natural law 1 Flashcards
(8 cards)
what is natural law
using reason to discover the natural law within our nature and conforming our actions to it
“the light of reason is placed by nature in every man, to guide him in his acts towards his end”. – Aquinas.
what are the 4 tiers of law
The eternal Law - God’s plan, built into the nature of everything which exists, according to his omnibenevolent nature.
The divine law – God’s revelation to humans in the Bible.
The natural law – The moral law God created in human nature, discoverable by human reason.
Human law – The laws humans make which should be based on the natural and divine law. Human law gains its authority by deriving from the natural and divine law which themselves ultimately derive authority from God’s nature.
“Participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law”. – Aquinas
telos
It is a strength of telos-based ethics that they are empirical, i.e., based on evidence. Aristotle observed that everything has a nature which inclines it towards a certain goal which he and Aquinas called its telos. It is a biological fact that certain behaviours cause an organism to flourish. Telos thus seems an empirically valid concept.
however
Modern science’s rejection of final causation. Francis Bacon, called the father of empiricism, argued that only material and efficient causation were valid scientific concepts, not formal and final causation. The idea of telos is unscientific.
The idea that entities have an ‘essence’ and thus a telos is unscientific. Physicist Sean Carroll concludes that purpose is not built into the “architecture” of the universe.
however Polkinghorne, a modern Christian philosopher and physicist, argued that science is limited and cannot answer all questions. It can tell us the what but not the why. Science can tell us what the universe is like, but it cannot tell us why it is this way, nor why it exists. It cannot answer questions about purpose.
Universal human nature & moral dis/agreement
A strength of Natural law is that it is based on universal human nature. The primary precepts are found in the morality of all societies. For example, not killing for no reason and rules about stealing are universal. Valuing reproduction and education are also universal.
golden rule; to treat others as you would like to be treated, which can be found in ancient Chinese Philosophy, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. This suggests that moral views are influenced by a universal human moral nature. This is good evidence that we are all born with a moral orientation towards the good (telos), which is the foundation of Aquinas’ theory.
however
we find vastly different moral beliefs. - the disagreement is not random but tends to fall along cultural lines. This suggests that it is actually social conditioning which causes our moral views, not a supposed natural law in human nature. This has been argued by psychologists like Freud. Fletcher argues this shows there is not an innate God-given ability of reason to discover a natural law.
aquinas vs barth
strength of Aquinas’ ethics is its basis in what seems like a realistic and balanced view of human nature as containing both good (reason & telos) but also bad (original sin).
Only rational beings can sin. It makes no sense to say that animals could sin. Original sin made us sinners, but human nature was not reduced to the level of animals. We still have the ability to reason.
however
Weakness: Natural theology places a dangerous overreliance on human reason. Karl Barth was influenced by Augustine, who claimed that after the Fall our ability to reason become corrupted by original sin. Barth’s argument is that is therefore dangerous to rely on human reason to know anything of God, including God’s morality.
“the finite has no capacity for the infinite” – Karl Barth. Our finite minds cannot grasp God’s infinite being. - Whatever humans discover through reason is not divine, so to think it is divine is idolatry – believing earthly things are God.
Arguably Aquinas has a balanced and realistic view, that our nature contains both good and bad and it is up to us to choose rightly.
Whether Religious & Natural law ethics is outdated
A strength of Natural law ethics is its availability to everyone because all humans are born with the ability to know and apply the primary precepts - “Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires” - Romans 2:14-15
J. S. Mill calls the Old Testament “Barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people”
- Freud similarly argued that religious morality reflected the “ignorant childhood days of the human race”. Aquinas’ Natural law ethics is criticised as outdated for the same reason. Medieval society was more chaotic. Strict absolutist ethical principles were needed to prevent society from falling apart. This could explain the primary precepts. For example, it was once useful to restrict sexual behaviour to marriage, because of how economically fatal single motherhood tended to be. It was useful to simply ban all killing, because killing was much more common. It was useful to require having lots of children, because most children died. The issue clearly is that all of these socio-economic conditions have changed. So, the primary precepts are no longer useful. Society can now afford to gradually relax the inflexibility of its rules without social order being threatened.
Catholics often argue that natural law is not outdated because it serves an important function without which society flourishes less. They argue that secular liberal western culture is ethically retrograde because of its abandonment of traditional moral principles like the primary precepts. - “[excluding] God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society” - Pope Benedict XIV.
doctrine of double effect
helps to resolve seemingly disparate biblical themes. Jesus’ commands were not merely about following certain rules, but also about having the right moral intention and virtue (E.g. sermon on the mount). The double effect provides important clarity to Christian ethics by showing the relation between the important moral elements of intention and following the moral law.
however
Some theologians reject the double effect as unbiblical because God’s commandments are presented as absolute and not dependent on someone’s intention.
This criticism is unsuccessful because Natural law is different to the Bible. The Bible might be inflexible, but that is the divine law. The natural law in our nature is more flexible because it is in the form of very general precepts which require application
Proportionalism & the double effect
A strength of Natural law is its flexibility due to the doctrine of the double effect.
This has been used by modern Catholics to allow, for example, passive euthanasia, abortion to save the life of the mother, and contraception to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Weakness: B. Hoose’s proportionalism
Hoose developed natural law into what he claimed was a more flexible and coherent form called proportionalism.
Proportionalists agree about following the primary precepts, but argue it is acceptable to go against them if you have a proportionate reason for doing so – i.e., if your action will bring about more good than bad.
A resulting strength of proportionalism is it’s far greater flexibility.
- Euthanasia, abortion, genetic engineering, anything natural law said to be wrong could in principle be right depending on whether there is a proportionate reason for doing them in a particular situation. There are no intrinsically evil actions.
John Paul II defends Natural law ethics, arguing that proportionalism is not a valid development because it misunderstands the objective/intention required for ethical action.
“Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man’s true good” - john paul
God designed us to intuitively know these moral laws – so our telos/purpose is to follow them. The goal of natural law is to follow the primary precepts.
