Evaluation

• Illiberal conclusions:

  • Finnis has reached some illiberal conclusions with his theory, arguing against abortion, homosexuality and immigration - this may lead people to reject his arguments since they are incompatible with ideas such as equality, inclusivity and anti-racism
• Francis Bacon:

  • There is no scientific evidence of the basic goods being 'good' since 'good' is not scientifically provable
• No God:

  • without god there cannot be objective moral truths independent of human opinion
  • Finnis attempts to justify the existence but he is simply justifying a particular cultural view of morallity
• No God:

  • Finnis' natural law does not rely on god to justify why good actions are good.
  • it is an acceptable theory in an increasing secular world
  • it can be used if the individual is religious or not
• Flexible:

  • the equality of importance for each basic good and the fact each person can choose to prioritise the goods as they wish makes Finnis' theory very flixible
  • it is not rigid, but still allows for objective moral answers
• No clear guidence:

  • Finnis says a good action must participate in the basic goods
  • this means that almost all actions can be justified as good
  • even if we accept actions can be wrong, because they 'frustrate a good' finnis gives no advice on choosing between good actions.
  • he states that all actions are equally good - however this seems intuitively wrong.
• Finnis makes assumptions:

  • Finnis makes assumptions about what the basic goods are
  • he argues they are self evident so do not need to be proven
  • this is made clear by Finnis adding to his work, removing aesthetic experience and adding the basic good of 'marriage between a man and woman for the purpose of procreation'
• Human reason is flawed:

  • Finnis' theory is based entirely on the theory that humans can reason their way to morality, and discover objective external truths through reason alone.
  • we cannot test how well we have reasoned so cannot know if Finnis is right.
• Grounding problem:

  • Finnis rejects theoretical reason, saying you cannot live without accepting the 7 basic goods and nine requrements
  • however he fails to answer what a 'good life' actually is, since a good life is a life which persues the 7 basic goods
  • this makes the argument cyclical so it is not 'grounded'
• Pleasure/Pain:

  • Basic goods could be argued as persuing pleasure and voiding pain
  • simplifying the reasoning by saying good=pleasure