated separately. Note as well the question of humanitarian intervention, as discussed at (304-05). Here, we may be more reluctant to universally prohibit genuine humanitarian intervention on narrowly moral grounds, but the sheer pragmatic direct and indirect costs and risks of genuine humanitarian intervention often discourage such activity. For general discussion, see, e.g., Teson, Fernando R., Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry Into Law and Morality (3d ed., Transnat'1 Publishers 2005)Google Scholar; Humanitarian Intervention (Nardin, Terry & Williams, Melissa S. eds., N.Y. Univ. Press 2005)Google Scholar.

18. See, e.g., the references to potential or plausible adoptability of policies. (164, 269).

19. See, e.g., Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003); see also Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995).

20. Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir. 1978). See also Smith v. Collin, 439 U.S. 916 (1978) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).

21. See id. See also, e.g., Downs, Donald A., Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community, and the First Amendment (Univ. Notre Dame Press 1985)Google Scholar.

22. Professor Porter's more general approach to judicial resolution of statutory issues holds that “the judge should aim to recover the actual intent of the lawgiver, construed as one intelligible expression of the political morality of the community, rather than construing the law in such a way as to accord with the best possible expression ofthat political morality.” (269) See also (27). One problem among others faced by intentionalist theories of statutory or constitutional theory is that we typically hold two distinct, potentially conflicting genuine intentions in drafting an important legal text: rather like the case of a student answering a math quiz, we genuinely intend the “answer” we have written down, but we also genuinely intend to write down the (actually) correct answer as well. This duality of drafter intention opens up problems. See, for background, Moore, Michael S., Justifying the Natural Law Theory of Judicial Interpretation, 69 Fordham L. Rev. 2087 (2001)Google Scholar; Moore, Michael S., A Natural Law Theory of Interpretation, 58 S. Cal. L. Rev. 277 (1985)Google Scholar.

23. Professor Porter at several points cites Hollenbach, David S., The Common Good and Christian Ethics (Cambridge Univ. Press 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, e.g., In Search of the Common Good (McCann, Dennis P. & Miller, Patrick D. eds., T & T Clark Int'1 2005)Google Scholar. For the moment, though, it is unclear how much genuine conceptual progress has been made on some basic issues raised decades ago by writers such as Schubert, Glendon A., The Public Interest: A Critique of the Theory as a Political Concept (Free Press 1960) (1960)Google Scholar; Held, Virginia, The Public Interest and Individual Interests (Basic Books 1970)Google Scholar; and especially a number of the contributions to Nomos V: The Public Interest (Friedrich, Carl J. ed., Atherton Press 1962)Google Scholar.

24. For background, see, e.g., Fleurbay, Mark, Economics and Economic Justice, Stan. Encyclopedia of Phil., available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/economic-justice (06 9, 2008)Google Scholar.

25. For general philosophical background, see, e.g., Intergenerational Justice (Gosseries, Axel & Meyer, Lukas H. eds., Oxford Univ. Press 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Philosophy, Politics, and Society, Sixth Series: Justice Between age Groups and Generations (Laslett, Peter & Fishkin, James S. eds., Yale Univ. Press 1992)Google Scholar; Thompson, Janna, Intergenerational Justice: Rights and Responsibilities in an Intergenerational Polity (Routledge 2009)Google Scholar. High social discount rates and the casual assumption that future generations will be substantially richer must be argued for. For a review of Gosseries & Meyer, supra, emphasizing the economic controversiality of common philosophical assumptions in this area, see Heath, Joseph, Book Review, 120 Ethics 851 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. For a brief discussion, see Freeman, Samuel, Original Position, Stan. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position (12 20, 2008)Google Scholar.

27. See Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Basic Books 1974)Google Scholar.

28. For some recent discussion on kinship, reciprocity-based, and other possible forms of altruism, see, e.g., Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective (Clayton, Philip & Schoss, Jeffrey eds., Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ'g Co. 2004)Google Scholar; Joyce, Richard, The Evolution of Morality (MIT Press 2007)Google Scholar; Ridley, Matt, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation (Viking 1996)Google Scholar; Hare, John E., The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and God's Assistance (Clarendon Press 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For one example of a normative standard set between strong demands for self-sacrifice and only a modest moral duty toward strangers who will never be in a position to repay or otherwise affect us, see Cullity, Garrett, The Moral Demands of Affluence (Oxford Univ. Press 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. See, e.g., Kozol, Jonathan, Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (Harper Perennial 1992)Google Scholar.

30. Note the analogy here to the question of the degree of critical scrutiny with which the courts should greet constitutionally sensitive democratic legislative enactments. See supra notes 18-22 and accompanying text. Note also the reasonably typical public school funding formula constitutionally upheld in San Antonio Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).

31. On this, there is a massive literature within the contemporary analytic tradition. For some highlights, see The Evidential Problem of Evil (Howard-Snyder, Daniel ed., Ind. Univ. Press 1996)Google Scholar; God and the Problem of Evil (Rowe, William L. ed., Wiley-Blackwell 2001)Google Scholar; The Problem of Evil (Adams, Marilyn McCord & Adams, Robert M. eds., Oxford Univ. Press 1990)Google Scholar. For more historical material, see The Problem of Evil: A Reader (Larrimore, Mark ed., Wiley-Blackwell 2001)Google Scholar. For recent substantive attempts to address the problem, see, e.g., van Inwagen, Peter, The Problem of Evil (Oxford Univ. Press 2008)Google Scholar; Swinburne, Richard, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford Univ. Press 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Compare the much broader claim made by the historian Carl Becker: “Whether arguments command assent or not depends less upon the logic that conveys them than upon the climate of opinion in which they are sustained.” Becker, Carl, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers 5 (Yale Univ. Press 1932)Google Scholar.

33. For discussion, see Leslie, John, Universes (Routledge 1996)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the enormous proliferation of universes as a quantum-level phenomenon, see Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality (Saunders, Simonet al. eds., Oxford Univ. Press 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. For some emerging attempts to address how an assumption of an enormous, if not infinite, number of diverse genuine universes might affect the problem of evil, see, e.g., O'Connor, Timothy, Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency 122–29 (Wiley-Blackwell 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraay, Klaas J., Theism, Possible Worlds, and the Multiverse, 147 Phil. Stud. 355 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Page, Don N., Scientific and Philosophical Challenges to Theism Section 6, available at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0801.0247v3.pdf (01 8, 2008)Google Scholar (last visited Dec. 16, 2010). One possible form of goodness could involve holistic, harmonic, or ensemble-type relationships among entire universes.