The Journal of Natural Law

The second issue of the new Journal of Natural Law is out soon.  It includes, among other things, a debate between Melissa Moschella and Robert Koons on the New Natural Law Theory, and articles on Protestantism and natural law.  The first issue included a symposium on Kevin Vallier’s All the Kingdoms of the World and several articles on natural law and the concept of intention (as well as my review of Stephen Boulter’s Natural Law Liberalism and the Malaise of Modernity).  Congratulations to editor Brian Besong and associate editors James Jacobs and Matthew Minerd on an excellent and much-needed publication!

What is the mechanical world picture?

Early modern philosophy and science are often said to have put a “mechanical” or “mechanistic” conception of nature at the center of Western thought.  Robert Boyle referred to it as “the mechanical philosophy.”  Historian of science E. J. Dijksterhuis characterized it as a “mechanization of the world picture.”  Tim Crane calls it “the mechanical world picture.”  But what does a mechanical or mechanistic conception of the world amount to? 

Dijksterhuis’s book The Mechanization of the World Picture surveys the history of the period during which this conception rose to hegemony, and in the Epilogue he considers several possible interpretations that the survey suggests.  First, it is commonly said that a mechanistic conception of the natural world is one which sees it as a kind of machine, analogous to a clock.  And such metaphors are, he says, indeed frequent in writers of the period.

Leo XIV contra the new Babel: Reflections on the pope’s landmark encyclical

Last week, Pope Leo XIV issued Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of his pontificate.  It has received much attention, both positive and negative and in both Catholic and secular media.  Much of the commentary so far strikes me as superficial.  To judge from social media, you’d think the document is primarily devoted to artificial intelligence, with some irrelevant comments about slavery and just war theory arbitrarily tacked on.  You’d also think those comments mark a rupture with traditional Catholic teaching.  None of this is true.  There is no break with traditional teaching.  While artificial intelligence (or AI) gets significant attention, the encyclical is actually devoted to a much larger theme, of which AI is only a part.  And the remarks on slavery and just war theory are not arbitrary, but fit in naturally with this larger theme.  Magnifica Humanitas is in fact a major contribution to the tradition of Catholic social teaching inaugurated by the pope’s namesake Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum.  It is rich in insights, and gives Catholics a sound framework for dealing with the “new things” of our times, just as Rerum Novarum did for Catholics of the late nineteenth century and beyond.