Scholastic philosophy is characteristically neat—the very reason that it is both admired by its adherents and scorned by its critics. Its reliance on the canons of logic and its virtual inseparability from the syllogism for the enunciation of its tenets is what appeals to those who swear by it. Others, who are of the persuasion that philosophy should not be any less bloody than life is, think that Scholasticism makes philosophy a black-and-white refuge from the grays of life, a garden where only one flower blossoms in all its splendor rather than a field of a hundred flowers in riotous bloom!
But for Scholastic philosophers, the scheme between rights and duties was never muddled up: Duties first, then let us talk rights. Duties were what laws and contracts imposed on a person, and the law could be natural law or positive law. Natural law was that part of the Divine plan for the universe that the human mind could grasp and by which human life was governed, insofar as thoughtful people who heeded their consciences were concerned. Positive law, for its part, was the law promulgated, for the most part, by human beings, whether in civil societies or in the Church. Thus, because one had the natural duty that reason discerned to preserve one’s life, to promote and nurture it, to enhance and advance it, one had the right—likewise a natural right—to food and drink, to shelter and clothing, and to defend it against unjust aggressors. Because one’s mind is, by its nature, oriented towards the truth and one has the natural duty to pursue it, from that duty comes the natural right to the truth, the right against deceit and lies, as well as the extended but nonetheless real right to education. When a student saunters along the corridors of a school building on a Sunday and is accosted by a security guard, she will argue her right to be within school premises by pointing to a duty imposed on her by a professor, or a school organization, or by school rules to perform some duty or engage in an activity on that particular day. The claim to a right had to traced to a duty, natural or positive (exacted by law or by contractual obligation) that gave rise to it.
Natural rights were those entitlements to which a person could lay claim by virtue of being human. They were then demands that reason made and that were grounded in right thinking. They were demands of rationality arising from a rational grasp of the human situation and of its demands. As such, they needed no law to bring them about. They flowed from the “nature” of the human person. They needed no promulgation because every person, by merely being reasonable, could recognize the demands that gave rise to these natural rights. This is the reason then that for a very long time now, legal instruments and institutions have referred to human rights—the contemporary term for “natural rights” —as inalienable and immutable, although our understanding of the breadth and entailments of these rights may indeed develop and grow. Quite interestingly, courts, whether international or domestic, find recourse to “natural law” or to a higher law than what is promulgated sometimes useful. Thus, Chief Justice Reynato Puno developed what was virtually a treatise on a secular version of natural law when he penned a Separate Opinion in Republic v. Sandiganbayan (2003) where he asserted that certain rights could never be denied a person just because there was no Constitution in place to guarantee them! The Nuremberg War Tribunal had this to say about the laws of war: “The law of war is to be found not only in treaties, but in the customs and practices of States, which gradually obtained universal recognition, and from the general principles of justice applied by jurists and practiced by military courts.” This was obviously an oblique reference to what reason recognizes as a norm of conduct, that which Scholastic philosophers have called “natural law.” There are some important rules of human conduct that need not be codified in promulgated law!
I do not question the right of persons of whatever gender to live lives of companionship, mutual support and even intimacy. The Catholic Church has some issues with homosexual acts, but that is a different discussion altogether and should be kept distinct from the present debate. In fact, I fully advocate the recognition or creation of such legal institutions that lend them protection, stability and security. But when persons of the same sex claim the right to marry, I have some questions. First, consistent with the Scholastic line of argumentation, what is the duty, natural or otherwise, that gives rise to this right? If it is claimed that gays and lesbians have the right to happiness and to intimacy of life, all that can very well be achieved without marriage. Second, are biological and physiological factors totally irrelevant in deciding about what human rights are? I would be the first to reject any argument from biology—that fallacy that G.E. Moore has called “the naturalistic fallacy.” So it would be fallacious to argue—and I do not think anyone does—that just because one was born a hunchback, one should be so for the rest of his life, for so has nature ordained. This would be an abhorrent use of “nature.” But biology and physiology—and the order of things, in general—are and should be relevant considerations. One has two hands, and so it would be wrong to ask for the severance of one limb without sufficient reason. The eco-system hangs together by a fragile balance, and therefore it is immoral and illegal to wreck any part of it. Motherhood, for one, makes biological, physiological and psychological demands to which only women can respond. Hence, it is only reasonable that the obligations as well as the prerogatives of mothers be kept with women!
If, for millennia, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in his Obergefell dissent, humankind has understood marriage to be the union of a man and a woman, is it not too presumptuous to believe that we have suddenly crossed the threshold of a new enlightenment that entitles us to turn our backs on centuries of human understanding and self-definition? “A married couple is a union of a man and a woman.” In the brand of Scholastic philosophy that Thomas Aquinas pioneered, this would be considered a proposition per se notum secundum segundum modum perseitatis… a self-evident proposition in the second mode of self-evidence. The first mode of self-evidence is that involved in definitions, where the predicate terms constitute part of the conceptual comprehension of the subject, such as “A triangle has three sides.” The second mode of self-evidence has to do with propositions having predicates applicable only to their subjects, thus “Numbers are either even or odd.” If it were right for two men or two women to be a “married couple” then humankind has been misled all this time about the self-evidence of the proposition. But is it not claiming too much for ourselves to take such a petulant position?
Once more, this is not an argument against the rights of gays and lesbians to be happy. It is not an argument against any decision they may make to live lives of partnership, intimacy and consortium. It is more an argument about natural law, our understanding of natural or human rights and the claims we may or not make on the basis of such an understanding.
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com