Robert George on God and the Morality of Human Rights

Responding to my recent post about Michael P's Commonweal essay on the possibility of a non-religious ground for the morality of human rights, Robert George kindly sent me a chapter -- which takes the form of an interview with him about natural law -- from a new volume, edited by Elizabeth Bucar and Barbara Barnett, Does Human Rights Need God? (Eerdman's 2005).  Other contributors to the volume include Khaled Abou El Fadl, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Vigen Guroian, Louis Henkin, and David Novak (to name just a few).  Looks great!

Here is a bit from George's chapter:

What is the role of religion and/or God in your understanding of natural law?

            Most, but not all, natural law theorists are theists.  They believe that the moral order, like every other order in human experience, is what it is because God creates and sustains it as such.  In accounting for the intelligibility of the created order, they infer the existence of a free and creative intelligence—a personal God.  Indeed, they typically argue that God’s creative free choice provides the only ultimately satisfactory account of the existence of the intelligibilities humans grasp in every domain of inquiry. 

            Natural law theorists do not deny that God can reveal moral truths and most believe that God has chosen to reveal many such truths.  However, natural law theorists also affirm that many moral truths, including some that are revealed, can also be grasped by ethical reflection apart from revelation.  They assert, with St. Paul, that there is a law “written on the hearts” even of the Gentiles who did not know the law of Moses.  So the basic norms against murder and theft, though revealed in the Decalogue, are knowable even apart from God’s special revelation.  The natural law can be known by us, and we can conform our conduct to its terms, by virtue of our natural human capacities for deliberation, judgment, and choice.  The absence of a divine source of the natural law would be a puzzling thing, just as the absence of a divine source of any and every other intelligible order in human experience would be a puzzling thing.  An atheist’s puzzlement might well cause him or her to re-consider the idea that there is no divine source of the order we perceive and understand in the universe.  It is far less likely to cause him or her to conclude that our perception is illusory or that our understanding is a sham.

[C]an natural law provide the basis for an international human rights regime without consensus on the nature of God and the role of God in human affairs?

            Anybody who acknowledges the human capacities for reason and freedom has good grounds for affirming human dignity and basic human rights.  These grounds remain in place whether or not one adverts to the question:  “Is there a divine source of the moral order whose tenets we discern in inquiry regarding natural law and natural rights?”  I happen to think that the answer to this question is “yes,” and that we should be open to the possibility that God has revealed himself in ways that reinforce and supplement what can be known by unaided reason.  But we do not need agreement on the answer, so long as we agree about the truths that give rise to the question, namely, that human beings, possessing the God-like powers of reason and freedom are possessors of a profound dignity that is protected by certain basic rights.

            So, if there is a set of moral norms, including norms of justice and human rights, that can be known by rational inquiry, understanding, and judgment even apart from any special revelation, then these norms of natural law can provide the basis for an international regime of human rights.  Of course, we should not expect consensus.  There are moral skeptics who deny that there are moral truths.  There are religious fideists who hold that moral truths cannot be known apart from God’s special revelation.  And even among those who believe in natural law, there will be differences of opinion about its precise content and implications for certain issues.  So it is, I believe, our permanent condition to discuss and debate these issues, both as a matter of abstract philosophy and as a matter of practical politics.