It is a pillar of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy that the natural law — knowledge of right and wrong constituting the general code of human behavior — can be known by the force and light of human reason alone. This is because (in Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy) human beings “participate” in God’s Nature, and therefore reason the way God does, at least analogously, and in a far more limited scope.
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| "Man is by nature a political animal." |
Consequently, what human beings reason out is good or evil and agrees with the consensus of human experience throughout history as being good or evil (e.g., theft and murder are wrong, while charity and justice are good), it is “morally certain” (i.e., highly probable but not absolutely certain) that something is good or evil. Human positive law therefore partakes of the nature of natural law so long as human positive law agrees materially with the natural law.
In light of this, President Trump’s statement as reported by ABC News when asked whether there were any limits to his global powers would seem to be somewhat problematical. As he declared, “‘Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,’ Trump reportedly said to The New York Times.”
Taken at face value — i.e., assuming the president means what he says — God and the natural law are unnecessary when the world has Trump’s morality. If that is not what Trump meant, he should consider issuing a clarification or retraction; otherwise, people might get the impression Trump was claiming divine status or something.
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| Thomas Hobbes |
Superficially, Trump’s claim is like that which Thomas Hobbes described in Leviathan, in which the state or the ruler is described in the following terms:
This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. For by this Authoritie, given him by every particular man in the Common-Wealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is inabled to forme the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutuall ayd against their enemies abroad.
In other words, temporal authority is a “Mortall God” and is justified even in terrorizing people to conform them to the will of the sovereign . . . according to Hobbes. In this view, there is no greater authority on Earth than that of the sovereign, who can do no wrong, either personally or in his official capacity. Kings, princes, and presidents rule by Divine Right.
What is the defense against this? Widespread private property as proposed in the Economic Democracy Act. As Daniel Webster noted in 1820, “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.” If power is not to corrupt, it must be spread out, and the way to spread out power is to spread out ownership of property.
Tellingly, Hobbes would abolish private property. As he said, “the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their Soveraign, be it an Assembly, or a Monarch.”
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| John Locke |
John Locke, on whom the Founding Fathers of the United States relied, and who rejected Hobbes, said the opposite in his Second Treatise of Government when discussing who had the power to levy taxes (e.g., tariffs) and why:
Sect. 140. It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government: for what property have I in that, which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?
And as for ruling through Executive Orders and circumventing the legislative process, John Locke had this to say in response to King Charles I’s “Personal Rule” (which eventually resulted in his execution . . .):
Sect. 141. Fourthly, The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms, no body else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any laws, but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen, and authorized to make laws for them. The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.
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| Algernon Sidney |
Algernon Sidney, whose influence on the Founding Fathers was arguably greater than that of Locke, agreed. As Sidney claimed, private property is a natural, fundamental right and an essential “appendage to liberty” that government was specifically instituted to protect. He argued the safety and well-being of the people, their “lives, lands, liberties, and goods,” constitute the supreme law limiting all governmental power, regardless of any one man’s (or woman’s) personal morality or lack thereof.
So, on the contrary, President Trump. It is not your will, nor even that of the People if the popular will comes into conflict with the natural law; might does NOT make right. Fundamental human nature as reflected in each human person and discerned by the force and light of human reason makes right. This is stated in the opening of the Declaration of Independence which states all men (i.e., all human beings) are created equal and have inalienable (or unalienable, if you prefer) natural rights. The U.S. Constitution — which is a grant of rights from the People to the state, not a grant of rights from the state to the People — reflects this in the Preamble, which declares,
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
That seems pretty clear.
#30#
