A Zero-Sum Conflict: Lamont argues that subjective rights turn human society into an arena of competing wills. If a right is my personal power, and law is a limitation on that power, then what is gained by authority is lost by the individual, and vice versa. This paved the way for modern radical individualism and the modern totalizing state. [1]

 The ideas of liberty of indifference, an autonomous conscience, and subjective rights find their historical roots in the shift from classical Thomism to late-medieval nominalism, later developing through early modern scholasticism. [1, 2]

While mainstream Catholic theology—anchored by St. Thomas Aquinas—traditionally favored a "freedom for excellence" (where freedom is the power to choose the objective good), a specific lineage of Catholic theologians laid the groundwork for these modern concepts. [1, 2]

1. Liberty of Indifference & Nominalism

The concept of liberty of indifference (libertas indifferentiae) posits that freedom is the absolute, neutral power of the will to choose between contraries (good or evil, acting or not acting), independent of any natural inclination toward the good. [1]

• William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347): A Franciscan friar and the father of nominalism, Ockham separated the will from the intellect. He argued that the human will is fundamentally indifferent and possesses radical spontaneity. Law is viewed not as a participation in divine wisdom, but as an external obligation imposed by God's absolute will. [1]
• The Second Scholasticism & Moral Manualists: In the 16th and 17th centuries, many Jesuit and Dominican theologians—while fighting Protestantism and Jansenism—adopted elements of this framework to protect human responsibility. It became a staple in post-Tridentine "moral manuals", where the moral life was viewed as a constant tension between personal liberty and external law. [1, 2]

2. Subjective Rights

In classical Roman and Thomistic law, ius (right) meant "the just thing itself"—an objective arrangement of fairness. The shift to subjective rights (a moral power or faculty belonging to the individual) was pioneered by Catholic thinkers trying to solve legal and global dilemmas.

• Franciscan Theologians (13th–14th Century): During the Franciscan poverty controversies, theologians like Ockham argued that humans could renounce all legal property rights while retaining a purely natural "use" of things. To define this, they formalized the idea of a right as a subjective power (potestas) inherent to the person.
• The School of Salamanca (16th Century): Spanish Dominican and Jesuit theologians formalized subjective human rights to protect indigenous peoples from colonial exploitation.
  • Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546): Argued that Native Americans possessed true dominion over their lands and lives by virtue of being human, framing rights as individual, subjective capacities.
  • Francisco Suárez (1548–1617): Formally defined ius in his treatise De Legibus as "a moral faculty which every man has, either over his own property or with respect to what is due to him." This definition directly bridged medieval theology and modern political philosophy.

3. Autonomous Conscience

In classical Catholic theology, conscience is not autonomous; it is a "subjective norm" that must submit to the "objective norm" of divine and natural law. However, a strand of development emphasized the absolute authority of even an erring conscience, which later evolved toward modern notions of autonomy. [1]

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274): Aquinas laid a crucial foundation by declaring that an erring conscience binds. He argued that if a person's reason mistakenly judges an action to be commanded by God, disobeying that conscience is a sin, because it means intentionally doing what one believes to be wrong.

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Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787) & Equiprobabilism: St. Alphonsus sought to resolve the strict moral legalism spawned by the liberty of indifference. He championed a system where, if the application of a moral law was genuinely doubtful, a person's conscience was free to follow a solidly probable opinion favoring liberty. This carved out significant psychological and practical space for the individual conscience against rigid institutional authority. [1, 2]

The Modern Catholic Synthesis

In the 20th century, theologians like Servais Pinckaers, O.P. heavily critiqued the "liberty of indifference," arguing it fractured the moral life. Conversely, at Vatican II, theologians like John Courtney Murray, S.J. successfully integrated the language of subjective rights into mainstream Catholic teaching via Dignitatis Humanae, establishing that while the conscience is not morally autonomous from God, it must be legally autonomous from state coercion. [1, 2, 3, 4]

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The contemporary Catholic theologian John R. T. Lamont has offered a scathing and systematic critique of these concepts. In his major paper, "Conscience, Freedom, Rights: Idols of the Enlightenment Religion" (published in The Thomist), and related essays, Lamont argues that liberty of indifference, autonomous conscience, and subjective rights are not genuinely Catholic concepts but are "Enlightenment idols" that fundamentally corrupt authentic Christian theology. [1, 2, 3]

Drawing heavily from St. Thomas Aquinas and echoing modern critiques by Servais Pinckaers, Lamont traces how late-medieval and Counter-Reformation deviations inadvertently birthed the secular Enlightenment, crippling the Church's ability to resist modern secularism. [1, 2]

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1. The Critique of "Liberty of Indifference"

Lamont argues that defining free will as a neutral power to choose between opposites (indifference) destroys the very foundation of human action. [1]

• Destruction of Teleology: For Aquinas, the human will is naturally ordered toward the good. We choose things because we perceive them as good. Lamont notes that liberty of indifference completely denies the teleology (purpose-driven nature) of human nature. [1]
• The Rise of Tyranny and Legalism: If the will is completely indifferent to the good, then human nature has no internal compass. Why, then, should we do good instead of evil? The only answer left is the command of an external superior (God or the State). Lamont argues this shift transformed morality into a battlefield of wills, fostering a "tyrannical notion of authority and a slavish notion of obedience." [1]

2. The Critique of the "Autonomous Conscience"

Lamont fiercely rejects what he terms "moralities of conscience," which emerged in the post-Reformation era. [1, 2]

• Autonomy as an Illusion: Lamont points out that when Counter-Reformation manualists overemphasized systems like probabilism (choosing liberty over law in doubtful cases), they introduced the idea of autonomy as a good in itself. [1]
• Weakening of Moral Fiber: By treating the individual conscience as a sovereign, self-contained vacuum that merely navigates laws, theology shifted from seeking truth to seeking exemptions. Lamont argues this fundamentally weakened the moral fiber of Catholics, leaving them intellectually defenseless against the secular Enlightenment, which simply took this religious subjectivism to its logical conclusion. [1, 2]

3. The Critique of "Subjective Rights"

One of Lamont’s most distinct legal critiques is his assault on subjective rights (rights possessed as personal powers or properties), which he contrasts sharply with Aquinas’s objective right (ius). [1, 2]

• Elimination of Justice Based on Desert: In the Thomistic tradition, a "right" is an objective, just state of affairs—giving someone what they are due based on cosmic and social justice. When theologians like Francisco Suárez redefined rights as subjective "moral faculties" or powers inherent to the individual, they severed rights from objective justice.
• A Zero-Sum Conflict: Lamont argues that subjective rights turn human society into an arena of competing wills. If a right is my personal power, and law is a limitation on that power, then what is gained by authority is lost by the individual, and vice versa. This paved the way for modern radical individualism and the modern totalizing state. [1]

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Summary: The "Trojan Horse" of Modernity

Ultimately, John Lamont's thesis is that by adopting liberty of indifference, the autonomous conscience, and subjective rights, Counter-Reformation Catholic theologians unwittingly built the philosophical launchpad for the secular Enlightenment. [1, 2]

He maintains that modern Catholic thought has made a catastrophic mistake by trying to baptism these concepts. Instead, Lamont argues that the Church must completely abandon these "idols" and return to the authentic, objective, and teleological framework of St. Thomas Aquinas to successfully critique and withstand the modern world. [1, 2, 3, 4]