Natural Right And History

Political theorist Frances Fukuyama receives a lot of criticism from libertarian bloggers, some of it justified, some of it fairly ignorant. I certainly have some problems with his neo-Hegelian End of History and the Last Man, but those problems aside, it's still a fine work of political philosophy that illustrates Fukuyama's strong grasp of the discipline, not to mention some issues of interest to Straussians.

For Straussians, the question of nature -- and by extension, natural right -- is one of the most important questions of political philosophy. It was a dominant theme of Fukuyama's End of History and the Last Man, and from the reviews I've read, it's a dominant theme in his most recent work.

The question of natural right and history is also a dominant theme of American political thought, and one of the most prolific scholars of Straussian natural right in the American context is Harry Jaffa (and the West Coast Straussians he has turned out over the years, who turn up at places like the Claremont Institute and Ashbrook and the University of Dallas, among others). Jaffa's major intellectual opponent remains John C. Calhoun, who might properly be described as an historicist who rejected natural right (at least as a mature thinker -- there's some evidence he accepted it early on), along with the progeny of Calhoun (many southern agrarian and contemporary southern conservative thinkers).

I'm not going to try to explicate Jaffa's position here (check out this site, which is an oversimplication, and this book), but suffice it to say that Jaffa believes that the Declaration's appeal to "the laws of nature and of nature's god" and the overall political theory of the document suggest that humans, by their very nature, are equally human, and by virtue of that nature, certain rights follow.

If Fukuyama seems preoccupied with the idea of human nature, that's because he is! Because if Fukuyama buys into the Straussian conception of natural right -- and we know he is intimately familiar with the idea even if his earlier work suggests a certain historicism -- then the question of human nature has very important political-philosophical implications.

Reynolds approvingly cites a passage critical of Fukuyama from blogger Brendan O'Neill, but unfortunately neither blogger seems familiar with the political-philosophical tradition they are writing about. O'Neill's is a particularly muddled formulation, because Fukuyama is stressing that human nature is the foundation of natural right -- and hence, political right. To those who have studied the discipline of political philosophy seriously, Fukuyama's position isn't extraordinary or puzzling, yet O'Neill seems critical of it, and intimates that, instead, right is is wholly a human creation. That's an historicist view (not far from Calhoun's view, really, as distinguished from Lincoln's view), and certainly a legitimate view. But THAT is the crux of a long-running and important debate in the discipline -- natural right versus history (or, more properly, historical right). O'Neill is actually stating the opposing positions of the debate, without (apparently) realizing it.

Reynolds concludes,

There are enormous differences now in people's intellectual and physical gifts. That doesn't prevent a polity from giving people equal respect.

No doubt! But that's really kind of beside the point. Neither Fukuyama nor Jaffa would take exception with that statement, I don't think, nor would a theorist inclined to the historicist view. But what is the source of political right? If it's not nature -- but simply convention (whether it's called history or common values or what have you) -- then there are certain implications for politics. That is why this old debate still matters (even if some are just discovering it).

[Posted at 20:53 CST on 05/31/02] [Link]