https://crisismagazine.com/vault/the-natural-wrong-in-natural-rights-and-the-problem-with-communitarianism The Natural Wrong in Natural Rights—and the Problem With Communitarianism Ernest Fortin For all the benefits that it provides and for which we can be immensely grateful, modern liberal democracy does not of itself produce a strong attachment to the common good of society and was not calculated to do so. Anyone in search of models of public-spiritedness will have to look elsewhere, as did our American forefathers, who sought them in classical antiquity, often naming their cities after such ancient places as Athens, Rome, Syracuse, Troy, Ithaca, and Utica. Whereas, from its inception in fifth-century Greece and for the next 2,000 years, scholarly debate concerning moral matters focused on natural right or natural law, today it focuses almost exclusively on individual or subjective rights. This is true even of the official documents of the Roman Catholic Church, where the once-ubiqui...
Like Kraynak and Canavan, Fortin rejects Tierney’s claim that John Locke’s philosophy was simply an evolution of 12th-century Catholic canon law. Fortin argues that Tierney confuses a linguistic similarity with a philosophical continuity, thereby obscuring the radically secular and revolutionary nature of Lockean liberalism.
The critique from Fr. Ernest Fortin —a prominent Catholic theologian, classical political philosopher, and student of Leo Strauss—directly challenges Brian Tierney ’s historical thesis regarding the medieval roots of modern individual natural rights . Like Kraynak and Canavan, Fortin rejects Tierney’s claim that John Locke’s philosophy was simply an evolution of 12th-century Catholic canon law. Fortin argues that Tierney confuses a linguistic similarity with a philosophical continuity , thereby obscuring the radically secular and revolutionary nature of Lockean liberalism. [ 1 ] The Core of Fortin's Critique: A Radical Mutation, Not an Evolution Fortin outlines his objections to Tierney and the "continuity school" in essays like The Natural Wrong in Natural Rights . His critique centers on several fundamental points: [ 1 ] The Shift from "Right" to "A Right": Fortin stresses that in classical and medieval thought (such as the theology of Thomas Aquin...