Defense of LFW, Part III

I'll try not to post too many more things this week; I'm just trying to get some of my thoughts down while they are here. Here is the promised third installment of the "Defense of LFW" series (you can get to the previous two posts through the labels). There should be two more parts coming; they're more or less done, but I have enough stuff on here for the moment.

Scotus’ ethical theory has attracted notice as of late due to its nature as an intriguing version of voluntarism (or something close to it). What is right, is right because God says it, except for the fundamental axiom that God must be loved (which Scotus takes to be analytically true) and whatever follows from that. In particular, no act which has as its recipients contingent beings could be necessarily right; God could always in theory violate any given standard, as the finite goodness of a creature vanishes in light of the infinite goodness of God. However, in actuality God’s justice leads God to set up the world in a way which is conducive to the good of creatures, a way which is appropriate to their given natures. God is gracious toward creation due to his justice, but God is not determined by his justice to do good to creation. It is difficult to say how this fits together, and unlike some of the other examples which I will give it does not lend itself to analysis of our own experience, but it does seem to hold together intuitions both of God’s goodness in acting the way he does as well as the purely gracious aspect of what God does.

Next, Scotus believes that God commands what is right, but in an orderly fashion. So much so, in fact, that Scotus can build a natural law ethic of sorts. What I want to note here is the harmonious nature of the right for Scotus. He compares this harmony to that of beauty:

One could say that just as beauty is not some absolute quality in a beautiful body, but a combination of all that is in harmony with such a body (such as size, figure, and color), and a combination of all aspects (that pertain to all that is agreeable to such a body and are in harmony with one another), so the moral goodness of an act is a kind of decor it has, including a combination of due proportion to all to which it should be proportioned. (Duns Scotus on Freedom and the Will, p. 167)

Because of this, what is right can be improvised based on the situation, but still in tune with the nature of things. For example, Scotus says that marriage has two ends. The first is that of procreation, and the second is that of commutative justice between spouses. Because of this, it was permitted that the patriarchs and others could have multiple wives, as there was a need for rapid population growth. It is even possible that God would allow polygamy again in response to a great disaster. However, in the meantime, it is better for there to be only one spouse of each sex. This is because when all other things are equal, it is best for the husband and wife to have equal enjoyment of each other. Scotus also cites cases such as that of private ownership as examples of what is harmonious with other things, though not determined to be good:

Given the principle of positive law that life in a community or state ought to be peaceful, it does not follow from this necessarily that everyone ought to have possessions distinct from those of another. . . nevertheless, that such persons [e.g. the infirm] have their own possessions is exceedingly consonant with peaceful living. (Duns Scotus on F&W, p. 204)

It may be objected that the marriage example does not really substantiate my point. After all, we can determine whether the situation calls for the primary purpose of marriage trumping the secondary purpose. I would have two responses to make. First, there is nothing to suggest that the situation determines the response; there is still room for a judgement which is harmonious with other factors rather than determined. There may be situations, for example, in which it would be right to have private property, but also right to not have private property, and these for different reasons. Second, it raises the question of situations in which there are multiple ends to be realized which cannot be ranked.