Natural Law Ethics in Theory and Practice: A Joseph Boyle Reader

377 Pages·2020·2.152 MB·English

by  Joseph Boyle, John Liptay, Christopher Tollefsen

Natural
Law Ethics
in Theory &
Practice

Natural
Law Ethics
in Theory &
Practice
A Joseph Boyle ReAdeR

Edited by John Liptay & Christopher Tollefsen
Foreword by Robert P. George
The CATholiC UniveRsiTy of AmeRiCA pRess
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2020
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
Ansi Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Boyle, Joseph M., 1942– author. | Liptay, John J., editor.
| Tollefsen, Christopher, editor. | George, Robert P., writer of
foreword.
Title: Natural law ethics in theory and practice : a Joseph Boyle
reader / edited by John Liptay and Christopher Tollefsen ;
foreword by Robert P. George.
Description: Washington, D.C : The Catholic University of
America Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: lCCn 2020021130 | isBn 9780813232959 (paperback) |
isBn 9780813232966 (ebook)
Subjects: lCsh: Natural law—Philosophy.
Classification: lCC K420 .B69 2020 | ddC 340/.112—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021130
•
To Barbara Boyle
In memory of Joseph M. Boyle

Contents
Foreword by Robert P. George ix
Acknowledgments xiii
•
Introduction: Joseph Boyle and Natural Law Ethics
John Liptay & Christopher Tollefsen / 1
pART 1. ARTiCUlATing A TheoRy of
nATURAl lAw
Section 1. Determinism, Reasons for Action, Free Choice,
and Incommensurability
1. Is Determinism Self-Refuting? / 23
2. Reasons for Action: Evaluative Cognitions That Underlie
Motivations / 38
3. Free Choice, Incomparably Valuable Options, and
Incommensurable Categories of Good / 61
Section 2. The Nature and Foundations of Natural Law
4. Being Reasonable in Choosing among
Incommensurable Goods / 85
5. On the Most Fundamental Principle of Morality / 108
vii
viii ConTenTs
Section 3. Intention and Double Effect
6. Double Effect and a Certain Type of Embryotomy / 133
7. Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect / 151
8. Intention, Permissibility, and the Structure of Agency / 165
pART 2. nATURAl lAw TheoRy And ConTempoRARy
moRAl pRoBlems
Section 1. Justice in War
9. An Immoral Kind of Deterrence / 189
10. Traditional Just War Theory and Humanitarian Intervention / 205
Section 2. Private Property and Welfare Rights
11. Natural Law, Ownership, and the World’s Natural Resources / 231
12. Fairness in Holdings: A Natural Law Account of Property and
Welfare Rights / 248
Section 3. Bioethics
13. Personal Responsibility and Freedom in Health Care: A Contemporary
Natural Law Perspective / 275
14. A Case for Sometimes Tube-Feeding Patients in Persistent
Vegetative State / 306
15. Against “Assisted Death” / 319
Bibliography 337
Index 353
Foreword
During his lifetime, Joseph Boyle was admired above all for the analyt-
ical rigor of his philosophical writings. Readers of this posthumously
published volume who are encountering his essays for the first time will
no doubt be struck by that feature. What struck me, however, and will,
I suspect, strike others who have read these essays before, is Boyle’s
creativity. This is a quality of his work that was underappreciated in his
lifetime—including by me.
It was not a matter of devising new concepts or conceptual tools—
an almost standard way in which creativity manifests itself, when it
does manifest itself, in the work of analytic philosophers like Boyle.
Rather, it is a matter of noticing things that others hadn’t noticed or, in
any event, that others had left unremarked or unexplored. This is the
sort of creativity that is underwritten by a willingness to examine phil-
osophical problems from new or multiple angles. And often enough,
this willingness is in turn underwritten by a commitment to precision
of thought and strict logical scrupulosity—analytical rigor.
A good example of what I am talking about is Boyle’s work
demonstrating the connections between the incommensurability of
more-than-merely-instrumental reasons for actions—basic human
goods as they figure in concrete options for choosing—and metaphys-
ical freedom (freedom of the will; “libertarian” free choice) and, con-
versely, the connections between the belief (mistaken in Boyle’s view,
and mine) in the commensurability of the human goods that provide
more-than-merely-instrumental reasons (a commensurability that is
necessarily presupposed by utilitarian and other consequentialist ap-
proaches to ethics) and the denial of true metaphysical freedom. As the
editors of this volume point out in their introduction, what Boyle shows
is that the availability of options that are not commensurable is a con-
ix