Natural
Law,
Economics and the Common Good
Joseph
Milne
According
to Natural Law everything has a proper end in harmony with nature
as a whole. In a society this means that wealth has a proper end
in serving the common good. This talk will explore the implications
of this principle in relation to the concepts of property
and right use.
My
theme is natural law, economics and the common good, and I would
like to begin with a definition of natural law: The natural law
is the harmonious ordering of Nature to its proper end, which is
justice and the good. It is the inherent moral order of the universe.
I draw this definition from the long tradition of natural law which
can be traced back to ancient Egypt, through Greek Presocratic philosophy,
through Plato and Aristotle, through Roman law and through medieval
theology up to the fifteenth century. Throughout that long history
there was an understanding that the universe was ordered to the
good and in harmony with the whole. Justice and wisdom permeated
Nature, ordering it from within. This was expressed in various ways.
In ancient Egypt it was through the goddess Maat, who embodied
truth, justice and wisdom. Maat is present everywhere. It
is the unwritten law everyone knows they are called to follow if
they are to live auspiciously and in friendship with Nature and
the gods. Maat is very like the ancient Sanskrit Rta,
the ordering principle of the universe. It is also like the ancient
Chinese principle of the Dao. It is the unwritten law, the
law before any codes of law.
The
same meaning is found in the Greek word for law, nomos. Heraclitus
speaks of this law in the Fragments where he says:
112.
Wisdom is the foremost virtue, and wisdom consists in speaking
the truth, and in lending an ear to nature and acting according
to her.
113-14.
Wisdom is common to all. . . . They who would speak with intelligence
must hold fast to the [wisdom that is] common to all, as a city
holds fast to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws
are fed by one divine law, which prevails as far as it listeth
and suffices for all things and excels all things.[1]
Here
the wisdom common to all is the wisdom pervading in the universe
and common to human intelligence. It is the divine law
which guides all human laws. It provides for all things. It is providential,
caring for things according to their place in nature. It is this
divine law that is heard by lending an ear to nature and acting
according to her. This law foresees all things and provides
for all human wants.
In
his Rhetoric Aristotle speaks of the unwritten laws
sanctioned by heaven:
The
unwritten laws are the great fundamental conceptions of morality,
derived and having their sanction from heaven, antecedent and
superior to all the conventional enactments of human societies,
and common alike to all mankind. [2]
In
more mythic terms, it is the law of the Greek god Cronus, the law
of the Age of Gold that Hesiod records in his Works and Days.
In that Age Nature gave to all freely. It is an Age free from avarice,
the vice in Greek philosophy that corrupts society. Avarice forgets
the law and becomes the mark of the Age of Iron, where few hold
to their word.
In
Platos Laws the Age of Gold is symbolised by the golden
cord in the soul, where the Athenian Stranger says this cord
is the golden and sacred pull of calculation, and is called the
common law of the city [3] The word calculation
is a translation of the Greek logismos which more accurately
in this context means right judgement. The common
law of the city is the universal unwritten law shared by all
humanity. It is known directly by the intellect in the soul that
is open to the guidance of the gods or divine reason.
Two
ideas are transmitted and developed from Platos understanding
of a knowledge of this common law within the soul. First,
that every being has an innate knowledge of the law that guides
its mode of life within the greater order of nature. Hence the idea
that all should act in accord with nature. Second, that human reason
is informed by eternal principles that guide action towards the
true and the good.
Aristotle
divides the intellect into two aspects which he calls the theoretical
reason and the practical reason. The theoretical
reason discerns eternal principles of truth, such as in the law
of non-contradiction where, for example, something cannot exist
and not exist. The practical reason, on the other hand, has an inherent
knowledge of the good from which it makes practical ethical judgements.
While the theoretical reason is concerned with eternal truths and
is contemplative, the practical reason is concerned with contingent
actions and decisions in the moment. The practical reason is the
ground of ethical knowledge. It has a capacity to foresee the consequences
of actions. It is the knowledge that one should always act justly
and never unjustly. But since it has a capacity of foresight, the
practical reason also knows that a good action is one that serves
the common good. Right action is at once being true to oneself and
acting according to nature. We recall what Heraclitus said:
...wisdom
consists in speaking the truth, and in lending an ear to nature
and acting according to her.
In
a highly compressed way he is saying the same as Aristotle says
of the two aspects of reason, the theoretical and the practical.
In
a variety of different ways, these essential ideas passed through
the early Stoic philosophers and through Cicero and then into medieval
theology. Law was considered in three aspects: the eternal law in
the mind of God, the universal law shared by all mankind, and the
positive or human law that each society codifies for itself. The
universal law is also called the common law or the natural law.
The codified law should be in accord with the universal law, otherwise
it cannot be called law.
How
might all this apply to the study of economics? Well, since it apples
to everything it necessarily must apply to economics. I began with
a short definition of natural law:
The
natural law is the harmonious ordering of Nature to its proper
end, which is justice and the good.
Apart
from the ethical aspect, the important aspect here is the understanding
that everything has a proper end. This refers to what is called
the telos of things, which is their purpose within nature.
This law governs the development and growth of things and their
function as part of nature as a whole. This is readily observable
in living things. They grow according to their nature into maturity.
According to this understanding, the nature of a growing thing is
known only when it is fully formed or mature. Aristotle was the
first to elaborate this view of nature, although it is present in
Plato. Thus Aristotle says we can discern human nature properly
only in the mature adult. He goes further, saying that the truly
mature adult is a virtuous adult. This is because only the virtuous
person has fulfilled their telos, or come to completion.
The telos of things is also called their final cause,
the end for which they come into being. The same is said in a different
way by Plato. For Plato the telos and the ethical converge. Hence
the great emphasis in Greek education on the cultivation of the
virtues. Without the virtues of prudence, justice, courage and temperance
a person cannot be fully rational. I think everyone understands
this to some degree. Virtues are not moral principles but capacities,
or what the Greeks called habits or skills.
They involve self-mastery. That is the Greek idea of the mature
person. The virtuous person can live by the natural law whether
or not it is reflected in the positive laws of a society.
If
everything has a proper end in the order of nature, we may ask about
the proper end of the economy. The first thing that the natural
law indicates is that wealth must have a proper end, and this end
must lie beyond itself. Plato ranks wealth as necessary for the
health of the body, and the health of the body as necessary for
the sake of the soul. The aim or purpose of society is the cultivation
of the soul. But if wealth becomes an end in itself, then it distorts
the natural order of the society. In the Laws the Athenian
Stranger says:
The
noblest and best thing of all for every city is that the truth
be told about wealth, namely, that it is for the sake of the body,
and the body is for the sake of the soul. Since, therefore, there
are goods for the sake of which wealth by nature exists, it would
come third after virtue of the body and of the soul. [4]
The
pursuit of wealth as an end in itself is to miss its proper purpose.
Thomas
Aquinas has much to say about this. The aim of life for the individual
ought to correspond with the aim of society as a whole. There is
therefore a correspondent ranking of goods for the individual and
for society. For example, he says in his treatise On the Governance
of Rulers:
Now
the same judgement is to be formed about the end of society as
a whole as about the end of one man. If, therefore, the ultimate
end of man were some good that existed in himself, then the ultimate
end of the multitude to be governed would likewise be for the
multitude to acquire such good, and persevere in its possession.
If such an ultimate end either of an individual man or a multitude
were a corporeal one, namely, life and health of body, to govern
would then be a physicians charge. If that ultimate end
were an abundance of wealth, then knowledge of economics would
have the last word in the communitys government. If the
good of the knowledge of truth were of such a kind that the multitude
might attain to it, the king would have to be a teacher. [5]
For
Aquinas the final good to be aimed at is beatitude, or mystical
union with God. So both man and society have an aim beyond themselves.
Nevertheless, there is an order that belongs to each individual
and to society which belongs to the social and political life. The
spiritual life cannot be fulfilled without properly ordering society.
And the principle of the proper ordering of society is the common
good. The individual good cannot be secured without aiming at
the common good. Thus Aquinas says: Man cannot possibly be
good unless he stands in the right relation to the common good.
[6]
Without
wealth the body will not be healthy, and without a healthy body
the soul will not flourish. This is the same for the individual
and for society. The natural law serves the good of each through
serving the good of the whole. If every individual strives only
for their own good, it will not be attained without harming the
common good. The inner life and the outer life cannot be separated.
This
established a principle that was lost in the seventeenth century
debates about law and society: namely the principle that man is
by nature a social and political being. Aquinas summarises this
traditional understanding rather beautifully in the following way:
It
is, however, clear that the end of a multitude gathered together
is to live virtuously. For men form a group for the purpose of
living well together, a thing which the individual man
living alone could not attain, and good life is virtuous
life. Therefore, virtuous life is the end for which men gather
together. The evidence for this lies in the fact that only those
who render mutual assistance to one another in living well form
a genuine part of an assembled multitude. If men assembled merely
to live, then animals and slaves would form a part of the civil
community. Or, if men assembled only to accrue wealth, then all
those who traded together would belong to one city. Yet we see
that only such are regarded as forming one multitude as are directed
by the same laws and the same government to live well. [7]
The
expression to live well comes straight from Aristotle. To
live well is the final end society aims at. And living well is possible
only in community, and good community is possible only with good
laws and virtuous citizens. Man is at once the political being and
the ethical being.
There
are two obvious ways in which we can see that political community
is natural to man. The first is that the human species has language
and speech. In the Timaeus Plato says speech was given to
man by the gods in order that he may speak the truth of things.
It is part of the human calling to bear witness to truth. Aristotle
says man is the only species with speech so that there can be discourse
on justice and injustice. Such discourse belongs to man as the social
and political being. The second way in which it can be seen that
political community is natural to man is that each individual has
particular talents through which they may make a unique contribution
to the community. There is a natural division of talents ordained
by nature for the ends they serve. The corollary to this is that
no individual is sufficient unto himself. What one lacks, another
provides. Hence mutual exchange is natural to the human species,
grounded first in speech, then in tradition or custom, then in economics.
But the natural principle of exchange is generosity, giving birth
to justice. In this most essential sense, ordained by nature, the
most perfect expression of society is friendship. In considering
the ends that the lawgiver should seek, Plato says in the Laws:
One
should reason as follows: when we asserted one should look toward
moderation, or toward prudence, or friendship, these goals are
not different but the same. Even if many other words of this sort
crop up, lets not let it disturb us.[8]
But
true friendship is through the practice of the virtues, and in the
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes clear that only the virtuous
may become friends in the true sense. This is because true friendship
is beyond pleasure or utility. It is the love of virtue in the soul
of the friend. Between friends all things are held in common.
This
is the first principle of property. Nature gives freely to all and
in right proportion, and in friendship founded in virtue there is
no need for property laws. This is the highest ideal. Yet the philosophers
and lawmakers have always understood that this highest ideal has
to be moderated according to the quality of virtue in a society.
For Plato a society of wholly virtuous citizens would be a city
of sons of gods. Hesiod had seen it as the Age of Gold.
Aquinas saw such a society as Eden before the Fall.
So,
where there is not perfect virtue and perfect friendship, there
must be human or positive laws regarding property. Aquinas says
this is because if all things were held in common they would not
be duly cared for. Fallen man cares for what is his own. Therefore
laws need to be made for the most equitable division of property,
especially land and the gifts of nature, where their right use would
continue to serve the common good. Thus it is established that all
property laws are a modification of the natural law, yet which seeks
to attain the same end as the natural law, which is common benefit.
We might say that property law is the birth of positive law. In
primitive societies, customs dealt with the question of property
without the need of codes of law. Even today the Maori people in
New Zealand see themselves as belonging to the land, rather
than as owning land. And that would seem the right way round. But
in societies greater than the village or town, it would seem that
codes of law are required.
For
Aquinas the purpose of ownership of property is to establish its
right use. There is no inherent right to property in
the modern sense, not even through ones labour. Labour does
not create or establish ownership. The natural law works on the
basis of duties rather than entitlements. The right use of things,
especially the land which is given by nature, is to serve the common
good. Land has a right use, and this right use is clearly absent
if it is put to a use that deprives any individual or society at
large of its benefit. That is simply theft.
I
appreciate that we all understand the common use of the land. But
there is an aspect which is often overlooked when thinking of land
possession purely in terms of society. The wrong use of land harms
the land itself. For example, we recognise the dreadful social conditions
that arose with the dissolution of the monasteries and later with
the enclosures. We also see the decline in social conditions during
the industrial revolution, with the slum tenements in the cities.
But it is easy to overlook that both the enclosures and the industrial
revolution brought about abuse of the land itself, or even originate
in the abuse of land. Modern mining and farming methods are an abuse
of the land, just as were the building of the city slums. The land
itself has a proper end, which is to nurture all living beings,
including human society. The first duty of society according to
natural law is the duty to preserve the land for the common good.
This duty is prior to the law of rent, and the law of rent rests
upon it.
If
serving the common good is the right use of the land or of nature
more widely, then according to natural law it is not theft if a
destitute person takes from private possessions what they need.
Aquinas says that in the case of dire need properly laws are suspended
and common ownership is resumed.
But
even in our private possessions, apart from land, ownership is qualified
by the principle of right use. For example, ownership does not give
a right to destroy ones own property, as claimed by some.
(Adam Smith, for example.) That would make ownership absolute, while
in fact it is only according to positive law. And positive law cannot
overrule the natural law. But the right use of ones possessions
means they should be used for the common good, not merely for oneself.
Even eating a meal can be done for the common good. The right use
of wealth is for the body so that the body may serve the soul, and
the soul may serve the highest good. Used in this manner all things
may serve the good of society and preserve nature and the land.
To use things solely for oneself is theft. All things have a right
use. For example, using money for gambling is a misuse of money
and contrary to the nature of money. That is not a use it is intended
for. And the modern gambling industry is both an abuse of money
and of work. Any work that does not bring about a common benefit
is not real work.
This
brings us to perhaps one of the hardest questions of all for economic
enquiry: What is the true purpose of work? We have become so accustomed
to thinking of work as labour for production, and production for
profit, that the real meaning of human work has become obscured.
That manner of thinking dehumanises the economic realm and separates
it from the social realm. It is what Karl Polanyi calls the disembedding
of the economy from the social realm. And so we have come
to regard social justice and economic justice as two different things
while in fact they are interdependent. At their heart lies the question
of the true meaning and purpose of work.
Is
there a model that can illustrate the true meaning of human work?
This question is so obscured by the land question that we need to
step outside that for a model. When discussing how, according to
the natural law, all things are held in common, Aquinas remarks
that this is perhaps possible only in the monastic life. The monk
has no possessions because his work can be dedicated to the spiritual
life and the welfare of society. Labouring in the fields can be
a form of prayer. That is to say, work may be transformed through
being dedicated to God. Work transformed in this way becomes a benefit
to society as a whole.
I
am not suggesting we should join a monastery! But the question of
the dedication of work illuminates work itself at the deepest level.
Earlier we saw how the natural law distributes the different human
talents for the common good. What one lacks, another provides. This,
I suggested, is the real root of economic exchange. It means that
every exchange both fulfils a vocational calling and is mutually
beneficial. That is the true spirit of work. Those fortunate in
finding and following their natural vocations are fulfilled in their
work and do not grudge putting all their effort into it. The question
of dedication lies at the heart of the question of economic justice.
What a society is dedicated to reveals its nature. Any economic
exchange that is not equally beneficial to either party is an unjust
exchange and a distortion of the true nature of exchange. It harms
society as a whole. Most injustices in the modern economy are due
to unequal exchanges, whether in employment, selling, or any use
of land.
Unjust
exchanges are also abuses of work. If dedicated to justice and the
common good, then work would find its right use and nothing in nature
would be abused or spoiled. Here the questions of economic justice
and the environment converge. They are not really separate questions.
That is why I noted earlier that the question of property in land
is bound up with the right use of land. Property rights obscure
the question of right use. Modern environmentalism seeks to find
a compromise between preservation and exploitation. It is assumed
that there is a necessary conflict between human wants and the provision
of nature. This false notion is present in classical economics built
on the notion of scarcity. But any human wants that involve the
abuse of nature are false wants. This situation arises, as Plato
says, when the pursuit of wealth takes precedence over health and
the cultivation of the soul. There cannot be economic justice when
the acquisition of wealth becomes the principle aim of a society.
This aim necessarily leads to wealth inequality because one persons
excess is anothers loss, as Aristotle observes. Wealth equality
is possible if proportioned with the natural providence of nature,
where real equality is according to need. The idea that there is
a competition for scarce recourses is a false and pernicious idea.
We recall what Heraclitus said: For all human laws are fed
by one divine law, which prevails as far as it listeth and suffices
for all things and excels all things.
Let
me close with a simple observation. From the perspective of natural
law it is the highest ends of things that orders nature and which
indicates the just order of society. Modern thinking supposes we
must build from the bottom up, but the natural law says we should
build from the top down. In philosophical language this means seeing
the telos or final causes of things, the true
ends for which they come into being. Everything in nature has a
final end which means its completion of itself in harmony with nature
as a whole. Every living being desires the fulness of being. But
to attain this it must live in accordance with nature. Man is liable
to seek the fulness of being in wrong ends. Yet knowledge of the
natural law is implanted in the practical reason and everyone knows
that justice and the common good are the ends that should guide
desire and also inform the positive laws of a society. Law in this
sense should be a reminder of what we already know. It is not an
external imposition laid upon us. It is that to which we are naturally
inclined.
[1]
Charles M. Bakewell, Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York, 1907) p. 34
[2]
Aristotle On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse translated
by George A. Kennedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 1368bf.
[3]
Plato, The Laws of Plato, translated by Thomas Pangle (Basic
Books, New York, 1980) 644d-645a
[4]
Plato, Laws 870b
[5]
Thomas Aquinas, De Regno translated by Gerald B. Phelan (Toronto:
The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949) 1.15. 106
[6]
Josef Pieper, The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas: A Breviary of Philosophy
from the Works of St Thomas Aquinas, quotation 335.
[7]
Thomas Aquinas, De Regno translated by Gerald B. Phelan (Toronto:
The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949) 1.15. 106
[8]
Plato, The Laws of Plato, translated by Thomas Pangle (New
York: Basic Books, 1980) 693b-693c.
This
talk was given to the SPES Symposium "Spirit in Economics and
Law" 2024
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