founders’ favorite

By Design: Aiming at the Heart of Natural Law

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Just government is an ultimate good and the aim of Constitution

Just government is an ultimate good and the aim of the constitutional ordering of separate and arranged powers

Identify target, take aim, fire!  Archery has as its effect the focusing and synchronizing of individual efforts into a common aim at a desired target of highest value.  Even when the mark (bullseye) is missed, the presence of the target produces the likelihood of better outcomes than those that exist in the absence of it.  Aristotle used the archer’s example to illustrate Natural Law.  His Hierarchy of Goods composes the rings of the target, culminating in the ultimate good.  The ordering of goods is as follows:

1.  The good is that at which all things aim

2.  The good is in each thing

3.  The things – and so, the good in each – are arranged in a hierarchy (known as the Creator’s natural order of things)

4.  The ultimate goods – highest ordered – are pursued for their own sake

The founders of America believed just government to be an ultimate good.  This is the aim of the Constitutional ordering of separate and arranged powers.  The Constitution prescribes the optimal arrangement of political power to achieve a government of, by, and for the people.

By Design: Example of Natural Order?

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Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.) The founders favorite expositor of Natural Law

Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.)
The founders favorite expositor of Natural Law

Natural Law interests me as it relates to the founding of America.  References to it recur frequently in the founding documents of our country, perhaps most notably in the Declaration of Independence as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”  Cicero, a favorite political philosopher of the founders, was the first to speak of Natural Law as a moral or political law.  As such, he believed it to be the only reliable basis for good government and just human relations.  Because man shares the gift of reason with his Creator the only rational, common sense approach to governing is through the laws already established by the Creator.  The Creator’s order of things is called Natural Law.

So what then is the natural order of things?  While I can’t efficiently articulate this yet,  I believe I recognized an example of it recently.  During a conversation with Aunt Ginger, who recently lost a grown child, she said that of all the people that she’d loved and lost – husband, parents and friends – the loss of her youngest son was the worst.  “It is just different than the others” she remarked before tearing up.  Confirming what I’ve heard before, the death of a child is the worst loss a human being may experience.  This speaks to the natural order of things.  Regardless of any moral or religious beliefs, it is unnatural for a child to precede his parent in death.  It’s a violation of the Creator’s order of things.