Outline for a new research project article coming soon

 

Title: Neo-Aristotelian Psychology and the Foundations of Legal Personhood: A Revival for Metaphysical Jurisprudence

Abstract: This article outline argues that a revival of Neo-Aristotelian psychology is essential to the restoration of a coherent legal philosophy rooted in metaphysical realism. Drawing on Aristotelian and Thomistic insights, as well as contemporary developments in analytic philosophy, it challenges the dominant mechanistic models of mind and agency in both academic psychology and law. The article defends the unity of personhood, the teleological structure of action, and the irreducibility of intent—all of which are foundational to legal responsibility and constitutional interpretation. It concludes by situating Neo-Aristotelian psychology as a core pillar in a broader project of metaphysical jurisprudence.

I. Introduction In recent decades, the foundations of legal responsibility have come under increasing strain from developments in cognitive science, neuroscience, and behaviorist psychology. These fields, often committed to reductive models of mind, propose a vision of human action and thought that threatens the metaphysical underpinnings of culpability, consent, and rational agency. Against this background, Neo-Aristotelian psychology offers a compelling alternative. This framework revives Aristotle’s conception of the soul as the form of a living body, capable of rational thought and purposive action. In doing so, it restores a metaphysical vocabulary capable of grounding the legal and moral predicates central to jurisprudence.

II. The Ontological Status of the Person Aristotle’s conception of the human being as a rational animal—a composite of form and matter—stands in stark contrast to the mechanistic and dualist paradigms that dominate modern psychology. On the Neo-Aristotelian view, mind is not a thing or a machine, nor merely brain activity; it is the unified, embodied activity of a living being pursuing intelligible ends. As such, personhood is irreducibly normative. Concepts such as intent, belief, desire, and responsibility do not describe neural events but acts of the whole person. Peter Hacker and Daniel Robinson have powerfully argued that the very grammar of psychological terms presupposes person-level agency, not sub-personal causation.

III. Psychology, Law, and Normativity Modern legal systems are structured around concepts that assume the intelligibility of volition, choice, and responsibility. The law punishes those who intend harm, distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary acts, and grounds contract in consent. Yet these core legal ideas lose coherence if mental life is reduced to neural activity or environmental conditioning. Neo-Aristotelian psychology defends a teleological framework in which human action is always already oriented toward ends. In this view, to act is to act for a reason. Such a view restores the conceptual foundations for legal categories such as mens rea, negligence, and the reasonable person standard.

IV. Virtue, Emotion, and Responsibility Where mechanistic models view emotion as a biochemical reflex, Neo-Aristotelianism understands emotion as an evaluative response shaped by reason and character. On this model, a person’s anger or fear is not merely a physiological disturbance but a rational (or irrational) judgment about the world. This conception reestablishes the intelligibility of moral culpability and the educability of the emotions. It also reinforces the classical idea, central to common law and natural law traditions, that justice is not merely procedural but rooted in virtue. Character, not just act, matters—a premise found throughout Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and echoed in the development of the English common law.

V. Contemporary Revival and Juridical Application Recent decades have witnessed a renaissance of Aristotelian thought in analytic philosophy. Thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, John McDowell, and Jennifer Frey have defended forms of ethical naturalism rooted in virtue and practical reason. In philosophy of mind, Peter Hacker and Matthew Boyle are challenging the neuroscientific reduction of psychological predicates. This revival has begun to influence legal theory, particularly among scholars sympathetic to natural law and virtue jurisprudence. The integration of Neo-Aristotelian psychology with legal theory promises a metaphysical jurisprudence that honors the unity of the human person and the moral intelligibility of action.

VI. Conclusion: A Pillar of Metaphysical Jurisprudence Neo-Aristotelian psychology does not merely offer an alternative to the prevailing scientific paradigms; it restores the possibility of a legal philosophy grounded in the real nature of human beings. By affirming the unity of body and soul, the teleology of action, and the educability of emotion and character, it supplies the metaphysical scaffolding for moral and legal responsibility. In so doing, it becomes an indispensable foundation for a renewed metaphysical jurisprudence—one capable of resisting the disintegration of personhood and preserving the moral structure of law.

 

The Raison d'État, for this journal (blog) is to finally get out on paper, so to speak, thoughts I’ve slowly developed over 30 years from sundry readings on the topics of political philosophy, political theory and legal theory.  There are clear and important distinctions among these fields that I’ll return to as warranted in later posts.  Here the central question guiding this journal is whether there is something we can learn from our ancient Greek and Roman ancestors that may help us understand our contemporary ethical-political problems?  Can Ancient Greece and Rome be made to speak to and engage with contemporary fashionable opinion?  And, of course, given this opinion, is transhistorical thought, or philosophy even possible?  In this regard, have the ancients been unfairly treated, misunderstood or even abused by medieval, enlightenment and contemporary thinkers or approaches? On the other hand, for example, maybe our medieval scholastics et. al.  understood the ancients correctly, and rightly improved upon them.  Can we entertain the thought that maybe it was the medievalists “who got it right” and built upon ancient doctrines in a manner faithful to ancient first principles.  And on this hypothesis perhaps it is the Enlightenment and contemporary thinkers, flush with the confidence instilled by modern science, who unfairly dismiss the medievalists and the ancients and therewith dismiss certain highly instructive insights into our shared human condition.  Lots of food for thought, questions and alternative combinations here.     

Behind what might appear to be a hoary withered academic exercise, however, lies a titanic struggle that, whether we understand its genesis or not, has a decisive impact on  how  we think of ourselves (in the West) and, to a certain extent, define the policies and laws we live under.  As a practicing attorney I live under a certain set of presumptions about all persons of age that the law takes as bedrock first principles of social order.  And, in my more reflective moments, when trying to follow these presumptions up to their origin the trail vanishes like a will-o-the-wisp into the vague expressions like: custom, culture or sound public policy.  Yet, at the level of philosophic debate these presumptions are the central issue.  And the results of this struggle, so to speak, define our political and legal theory.   

Nonetheless, in my unsystematic and desultory reading over the past 30 years, I have  come to the realization that there is a striking commonality among the most influential of our interlocutors.  That common thread lies in their insistence that to understand our political problem, or perhaps more accurately, to understand our self-appraisals that are a contributing factor to our political problems, we must go to the roots and first principles of western political thought. And what this means is a return to the Ancient Greeks and Romans.  This return is complicated by a millennia of intermediaries, some better or worse.  To struggle our way out from “the cave” of culture, history and opinion we must set aside or even refute received opinions, theories and assumptions.  We must confront the ancients without intermediaries and most importantly in their own language.  We must try to understand the ancients in the way they understood themselves such that their doctrines are not unduly influenced or muted by received opinion.  Once a solid handle on the classic doctrines is obtained, we may then follow the arc across the centuries toward the political and legal theory of western common law countries.  In this case, for this student, this means a confrontation with American constitutionalism.       

So I’ve decided to humbly take up the challenge.  What results therefrom I do not know.  It is a venture free from secondary pecuniary gain.   For me personally, this venture involves overcoming the barriers of language.  Luckily, given the advantages afforded by modern day communication and computing, I will undertake to learn both Ancient Greek and Latin, and then move on to other necessary languages as I move forward.  This journal is a way to document my adventure “warts and all”, a travel journal of sorts.  I'll document the highs and lows always focusing on the conversation.  Most importantly, I seek to place authorities, renowned philosophers and other notables under strict scrutiny review and disclose my findings.  This venture is the essence of life, this is my Sublime Mission.