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{"id":16498,"date":"2014-08-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1392"},"modified":"2014-08-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T00:00:00","slug":"basic-goods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/08\/basic-goods\/","title":{"rendered":"Basic Goods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Patrick Lee and Robert George offer a sharp critique of various forms of naturalist defense of traditional marriage in their recent\u00a0Conjugal Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defining human nature as a \u201cpattern,\u201d they argue that \u201cit is not obvious that acting unnaturally is always morally wrong.\u201d Even if \u201cunnatural\u201d is taken to mean \u201cagainst nature,\u201d there are cases when acting against nature is morally legitimate. An animal\u2019s capacity to nourish itself is a capacity oriented to the good of the animal\u2019s health, but there may be cases when blocking that capacity might be in the best interest\u2019s of the animal. \u201cThwarting the goal of the nutritive power need not be contrary to the basic good of health.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another form, naturalism would argue that human nature has inherent ends or purposes, and that it is never morally legitimate to act contrary to those ends or purposes. Lee and George sift through the is\/ought problems that arise here, concluding that the problem with this argument is not that it derives an ought from an is but that it illegitimately shifts from theoretical to practical reasoning. To derive the conclusion, it\u2019s necessary to introduce a proposition along the lines of \u201cthat which contributes to the fullness of being that is due a (human) being is to be done or pursued,\u201d but this practical axiom cannot be simply deduced from a notion of teleological nature.<\/p>\n

Positively, drawing on \u201cnew natural law\u201d theory, they offer an account of moral choice, not based on specific theological claims, that focuses on \u201cbasic human goods.\u201d These basic goods are transcultural, and include goods pertaining to our physical existence (health), our nature as rational beings (knowledge, beauty), our capacity for creation (skillful performance), the harmony of body and soul, and social goods. Besides these, \u201cIn every culture, people seek to establish or maintain a harmony between themselves and more-than-human sources of meaning and value in the universe,\u201d which is the \u201cgood of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Precisely here, the argument goes awry. Is \u201creligion\u201d as such a basic good? What if the more than human source of meaning is a false god, an idol? Don\u2019t we need to be able to identify the genuine goods of religion from spurious goods? How can we do that? For Judaism and Christianity, we do that because God has acted in time in specific ways. If we say we can distinguish true from false gods without reference to these divine acts, then we have departed from the logic of biblical religion. If we say that we don\u2019t need <\/em>to distinguish true from false, then our defection from faith is even deeper.<\/p>\n

Put it this way: It\u2019s not clear how Eve could deploy the new natural law to parry the serpent\u2019s temptation. After all, the fruit of the tree fulfilled several basic human goods \u2013 goods of knowledge, goods of the body, even, according to the serpent, religious goods (\u201cyou will be like gods\u201d). Absent knowledge of God\u2019s prohibition, how could Eve have known to reject the serpent? Indeed, it looks as if Eve was deceived precisely because <\/em>she analyzed the temptation in terms of basic human goods.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"