Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer

Abstract

The Thomist 70 (2006): 155-201 NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL INCLINATIONS: RHONHEIMER, PINCKAERS, McALEER MATTHEW LEVERING Ave Maria University Naples, Florida THE QUESTION OF THE STATUS of natural inclinations looms large in any Thomistic account of the natural law. Aquinas's presentation of the content of the natural law depends significantly upon his understanding of natural inclinations. Inclination, he observes, arises out of the convertibility of being and good. As he states, "Now as being is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good."1 Whether the practical reason discerns or constitutes the natural law hinges, first and foremost, on the nature of this dynamism toward the good that belongs to the created teleology of the never-neutral creature. Aquinas defines this dynamism toward the good as "the first principle in the practical reason," from which follows "the first precept of law, that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided."2 He unfolds this natural inclination toward the good by specifying four further natural inclinations, arranged in an ontological hierarchy, each of which expresses an aspect of the natural inclination toward the human good. These hierarchically ordered natural inclinations are the teleologies inscribed by 1 STh I-II, q. 94, a. 2. 2 Ibid. 155 156 MATTHEW LEVERING creation in human nature. They compass the vegetative, animal, and spiritual components of the one human soul. The precepts of the natural law, that is to say, what reason "naturally apprehends as man's good,"3 are all based in this created teleological structure of natural inclinations toward ends. As Aquinas puts it, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence ... all those things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of the natural law.4 Natural inclinations and reason's apprehension of the precepts of natural law belong to the same teleological ordering of the human being as created. If this is so, certain questions arise. How does the natural law arise in the human person? How do freedom and the natural inclinations relate? How should the rational character of natural law be described? Is natural law discerned by human reason as a normative order inscribed in nature? Or is natural law constituted by the judgments of practical reason, which transform and elevate (humanize) inclinations found in nature by reorienting these inclinations to the personal ends known by spiritual creatures? In pondering these questions, I will survey three recent accounts of natural law and natural inclinations, by Martin Rhonheimer , Servais Pinckaers, and Graham McAleer respectively. Each of these authors treats Aquinas's discussion in some detail. Examination of the three approaches will illumine how differently Catholic thinkers have approached the relationship of natural law and natural inclinations. Rhonheimer emphasizes the independence or freedom of practical reason in constituting the natural law from the data provided by the natural inclinations. He desires to affirm the fully personal and free activity of human beings in working out their own salvation through practical reason and 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL INCLINATIONS 157 moral action. Pinckaers argues that a nominalist understanding of "nature" places nature in conflict with reason and thereby undercuts Aquinas's theology of the natural law. For this reason Pinckaers devotes significant effort to retrieving a positive account of the natural inclinations. Lastly, McAleer begins with the metaphysical and teleological structure of human bodiliness, so as to locate the natural law within an ecstatic framework adequate to the human person's participation in God. With its emphasis on the constitutive role of practical reason, Rhonheimer's approach to natural law and natural inclinations possesses similarities to that of the "new natural law theory" proposed by Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Robert George, and others.5 Pinckaers, for...