Natural law

• natural law

  -‘true law is right reason in agreement with nature’ (Cicero)

  -nature + reason + revelation = good

  -founded by Aquinas (1225-1274)

  -objective, absolutist, normative, deontological which comes out of a teleological worldview
• synderesis

  The inner principle directing a person towards good and away from evil.
• telos

  Literally 'end' or 'purpose'. The idea that everything has a purpose or aim. For humans, Aquinas believes our purpose is to glorify God by following the primary precepts of natural law.
• first tier - Eternal law

  -law as known in the mind of God

  -His knowledge of what is right and wrong

  -moral truths that we may be unable to fathom at human level

  -God has given us the ability to reason so we may be able imperfectly to work out some of its application to human life
• second tier - Divine law


  -law revealed by God through commands and teachings through revelation e.g. in scripture

  -includes Ten Commandments and moral teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount

  -Aquinas believes these laws revealed by God are reasonable; we could work them out
• third tier - Natural law


  -moral thinking we are all able to do whether or not we have had the divine revelation of scripture

  -all humans have the capacity to consider and work out the moral rules necessary for achieving our purpose

  -involves a rational reflection on our human nature and considering how we might 'do good and avoid evil'
• fourth tier - Human law


  -customs and practices of society

  -devised by governments and societies

  -ideally should be based on what we reason from Natural law

  -Aquinas argues that laws are only just if they are based on Divine and Natural Law

  -to break a Human Law not based on Divine or Natural Law would be illegal but not immoral
• Aquinas' four tiers of law case studies

  -laws implemented to prevent peaceful protests by civil rights groups in 1960s America could be broken, argued MLK, as they were 'unjust laws'

  -Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes argued they were just following orders and were only obeying the law, but this was rejected by judges on the grounds that surely 'nature' shows that such laws were morally wrong
• the primary precepts

  -preservation of life

  -to reproduce

  -to learn (particularly education of young)

  -to live in an ordered society

  -to worship God
• the secondary precepts

  More specific rules which can be deduced from the primary precepts e.g. don't murder, use contraception or blaspheme, and implement schooling and get on with neighbours
• real goods

  In accordance with the purpose of humanity (final cause)
• apparent goods

  When bad reasoning or judgement leads to a false good. False goods/ apparent goods are pleasurable, but don't lead to the final cause
• prudence (cautiousness)


  -in Natural Law, prudence is making sound practical decisions using reason

  -this moral reasoning we possess can be developed and improved over time with practise

  -prudence is a virtue, and the more we practise them, the better we become
• phronesis

  An ancient Greek philosophical term meaning wisdom or intelligence, mainly used to refer to practical reasoning and moral decision making
• John Finnis' version of Natural Law

  -interested in Natural law both as an ethical theory and as a philosophy of law

  -used Aristotle's ideas of phronesis to suggest there are certain basic goods of human flourishing e.g. knowledge and friendship

  -more specific rules can be put forward from these e.g. pursuing basic goods for all and acting according to your conscience

  -argues that although we should think about consequences of actions, we shouldn't think that the end justifies the means
• double effect

  The idea that if doing something good also produces a bad side-effect, it is still ethically permissible as the bad-side effect was not intended.
• 4 conditions of the principle of double effect

  -act must not be evil in itself (fits with primary precepts)

  -the evil and the good that comes from the act must at least equal but preferably the good must outweigh the evil

  -intention must be good (the agent must not intentionally want to bring about an evil act)

  -a proportionally serious reason must be present to justify the evil act
• Aristotle's influence on natural law

  -Aristotle believed that the universe and everything in it had a telos (came from his theory of four causes: telos is the final cause)

  -Saw the telos of human beings as Eudaimonia

  -For Aristotle, Eudaimonia requires a full human life where we not only experience pleasure but we also participate in society and develop academically as philosophers (this is how we reach our telos)
• the Stoics influence on natural law

  -stoicism viewed the world as an ordered place arranged by nature or by Gods in the best way possible

  -Stoics believed we had a divine spark within us that enabled us to reason and understand the universe

  -the path to human happiness and leading a good life was to accept the natural order of things and live according to nature's rules

  -favoured rational over emotional

  -nowadays, stoicism means we accept what the universe sends our way without complaining
• applying double effect


  -abortion: a woman told her life is at risk if she continues with the pregnancy is permitted an operation (action) to save her life, because carrying out the action has the intention of saving her (good effect) with the secondary effect of ending the life of foetus (bad effect)

  -euthanasia: a doctor trying to treat an ill patient gives a large dose of pain killer which relieves pain, but runs the risk of killing patient

  -self-defence: act of fighting off attacker would have the good effect of saving yourself, but the bad effect of accidentally killing the attacker
• interior and exterior acts

  -for Aquinas, a good effect must have a good motive (interior) as well as being a good action as viewed on the outside (exterior)

  -this means giving to charity solely because your teacher is watching is not truly a good thing, as is stealing something because you feel sorry for someone in poverty

  -the interior and exterior act must both be good
• Aquinas and telos


  -Aquinas and Aristotle are 'essentialists'

  -there is something that it is to be human that we cannot change, even if we wish to

  -the aim to fulfil the primary precepts (and that it is morally right for us to do so) is built into our human nature
• Sartre's existentialism


  -in contrast to the essentialist position is the existentialist view, which is associated with thinkers such as Sartre

  -Sartre's view is that objects may have a fixed nature e.g. a knife starts as an idea in the maker's mind and is made (and carries out) a purpose, but humans are fundamentally different

  -as an atheist, Sartre believes humans could only have telos if made by God

  -believes we come into existence first, and then we decide for ourselves what our essence is (what we are for)
• Sartre in contrast with natural law


  -argues we have a tendency to deny our freedom and behave as if we were mere objects, which he calls living by bad faith

  -e.g. a cafe waiter who in over-exaggerating his gestures and movements is 'playing the role of a waiter', as if there is nothing else he could possibly do

  -Sartre argues this isn't the case: a person's essence is not fixed, he can choose different employment
• knowledge paragraph

  Natural law- the theory of Thomas Aquinas (13th century) is a teleological idea that all humans are united by a desire to flourish (Eudamonia) in life through some basic goods. God created humans with a nature which is inclined to good (synderesis). This coupled with reason and revelation is how humans can interpret the absolute eternal law. Natural law is a series of primary precepts which are the basic goods of all humans e.g reproduction.
• euthanasia example

  -Orthodox Catholic natural law: the doctor hasn't helped to preserve life so it goes against primary precepts

  -liberal natural law: double effect would allow it, as intention was to relieve pain. If the doctor used a painkiller he wasn't allowed to prescribe, it could be argued he isn't trying to do the best for his patient under the Hippocratic oath. The secondary precepts of the patient dying is secondary and he isn't to blame.

  -modern approach: would need to be an investigation. Since the case of Shipman, the doctor's intention/practise would need to be examined
• naturalistic fallacy

  The idea that it is a mistake to define moral terms with reference to other non-moral or natural terms.
• natural law and naturalistic fallacy (issue with telos)

  -natural law commits the naturalistic fallacy

  -guilty of observing what commonly happens in nature and then arguing that this is what must happen

  -like observing the shape of human teeth and seeing that they are well designed for eating meat, and then claiming that it was morally wrong to eat vegetables

  -G. E. Moore argued that it is any attempt to define the word 'good' in terms of some natural quality
• telos is universal (issue with telos)

  -natural law may be wrong to assume that there is a universal telos for humans

  -e.g. I may wish to prioritise my career at the expense of reproduction, or I may live a solitary life of meditation rather than in 'an ordered society', or I may not believe in God let alone desire to worship one
• telos is natural (issues with telos)

  -if natural means in accordance with nature, then a gay person might be right to claim that homosexuality is natural to them (hence no reproduction) and that heterosexuality is unnatural

  -yet if individuals had different telos then there is no reason to suppose there is just one way of life that is natural
• telos existing (issues with telos)

  -perhaps the biggest issue with telos is that there might not be a telos or purpose at all

  -proponents of existentialism such as Sartre argue that there is no ultimate purpose to human life

  -unlike objects, we exist first and are free to choose whatever purpose we see fit

  -if atheism is true then there is no ultimate purpose. The idea of telos seems to be linked to the idea of a creator God, so with no God there can be no telos
• strengths of natural law

  -absolutist, so offers clarity and firm moral principles

  -precepts (1) are mostly agreed upon as desirable goods within humanity; reflection on natural world suggests these are things most humans pursue

  -not as rigid as first appears, with the precepts (2) intended to be reasoned within the context of society (flexible)

  -values life and rights, with Grotius' version developing the idea that certain 'rights' for individuals are evident when looking at nature. Unlike consequentialism, natural law holds that life is intrinsically valuable regardless of usefulness
• law (discussing natural law)

  -focuses on 'law' and working out rules which are at the heart of this system is overly legalistic

  -means that in some circumstances humanity and respect for people is lost
• outdated (discussing natural law)

  -natural law may seem to be a little outdated

  -society has moved on and more legalistic interpretations particularly around homosexuality and contraception, both of which prevent reproduction, seem out of step with the modern world
• naive (discussing natural law)

  -Aquinas' view of real and apparent goods could be seen as a little naive

  -some humans knowingly commit evil actions, and suggesting they are merely pursuing apparent goods is mistaken

  -not all humans have a natural inclination towards the good, as seen by the news
• clarity (counter-argument)

  -natural law claims to have the best of both worlds in that it offers clear and fixed principles as seen in the primary precepts, yet also compromises that there is flexibility in how these principles might be applied to different circumstances when secondary precepts are formed

  --> BUT it's not clear that both these things can be the case. There is a tension between the idea that Natural Law is 'universal in its precepts' (Catechism 1956) and 'application of the Natural Law varies greatly' (Catechism 1957)
• double effect (counter-argument)

  -double effect seems to allow flexibility by allowing both good and bad effects provided the good one is intended

  --> BUT there is a difficulty in judging the intention of a person. It may appear that someone was acting in self-defence and that their attacker's death was an accident, but only they will ever know
• reasoning (counter-argument)

  -one attraction of Natural Law is its reliance on reasoning. It treats humans as mature people who are able to be rational and reflect on moral problems

  --> BUT some thinkers have worried that relying on reason means that the role of scripture is reduced (although Natural Law thinkers would argue there isn't necessarily disagreement between the two). A further challenge to the role of reason comes from the teaching of Augustine that humans are fallen and incapable of reasoning clearly
• God (counter-argument)


  -although Natural Law is a religious ethical theory, it is argued that belief in Natural Law doesn't require belief in God. The laws themselves are obvious to reason and can be worked out without God

  --> BUT it's difficult to accept this for Aquinas' version where one of the precepts is to worship God and there is a reliance on Divine Law. Even Grotius accepts that the answer to why we should follow the laws relates back to God
• natural law and the is-ought problem

  -the is-ought fallacy occurs when the assumption is made that because things are a certain way, they should be that way

  -can consist of the assumption that because something is not now occurring, this means it should not occur

  -asserts that the status quo should be maintained simply for its own sake

  -seeks to make a value of a fact or to derive a moral imperative from the description of a state of affairs

  -David Hume raised the is-ought problem in his Treatise of Human Nature

  -e.g. sex is for procreation, therefore we ought not to use contraception