3.5 Moral and Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Law
Maritain's moral and political philosophy lies within what may be called the Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law tradition. Maritain held, however, that Aristotelian ethics, by itself, was inadequate because it lacked knowledge of humanity's ultimate end. The Thomistic view — that there is a law in human nature that is derivative of (though knowable separately from) a divine or eternal law and that humanity's ‘end’ goes beyond anything attainable in this life — was, Maritain thought, a significant advance on what Aristotle had provided.
Following Aquinas, Maritain maintained that there is a natural law that is ‘unwritten’ but immanent in nature. Specifically, given that nature has a teleological character, one can know what a thing ‘should’ do or how it ‘should’ be used by examining its ‘end’ and the ‘normality of its functioning.’ Maritain therefore defines ‘natural law’ as "an order or a disposition that the human reason may discover and according to which the human will must act to accord itself with the necessary ends of the human being" (La loi naturelle, p. 21; see Man and the State, p. 86). This law "prescribes our most fundamental duties" (Man and the State, p. 95) and is coextensive with morality.
There is, Maritain holds, a single natural law governing all beings with a human nature. The first principles of this law are known connaturally, not rationally or through concepts — by an activity that Maritain, following Aquinas, called ‘synderesis.’ Thus, ‘natural ‘law’ is ‘natural’ because it not only reflects human nature, but is known naturally. Maritain acknowledges, however, that knowledge of the natural law varies throughout humanity and according to individuals’ capacities and abilities, and he speaks of growth in an individual's or a collectivity's moral awareness. This allows him to reply to the challenge that there cannot be any universal, natural law because no such law is known or respected universally. Again, though this law is progressively known, it is never known completely, and so the natural law is never exhausted in any particular articulation of it. This recognition of the historical element in human consciousness did not, however, prevent Maritain from holding that this law is objective and binding. (Critics have argued, however, that to speak of ‘connatural knowledge’ is obscure; it is quite unlike what we ordinarily call ‘knowledge’ and is, therefore, inadequate as a basis for knowledge of law.)
A key notion in Maritain's moral philosophy is that of human freedom. He says that the ‘end’ of humanity is to be free but, by ‘freedom,’ he does not mean license or pure rational autonomy, but the realisation of the human person in accord with his or her nature — specifically, the achievement of moral and spiritual perfection. Maritain's moral philosophy, then, cannot be considered independently of his analysis of human nature. Maritain distinguishes between the human being as an individual and as a person. Human beings are ‘individuals’ who are related to a common, social order of which they are parts. But they are also persons. The person is a ‘whole’, is an object of dignity, "must be treated as an end" (Les droits de l'homme, p. 84) and has a transcendent destiny. In both the material and the spiritual order, however, human beings participate in a ‘common good.’ Thus, one is an individual in virtue of being a material being; one is a person so far as one is capable of intellectual activity and freedom. Still, while distinct, both elements are equally necessary to being a human being. It is in virtue of their individuality that human beings have obligations to the social order, but it is in virtue of their personality that they cannot be subordinated to that order. Maritain's emphasis on the value of the human person has been described as a form of personalism, which he saw as a via media between individualism and socialism.
Maritain's political philosophy and his philosophy of law are clearly related to his moral philosophy. The position that he defended was described by him in one of his earliest political works as ‘integral Christian Humanism’ — ‘integral’, because it considers the human Being, an entity that has both material and spiritual dimensions, as a unified whole and because it sees human beings in society as participants in a common good. The object of Maritain's political philosophy was to outline the conditions necessary to making the individual more fully human in all respects. His integral humanism, then, seeks to bring the different dimensions of the human person together, without ignoring or diminishing the value of either. While one's private good as an individual is subordinate to the (temporal) common good of the community, as a person with a supernatural end, one's ‘spiritual good’ is superior to society — and this is something that all political communities should recognize.