Natural Law Flashcards
The telos/ ultimate end
Aquinas= absolutist and deontological
Everything has a telos, end or purpose. Morality involves working out what our purpose as humans is and acting in a way that fulfils it.
Aristotle argued that every agent acts for an end of some kind, and the human being acts to acquire happiness or Eudaimonia.
Eudaimonia is not pleasure but activity that perfects the highest faculty of a person.
Aquinas believed that the purpose of a human life was to be reunited with God.
Real and apparent goods
Real good is reached by using reason to determine our true purpose. You may act in a good way but for a bad reason. The good exterior at is compromised by a bad interior act. Vice versa. Your good intentions could lead you astray. Emotion could confuse your moral decision making.
Interior/exterior acts
People do terrible things with best intentions. Aquinas would say an act was a bad act unless both the interior and exterior acts are good. Intentions matter! The best way to act is when interior and exterior acts are good.
The four tiers of law
Aquinas thinks about morality in terms of law: The eternal law
The divine law
The natural law
The human law
The eternal law
This is the absolute and eternal part of natural law. It is part of the mind of God- his unchanging reason. This is the reason God’s law is unchanging and universal, for everyone at all times and in all places. It is absolute. God plants the eternal law in every person’s rational soul. In Aquinas’ view the eternal law is in God and not a feature apart from God. Other thinkers give this role to an absolute natural law, without God.
The divine law
The commands and teachings of divine revelation that are usually found in the Bible. This includes the commandments, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the teachings in the parables, and so on. This sacred scripture, revealed by God, is God teaching human beings how to live.
The natural law
It is possible for all human beings to perceive God’s eternal law, even those who have not red the Bible. This is because of natural law. Natural law allows humans to perceive the natural law through the application of human reason. This marks human beings apart from animals and makes God’s eternal law accessible to the whole of humanity.
The human law
Human law is our response to these messages from God in reason and in revelation. Human laws are the customs and practices of our society. Aquinas is clear that human law is only a proper law if it is good and in accordance with divine and natural law. Human law dos not have to cover all moral wrong, only the more serious ones. Not all aspects of morality require legislation.
The key precept: the synderesis rule
The key precept is to do good and avoid evil. Reason directs us to do good and avoid evil, and all other principles flow from this reason. Aquinas is concerned about the role of reason in moral decision making. Natural law is law like because of its rationality. The moral life is one that is lived by and through reason. Reasoning about the common good leads to certain acts being promoted and other acts being prohibited. Because it is act based, natural law is deontological, although there is an ultimate end to which all ends are focused.
Primary precepts
1) To worship God
2) To live harmoniously in society
3) To reproduce
4) To be educated
5) To defend the innocent.
Secondary precepts
Humans are then to use their reason to establish rules that will fulfil the requirements of the primary precepts.
The doctrine of double effect
Aquinas introduces the doctrine of double effect. This doctrine says that if doing something morally good has a morally bad side-effect its ethically okay to do it providing the bad side-effect wasn’t intended. This is true even if you foresaw that the bad effect would probably happen. Many doctors use this doctrine to justify the use of high doses of drugs such as morphine for the purpose of relieving suffering in terminally ill patients even though they know that the drugs are likely to cause the patient to die sooner. The force used should be proportionate. The bad effect should not be the means by which the good effect is achieved. The good effect should at least be as important as the bad effect.
Advantages of natural law
There is a fair set of rules for everyone.
However, it is not just a large number of rules dictating what we should do.
It allows us to use our reason and so feel in control of the secondary precepts.
It allows people to establish common rules in order to structure communities.
Disadvantages of natural law
Natural law does not allow for negotiation because the Church has made the secondary precepts into absolute rules.
Natural law could even be as a relativist theory- because the secondary precepts might change as we use our reason differently in different situations and circumstances.
