Rick Santorum Is Dangerous--and Electable

For Santorum, the laws of faith and family--his laws--make freedom.

Rick Santorum seems like a front-runner. Not so presidential as Mitt Romney, Santorum nevertheless comes across as aware of and unfazed by the executive role. At one time, I thought he might be too crazy to be a serious candidate, but now I think he has a real shot at being the Republican nominee. It's going to be either Mitt or Rick, and my bet's now on Rick.

But if his views are any indication--and they may not be--Santorum is dangerous. His positions are "philosophically reasoned prejudice, based on centuries of Roman Catholic natural law." The quote comes from a recent piece on Santorum in the New York Times. From that article, we get one example of how Santorum applies natural law to his positions on social issues:

“Human beings have a purpose, or ‘end,’ a telos,” Santorum writes in his book. According to the tradition of natural law, every part of our bodies has a telos too. In the case of our genitalia, that natural end is heterosexual sex for the purpose of procreation. It follows that marriage between a man and a woman “is fundamentally natural,” Santorum writes.

Readers of this blog may hear echoes of Edward Feser, who must be positively delighted at Santorum's ascent. Readers of this blog will also know that Santorum basically makes up what the telos is. Santorum will get lots of agreement that the natural purpose of human genitalia is reproductive sex, but most thinking people will quickly realize three issues:

1. It is not a fact that the natural purpose of human genitalia is reproductive sex. Even with a nice argument, it's not a fact. Even if the Catholic Church teaches what the natural purpose is of genitalia, it's not a fact. The fact is that human genitalia serve several purposes. On the point of purposes, I can do no better than recommend you to Leah at Unequally Yoked. My take is that only belief confers purpose on anything. If you think wet is the purpose of water, then it is so.
2. The connection between reproductive sex and the social institution of marriage is arbitrary. Even if the telos of cocks, balls, and pussies was only reproductive sex--that would have no bearing on marriage. At best, it would dictate that when when people has sex they would do it heterosexually and with the intent of producing children. Beyond that dictate, anything goes.
3. Something that is "fundamentally natural" is not fundamentally good or right. Neither is something bad or wrong that is not fundamentally natural. This issue is, of course, the naturalistic fallacy.

After considering these three issues, Santorum's next statements appear ridiculous:

“The promise of natural law is that we will be the happiest, and freest, when we follow the law built into our nature as men and women. For liberals, however, nature is too confining, and thus is the enemy of freedom.” Later on, he elaborates on his jaundiced view of freedom with a quotation from Edmund Burke: “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their appetites.”

Yet Santorum himself continues to gain support, and he cannot be dismissed. He delivers his message with a distinctly American idealism and coolness:

Santorum is not a fundamentalist frothing at the mouth, screeching out biblical commands (he cites “Divine Providence” often in his writing, but rarely turns to scripture). When liberal students booed after he expressed his views on same-sex marriage at an event in New Hampshire, he did not shout them down, but tried to engage them in a philosophical discussion.

Each point that Santorum makes follows logically from the preceding premise. Along with Catholic public intellectuals like Robert George, a political theorist at Princeton, and the political commentator and the Lutheran minister-turned-Catholic theologian Richard John Neuhaus, Santorum embodies the renaissance of Catholic natural law in American political life—and the apotheosis of its seductive effect on conservative Protestant evangelicals.

I am grateful for this NYT article. It's profile of Santorum and his views is interesting and important. But it never talks at all about Santorum's performance as a leader. I'd really like more details on his leadership and the relationship between his personal views and the diverse constituencies he must represent.

So while I agree with the NYT's conclusion that Santorum is dangerous, I think they fail to provide the most useful content to their readers. Here is how the article closes:

Natural law is a noble tradition that has shaped Western jurisprudence, but in the hands of conservative activists like Santorum it has become a dangerous cult of first principles. Santorum’s positions are perfectly logical if you accept his founding presuppositions — but, in his view, those presuppositions are not open to question. The genius of this emphasis on foundational assumptions is that if you can dismiss your opponent’s first principles, if you can accuse him of denying humanity’s “natural purpose,” you can claim to win the debate without ever considering the content of his argument.

This tactic destroys the possibility for real political dialogue, since one need only engage with those who share one’s own presuppositions. Despite Santorum’s calm debating style, his preference for home-schooling his children and rants against modern higher education suggest he has little genuine interest in open argument and free inquiry. Thomas Aquinas would not approve of such separatism: the theologian honed his most important ideas while in the thick of 13th-century heterodoxies, debating radical followers of Aristotle at the University of Paris.

The pundits are right about one thing: Santorum is the rock-ribbed anti-Romney candidate, the antidote to the bogeyman of “flip-flopping” and moderation. A half-century ago, evangelical voters worried that a Catholic president would take orders from the pope. Now they are worried instead about Romney reporting to a sinister Mormon cabal in Salt Lake City, while Santorum’s Catholicism has made him the candidate of universal “moral truth” and “divine reason:” the philosopher-king who can reclaim American liberty in the name of moral law, and package the Christian Right’s agenda in a respectable guise

If the NYT is correct, as the Republican nominee or as president Santorum may be no less a polarizing figure than President Obama. Santorum's views are parochial, if not scary. Yet he is gaining charisma where Romney is growing mold. Do not doubt that Santorum will be able to mainstream his views and gain fervent support.

And remember why the philosophical tradition of Aquinas faltered: Ockham showed it was impossible to make the leap from nature to the divine; that is that the reality of final causes was unable to be proved without revelation (He was a monk, after all). Later, the new science drawn from Bacon confirmed the superfluity of divine and supernatural explanations.

The 2012 presidential election may revive this centuries old philosophical clash. If Aquinas can be pressed into service for a modern conservatism he would not understand, Ockham can make a reluctant comeback too.