Reason as Reckoning: Hobbes's Natural Law as Right Reason

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Barnouw
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Actual Computation ◽  
Right Reason

AbstractHobbes conception of reason as computation or reckoning is significantly different in Part I of De Corpore (entitled Computatio sive Logica) from what I take to be the later treatment in Leviathan. In the late actual computation with words starts with making an affirmation, framing a proposition. Reckoning then has to do with the consequences of propositions, or how they connect the facts, states of affairs or actions which they refer tor account. Starting from this it can be made clear how Hobbes understood the crucial application of this conception to natural law, identified as 'right reason'.

Terminating in the Body

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-220
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
First Person ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Distinctive Features

The New Natural Law (NNL) theory offers a distinctive account of the nature of intention and human action and, accordingly, of what aspects and consequences of a human agent’s performance should be considered outside the intention (praeter intentionem). In part, the distinctive features of the account follow from a methodological decision to consider human action from the perspective of the agent of that action, the first-person agential standpoint. This theory of action and intention has nevertheless been subject to considerable criticism. The view is held by many to be too first-personal and to provide inadequate “constraints” on what an agent intends when his performance will inevitably and foreseeably be accompanied or followed by states of affairs in which individuals are harmed.

Catholic Natural Law and Business Ethics

2001 ◽  
pp. 107-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Velasquez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Right Reason

This article describes Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth-century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. Four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century are then identified, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition issuperior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism.

Right Reason and Natural Law in Hobbes’s Ethics

The Monist ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Kavka ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Right Reason

Natural Law and Business Ethics

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Velasquez ◽  
F. Neil Brady
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Tobacco Industry ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Right Reason

Abstract:We describe the Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. We then identify four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition is superior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism.

Confronting Kant and Kierkegaard

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-247
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Ethical Obligation ◽  
Right Reason ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter considers in more detail how it is that the kind of natural law approach embodied in Løgstrup’s ‘ontological ethics’ puts him at odds with both Kant and Kierkegaard, and leads him to convict them of formalism. Løgstrup’s claim is that by failing to adopt his approach, neither Kant nor Kierkegaard can do justice to the ethical demand, as they see it as deriving from the authority of a commander. The difficulty is that such authority is ‘content-independent’ in H. L. A. Hart’s sense, making the reason to act that one has been commanded, rather than the vulnerability of the other person, which in these situations should be the right reason on which to act. If Løgstrup is correct, it is argued that his critique also has significant implications against contemporary attempts to ground ethical obligation in the authority of practical reason and divine command respectively.

scholarly journals God's Bridle: John Calvin's Application of Natural Law

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Scott Pryor
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
John Finnis ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Internal Rationality

Natural law has made a comeback in legal philosophy. The revival of natural law thinking in the legal academy began about thirty years ago and has managed to gain a seat at the table in current jurisprudential discussions. Defining natural law, Brian Bix declares that it “claims that there are fundamental and evaluative connections between the universe, human nature, and morality.” These connections need not have a Christian or even a theistic foundation. A belief in moral realism, that is, the propositions that “(1) there is an objective reality, (2) human beings can know something about it, and (3) there are some things that everyone can, and some things that everyone ought to, do in response to what they know,” ties together theistic and non-theistic versions of natural law. Yet many prominent contemporary natural law theorists—J. Budziszewski, John Finnis, Robert George, and Russell Hittinger —are Roman Catholic. Despite the fact that Finnis and George develop their natural law arguments without reference to any metaphysical states of affairs or transcendent truth claims, natural law continues to be associated with Thomas Aquinas and the subsequent scholastic tradition. Thus, even standards that Finnis and George derive from the internal rationality of law strike some as disguised theology.

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