Natural Law and Human Rights

Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason

Pierre Manent, Ralph C. Hancock

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780268102623, 9780268107215
• eBook ISBN: 9780268107239
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

This first English translation of Pierre Manent's profound and strikingly original book La loi naturelle et les droits de l'homme is a reflection on the central question of the Western political tradition. In six chapters, developed from the prestigious Étienne Gilson lectures at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and in a related appendix, Manent contemplates the steady displacement of the natural law by the modern conception of human rights. He aims to restore the grammar of moral and political action, and thus the possibility of an authentically political order that is fully compatible with liberty. Manent boldly confronts the prejudices and dogmas of those who have repudiated the classical and Christian notion of "liberty under law" and in the process shows how groundless many contemporary appeals to human rights turn out to be. Manent denies that we can generate obligations from a condition of what Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau call the "state of nature," where human beings are absolutely free, with no obligations to others. In his view, our ever-more-imperial affirmation of human rights needs to be reintegrated into what he calls an "archic" understanding of human and political existence, where law and obligation are inherent in liberty and meaningful human action. Otherwise we are bound to act thoughtlessly and in an increasingly arbitrary or willful manner. Natural Law and Human Rights will engage students and scholars of politics, philosophy, and religion, and will captivate sophisticated readers who are interested in the question of how we might reconfigure our knowledge of, and talk with one another about, politics.

INDEX

action, 83–99

Christianity and, x, 35, 37, 39–40

commands and, xvii, 53, 113–17

common good and, vii

as corrective, 119

death and, 89–92

explicit and implicit and, 111–13

human rights and, 117, 120–21, 128

laissez-faire, laissez-passez, and, 86–89

law and, 119–21

liberty under law and, ix, xvii

modern political philosophy and, xii, 24, 25, 75, 83–84, 92–98, 99, 113–17

motives, human, and, xv, 103

natural law and, viii, 98, 121–22

obeying and, 53

order and, ix

practical question and, 60–62

practical reason and, viii, xv, xvii

predicament of, 119–20

Providence and, xvii, 128–30

prudence and, xvii

as theoretical and practical, 23, 119

virtues and, vii

Ancients and Moderns, quarrel of, 25

Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas

archic character of action

commands and, xxiii, 99–100

conscience and, xi–xii

grounding nature of, xii

human motives and, xv

human nature and, 100

human rights and, 100–101

liberty under law and, xii

modern political philosophy and, 97, 99–100

natural law and, xii

obeying and, 99–100

overview of, ix, 99

practical reason and, xi–xii, xv,
xxiii

twin pillars of, xi–xii

Aristotle

Christianity and, 55

commands and, 114

conscience and, xi

deliberation and, xxi

friendship types and, xxiv

human motives and, 102

human nature and, 50

means and ends in, xxi

modern political philosophy and, 20, 24

practical reason and, xv, xxi, 125,
128

prudence and, x–xi, xiv

Socratic political science and, 54

Aron, Raymond, xvi

autonomy

commands and, 114–15, 116

as conatus, xxiii

criticism of, viii

domination and, 116

as groundless, viii

heteronomy and, 66

human nature and, 65

human rights and, xxiii

law and, 65–68, 135n2

legitimacy and, xiii

marriage and, xvi

modern political philosophy and, xiii, 65–67

practical reason and, viii, xxiii

self-mastery and, 67, 135n3

barbarity, 6, 78

Bayle, Pierre, xiii, 87

Beyond Radical Secularism (Manent), vii

Capelle, Philippe, 1

Catholic Church, xiii, 56, 58, 75, 124, 129

Christianity and Christians

action and, x, 35, 37, 39–40

Christian Question and, xxii, 54–57

city of God and, xxi

classical philosophy and, xxi

common good and, 128

communism and, 129

conscience and, x–xi, xxi, 36, 40–41, 133n21

death and, xiv

de-Christianization of Europe, 129–30

Europe and, xxv, 54–57, 129–30

faith and, 37, 38

freedom and, 87–88

free will and, x, 40, 87–88

God and, 40

grace and, 37, 55

human nature and, 34–41

human rights and, 8

interiority and, 56

Islam and, ix

LGBT rights and, ix, 5

liberalism and, 88

liberty under law and, viii, xi

modern political philosophy and, xxi, xxii, 54–57, 84, 87

natural law and, xi, 8–9, 124, 127

practical reason and, xiv, xxi, 35, 125

Protestant Reformation and, 37, 40

sin and, 55

social knowledge and, 56–57

tolerance and, ix

city of God, xxi, 125

civil rights movement (US), 134n6

commands

action and, xvii, 53, 114, 117

archic character of, xxiii, 99–100

autonomy and, 114–15, 116

command-obey and, 65, 70–71, 100, 116

equality and, 115–16

freedom and, 88, 115

human nature and, xii, xix, 113, 114, 115

human rights and, 128

law and, 125–26

modern political philosophy ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: Natural Law and the Restoration of Practical Reason
• Translator’s Introduction
• ONE Why Natural Law Matters
• TWO Counsels of Fear
• THREE The Order of the State without Right or Law
• FOUR The Law, Slave to Rights
• FIVE The Individual and the Agent
• SIX Natural Law and Human Motives
• Appendix: Recovering Law’s Intelligence
• Notes
• Index