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Natural law and the ‘Anglo-Saxons’—some reflections in response to Hedley Bull

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

E. B. F. Midgley
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Extract

In my study, The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations, reviewed in Hedley Bull's interesting article, there are no chapters devoted to natural law thinkers before the thirteenth century. Any lengthening of an already long manuscript might have diminished its prospects of publication. In the absence of a full survey of the strengths and weaknesses of earlier theories, there are various explicit or implied judgements on positions of Aristotle, the Stoics, Cicero and Augustine in chapters dealing primarily with other matters. Whilst referring to sources of Aquinas's doctrine, I did not give a detailed account of the historical formation of his teaching. I concentrated upon St. Thomas's discussion of the various kinds of law and especially upon the doctrine of eternal law which he brought to a certain perfection. In doing this, I was consoled by the view which I shared with Vincent McNabb that “it was always the thought of Aquinas never the history of that thought which seemed of greatest worth…” Indeed, given the incompleteness of so much of the discussion on the intellectual reconciliation of natural and divine law before Aquinas, it is arguable that McNabb was hardly exaggerating very greatly when he wrote that Aquinas's treatise on law in the Summa theologiae “would seem be the first great treatise ever written on law”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 1979 , pp. 260 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1979

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References

page 260 note 1 Bull, Hedley, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, 5 (1979), pp. 176–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 260 note 2 For a general perspective on the earlier period, cf. Midgley, ‘Concerning the Modernist Subversion of Political Philosophy’, The New Scholasticism, June 1979, and McCoy, C. N. R., The Structure of Political Thought (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

page 260 note 3 McNabb, Vincent, ‘The Scholastic Attitude to Law’, Judaism and Christianity, iii, Law and Religion (ed.) Rosenthal, E. I. J. (London, 1938), pp. 211–233Google Scholar, discussing St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia IIae, q.90–q.97.

page 260 note 4 Bull, op. cit. pp. 173, 174, 178, 179.

page 261 note 1 Cf. Simon, Yves, The Tradition of Natural Law (New York, 1967), pp. 16–27.Google Scholar

page 261 note 2 Midgley, , The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations (London/New York, 1975), pp. 313–314Google Scholar quoting Martin, Wm. O., Metaphysics and Ideology (Milwaukee, 1959), p. 72.Google Scholar Cf. also my article ‘Natural Law and the Renewal of the Philosophy of International Relations’, Tear Book of World Affairs, 29 (1975), pp. 121–136,

page 261 note 3 Bull, op. cit.

page 262 note 1 Some reservations about Maritain's positions on this subject are implied in my article ‘Natural Law and Fundamental Rights’, American Journal of Jurisprudence, xxi (1976), pp.Google Scholar

page 262 note 2 Tolstoy, NikolaiVictims of Yalta (rev. ed. London 1979).Google Scholar

page 262 note 3 Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society (London, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 263 note 1 Ibid.

page 263 note 2 Forsyth, Murray, ‘The Classical Theory of International Relations’, Political Studies, xxvi (1978), p. 416.Google Scholar

page 263 note 3 Bull, Hedley, ‘International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach’, World Politics, xxviii (1966), pp 000.Google Scholar

page 263 note 4 Cf., for example, the Preface to Mintz, S. I., The Hunting ofLeviathan (Cambridge, 1962).Google Scholar

page 264 note 1 Cf. Devane, R. S., The Failure of Individualism (Dublin, 1948), pp. 116–117.Google Scholar

page 264 note 2 This is evident even in the early work, John Locke: Essays on the Law of Nature (ed), von Leyden, (Oxford, 1954).Google Scholar

page 264 note 3 There is a paradigm of this in the discussion of “things indifferent” in Locke's Two Tracts on Government (ed.), Abrams, P. (Cambridge, 1967).Google Scholar

page 264 note 4 Cf. brief discussion of transition from Hume through Kant to Nietzsche in my article ‘Natural Law and Fundamental Rights’, op. cit. Also cf. Leo Strauss, ‘The Three Waves of Modernity’, Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss (ed.), Gildin, Hilail (Indianapolis, 1975).Google Scholar

page 264 note 5 Bull, Hedley, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, 2 (1976), p. m.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 264 note 6 Wight, Martin, ‘Why is there no International Theory’, Diplomatic Investigations (eds.), Butterfield, H. and Wight, M. (London, 1966), pp. 17–34Google Scholar and elsewhere.

page 265 note 1 Bull, op. cit. p. 104.

page 265 note 2 Simon, op. cit. p. 21

page 265 note 3 There is a general analysis of the nature and genesis of modern ideology in my article ‘Traditionalism and Modernism in Ecological and Liberationist Ideology’, Catholic Social Review, vi (Trinity, 1977), pp. 13–30.

page 265 note 4 Cf. Midgley, ‘Concerning the Modernist Subversion of Political Philosophy’, op. cit. and my forthcoming article in the Tear Book of World Affairs.

page 265 note 5 Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, op. cit. p. 181.

page 266 note 1 Cf. Midgley, ‘Natural Law and Fundamental Rights’, op. cit.; ‘Authority, Alienation and Revolt, Aberdeen University Review, x/vi (1976), pp. 372–383 and Leo Strauss, op. cit.

page 266 note 2 Bull, op. cit. p. 173.

page 266 note 3 McNabb, op. cit.

page 267 note 1 Bull, op. cit. p. 175.

page 267 note 2 Ibid. p. 181

page 267 note 3 Ibid. p. 172.

page 267 note 4 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia Ilae, q·91, art. 5, reply to obj. 3 quoted in Midgley, The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations, op. cit. p. 48sn. 58

page 268 note 1 Bull, op. cit. p. 181.

page 268 note 2 Ibid. p. 175.

page 268 note 3 Ibid. p. 181.

page 268 note 4 Bull's Introduction to Martin Wight, Systems of States (Leicester, 1977), p. 11.

page 268 note 5 Ibid. pp. 3–4 and 11–14.

page 269 note 1 Wight, ‘Western Values in International Relations’, Diplomatic Investigations, op. cit pp. 127–131.Google Scholar

page 269 note 2 The immutability of the natural law and its consequences is thoroughly discussed in Midgley, op. cit.

page 269 note 3 Forsyth, op. cit. p. 413.

page 269 note 4 Vatican Council I, Constitution on the Catholic Faith, chapter 2 and the first canon thereto (1870).

page 269 note 5 St. Thomas Aquinas, Qtiaestiones Disputatae de Anima, art 14, reply to obj. 17, quoted Midgley, op. cit. pp. 38 and 44511.187.

page 270 note 1 Cf. Pope John Paul II, ‘Address to Pilgrims from Brescia’ (quoting Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis, 1950), dated 24th April, 1979, L ' Osservatore Romano, weekly ed. in N. 19 (580), May 7, 1979.

page 270 note 2 Bull, ‘Natural Law and International Relations’, op. cit. p. 181.

page 270 note 3 Ibid. p. 173.

page 270 note 4 Some ecclesiastical documents (from 1879 to 1974) on the normative value of Thomism are listed in Midgley, op. cit. p. 561.

page 270 note 5 Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis (1950).

page 271 note 1 Bull, op. cit. p. 178.

page 271 note 2 Ibid. p. 172.

page 271 note 3 Bull, The Anarchical Society, op. cit. p. 44.

page 271 note 4 Midgley, op. cit. chap. i.III, p. 26, chap. 2.1 and elsewhere. Cf. especially Journet, G., The Church of the Word Incarnate, i (London, 1955).Google Scholar

page 271 note 5 Bull, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, op. cit. p. 105.

page 271 note 6 Pope John Paul IFs encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979).

page 271 note 7 Summa theologiae, III, q.35, art. 7, reply to obj. 3 quoted in Midgley, op. cit. pp. 26 and 43811.117.

page 272 note 1 Macaulay's review of von Ranke's History of the Popes.