Z-Man Goes Bonkers

In this particular essay, Z-Man falls off the cliff:  he attempts to make the case that there are no "natural rights."

Z-man is an observer of the political scene, a graduate of a Jesuit high school, and some sort of consultant who travels internationally on occasion.  He's a bright guy who calls himself a "dissident".  And in the column linked above, he dissents from reality, choosing to adopt the position of Gottfried (vs. Strauss voiced by Michael Anton.)

...This conflict is at the heart of this back and forth between Michael Anton and Paul Gottfried over natural rights and traditionalism. Anton is a Straussian so he is therefore unencumbered by logic and factual accuracy. He simply wants to convince people that a society rooted in natural rights is the only choice, if America is going to hold together for much longer. Gottfried and others point out that natural rights do no exist and therefore they cannot be a foundation for anything....

We'll not dig up hundreds of pages of written materials from Strauss, nor Gottfried, nor even Anton.  Rather, we'll go to a very highly-credentialed retired prof from Marquette U.:  Howard Kainz.

...“Nature” itself does not seem to grant any rights – especially if we perceive human nature as the end result of evolution, progress through the hunter-gatherer stage, competition between primitive societies, etc. What seems to result from evolutionary theory is only the right of the stronger – but not the right of survival, even for the strongest, since a multitude of the weak may defeat the efforts of the stronger. It’s a very precarious situation, perhaps best described by Thomas Hobbes as the “war of all against all.”

It would be an understatement to say that natural-law theory assumes a loftier view of human nature. And if we believe that there is such a thing as a natural law governing all humans, and optimally providing guidance to civil laws, natural rights seem to be necessarily entailed in the very idea of natural law. For example, following the natural-law theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, which divides up into three “precepts,” we find inevitable implications of natural rights...

See, St Thomas Aquinas believed in God, and that happens to be the cut-line between those who believe in 'natural rights' and those who don't.  Z-Man really ought to know better.  But let's explore a bit!

1) The precept of self-preservation obviously implies the right to preserve one’s life, to maintain one’s health, to work according to one’s ability to support oneself, and to have sufficient property to survive and progress normally in the pursuits of life. And since all humans have this right, it follows that we all have a duty to respect that right in others, and not intentionally impede it, except in cases of self-defense or defense of others.

            2) The precept of propagating the human race and care for progeny, also implies the right to have children (not “reproductive rights” in contemporary new-speak), and to nurture and care for their health and education. Concomitant with this is the duty to respect this right in others – not to impede it (as for example, by past policies of forced sterilization in California and other states, and the Chinese one-child policy).

            3) The third, and most important precept, for rational beings, is the duty to search for the truth, to learn and become educated according to one’s ability and status in life. Corresponding to this duty is the right to have access to whatever instruments and facilities are necessary for learning; as well as the duty not to prevent others from searching for the truth, nor to propagate ideologies and nostrums as a substitute for the truth. On the practical level, the duty to do what is within one’s power to support a rational, orderly social and political environment implies the corresponding right to participate in communal or political enterprises, as well as the duty not to impede others from being so engaged.

We seriously doubt that Z-Man abjures the right to self-defense--or the right to property licitly gained, or the right and duty to search for the truth.

And Strauss, the natural-rights guy, is hardly lacking in precedent.

...Aquinas did not bring out these rights explicitly, but, as Brian Tierney shows in his book, The Idea of Natural Rights, the concept of individual rights was implicit in various interpretations of Jus (“law,” “justice,” “right”) by Roman jurists long before the time of Aquinas.

However, the explicit definition of rights close to our modern sense began, according to Tierney, with the fourteenth-century canonist Johannes Andreae, who made the distinction between what is “right” because of law or custom, and the “right that belongs to a private person in some thing.”

The Jesuit scholastic, Francisco Suarez, whose theory of natural law builds on Aquinas, also explicitly brings out the notion of rights as powers possessed by individuals.

Protestant natural law theorists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries emphasized what Aquinas referred to as the third precept of natural law (the law of properly exercising our rational powers). Natural law, for theorists like Pufendorf, Cumberland, and Grotius, consisted in thinking and acting reasonably, in concert with others, and supporting the social/political rights connected with the implementation of this natural law. ...

When you read Z-Man's entire essay, you immediately notice that he dislikes Abraham Lincoln intensely, based on Strauss' holding that Lincoln was a 'natural rights' man and that Lincoln brought the Founders/ Framers' Declaration ideals (life, liberty, pursuit.....you know the thing) to its logical conclusion.

That--perhaps--is the key to Z-Man's desire to squash Straussians.  He would do very well to obviate that conclusion.  Because he cannot possibly hold that there is a God-Creator AND that there are no 'natural rights.'

...The Judaeo-Christian support of natural rights is based largely on the belief that humans are created in the image of God. In Genesis 9:5-7, in the aftermath of the great flood, God’s covenant with Noah states this basis rather explicitly: “For your own lifeblood. . .I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life. If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God has man been made.”

Certainly also the Ten Commandments not only include applications of natural law, but imply certain corresponding rights. The commandment against stealing implies a right to property; honoring parents implies a right of parents to respect and deference; the prohibition of killing implies a right to life; the prohibition of adultery implies the right to faithfulness from one’s spouse; the prohibition of lying implies that there are those who have a right to the truth.

But it has taken centuries for some implications of these rights, which seem obvious to most of us, to become explicit: Jews and Christians believed in humans as made in God’s image, but for some reason did not see the relevance of this to the absolute prohibition of slavery. Thus the development of firm and universally accepted application of rights to issues such as slavery, the necessity of free consent of both parties to marriage, freedom of religion, etc., only came later, when economic, cultural, and political developments called for renewed reflection on just what is meant by being created in the image of God, and the “human dignity” that necessarily ensues from that belief....

We do not know whether Gottfried believes in God, or understands the Judaeo-Christian tradition flowing from that belief--and we don't really care.

Z-Man should care.