NATURAL LAW Flashcards
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BASIC DETAILS
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- An absolutist deontological approach to ethics prescribing fixed moral rules and real duties
- At the core of Natural Law is the belief that God has ordered the universe in a certain way
- Humans have a duty to conform to the Natural Law which God has made
- Best known as a Christian system of ethics, devised by St Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica who brought together Aristotle’s ideas with Biblical authority
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ABSOLUTIST
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Fixed rules
3
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DEONTOLOGICAL
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Actions are right or wrong in themselves
4
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TELOS
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Ends and Purpose
5
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ST THOMAS AQUINAS
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- Aquinas attempted to give Catholicism a logical order and structure that it previously lacked
- His philosophy was based on two fundamental authorities: Bible and Aristotle’s writings
- Aquinas’ development of Aristotle’s teleology gave the universe a natural order and structure
6
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EUDAIMONIA
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- Aristotle saw the telos of humans as Eudaimonia.
- It is the contentment which comes from when a thing achieves its purpose
7
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ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS
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- Book: Nicomachean Ethics
- Put forward a system which is aretaic (greek for excellence), focused on the character of the individual
- Aretaic virtue ethics focuses upon the desire to be a person of a certain quality
- For Aristotle, the good life meant following the doctrine of the mean, the middle path between extremes
8
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THE STOICS
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- Stoicism viewed the world as an ordered place arranged by nature or by the gods in the best way
- The Stoics believed we had a divine spark within us that enabled us to reason and understand the universe
- The path to human happiness was to accept the natural order of things and live according to natures rules
9
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TRN
WHAT DOES AQUINAS DRAW FROM THESE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS?
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- TELOS: the idea that humans have a purpose or end
- REASON: The world is ordered and rational- we have the capacity given by God to understand it
- NATURE: We have human nature and it is important to do what is natural (what fits with our nature)
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