The Fred Martinez Report

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Lamont: "This is the insight that natural subjective rights are an idol; and that they are connected to another idolatry, that of the self": This work, the life work of a great scholar, 107 emerges vindicated from its defence, but it is not the only important contribution made by Villey to the question of subjective rights. In addition to this work, there is also an insight that Villey the Christian and Catholic drew from it. This is the insight that natural subjective rights are an idol; and that they are connected to another idolatry, that of the self. 108

https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Journals/The%20Thomist%20(1941-2024)/OCR-layer-only-PDFs/2009_Volume73_Number2.pdf This work, the life work of a great scholar, 107 emerges vindicated from its defence, but it is not the only important contribution made by Villey to the question of subjective rights. In addition to this work, there is also an insight that Villey the Christian and Catholic drew from it. This is the insight that natural subjective rights are an idol; and that they are connected to another idolatry, that of the self. 108

Lamont: We can conclude this discussion of objective and subjective rights by briefly indicating the light it casts on the flaws of the conflicting positions in the debate over Dignitatis humanae at the Second Vatican Council. The progressives believed that religious liberty was a natural subjective right flowing from the nature of the individual human. The conservatives believed that it could not be a right of any kind, because it would be a right to do what was morally wrong, namely, to practice a false religion. They believed such a right to be impossible, because they accepted the identity of justice and morality, an identity that rules out not only a natural subjective right to the practice of religion, but any kind of just claim-any objective right-to any form of practice of any false religion.

https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Journals/The%20Thomist%20(1941-2024)/OCR-layer-only-PDFs/2009_Volume73_Number2.pdf We can conclude this discussion of objective and subjective rights by briefly indicating the light it casts on the flaws of the conflicting positions in the debate over Dignitatis humanae at the Second Vatican Council. The progressives believed that religious liberty was a natural subjective right flowing from the nature of the individual human . The conservatives believed that it could not be a right of any kind, because it would be a right to do what was morally wrong, namely, to practice a false religion. They believed such a right to be impossible, because they accepted the identity of justice and morality, an identity that rules out not only a natural subjective right to the practice of religion, but any kind of just claim-any objective right-to any form of practice of any false religion.

Lamont: JP II...apostolic authority, teaches a right to life that forbids the deliberate killing of the innocent (Evangelium vitae 57). Absolute moral norms thus provide a basis for exceptionless natural rights. Another resource is the assertion by St. Thomas that there are rules of natural equity that bind as a general rule, but that are subject to exceptions. The example he gives is returning a deposit to a depositor, something that is required by natural equity but that ought not to be done if the deposit is a sword that the depositor will use to commit murder. Such rules of natural equity form the basis for rights that are natural, although not exceptionless. A further resource is what might be called "Maritainian" rights-that is, statements of goods that a society ought to pursue, such as health and education. Much of the Church's teaching that is couched in terms of human rights is simply enunciations of general rules of equity and desirable goods to be pursued, applied to particular situations where these rules and goods are being neglected. These three categories of rights together cover the area of Catholic teachings in human rights. Villey is right to say that the terminology of human rights is a misleading way of framing these teachings, but that does not mean that the teachings themselves are not important and true. Villey indeed acknowledges this. He does not criticize the substance of Church teachings on rights and justice. He only objects to their expression in the language of human rights, and to the theological accounts that have been built upon these teachings-accounts that wrongly attempt to derive a blueprint for a just society from them, in the fashion of the blueprint for a just society found in modern natural-law theories. 105 105 See Villey's discussion in 'Une e

https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Journals/The%20Thomist%20(1941-2024)/OCR-layer-only-PDFs/2009_Volume73_Number2.pdf John Paul II... apostolic authority, teaches a right to life that forbids the deliberate killing of the innocent (Evangelium vitae 57). Absolute moral norms thus provide a basis for exceptionless natural rights. Another resource is the assertion by St. Thomas that there are rules of natural equity that bind as a general rule, but that are subject to exceptions. The example he gives is returning a deposit to a depositor, something that is required by natural equity but that ought not to be done if the deposit is a sword that the depositor will use to commit murder. Such rules of natural equity form the basis for rights that are natural, although not exceptionless. A further resource is what might be called "Maritainian" rights-that is, statements of goods that a society ought to pursue, such as health and education. Much of the Church's teaching that...

Lamont: This notion is not properly explained, and it does not seem to correspond to the understanding of the common good that St. Thomas uses to foundobjective right; Maritain does not grasp St. Thomas's view, simply remarking that in antiquity and the Middle Ages the natural law was focused on obligations rather than rights. 100 In the absence of criteria for determining their scope, the rights postulated by Maritain are in effect no more than a list of desirable objectives to be pursued. Maritain distinguishes between rights that can be limited by the demands of the common good, and those that are inalienable. He does not offer criteria for distinguishing between the two, and the examples of inalienable rights that he gives-those of life and the pursuit of happiness-do not have any evident characteristics that identify them as being inalienable, except for their having been so described in the American Declaration of Independence (no doubt a reflection of Maritain's sojourn in America). One need not labor the point that this account of natural law and natural rights does not stand up to examination. In addition to its influence on Vatican H's Dignitatis humanae, its interest lies in its illustrating the full flowering of the tendency, already noted by Villey in the baroque Scholastics, to substitute a concern with arriving at the right answer for a concern with answering rightly-with the content of the right answer having been provided by the goals, interests, and presuppositions of the time. 101 The above survey of objective and subjective rights puts us in a position to consider Villey's case for the abandonment of subjective rights, and for the acceptance of objective right

https://isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/Journals/The%20Thomist%20(1941-2024)/OCR-layer-only-PDFs/2009_Volume73_Number2.pdf objective right; Maritain does not grasp St. Thomas's view, simply remarking that in antiquity and the Middle Ages the natural law was focused on obligations rather than rights. 100 In the absence of criteria for determining their scope, the rights postulated by Maritain are in effect no more than a list of desirable objectives to be pursued. Maritain distinguishes between rights that can be limited by the demands of the common good, and those that are inalienable. He does not offer criteria for distinguishing between the two, and the examples of inalienable rights that he gives-those of life and the pursuit of happiness-do not have any evident characteristics that identify them as being inalienable, except for their having been so described in the American Declaration of Independence (no doubt a reflection of Maritain's sojourn in America). One need n...

Fred Martinez: The therapeutic approaches, which started with Freud, have a basic assumption that is not Christian. The starting point is not the Christian worldview, which is summed up in the parable of the prodigal son: a fallen and sinful world with persons needing God the Father to forgive them so they can return to be His sons and daughters. Unlike the Christian worldview, the therapeutic starting point is that the individual must overcome personal unconscious forces, in Freud, and in Carl Jung the person must unite to the collective unconscious, which is shared by all humans. In both cases, the therapist assists his client to change himself to 'become his real self.' Forgiveness and returning to God are not needed. What is needed are not God and His Forgiveness, but a therapist assisting a self to reach the fullness of its self.

The therapeutic approaches, which started with Freud, have a basic assumption that is not Christian. The starting point is not the Christian worldview, which is summed up in the parable of the prodigal son: a fallen and sinful world with persons needing God the Father to forgive them so they can return to be His sons and daughters. Unlike the Christian worldview, the therapeutic starting point is that the individual must overcome personal unconscious forces, in Freud, and in Carl Jung the person must unite to the collective unconscious, which is shared by all humans. In both cases, the therapist assists his client to change himself to 'become his real self.' Forgiveness and returning to God are not needed. What is needed are not God and His Forgiveness, but a therapist assisting a self to reach the fullness of its self. Forgiveness and returning to God are not needed. What is needed are not God and His Forgiveness, but a therapist assisting a self to reach the fullness...