The Idea of Natural Law

Honors Junior Seminar

Fall 2000

TTh 12:15-1:30 pm

McAlister 402

Instructor: Dr. Donna Bowman

Office: McAlister 310                           Office Phone: 450-3631

Office hours: MWF 1-3 pm, or by appointment

E-mail: donnab@mail.uca.edu

 

Objective: The term “natural law” has been and continues to be used in many different fields, including theology, philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, science, and politics.  What connects all these usages, and what divides them?  In this course, we will seek to understand the historical roots of natural law thinking and how the concept is applied today in all of these disciplines.  We will also practice the application of natural law and form our own critique of its adequacy in several case studies.

 

Texts:

Robert P. George, ed. Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J. Readings in Moral Theology No. 7: Natural Law and Theology.  New York: Paulist Press, 1991.

 

Requirements:

  1. Attendance.  More than six excused absences will affect your grade; more than three unexcused absences will affect your grade.
  2. Participation.  Our pursuit of ideas and answers is a group effort, and we will need everyone to listen, question, respond, and lead.
  3. Discussion leadership.  Students in teams will lead eight class sessions.  Your responsibilities for these sessions, as leader, are: (a) to identify the key issues in the text and summarize them for the class; (b) to answer questions raised by the class; (c) to raise questions for class discussion; (c) to manage class discussion toward a productive learning experience.
  4. Case study presentation.  You will be assigned to one of four groups, each of which will present a case study of a current issue to the class.  The case studies represent issues on which natural law thinking has been brought to bear in various fields of inquiry.  Your group will research your issue and present it to the class.  A handout with guidelines for case study presentations will be provided near mid-term.
  5. Listserv participation.  Every week that you are neither leading class discussion nor presenting a case study, you must post a response to the week’s topics on the class e-mail listserv.  This activity takes the place of the journal entries to which you are accustomed.  Your writing, instead of disappearing into the black hole of your instructor’s office, will be sent to every other member of the class.  All students, in turn, may reply to your e-mail with their own comments, answers to questions you’ve raised, agreements or disagreements, or any pertinent response – and all those replies will also be sent to the entire class.  The weekly deadline for your required post is Thursday at class time.

The required weekly post is just the beginning of listserv participation.  You are encouraged to use the listserv to pose questions, give answers to others, and generally ruminate on any topic related to the class.  It’s a way to “keep the conversation going” outside of class time, and a way for you to help each other through some difficult but important ideas.  The website for the listserv (general information, subscription options, archives) is http://l2.uca.edu/mailman/listinfo/naturallaw.  Send your postings to naturallaw@l2.mailman.edu(that’s two L’s before the @ and one L after).

  1. Papers.  You will write two five-page papers.  The first, due October 24, will be on any topic of your choice related to the course.  This paper may also be an analysis of one or more of the other essays in our texts.  The second, due December 7, will be on any aspect of your case study issue. 
  2. Final exam.  The exam will be a choice of essay questions designed to allow you to integrate information from various sections of the course.

 

Schedule of classes:

 

August 15 (Th): Introduction and orientation

 

August 22 (T): Hebrew and Christian Biblical views

Read: Genesis 1:1-4:15, 8:22-9:17; Romans 1:1-2:29; available at http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html;

C.H. Dodd, “Natural Law in the New Testament,” New Testament Studies (Manchester University Press, 1967), pp. 129-142.

 

August 24 (Th): Plato, Euthypro (student-led discussion)

                         Leaders: Sarah Moore and Luke Walker

 

August 29 (T): Aristotle and Cicero

Read one of the following: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics book V; or Robert Wilken, “Cicero and the Law of Nature,” in Arthur L. Harding, ed., Origins of the Natural Law Tradition (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971), pp. 1-25.

 

August 31 (Th): Sophocles, Antigone (student-led discussion)

                         Leaders: Loi Clampit and Jacob Ishee

Read: http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html.

 

September 5 (T): Jewish views

Recommended on reserve: David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), ch. 6, "Noahide Law and Human Personhood." pp. 149-173.

 

September 7 (Th): Thomas Aquinas Part I

Read: Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, Questions 91-94, available at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2.htm.

Recommended on reserve: Thomas E. Davitt, "St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law," in Origins of the Natural Law, pp. 26-47.

 

September 12 (T): Thomas Aquinas Part II

Read: Ralph McInerny, "The Principles of Natural Law," and John Finnis & Germain Grisez, "Natural Law: A Reply to Ralph McInerny," in Curran & McCormick, pp. 139-170

 

September 14 (Th): The Reformers Part I

Read: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I.iii.1-2, II.ii.12-24, II.viii.1-2, III.xix.14-15, IV.xx.14-16, available at http://www.bible.org/docs/history/calvin/institut/httoc.htm.

 

September 19 (T): The Reformers Part II (student-led discussion)

                             Leaders: Stephanie Hamling, Crystal Boerner, and Jeremy Irvan

Read: John McNeill, "Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers," Journal of Religion 26 (1942), 168-182.

 

September 21 (Th): Enlightenment ethics

Read one of the following: Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Law (1797), excerpt in G.C. Christie & P.H. Martin, eds., Jurisprudence: Text and Readings on the Philosophy of Law, 2nd edition (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1995), pp. 286-304; or David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1777), excerpt in A. MacIntyre, ed., Hume's Ethical Writings (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965), pp. 183-202.

 September 26 (T): Enlightenment politics

Read one of the following: Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (1651), excerpt in F.W. Coker, ed., Readings in Political Philosophy (New York: MacMillan, 1929), pp. 301-319; or John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1690), excerpt in Coker, ibid., pp. 383-396.

 

September 28 (Th): The Founders Part I (guest lecturer: Phillip Melton, J.D.)

Read: Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, available at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/declaration.html.

 

October 3 (T): The Founders Part II (student-led discussion)

                        Leaders: Andrew Keller and Karen Spicer

Read: Carl L. Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), pp. 24-79.

 

October 5 (Th): Contemporary legal use (guest lecturer: Phillip Melton, J.D.)

Read: John Finnis, “Natural Law and Legal Reasoning,” in George, pp. 134-157.

Recommended: "Symposium: The End of Democracy?: The Judicial Usurpation of Politics," First Things 67 (Nov. 1996), available at http://www.firstthings.com/menus/ft9611.html; "The End of Democracy?: A Discussion Continued," First Things 69 (Jan. 1997), available at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9701/articles/theend.html.

 

October 10 (T): The Thomas confirmation (student-led discussion)

                          Leaders: Evan McLemore and Rob Haulton

Read one of the following: Robert Bork, "Natural Law and the Constitution," First Things 21 (Mar. 1992), pp. 16-20; or Virginia Black, "Natural Law, Constitutional Adjudication and Clarence Thomas," UC Davis Law Review 26(3): 769-789.

 

October 12 (Th): Natural law vs. moral/legal relativism (student-led discussion)

                           Leaders: Carol Corley, D.J. Durham, and Virginia Castleman

Read: Jeremy Waldron, “The Irrelevance of Moral Objectivity,” in George, pp. 158-187.

Recommended: Kenneth Cauthen, "Natural Law and Moral Relativism" (1998), available at http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/law.htm.

 

October 17 (T): Case study: Gay marriage

 

October 19 (Th): Civil disobedience (student-led discussion)

                           Leaders: Jessica Taylor, Suzanne Adlof, and Amy Horton

Read one of the following: Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/frequentdocs/birmingham.html; or Henry Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience (Part I)," available at http://www2.cybernex.net/~rlenat/civil1.html.

 

October 24 (T): Catholic moral reasoning

Read one of the following: Michael B. Crowe, "The Pursuit of the Natural Law," in Curran & McCormick, pp. 296-332; or Richard M. Gula, S.S., "Natural Law Today," in Curran & McCormick, pp. 369-391.

FIRST PAPER DUE!

 

October 26 (Th): Case study: Birth control

 

October 31 (T): Protestant critics

Read: Carl F.H. Henry, "Natural Law and a Nihilistic Culture," First Things 49 (Jan. 1995). Available at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9501/articles/henry.html; also see resulting correspondance at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9504/correspondence.html - Natural.

 

November 2 (Th): Revelation and the natural law

Read one of the following: Stanley Hauerwas, "Nature, Reason and the Task of Theological Ethics," in Curran & McCormick, pp. 43-71; or John Mahoney, S.J., "Nature and Supernature," in Curran & McCormick, pp. 413-463.

 

November 7 (T): Case study: Displaying the Ten Commandments

 

November 9 (Th): Concepts of scientific law: causation and necessity

Read one of the following: A lecture on Aristotle’s theory of causation (http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/fac/cameron/an.phil.tenten/lct.arist.physicsii3-9.html); or David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 39-53 (Section VII Parts I-II at http://www.eserver.org/18th/hume-enquiry.html#7) ; or Marquis de Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, trans. by Truscott & Emory (New York: Dover Publications, 1951), pp. 3-10, 176-184.

 

November 14 (T): Revisions of scientific law: chance and contingency

Read one of the following: Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 23-42; or Charles S. Peirce, "The Doctrine of Necessity Examined," in Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover Publications, 1955), pp. 324-338; or Bas C. van Frassen, Laws and Symmetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 17-39.

 

November 16 (Th): Laws of nature today (student-led discussion)

                              Leaders: Leah Shannon and Jeanette Morin

Swap your reading from 11/14 for one of the other two.

 

November 21 (T): American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting – NO CLASS

 

November 23 (Th): Thanksgiving – NO CLASS

 

November 28 (T): Darwin

Read: Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 206-219.

 

November 30 (Th): Social sciences (guest lecturer: Dr. Richard Scott)

 

December 5 (T): Case study: Natural Law Party

 

December 7 (Th): Final thoughts

CASE STUDY PAPER DUE!

 

FINAL EXAM: Thursday, December 14, 2 pm