Lamont: Maritain takes the nature of the individual human as the foundation for natural law, following the standard modern natural-law approach. 93 However, warned by the example of his predecessors, he does not attempt logically to deduce the principles of the natural law, or natural rights, from this nature. He denies that the natural law can be known by reason, 94 and asserts that it is grasped by the nonconceptual inclinations of the person

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The failure of modern natural-law theories is apparent in one

of their more recent versions, that of Mounier's mentor Jacques

Maritain. Maritain takes the nature of the individual human as the

foundation for natural law, following the standard modern

natural-law approach. 93 However, warned by the example of his

predecessors, he does not attempt logically to deduce the

principles of the natural law, or natural rights, from this nature.

He denies that the natural law can be known by reason, 94 and

asserts that it is grasped by the nonconceptual inclinations of the

person, which are the song produced in the subject by the

undermine his documentation of Mounier's views. Mounier mocked Georges Bernanos for

broadcasting on the BBC in favor of the Resistance (see Michel Winock, Histoire politique de

la revue 'Esprit' [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975], 209), and denounced the D-day landings as

a "myth ofliberation" (Mounier, Oeuvres [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1961-63], 4:766; see Seth

D. Armus, "The Eternal Enemy: Emmanuel Mounier's Esprit and French Anti-Americanism,"

French Historical Studies 24 [Spring 2001]: 271-304). After the war, Mounier defended the

Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia and the show trial of the left-wing democratic

Bulgarian politician Nikola Petkov, "one of the most dreadful of eastern Europe's show trials"

(R. J. Crampton, Bulgaria [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], 322). Petkov was shot.

Mounier attacked Frarn;;ois Mauriac for showing a concern for "individual justice" in the

Petkov case (see Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956 [Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1992], 86-97); a line of argument parallel to that of Charles

Maurras in the Dreyfus case, although Maurras did not accompany his position with extensive

reflections on the dignity of the human person. Mounier's eventual rejection of Christianity

in favor of Nietzsche did not much affect his influence in Catholic circles.

93 Jacques Maritain, L'homme et l'etat, in Jacques et Raissa Maritain: Oeuvres completes,

vol. 9 (Paris: Editions Saint-Paul, 1990), 578-79.

94 Ibid., 585. 

228 JOHN R. T. LAMONT

"vibrations" of his interior tendencies. 95 In postulating a

nonconceptual grasp of reality, Maritain, a disciple of John of St.

Thomas, follows M.-D. Chenu in assuming that concepts are signs

of reality, and that these signs can be circumvented by a superior,

nonconceptual intuition. 96

For the natural law to be recognized in a society, its members

must agree about the directions of their inner vibrations. This

agreement is brought about by the operation of a general law of

history, which asserts that human societies progress over time.

Maritain identified this law in 1942. He addressed any possible

doubts about the existence of such progress by pointing out that

the general law in fact predicts two developments, in which

human societies progress in some ways while simultaneously

worsening in others. 97 The improvements necessary for his theory

are brought about by the positive side of the law, while the

disasters that provoke skepticism about progress result from the

negative side.

The nonconceptual nature of knowledge of the natural law

does not prevent Maritain from describing this law, and the rights

to which it gives rise. From the basic inclinations known by

vibrations (which turn out to be the basic goods described by St.

Thomas) arise rights to the possession of the goods sought by

these inclinations. Such rights exist not only to the goods sought

by fundamental inclinations, such as life, but also to more specific

ways of realizing these inclinations, such as unemployment

insurance. 98 Maritain is aware that these rights will need to be

reconciled with one another, and to achieve this reconciliation he

introduces the idea of the common good. 99 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 found

95 "L'intellect, pour former un jugement, ecoute et consulte l'espece de chant produit clans

le sujet par la vibration de ses tendences interieures" (ibid., 586).

96 On this, see Lamont, "Determining the Authority and Level of Church Teaching," 387-

90.

97 Jacques Maritain, Les droits de l'homme et la loi naturelle, in Jacques et Raissa Maritain:

Oeuvres completes, vol. 7 (Paris: Editions Saint-Paul, 1988), 638.

98 Maritain, L'homme et l'etat, 604.

99 Ibid., 597. 

CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, RIGHTS 229

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 not labor the point that this account of natural law

and natural rights does not stand up to examination.