Natural Law Flashcards
What is natural law based on?
Natural law ethics is based on Aristotelian teleology; the idea that everything has a nature which directs it towards its good end goal. Aquinas Christianised this concept. The Christian God designed everything with a telos.
Why did Aquinas argue that telos is a source of Christian moral principles?
Human nature has the God given ability to reason which comes with the ability both to intuitively know primary moral precepts and to apply them to moral situations and actions.
What are all human being born with, according to Aquinas?
All humans are born with God-given reason, which involves the innate ability to intuitively know the moral precepts of natural law.
What is telos?
The ancient Greek idea of telos refers to a thing’s behavioural inclination towards its good end due to its nature.
How do humans differ from animals and natural objects?
Animals and natural objects have their behaviour determined by their telos. Humans, however, have free will. We are capable of choosing whether to follow God’s moral law or not.
How is eudaimonia achieved?
Aquinas thought eudaimonia can be achieved at the societal as well as the individual level. God has designed the telos of human beings so that a harmony of their individual interests can be achieved if they follow the natural law.
What is synderesis?
Synderesis is the habit or ability of reason to discover foundational ‘first principles’ of God’s natural moral law.
What is the synderesis rule?
Good is what all things seek as their end/goal (telos). This means that human nature has an innate orientation to the good.
“This therefore is the principle of law: that good must be done and evil avoided.” – Aquinas
What are the primary precepts learned through the synderesis rule?
Worship God, live in an orderly society, reproduce, educate, protect and preserve human life and defend the innocent.
What is conscientia?
The ability of reason to apply he primary precepts to situations or types of actions. The judgement we then acquire is a secondary precept.
What is a strength to telos based ethics?
Telos-based ethics that they are empirical. 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.
Why does modern science reject final causation?
The issue is, modern science tells us that things are merely atoms moving in a field of force. 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.
How is natural law based on universal human nature?
The primary precepts are found in the morality of all societies. Moral thinkers from different cultures came up with similar moral prescriptions such as the golden rule; to treat others as you would like to be treated. 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.
What is a weakness to a belief that there are universal moral principles?
We find vastly different moral beliefs. Furthermore, 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.
Why does Aquinas believe there to be moral disagreements?
Aquinas acknowledges that there are many reasons we might fail to do good despite having an orientation towards it. These include original sin, mistakes in conscientia, lacking virtue and a corrupt culture. So, the fact that there is a core set of moral views found cross-culturally shows his theory is correct.
What is a biological explanation to cross cultural moral agreement?
If anyone could kill or steal from anyone else for no reason, it’s hard to see how a society could exist. That might create an existential pressure which influences the moral thinkers of a society, yielding prescriptions such as the golden rule. Cross-cultural ethics therefore has a practical reality as its basis.
How is Aquinas’ ethics realistic?
A 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).
Why is Aquinas’ natural theology dangerous?
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.
What quotation from Barth suggests humans cannot fully rely on reason?
“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.
Why are we unable to discover a natural law, according to Barth?
Even if there is a natural law, we are unable to discover it reliably. This arrogance of natural theology is evidence of a human inability to be humble enough to solely rely on faith.
Why is natural law available to everyone?
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. So, it is possible to follow the natural law even if you are not Christian and/or have no access to the divine law (Bible).
Why is the Bible outdated, according to secularists?
Biblical morality (divine law) is primitive and barbarous, showing it comes from ancient human minds, not God. This view is held by scholars such as J S Mill and Freud.
Why are the primary precepts no longer useful?
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.
Why do conservative Catholics argue Natural Law to still be relevant today?
People are no longer united by an ethic of devoting our lives to something greater than ourselves. Self-interest and materialistic consumerism is all modern society has to offer by way of meaning and purpose.
What is a weakness to Aquinas’ Natural Law’s inflexibility?
By telling people that its ethical precepts come from God it creates a strong motivation to follow them. Yet, because those precepts are imagined to come from an eternal being, they become inflexible and difficult to progress. This makes them increasingly outdated.
What is the doctrine of double effect?
A single action can have two effects, one in accordance with the primary precepts and one in violation of them.
What is the intentionality condition?
The good effect must be intended and the bad effect must be ‘besides the intention’.
What is the proportionality condition?
The good effect must be at least equivalent to the bad effect.
What is the means condition?
The bad effect and the good effect must both be brought about immediately – at the same time.
What is the nature of the act condition?
The action must be either morally good, indifferent or neutral. Acts such as lying or killing an innocent person can never be justifiable.
How is the doctrine of double effect biblical?
Jesus’ commands were not merely about following certain rules, but also about having the right moral intention and virtue. The Bible might be inflexible, but that is the divine law. The natural law is more flexible because it is in the form of very general precepts which require application and the telos of the natural law.
How is the doctrine of double effect unbiblical?
God’s commandments are presented as absolute and not dependent on someone’s intention. Natural law is trying to add flexibility to inflexible biblical law.
What is a strength to the doctrine of double effect?
A strength of the double effect is that it is pragmatic.
It fits with the reality of moral decision making. Sometimes actions can have two effects and a method is required that makes sense of how to judge them.
Why does a fallen world not invalidate God’s moral law?
If suffering results from following God’s law due to living in a fallen world, that doesn’t invalidate God’s law.
What does Cicero state within ‘On the Republic’?
“True Law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging or everlasting”.
What is ‘Stoicism’?
The view of the world as an ordered place arranged by nature or by the Gods in the best way possible. The stoics believed that we had a divine spark within us that enabled us to reason and understand the universe, we therefore accept what the universe sends our way without complaining.
What does Aquinas state within ‘Summa Theologica, 11.11’?
“Man is bound to obey secular rulers to the extent that the order of justice requires…if they command unjust things, their subjects are not obliged to obey them”.
What is the Eternal Law?
The law known in the mind of God. These are moral truths that we at a human level may be unable to fathom. However, God has given us the ability to reason so we may be able to imperfectly wok out some of its application to human life.
What is the Divine Law?
The law revealed by God through the commands and teachings through revelation, for example in scripture. However Aquinas believes that law is rational rather than revealed.
What is the Human Law?
Human Laws are the customs and practices of society. They are devised by governments and by societies. Ideally, it should be based on what we reason from natural law and is revealed through the Divine Law.
What does Aquinas state within ‘Summa Theologica, 11.1 Q94’
“This is the first precept of the law, that ‘good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided’. All other precepts of the Natural Law are based upon this.”
What is Aquinas’ precept, the ‘preservation of life’?
Aquinas argues that we are to preserve life. It is evident that life is important. It is natural and reasonable for us to be concerned with ‘preserving its own being’ and ‘preserving human life’.
What is Aquinas’ precept ‘to reproduce’?
It is also rational to ensure that life continues and this is the main purpose of sexual intercourse.
What is Aquinas’ precept ‘to learn’?
Humans are intellectual creatures and it is natural for us to learn.
What is Aquinas’ precept ‘to live in an ordered society’?
We are social beings and it is good to live in an ordered society where it is possible to fulfil our own purpose.
What is Aquinas’ precept ‘to worship God’?
To recognise God as the source of life and to live in a way that pleases God.
What does Aquinas state within ‘Summa Theologica, 11.1 Q94’?
“To the Natural Law belongs everything to which a man is inclined according to his nature”.
What are the Secondary Precepts?
Secondary precepts are more specific rules that can be deduced from the primary precepts . Whereas the primary precepts are fixed, there is some flexibility in the secondary precepts as these are based on how the primary precepts apply in specific circumstances.
Why does Natural Law contradict its view on homosexuality?
The idea that telos is natural, if natural means accordance with our nature, then a gay person might be right to claim that homosexuality is natural to them, and that heterosexuality is unnatural. Yet if individuals had different telos then there is no reason to suppose that there is just one way of life that is natural.
How does Natural Law commit the naturalistic fallacy?
It is guilty of observing what commonly happens in nature and then arguing that this is what must happen. This would be like observing the shape of human teeth, that they are well designed for eating meat, and then claiming that is was morally wrong just to eat vegetables.
What does Jean Paul Sartre argue on existentialism and telos?
There is no ultimate purpose to human life. Unlike objects which have a maker who plans their purpose before they are made, we exist first, and then are free to choose whatever purposes we see fit, if at all. For Sartre, if atheism were true then there can be no ultimate purpose.
What was Hugo Grotius’ argument on Natural Law?
Natural Law would still apply even if there were not a God. In reality, he did believe in God and thought that because nature was God’s creation, Natural Law and Biblical Law could not contradict each other.
What is John Finnis’ approach to Natural Law?
Things such as life, knowledge, play, work, experience, friendship and religion or spirituality are ‘basic forms of human flourishing’. If we assume that these are goods to be pursued then these aims enable us to suggest certain requirements that humans need. Such as, the pursuit of basic goods, a sense of purpose and the idea of a common good for a community. It is from these requirements that moral principles can be drawn such as obeying the law, allowing for a more modern version of Natural Law that is more flexible than some Catholic interpretations.
