Strauss, Natural Right, and the Limits of Subjectivism

Strauss and the Loss of Natural Right

Leo Strauss contends that the "self-evident" natural rights of man are no longer apparent because of a creeping relativism in thought and an increasing dependence on legalism. Thus, "the legislators and the courts" decide what is "right" and what is not. In a sense, Strauss's lament for the loss of common sense — especially regarding what is naturally good and lawful — is appreciable. It is just. On the other hand, it could be argued that the "natural right" that Jefferson believed in was not as "self-evident" as imagined, but rather more imaginary than self-evident. Strauss asserts that this line of argumentation is the result of the subjectivist attitude and perspective of modern philosophy. While subjectivism is a deadly form of philosophy and kills all sense of truth, as Plato shows in the Euthyphro, it is the natural consequence of what Strauss identifies in his last sentence of this passage: "If there is no standard higher than the ideal of our society, we are utterly unable to take a critical distance from that ideal." In other words, if there is no objective standard by which we can judge — that is, no objective truth — we are doomed.

Strauss is arguing here for that objective standard: for the fact that truth can be self-evident, that something which is natural and right can be comprehended and can remain unchanging from one generation to the next, for, as the ancients taught, truth is unchanging. It may be said that he is arguing for universalism, or for the one, the good, the true, and the beautiful — the transcendentals identified by Plato. What he is arguing against is the subjectivist viewpoint that morality and principles are simply that which a society agrees upon as being good. This viewpoint is inherently false and dangerous, because it suggests that if a society agreed that cannibalism was good, then cannibalism would be good. Rather, Strauss suggests, individuals may choose to think cannibalism good, and many in a society may act as though it were good — but they would be wrong, every last one of them, because in reality there is a higher standard to which men must submit their hearts, minds, and wills. This is the essence of religion and philosophy, but modern philosophy is rooted more in an obfuscation of truth, or in a reshaping of truth according to one's own perspective, rather than in a desire to know or to understand the truth, as Socrates possessed. In this sense, Strauss is less a modern and more a classicalist.

The subject he addresses also raises the question of innate ideas. If something "self-evident" — such as a natural right — is unchanging and manifest to all who use their reason to discern an objective law in nature concerning mankind and society, the question becomes: how is it self-evident? Are we born with this information written on our souls, or is it something that we grow to understand? If the former, then there are likely ramifications regarding theology and philosophy. If the latter, then the subjectivists may have a point.

Innate Ideas and the Limits of Human Reason

The limits of human perception and cognition are those of human reason. This question was posed by medieval scholastics like Aquinas, who asserted that human reason alone could not comprehend all the mysteries of the world but could only approach them and deepen the understanding of them. In a way, the scholastics are like the skeptics of today, except that skeptics question the extent to which we can know anything at all. Ultimately the medievalists argued that certain things would remain mysteries, but they did not deny the value or use of human reason.

It could also be argued that the medievalists had the correct valuation of human reason. The intellect is capable of discerning reality, but there are some things that cannot be discerned. The five senses can work in conjunction with the intellect to perceive reality and truth, but they are not able to discern all things. This then raises the issue of revelation and reason and the relationship between them. If some things can be known — that is, are self-evident — and other things are known only by way of divine revelation, the issue becomes more complex. What if something that is revealed is not self-evident and in fact contradicts the "natural rights" that Jefferson speaks of? Jefferson was by no means an orthodox Jew or Christian; rather, he was shaped by Enlightenment philosophy. What then should be made of his perception of self-evident notions? Ought his outlook not be considered before one accepts his own assertions as self-evident and true? What does all of this say of consciousness?

Consciousness, Innatism, and the Subjective–Objective Divide

Where consciousness is headed depends upon what answers are provided to these two discussions. If consciousness, as a part of human life, is part of an evolutionary process, it might be argued that consciousness is moving toward some kind of final evolutionary change. If consciousness is part of human life as created by a deity, then it might be argued that consciousness is inevitably religious and therefore headed back toward God. This latter viewpoint appears to be the viewpoint of Socrates in Plato's Dialogues. It is shared by the great philosophers of the medieval world. It is only in the modern world that the concept of God becomes dubious. Moderns tend to be skeptical of anything that reason cannot fully comprehend, which is perhaps a holdover from the Age of Rationalism, or the Enlightenment.

In one sense the question of innatism is a question of objective versus subjective reality. It proposes an examination of the connection between men's minds and the outside world that informs them. Implicit in the discussion is the question of the existence of God — for if mankind is born with the ability to intuit truth, or to confirm the identity between his intellect and reality, then he could perhaps arrive at conclusions concerning the moral law, the moral order, and his spiritual nature. If, on the other hand, no innate ideas actually existed, and man were compelled to learn everything a posteriori — after the fact — as though he were a blank slate at birth, and could experience the world only through his own subjective perceptions, then his conclusions about truth would be only indicative of his own subjective experience. Subjectivity thus battles with objectivity, and a priori arguments battle with a posteriori arguments.

Freud discusses innate ideas in this context when suggesting that severe upbringing will have an unconscious effect on a child: "What it amounts to is that in the formation of the superego and the emergence of a conscience innate constitutional factors and influences from the real environment act in combination" (131). Freud asserts that our minds are shaped by what goes on around us, and though we may not be born with certain innateness, it can develop over time or be planted in us by parents and others. Thus, how we know things — or what we think we know — can be molded by lived experience. But is this not a subjective rendering of epistemology? And are we not concerned with objective truth rather than with the subjective experience of it? It is important to distinguish between the two, and that is what Strauss appears to suggest at the beginning of Natural Right and History.

Strauss stresses this idea again later when he states that "the idea of natural right must be unknown as long as the idea of nature is unknown" (81), and this claim certainly appears logical. If rights come from nature, then a comprehension of the order of nature must be had before any objective claim regarding rights can be made. Jefferson likely had such comprehension, but in the technological age — the Age of Industrialization — generations have been divorced from nature, and nature's order has been lost on those same generations. It is a separation from what is naturally ordered that has had a great deal to do with the subjectivization that Strauss laments. Strauss pits knowing nature inside the arena of knowing philosophy, arguing that the Old Testament does not know nature. This claim could be disputed, because it appears that often in the Old Testament an understanding of human and earthly nature is inherent, implicit. Because the Book is billed as Revelation, however, it is easy to claim that it has no philosophy — but this is not the case, and any Old Testament scholar would argue this point.

Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. IL: University of Chicago, 1998. Print.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. NY: Vintage, 1995. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. NY: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Print.

Strauss, Leo. Natural Right and History. IL: University of Chicago, 1965. Print.