The Truth Will Set Us Free
International Society for Military Ethics conference submission 2024 -
Abstract
As a legal union, the system of the United States of America is rooted in the theory of natural law; the idea that each person is equally endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Though it has lost significant attention in the last several decades, in academic, professional, and personal dimensions of American life, the natural law remains the groundwork for our structural organization as a society, our moral understanding, and our national ethos. It preserves a vision of freedom still fought and died for today. In this essay, I offer a way of understanding the theory of natural law as a necessary truth, and call attention to how we can recalibrate our society’s ethical values toward true peace, liberty, and justice for all through our understanding of the natural law itself. By drawing on the work of legal scholar and professor Hadley Arkes and the wisdom of multiple founding fathers and national leaders, I argue that embracing the natural law as our ultimate moral compass can guide our individual and collective actions toward a truly liberated way of life. Our claim to “the land of the free” is hollow and meaningless without grounding every aspect of our society to its roots. In order to achieve this, we must understand what the natural law really is, what it obliges us to do, and how it can be a source of guidance to our choices and a steward of our integrity.
I. Introduction
The entire history of the human world is a complex array of struggles for power, wrought with conflict, war, and terrible suffering. Freedom, individual rights, and equality for all were unheard of ideals until relatively recently on the human timeline. The European Enlightenment, born of religious and political conflict in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gave way to secular thought and fact-based reason, challenging traditional societal structures. New ideas about the rights of the people, the legitimacy of power, and the role of government began to emerge in the minds of statesmen and philosophers alike. In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke defends the idea that all people are endowed with certain inalienable rights—rights that cannot be taken away by any governing authority. Among these are the rights to life, liberty, and property, and within this, the idea that all men are naturally free and equal. It was a paradigm shift that awakened human civilization to the possibility of a just and free world; one that ensures everyone’s safety and security, nourished by common respect and mutual compassion. It lit a flame of hope, shining light on the possibility of a better life and a better world to live it in. The idea that freedom not only exists but is possible to obtain sparked the American revolution itself; an event that would prove historically significant for the entire world and its future, driven by ideals of liberty and justice, and hardened to fight against the forces of terror and oppression.
Influenced by enlightenment-era principles, the Declaration of Independence emphasizes the natural rights and equality of all men, and the right of a people to consent to its own governing power. The founders took their best shot at creating a new system for the New World; one that denied pre-Enlightenment traditions and rejected the Crown’s rule on grounds of the natural law:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…"
It was a decree like no other in history. Many of its drafters arguably didn’t fully grasp its implications. Even today, this blueprint for a free society is widely misunderstood. Years of esoteric scholarship and historical research are not required to understand that the United States did not immediately live up to its intended promises, nor that it is still working to do so. It would take almost an entire century from the signing of the Declaration, and a civil war, to outlaw slavery. That story continues to our modern day, in the racist attitudes and sometimes violent actions experienced by people of color in our society. Several more decades were required to establish women's right to vote in a country they serve, work, and live in. Patriarchal attitudes of superiority continue to influence society’s expectations of women, and continue to control certain aspects of our agency. Minority groups like members of the queer community, indigenous people, and foreign immigrants have similarly fought and died for their rights; their right to be accepted and involved in society, to have access to resources, and to live freely without fear of violent oppression.
By drawing attention to our shared humanity and the communities deprived of that equality, we create space to recognize the equal rights of all people as human beings, and secure them in the systematic changes of the law. The changes are gradual, but that we can enact our rights to produce them was precisely the intent. President Abraham Lincoln knew wisely when he expressed that
"[The authors of the Declaration] did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they consider all men create equal,—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for a free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere."
The founders understood that creating a free land wouldn’t happen overnight, even with the most sophisticated ideals and documents to support it. It would take generations of recalibrating our collective understanding of what’s true, great courage in the face of new evils, and steadfast patience with every falter in our step. It is a constant work in progress, and though new challenges always arise to threaten it, the force that drives the undercurrent of societal change remains anchored to the prospect of realizing the values set forth in the Declaration. If we are to live up to the notion that the United States is the land of the free, we must understand the natural law and the role we play as moral agents whose actions shape and determine the future. The natural law that defines our nation’s inception not only gives us a way of understanding ourselves and the world, it gives us a framework for actualizing the greatest potential of all humankind: peace, liberty, and justice for all.
II. The Natural Law as a Necessary Truth
The revolutionaries who pushed history closer toward an age of liberation were guided by this light of truth: that there are certain fundamental laws of the world, including our right to live peacefully and well, to know and embrace the liberty of choice, and to pursue those possessions and experiences we need in order to bring fruition to these rights. In Federalist paper no. 31, Alexander Hamilton writes
"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend…Of this nature are the maxims in geometry that the whole is greater than its parts; that things equal to the same are equal to one another; that two straight lines cannot enclose a space; and that all right angles are equal to each other. Of the same nature are these other maxims in ethics and politics, that there cannot be an effect without a cause; that the means ought to be proportioned to the end; that every power ought to be commensurate with its object; that there ought to be no limitation of a power destined to effect a purpose which is itself incapable of limitation."
In his work Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution, Hadley Arkes notes that Hamilton is describing things that are true in themselves. They are true always and everywhere, with or without our understanding or description of them. Arkes writes, “An earnest undergraduate proclaims his insight that ‘there is no truth,’ and the stock response of the philosopher is to ask, ‘What of the proposition—that there is no truth? Is that itself true?’…The necessary truth here is that there is indeed ‘truth.’ It may be elusive and cloudy in many domains, but on many matters in this vast world, in all of its fields and crevices, there are truths to be known.” When our founders spoke of self-evident truths in the Declaration, these were the truths they pointed to, the necessary truths, and they saw them encased in the natural law: “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
Although the Declaration makes use of the word “God,” it is not intended to be read with any particular religious inference. If the founders wanted us to be a nation of a certain religion, they wouldn’t have written the constitution to secure our right to its free exercise. Additionally, attempting to frame the natural law within the bounds of a specific religious discipline would invalidate its truth among those never exposed to its teachings. If the natural law is true at all times in all places, then it goes beyond our ability to grasp it with one singular perspective or doctrine, except in the recognition of its universality. Nevertheless, historically it holds a significant connection to the notion of God, creating difficulty in the process of separating it from non-secular understanding. Contention surrounding the natural law exists for obvious reasons: the widespread disagreements about what God is, and the impossibility of grounding a theory in a phenomenon that is as elusive as a rainbow. Yet, following Hamilton and Arkes’ reasoning outlined above, we can agree that there are necessary truths which describe the functions of our physical and social worlds. We do not need religious institutions to bring us to the pot of gold to see that the rainbow exists; the rainbow exists because we exist to see it.
We can look at the universal laws of physics as an example of these truths which are necessary, as they hold true without exception and do not require us to calculate or inscribe them in order to exist. Humanity might not have had a word or formal study dedicated to it before the work of Isaac Newton, but gravity was always and would always be the force that dropped an apple on his head. We are universally and eternally bound by these truths, and no amount of strength of will can break the constraints that they hold on our freedom. We will never be free to escape the effects of gravity nor to travel faster than the speed of light. Human freedom is not a boundless right, because we live in a universe built by a particular set of unchangeable laws. We do not need to formally write them into legislation in order to prohibit people from breaking them, because they simply cannot be broken.
While the physical dimension of the natural law can be pinpointed with verifiable experiments and testable calculations, that tricky element we call “morality” is much less black and white. The nature of good and evil is often a gray area, both in theory and in practice. Its subjective and ambiguous nature, however, points to another universal truth of the natural law: that human beings are conscious agents of active choice and change influenced by their moral understandings of right and wrong. We are active participants in a shared reality where actions have consequences, and whether the intent behind our actions is helpful or harmful determines the pain or relief of the consequences. Just as we cannot escape the laws of the physical world, we cannot escape the moral laws that describe how we function in relation to one another, nor the truth that we experience evil in the form of pain and suffering, and good in the form of peace and love. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are held to “certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.” There are rules of the physical world we are bound to follow in order to live and survive, and there are rules we must follow if we are to live and survive in supreme health of body, mind, and spirit, both within ourselves and in relation to other people.
III. Morality and the Written Law
Unlike the universal laws of physics, however, moral laws can be broken. We can write them into our legislation and design systems to uphold them, but they are inherently vulnerable to human will. In order to incentivize citizens not to harm one another and to maintain civilized order, we make certain actions punishable offenses and seek justice for the offenders. For free-willed beings not constrained by any law of physics to do harm to other people, human law becomes necessary. When the founders began constructing our system of law in the late 1700s, they did so on the basis that the law should reflect the values of the natural law. The constitution was written to establish a structure of government in line with those defining principles. Although our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness exist with or without the constitution, as noted by many of the framers when debating the necessity of a Bill of Rights, constructing an operative system to affirm those rights was a necessary step in establishing a formal union. It was also necessary to the people’s understanding of their own and others’ values, and to provide a framework for right behavior. Nevertheless, the law itself is not the first or final arbiter of morality. Arkes writes:
"The law cannot hope to extirpate all evils; at best it can hope to limit evils to a level that can be more readily borne. The law cannot convert human beings into angels, and a government that would strain to that impracticable end would require powers well beyond anything that is safe to put in the hands of those bipeds walking among us. As Aquinas put it in the Summa Theologica, the aim of the law is to lead people ‘to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually.’"
A well-functioning, harmonious society obliges us to be ethically educated citizens. It is not enough to know that the written law exists, and that violating it has potential consequences. It is necessary to know why the law exists and what philosophies are behind it, and seek to think critically about whether or not it truly upholds what it says it does. The laws of man are changeable and breakable, and sometimes fall far short of true moral goodness, but when aligned with the natural law, they are the organizing principle of a just society. In a community anchored to its defining principles, and disciplined to its moral obligations, the natural law governs silently and effortlessly. These principles must be as embedded in the hearts and minds of a people as they are in the written law if we are to achieve their greatest potential.
Some arguments claim that any law is a violation of our natural liberties; that law itself is the tyrannical overlord that removes our agency and obliges us to sacrifice our right to live freely, even if it secures a common good. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone writes
"…every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty as the price of so valuable a purchase; and in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, allows himself to conform to those laws which the community has thought proper to establish…Political, therefore, or civil liberty, which is that of a member of society; is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws, and no farther, as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public."
Blackstone argues that we sacrifice our natural liberties when entering into society, and that this sacrifice is necessary for the promotion of general well-being. In an organized collective, he says, our natural liberties become civil liberties, and when aimed toward an end state of moral good they will support a free and independent society.
I argue that Blackstone’s reflection here flies amiss to the whole notion of natural rights, and demonstrates how we continue to misunderstand it. By calling our natural liberties civil liberties in the context of a society, we take on the assumption that our natural rights have somehow changed between one state and the other. Yet this violates the very definition of natural rights, which hold true always and everywhere. Our natural liberties never promised us the ability to do whatever we want whenever we want. We are constrained both by the fundamental physical laws of the universe and the truth that actions have consequences. You did not give up your right to kill people when you were born into society, and willful murder isn’t principally wrong because the written law says it is. You never had that right to begin with, because murder is morally wrong on the ground that each person has a right to life. Our inherently endowed natural rights are equal across the whole of humanity, which means nobody has the right to inhibit or destroy another’s. The natural law applies to both individuals and institutions: oppressing the freedoms of some in the name of freedom for others restricts the freedom of all. There is only liberty for the whole when there is liberty for each of its parts. When we can learn how to recognize this, we will have found the path toward true liberation.
IV. Conclusion
The ethos of a nation is its characteristic spirit. It shapes and defines a society’s beliefs, in turn driving the actions it takes in pursuit of its aspirations, both at the individual and collective scales. The United States was bred in revolution driven by a vision of liberation for a nation and of freedom for a people. We are founded in ideals which defy the notion that oppressive rule and miserable qualities of life are inevitable facts of it. The ethos at the heart of our union is characterized by the idea that a system of governance could exist such that the rights of the people were always protected, and that by securing our natural rights, we could secure our freedom. Through both the structure of our law and the framework of our moral understandings, these values can be preserved and protected. Now more than ever, as international conflicts rage on the world stage and the voices of warmongers drown out those of diplomats, we must embrace the truth of what our nation stands for and let our actions be guided by its wisest counsel and deepest ethical principles. This means seeking to resolve conflicts with the least violent means possible. It means taking care of our people, and empowering our citizenry with holistic education, accessible health care, and quality resources. It means holding ourselves and our allies accountable when the rights of some are destroyed in favor of the rights of others. It means integrating our understanding of the natural law in our everyday lives, at interpersonal levels and strategic ones, from the average citizen toiling in the fields and factories to our uniformed service members making internationally impactful decisions to the suits in Washington at the helm of societal policy and procedure.
As an Army veteran raised by hard-working and patriotic Americans, I look at our nation today with deep concerns for its current trajectory. I love that we were forged in revolution, hellbent on seeing a free world come to fruition. Give me liberty or give me death, for a life without liberty is already dead. We put these values into our foundation, and have let them steer us into conflicts on the world stage where and when those values seemed threatened. Yet for all our efforts to liberate the oppressed people of the world, including ourselves, we have, in many ways, become the oppressors we claim to fight against. Driven by the warped idea that we can force democratic principles on foreign lands in an effort to ensure our security, we have willingly sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of others, and have deeply entrenched ourselves in global affairs while ignoring the needs of our own society. Corruption has become systematic, both the media and our nation’s politicians are increasingly untrustworthy, destructive ideologies and conflicting ethical principles drive deep divisions among the people, and endless wars continue to destroy human life, the earth, and its resources. The farther away we stray from the ethos of the natural law, the more suffering we incur in the future, and the more distant the promised land of the free becomes.
When I deployed to Afghanistan in 2019, my job as a public affairs specialist was to document combat missions with Special Forces teams. One night, when clearing a compound of interest, U.S. forces entered the building in search of military-aged males. It was a standard procedure, because we didn’t know who the enemy was or wasn’t, or who their friends were. As I watched a couple of U.S. Army Green Berets pull a middle-aged man in traditional Afghan garb out of the house, a young child came running after them. Distressed and in tears, a few soldiers of the Afghan National Army kept him from chasing after what might’ve been his father. One of the Americans joked about the child’s emotional reaction, inspiring some chuckles within the group. I sternly noted that it seemed like a reasonable response from a child for which the current situation appeared to him as a hoard of large, armed men kidnapping someone he loved from their home in the middle of the night. A sense of shame kept him and the others quiet, and I reflected on the moment as a perfect demonstration of how easily would-be saviors can turn into the very monsters they claim to oppose. This is just one example of how we need to recalibrate our actions in this world. The Special Forces motto, “de oppresso liber,” “to free the oppressed,” captures the very heart of our national ethos, and beats the same drums that sounded during the American Revolution. When our actions are not aligned with the values that we claim, however, we sacrifice all our power to realize the vision of the Declaration, and to fulfill the promise of freedom. It can only be had by way of our own integrity, and our ceaseless commitment to our nation’s defining principles.
It is important to note that freedom is not synonymous with anarchy. Freedom is not about uninhibited ways of life, nor the false notion that might equals right. Freedom is about having choices and agency within one’s life, and using those choices for good. It is about embracing all people as human beings endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and constructing a system of law and a framework of ethics that upholds rather than diminishes those rights. It is about taking care of the earth to ensure access to quality resources, engaging in diplomatic practices that do not hold one people more important or more valid than another, and systematically checking the power and influence of those writing and upholding the written law. Anarchy is using the power of choice for bad. In an anarchic state, everyone’s freedom suffers, because everyone is limited in their choices. Life becomes hellish and violent, and we are no longer free to choose how to live and how to live well. Instead, we are simply forced to choose how we are going to survive. When we make choices that are rooted in right moral intent, that do not cause undue harm and suffering, either to ourselves or others, we free ourselves to even greater possibilities of choice by removing those destructive constraints which threaten our lives. If freedom prevails over anarchy, it will be because we have used our agency to ensure the agency of others. If anarchy prevails over freedom, it will be because we have failed to learn that freedom is not an individual pursuit; it is a collective one. In order to return ourselves to the ethos of the natural law, we must be willing to let it shape every aspect of our society, from our educational institutions to our governmental structures to the very hearts and minds of the people that compose our nation. It is the same work that we’ve been doing since 1776, and in our internationally connected world with such looming existential threats as nuclear war and ecological destruction, strengthening our understanding of the natural law is even more imperative.
The vision of the natural law fully realized is a state of peaceful existence in harmony with ourselves, each other, and the world we all share. It is the vision of the kingdom of heaven; of peace on earth, and of justice and liberty for all. Certain religious teachings have conditioned us to believe that this heavenly ideal is obtainable only after this life; that if we are morally pure and act righteously during our time on earth, we will gain admittance to this place. We fail to see that virtue and righteousness are not what we need in order to go to heaven later, but what we need in order to create heaven here and now. In the book of Luke of the New Testament, Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” That kingdom is the fullest realization of our natural liberties as human beings. This world is ours to create, and this is the truth of the natural law. We cannot afford to ignore the heart that beats at the center of our national ethos, nor the actions we take in its pursuit. The only way to secure our values is to act by and through those values themselves. If we want to grow an apple tree, we must plant apple seeds and nourish them properly. For all our faults, past and present, we as a society have every potential to live up to our claims to freedom, but it can only be when we understand that the natural law is universal. It is only then that we free ourselves to the possibility of a peaceful, protected, and prosperous life. We must embrace the natural law at every level of our culture, and let it define our individual morals and our national ethos, at home and abroad. In the words of Jesus once more, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” That truth is the truth of the natural law, and if we can learn to see it as such, and let it be our guiding light, we are that much closer to the vision of freedom at the heart of this union.
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