Strengths and weaknesses of NML Flashcards
Strength - reason as a tool
Aquinas’ view of reason as a tool for moral understanding for all people gives NL a universality that goes beyond any religion or culture. Different cultures can all be seen to have the same basic principles of preserving life…
Strength - a reason to be moral
NML gives a concrete reason to be moral - it provides justification for certain core ideas which are popular in modern times such as equality and human rights.
Strength - not as rigid as it first appears?
Although the primary precepts are unchangeable, the secondary precepts may change. For example the Roman Catholic Church teachings on the prohibition of contraception and homosexual acts may be changeable in certain situations.
Weakness - did God really create the world for a purpose?
Aquinas took it for granted that God created the world with a purpose. Not everyone would agree with this. Many modern thinkers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins claim that the universe is ‘absurd’, it does not have a reason, it is a ‘brute fact’
Weakness - do we really have a purpose?
Even if we do have a purpose, it is not self-evident what that purpose is. How do we know what is natural?
Weakness - Kai Nielsen
He argues against Aquinas’ belief in a basic human nature that is in all societies. At one time in the Inuit culture, they would kill members of their family who would not make it through the winter. These differing moral standards challenge the idea of a common natural law within all humans.
Strength - common rules
It enables people to establish common rules in order to structure communities. In a relativist era that is suffering from the break-down of traditional social structures, this is attractive.
Weakness - Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch
They challenge they way that Aquinas works from general principles to lesser purposes. Aquinas maintains that humans must preserve the species, for example semen should not be deposited anywhere unless it is to create a new life, this isn’t necessary - sexual acts could be justified on account of the benefits they bring to a couple’s relationship.
Weakness - Karl Barth
He thought that NML relies too much on reason, as human nature is too corrupt to be trusted, and not enough on the grace of God and the revelation of the bible.
