Jim Herran
Aquinas
Spring 2007
Synderisis, Conscience, and the Natural Law in Aquinas’s Summa Theologica
(The Straussian Critique and a Historicist Corruption)
Aquinas is famous for having synthesized Greek philosophy and Christianity, and
we generally assume that Aquinas is faithful to the classics’ (particularly Aristotle’s)
understanding of justice. This assumption is called into question by Leo Strauss and
others. Strauss leads a criticism based on the understanding of classic natural right. This
criticism focuses on Aquinas’s synderisis, and concludes that Aquinas teaches an
absolutist understanding of justice that is inimical to philosophy. A closer look at
synderisis and conscience, which constitute the basis of his natural law, reveals that
Aquinas’s true teaching of natural law is not in disagreement with classic natural right.
Jacques Maritain’s historicist understanding of Aquinas’s conscience, in turn, would
rightly expose Aquinas to the charges of the Straussian critique. Aquinas’s true
understanding of conscience, however, is transhistorical. To understand, first, the
Straussian critique, we must briefly consider, broadly, the fundamental problem of right
or justice according to the classics.
Aristotle begins the Nichomachean Ethics with the appropriate starting point for
any inquiry concerning man. “Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and
choice, seems to aim at some good […].”1 The highest good at which we aim, as human
beings, is what we call happiness. In the inquiry as to what happiness consists in,
Aristotle takes as his starting point the opinion that every being will be happy if it fulfills
1
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Joe Sachs (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2002), pp. 1 (1094a,
1-2).
its nature.2 Clearly, what differentiates man from other beings is his reason. The work of
a man – what fulfills his nature as man qua man – has something to do with reason (or
what is the same, the proper use of speech). “Speech serves to reveal the advantageous
and the harmful, and hence also the just and the unjust.”3 Partnership in speech, says
Aristotle, “is what makes a household and a city.”4 That is to say, the fulfillment of man’s
nature requires civilization; which in turn, demands agreement about the just and the
unjust, ultimately, for the sake of its survival. But reason serves to reveal truth; we do
not, as human beings, have an automatic understanding of truth, including the truth about
justice. The diversity of laws among nations indicates both the perfectibility and
corruptibility of human reason, and serves as an incentive to seek what is truly just:
natural right.
Thus, the quest for human fulfillment - for happiness - is now the quest for truth,
the philosophic life. But a political society as such cannot afford to live the philosophic
life; this is the problem. How can a civilization perfect man’s virtue by changing its
understanding of right towards natural right without being weak? A soldier needs to
know that he’s fighting for what is truly just. The city demands justice as justice, but
insofar as the justice it defends deviates from natural right, it does not promote the
common good of its citizens. At the end of the Ethics, Aristotle reveals this conflict in the
comparison between the philosopher and the virtuous man. The philosopher, insofar as he
is closer to knowledge and contemplation of the truth, is self-sufficient; but the “just
2
Ibid. pp. 10 (1097b, 22
Aristotle, The Politics, ed. Carnes Lord (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 37
(1253a 13-14).
4
The Politics, pp. 37 (1253a, 17).
3
2
person still needs people toward whom and with whom he will act justly […].”5 It is
important to emphasize that Plato and Aristotle believe it is possible for individual human
beings, irrespective of where and when they live, to live the philosophic life, and have a
clearer understanding of natural right than the city in which they live. But as Strauss says,
“A right which necessarily transcends political society […] cannot be the right natural to
man, who is by nature a political animal.”6 Aristotle does not deny the ultimate authority
of the philosophic life, but his understanding of natural right takes into account the
demands of both the city and philosophy.
In Book 5 of the Ethics, Aristotle reveals this comprehensive understanding of
natural right in an apparently paradoxical passage. He says first that what is by nature and
what is by convention are both changeable, but goes on to say that while regimes differ,
“the only one that is everywhere according to nature is the best kind.”7 He explains:
“Each of the things that are just and lawful holds the position that universals do in
relation to particulars, for the actions are many, but each thing that is just is one, since it
is universal.”8 This means that natural right is not about general propositions but rather
about concrete decisions.9 Because of the city’s demand for preservation and
philosophy’s demand for the higher human good, every decision about justice must be
preceded by deliberation about what demands are more important and what demands are
more urgent. First, it is easier to see whether a particular action is just than to define
unvarying propositions about justice; second, the difference in perspective that results
from different circumstances reveals the underlying struggle between conflicting goods.
5
Nichomachean Ethics, pp. 192 (1177a, 28-32).
Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 156.
7
Nicomachean Ethics, pp. 94 (1135a, 6-7).
8
Nicomachean Ethics, pp. 94 (1135a, 8-9).
9
Strauss, 159.
6
3
The spectrum of the good goes from the most urgent and least peculiar to human
happiness (like preservation) to the least urgent and most peculiar to human happiness
(cultivation of intellectual and moral virtue). The critical point is that “there is a
universally valid hierarchy of ends, but there are no universally valid rules of action.”10
Conventional justice can and ought to espouse principles that accord with natural right in
most circumstances (roughly, the second table of the Decalogue), and they need to be
espoused as simply true. The philosophic teaching of the classics, however, is that what is
right most of the time is not what is right simply. Natural right remains aloof – with
unchanging ends, to be sure, but what ought to be called just in any given situation is not
immutable. Ultimately, it is the task of the statesman to prudently conserve the city’s
confidence in its laws, while he orients them, as best may be, to what is right by nature.
The Straussian critique of Aquinas is primarily philosophic in nature. Strauss claims
that Aquinas identifies what is right by nature most of the time with what is right by
nature simply. Such a view may not be too dangerous politically; and yet, some cities,
like Melos in the Peloponnesian war, have been completely destroyed precisely because
they lacked a statesman capable of persuading his fellow citizens to act against their
usually-valid understanding of justice.11 But if Aquinas truly believes, as Strauss says he
does, that “the principles of the moral law, especially as formulated in the Second Table
of the Decalogue, suffer no exception,” then Aquinas, in his capacity as a serious thinker
in the history of western civilization, delivers a blow to philosophy.12 No further inquiry
into what is right by nature would be necessary because we would already know what it
10
Strauss, 162.
cf. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 5.85 – 5.116. The Athenian generals fail to persuade
the Melian oligarchs to overcome their sense of shame in surrendering for the sake of preservation when
the difference in power is too great to hope in friends and fortune.
12
Strauss, 163.
11
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is, and this knowledge becomes authoritative. Natural right becomes natural law. “The
doctrine of synderisis […],” says Strauss, “explains why the natural law can always be
duly promulgated to all men and hence be universally obligatory.”
The relevant passage about synderesis is in Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. Aquinas
begins by explaining that all rational thought must begin with certain self-evident
principles. In speculative reason, we begin with certain naturally known first principles
and end in coming to know conclusions from these principles. For instance, when we
solve equations in mathematics we are taking many principles for granted, but we accept
them because they simply make sense. But there is a distinction between speculative
reason and practical reason; practical reason will also need a starting point. Hence,
The first speculative principles bestowed on us by nature do not belong
to a special power, but to a special habit, which is called "the
understanding of principles," as the Philosopher explains (Ethic. vi, 6).
Wherefore the first practical principles, bestowed on us by nature, do not
belong to a special power, but to a special natural habit, which we call
"synderesis.”13
By comparing the principles of action (and therefore of moral virtue and justice) with the
principles of speculative reasoning, Aquinas does seem to suggest that we know the
principles of natural right. Presumably, as Jaffa says, synderisis tells us what just,
temperate, and courageous acts are, and tells us to do them.14 And of course, this
understanding of synderesis, as the natural habit in every man’s heart that tells us what
the principles of natural right are, can be seen as the requirement for speaking of a natural
law; for laws require promulgation.
The picture that emerges is that God is the supreme lawgiver, not merely through
revelation, but through man’s very nature. Douglas Kries identifies the connection to God
13
14
S.T. (1. 79. 12)
Harry V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 172.
5
as the ultimate reason for Aquinas’s break with the classics. Classic natural right “does
not ground itself in a divine lawgiver […]; it does not appeal to the author of nature but to
nature itself.”15 Thus, it seems that Aquinas unites the whole of mankind, all cities, under
one law, universally valid and equally promulgated. Aquinas seems to establish a “basic
harmony between natural right and civil society.”16 Kries realizes that the danger of this
understanding is that it vindicates the conventionalist critique of natural right.17 If we
observe the nations of the world, it is obvious that they are not all in agreement as to what
is just; the conventionalist argument is that this fact proves that natural right doesn’t
exist. This critique is not a problem for classic natural right; just because people don’t
agree on what is just doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as what is truly just. On the
contrary, the diversity of opinions about the just incites one to seek what is truly just. The
noble minded will seek to shun the ignorance of the many. The conventionalist argument
appears ridiculous in this light. But if we say or suggest that what is naturally just is
actually known to every man - or that it would be were it to exist - the conventionalists’
position has more plausibility, given the observable facts. We are left with two possible
choices: to believe that all differences in understanding of the just are only apparently so
because we are all under natural right, and therefore all understandings of the just are
somehow connected, so good; or to believe that there is no such thing as natural right,
and therefore all understandings of the just are immune to praise or blame. Either way,
we become apathetic about justice, and the philosophic quest for knowledge is severely
discouraged.
Douglas Kries, On Leo Strauss’s Understanding of the Natural Law Theory of Thomas Aquinas, The
Thomist. Vol. 57, No. 2 (The Thomist Press, April, 1993), 225.
16
Strauss, 163.
17
Kries, 218.
15
6
The Straussian critique of Aquinas is wrong, but it can only be partially wrong – or
even, only wrong in one sense. No matter what Aquinas’s position really was, what
people generally believe his teaching to be is just as important, if not more important,
than what his true teaching is. And, considering the very brief analysis he makes of
Aquinas, it may well be that Strauss only intends to criticize the apparent teaching of
Aquinas; and we should conclude from the foregoing that it is a just criticism. If Aquinas
is not wrong simply, then he could be charged with imprudence in his method of teaching
(assuming he was not constrained by other circumstances). This work intends only to
demonstrate Aquinas’s true teaching of synderisis and conscience, and does not address
Aquinas’s wisdom, folly, or necessity, of his apparent teaching.
Aquinas continues the above quote thus, “Whence ‘synderesis’ is said to incite to
good, and to murmur at evil, inasmuch as through first principles we proceed to discover,
and judge of what we have discovered.”18 This sentence points to the question about
natural law in the first part of the second part of the Summa. To seek good and avoid evil
is the first precept of the natural law.19 The true meaning of synderisis is limited and
clearly defined. In a reply to an objection in this very question, Aquinas says that
synderisis is “a habit containing the precepts of the natural law.”20 There are only three
other precepts in addition to the principal one. In order, they are the “inclinations” to
preservation of human life, in accordance with the virtue of mere substances; to
reproduction and education of offspring, in accordance with the virtue of animals; and to
live in society and seek to know the truth about God, in accordance with the virtue of
18
S.T. (1. 79. 12)
S.T. (1-2. 94. 2)
20
S.T. (1-2. 94. 1. r.o. 2)
19
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man.21 The habit of synderisis contains these inclinations. But are not these inclinations
precisely the universal ends that are the basis for classic natural right? Even the order in
which Aquinas presents them is telling. Preservation and the development of reason are
both first and last: one, preeminent in nobility; the other, preeminent in urgency. The
middle inclination can be seen as both necessary for preservation (reproduction of
soldiers) and necessary for the cultivation of man’s peculiar virtue (reproduction of
citizens with whom to use logos).
Certainly, classic natural right recognizes these inclinations as true and universal
and as the very basis of natural right. Jaffa, speaking for Aristotle, says that there is no
question that health, “intelligence, sight, certain pleasures, and honors,” are “intuitively
desirable.”22 Also, there can be no question that people of every civilization demonstrate,
for the most part, an inclination for all of these precepts, excepting perhaps the desire to
know God; but then, every person desires to participate in reason to a lesser or greater
extent, and the desire to know any part of truth points to a desire to know all of truth, and
in Aquinas’s view, the author of truth. Aristotle says in the Metaphysics that all men “by
nature desire to know.”23 Now, Jaffa argues that we cannot say that these precepts are the
natural habit of synderisis. That is true; Aquinas says that the precepts of the natural law
are not a habit, but “the principles of the habit of which we possess.”24 But how does
Jaffa therefore extrapolate that synderisis “is a natural habit by which we are commanded
to do the acts of the virtues, and by which we have a sufficient knowledge of these
21
S.T. (1-2. 94. 2)
Jaffa, 170. c.f. NE 1096b18.
23
Jaffa, 170.
24
S.T. (1-2. 94. 1)
22
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actions to be able to carry out the commands?”25 Whether synderisis really is the
collection of primary precepts of the natural law or whether it is the habit which contains
them, the point is that the natural law has exactly the same basis as classic natural right.
But what of Strauss’s claim that “the principles of the moral law,” with Aquinas,
“especially as formulated in the Second Table of the Decalogue, suffer no exception,
unless possibly by divine intervention?”26 First of all, Aquinas says that all the moral
precepts of the Old Law (the second table of the Decalogue) belong to the law of
nature.27 But this does not mean that they belong to synderisis. “Human reason,” says
Aquinas,
Could not go astray in the abstract, as to the universal principles of the
natural law; but through being habituated to sin, it became obscured in
the point of things to be done in detail. But with regard to the other
moral precepts, which are like conclusions drawn from the universal
principles of the natural law, the reason of many men went astray, to the
extend of judging to be lawful, things that are evil in themselves. Hence
there was need for the authority of the Divine law to rescue man from
both these defects. Thus among the articles of faith not only are those
things set forth to which reason cannot reach, such as the Trinity of the
Godhead; but also those to which right reason can attain […].
The primary precepts of the natural law (or the universal ends) are written in man’s heart,
but secondary precepts, like the moral precepts of the Old Law, and as rational
conclusions of the primary precepts, are capable of being corrupted in reason’s
movement from principle to conclusion. But Strauss can still argue that the implication is
that the secondary precepts are still immutable; the only problem is that man’s reason is
sometimes incapable of hitting on them, making man all the more dependent on divine
revelation to know this fixed notion of justice. But earlier, Aquinas had said that “in
25
Jaffa, 172.
Strauss, 163.
27
S.T. (1-2. 100. 1)
26
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matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail
[…]” (emphasis added). That is,
The natural law, as to general principles, is the same for all, both as to
rectitude and as to knowledge. But as to certain matters of detail, which
are conclusions, as it were, of those general principles, it is the same for
all in the majority of cases, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge; and
yet in some few cases it may fail, both as to rectitude [(that is, as to
truth) …], and as to knowledge, since in some the reason is perverted by
passion, or evil habit, or an evil disposition of nature; thus formerly,
theft, although it is expressly contrary to the natural law, was not
considered wrong among the Germans, as Julius Caesar relates (De
Bello Gall. vi)28 (emphasis added).
Not only are secondary precepts of the natural law (that these are essentially the second
table of the Decalogue is indicated by his example) capable of corruption by man’s
imperfect reason, but, in complete accordance with classic natural right, they depend on
the particular; they are in fact mutable. But Aquinas will now appear to contradict
himself. He asks “whether the precepts of the Decalogue are dispensable?”29 His answer
is no, but it turns out to be a highly qualified no. He says that, sometimes, following the
letter of the law frustrates the intention of the lawgiver; which intention is simply the
“common good.” If a community were to enact laws such as “no man should work for the
destruction of the commonwealth,” or “no man should do anything unjust or evil,” then
certainly such precepts would admit of no dispensation.
Now the precepts of the decalogue contain the very intention of the
lawgiver, who is God. For the precepts of the first table, which direct us
to God, contain the very order to the common and final good, which is
God; while the precepts of the second table contain the order of justice
to be observed among men, that nothing undue be done to anyone, and
that each one be given his due; for it is in this sense that we are to take
28
29
S.T. (1-2. 94. 4)
S.T. (1-2. 100. 8)
10
the precepts of the decalogue. Consequently the precepts of the
decalogue admit of no dispensation whatever.30
The Ten Commandments admit of no exceptions only insofar as they, depending on the
particular, adhere to the fundamental precept that “nothing undue be done to anyone.” Of
course, this means that they do, in fact, admit of exceptions.
Aquinas’s teaching is now clear. Synderisis simply consists in man’s natural desire
for the three primary precepts of the natural law. The principal precept, to seek good and
avoid evil, simply indicates the motion of applying these primary precepts to particular
situations. In fact, this act of applying the knowledge we have of the primary precepts to
what we do is conscience.31 Conscience is the rational activity by which we best attain
and give order to the ends of our natural inclinations. It is precisely this rational capacity
that Maritain calls into question.
At first glance, Maritain, seems to agree with the true teaching of Aquinas. In his
writings on Aquinas’s natural law, Maritain says that there is “an order or a disposition
which human reason can discover and according to which the human will must act in
order to attune itself to the […] ends of the human being. The unwritten law, or natural
law, is nothing more than that.”32 He does not consider that Aquinas teaches that certain
moral precepts, like the Ten Commandments, admit of no exception, or that they are their
own justification as self-evident truths written in the natural habit of synderisis. Maritain
is very clear: “The precept thou shalt do no murder is a precept of natural law, because a
30
S.T. (1-2. 100. 8)
S.T. (1. 79. 13)
32
Jacques Maritain, The Social and Political Philosophy of Jacques Maritain: Selected Readings, ed.
Joseph W. Evans and Leo R. Ward (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1965), 42.
31
11
primordial and most general end of human nature is to preserve being.”33 Maritain speaks
of the “ontological element” of the natural law. Every law and regulation and political
decision, if it serves the ends of the human being, thereby conforms to the natural law. It
is in this sense that Aquinas says that the human law is a “determination” of the law of
nature.34 The human law takes its bearings from the primary precepts of the natural law;
it continues to be in accordance with the natural law if it reasons accurately in moving
from primary precept to secondary precept (e.g. from the inclination of preservation to a
law against murder); it finally fulfills the intention of the natural law in applying the
general law to particular situations (e.g. how to punish voluntary and involuntary
manslaughter, whether a pardon may be prudent, and so on). Maritain agrees with this
understanding.
But Maritain also says that the natural law cannot be known fully. “An angel,” he
says, “who knew the human essence in his angelic manner and all the possible existential
situations of man would know natural law in the infinity of its extension. But we do
not.”35 The claim that natural law cannot be known in its fullness is in itself not at all in
disagreement with Aquinas’s teaching, as we’ve seen in the response to the Straussian
critique. But Maritain’s understanding of the limits of knowing of the natural law differs
from Aquinas’s understanding, which we now consider.
In one sense, the natural law is fully known. It is the rational pursuit of the natural
inclinations; which inclinations are fully accounted for. Every pseudo-inclination (like
gluttony, lust, or domination) can be viewed as a perversion of the natural inclinations;
33
Maritain, 43.
S.T. (1-2. 95. 2)
35
Maritain, 44, 45.
34
12
that is, an irrational pursuit of them. But in another sense, the prudence required to fulfill
these inclinations is difficult or perhaps impossible to perfect. For instance, the very basic
inclination of preservation demands, if its end is to be fully met, the best political regime.
The American founders were very proud of the new innovations in the science of politics
that are the basis of our comparatively successful regime, but even they would not
presume to have founded a perfect regime. More importantly, the natural law seeks the
natural end of man, which includes the desire to know the truth about God.36 But we are
incapable of knowing God’s essence in this life.37 The quest to know the Author of truth
is as infinite as the philosophic life. Now, the indefinite quality of philosophy leads to
what the classics show to be a dangerous, but vital and necessary, skepticism. Aquinas
proves to be as aware as the classics about the dangers of absolutism.
In the question of the natural law, Aquinas says that reason can fail in applying the
general precepts of the natural law to particulars because of “concupiscence or some
other passion;”38 but not because of an inherent limitation of reason. It is always at least
possible, however difficult, for prudence or conscience to properly hit on the common
good concerning the three primary precepts, excluding the more individual good of
seeking to know the truth about God, which must necessarily remain incomplete, as far as
human reason goes. The response in this question indicates the relationship between the
city and the philosopher. The promotion of the common good requires discriminating
In addition to the third precept of the natural law, Aquinas says that “man and other rational creatures
attain to their last end by knowing and loving God” (1-2. 1. 8). But in asking whether the divine law is
necessary, Aquinas makes a distinction between man’s natural and supernatural end; the natural law
concerns man’s natural end, but the divine law grants man the supra-natural end of “eternal happiness” (12. 91. 4). This seems to contradict 1-2. 1. 5, where he says that man cannot have more than one final end;
but God, both as object of inquiry (natural end) and object of love (supra-natural end) is the same final end.
37
S.T. (1.3)
38
S.T. (1-2. 94. 6)
36
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reason, but the cohesion of the city requires stable laws; “the mere change of law is of
itself prejudicial to the common good: because custom avails much for the observance of
laws, seeing that what is done contrary to general custom, even in slight matters, is
looked upon as grave.”39 This is the same problem that Aristotle demonstrates about the
prudent man.
Prudence, as opposed to the other intellectual virtues, is concerned about the good
for human beings.40 The prudent man is capable not only of finding out what is good for
mankind universally, but also in the particular. Aristotle’s example is that the prudent
man not only knows that light meat is healthful (the universal), but also that poultry is
light meat and, hence, healthful (the particular). Moreover, Aristotle distinguishes the
prudent man from the expert in politics. Unlike the “busybodies” (the politicians), the
prudent man knows what is good for himself (he is an expert in household management)
and what is the common good (he is a statesman). This qualifies Aristotle’s statement in
Book 1 of the Ethics: that politics is the most authoritative and architectonic of the
disciplines.41 Politics can actually be seen as a part of the more comprehensive virtue of
prudence. Politics is architectonic insofar as laws are what primarily shape the characters
of people. But good laws presuppose good lawmakers.
Aristotle and Aquinas present the prudent man as he who is able to see the polis
from the outside, as one who can correct the laws because his virtue precedes the laws.
On the other hand, it turns out that the deliberation of the prudent man must itself be
preceded by the formation of his character, by ethical virtue. “The eye of the soul,” says
39
S.T. (1-2. 97. 2)
Nicomachean Ethics. 1140b5-8.
41
Ibid. 1094a26-28.
40
14
Aristotle, referring to its ability to recognize particulars, “does not develop its active
condition without virtue […]. Likewise, Aquinas says that “the perfection of virtue must
be acquired by man by means of some kind of training,” which the human law based on
the natural law, which in turn demands the complete virtue of man, is meant to provide.42
Thus, the prudent man precedes the ethical man, and the ethical man preceded the
prudent man. But this inconsistency simply points to the truly self-sufficient man
described in Book 10. The philosopher’s wisdom is not essentially dependant on the city.
Likewise, Aquinas says,
And as to those young people who are inclined to acts of virtue, by their
good natural disposition, or by custom, or rather by the gift of God,
paternal training suffices, which is by admonitions. But since some are
found to be depraved, and prone to vice, and not easily amenable to
words, it was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and
fear, in order that, at least, they might desist from evil-doing, and leave
others in peace, and that they themselves, by being habituated in this
way, might be brought to do willingly what hitherto they did from fear,
and thus become virtuous.43
In this passage Aquinas does not mention the philosopher, but he does indicate that
virtue does not strictly depend on the laws of the city. The erotic young may well be
persuaded by the wisdom of the household manager. The influence of the philosopher is
implied. Indeed, from the perspective of the philosopher, the law is only necessary for
peace. This proves Aquinas’s view that prudence or conscience is ultimately independent
of the formative power of the city, which is not to say that laws don’t have a formative or
educational quality. But Maritain’s understanding of the limitation of natural law is
precisely a denial of the independence of conscience or deliberative reason.
42
43
S.T. (1-2. 95.1)
S.T. (1-2. 95.1)
15
Maritain’s understanding is that conscience is not an ultimately private capacity of
human reason to go beyond the cave; human reason may aspire to the truth about justice,
but it does so in and through the political community. Maritain says that “the human
knowledge of natural law has been progressively shaped and molded by the inclinations
of human nature, starting from the most basic ones.”44 Even the basic inclinations, that is,
the primary precepts of the natural law, were “first expressed in social patterns rather
than in personal judgments […].”45 This implies an essential dependency of reason on the
state; but what does Maritain mean by the inclinations? Aquinas lists the three
inclinations or primary precepts of the natural law, apparently defining and limiting the
content of synderisis. The fact that Aquinas identifies each inclination with the virtue of
man and of the inferior beings indicates finality. But by inclinations Maritain seems to
mean the tendencies of thought within a political community at a given time.
The history of civilization presents us with a picture of progressing inclinations.
The knowledge of natural law
is embodied in the most general and most ancient heritage of mankind,
[and] covers only the field of the ethical regulations of which men have
become aware by virtue of knowledge through inclination, and which
are basic principles in moral life – progressively recognized from the
most common principles to the more and more specific ones.
His choice of the word inclination can be confusing, considering Aquinas’s use and
understanding of the term, but Maritain uses the word intentionally. The primary
precepts, in this light, are certainly part of human nature, but from the perspective of one
seeking to understand the natural law, they are the horizon of knowledge of a civilization
44
45
Maritain, 46.
Maritain, 47.
16
in its most primitive form. First, as civilization progresses, the “primordial regulations of
natural law” become clearer or less “crepuscular;” second – “always by means of
knowledge through inclination” – it becomes aware of its “further, higher regulations.”
Maritain’s thesis becomes clearer. Aquinas’s conscience, which is nothing but
independent and cave-ascending human reason seeking the fulfillment of the natural
inclinations, is replaced by “knowledge through inclination” of the society as a whole.
What a civilization as a whole believes to be true about justice at any given moment in
time is not an accident. Maritain says that the “progress of moral conscience is indeed the
most unquestionable instance of progress in humanity.”46 This understanding of
conscience clearly does not belong to Aquinas, and Maritain’s view now falls prey to the
Straussian critique.
If, as Maritain says “ideology” is not allowed to “venture beyond the common body
of inclinations,” there is no motivation to seek the truth about justice.47 Philosophy falls
in the same rut that scholasticism, supposedly led by Aquinas, fell into. “Self knowledge
is a privilege of the spirit;” that is, philosophy can only aspire to describe its current
cave.48 The political and philosophical consequences of this understanding of reason and
progress are only too clear to us. Any political action can be justified as a manifestation
of the spirit; moreover, the notion of progress falls prey to a variation of the
conventionalist critique. If the history of civilization reveals, in reality, no distinguishing
thread – if it is perceived instead as a tale told by an idiot, belief in natural right becomes
ridiculous once it is necessarily tied to historic progress. Maritain’s view of Aquinas’s
46
Maritain, 48.
Maritain, 48.
48
Maritain, 18.
47
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natural law can have, again, only two possible outcomes: an acceptance of everything
because it is viewed as the progress of history or the unfolding of a tradition, or a
rejection of natural right altogether, so that everything is beyond praise and blame.
Aquinas’s true teaching of synderisis, conscience, and natural law, in contrast, is in
agreement with the classic understanding of natural right.
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