Natural Moral Law Theory

When we look around the world, we can observe that there are certain rules that are part of the universe, the law of gravity is one of these rules, another example could be that, universally, the degrees of a triangle will always add up to 180 degrees Many people believe that it was God who has put these rules in place, this is the basic premise for Natural Moral Law theory (NML) Followers of NML believe that the same principles can be found in morality, just like there are universal laws governing our universe, morality is an absolute standard as well, by following the Natural Law we see around us, we can be morally good Natural law is not made by man, but rather by God, and is based in reality, it is an absolutist theory and is universal, it is a Christian theory NML law theory was adapted for Christianity by the priest and philosopher, St Thomas Aquinas, the theory is based on the idea that we gained our human reason from God and so we must use it to be moral and religious

Aquinas was a big fan of Aristotle and read a lot of his works, he adapted many of Aristotles teachings for use in Christianity Like Aristotle, Aquinas believed that everything in the universe had an efficient cause, which was the agent that brings about the existence of something, and a final cause, which was the final purpose of something Aquinas adapted these teachings and developed the idea that God is the efficient cause of everything in the universe and the final cause is to fulfil the purpose which the object was designed for, for Aquinas, a human needs to work out the purpose for which God created him for and strive to fulfil it This purpose was to become godlike in the case of a human, he believed this because of the principle of synderisis, which was the idea that we are created in Gods image and we have his rational thought Aquinas believed that human nature is essentially good, because God has implanted the natural law within each and every one of use and it has been put in us for a reason and a purpose; Everything is created to a particular design and for a particular purpose, and fulfilling that purpose is the good towards which everything aims religious dictionary Aquinas also used Aristotles idea of potentiality and actuality, the more potentialities we fulfil, the better we are, the more we develop our potentialities the better we become We can find out our purpose on this earth by studying Christian teachings, such as the bible and the church, however Aquinas angered the Church by claiming that we do not need it to find out what is morally good, we can simply use our perception and observation of the world around us, and then apply this to our experiences

Even without a knowledge of a divine creator (God), humans can still discover what it means to be good simply through our use of reason and observation of the natural world around us Aquinas concluded that there were 5 primary precepts, which were obvious purposes that Humans needed to fulfil, these were: To live To reproduce To learn To worship God To live in a peaceful and ordered society

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

These are known as the primary precepts and are General rules inbuilt into human beings as a consequence of being made by God Aquinas also believed that humans have an obligation to move from is to ought (naturalistic fallacy) and create laws that reflect the primary precepts These secondary laws are known as the secondary precepts which are basically practical applications of the primary precepts, an example of one would be the law illegalising murder, since this upholds the first primary precept

However one of the major problems that Aquinas faced is as follows, since he believed that humans are naturally inclined to do good and it is impossible for them to rationally, and willingly, commit a bad action, why does evil still exist in this world? Aquinas answered this by stating that when someone does a morally bad action, they are actually mistaking it for a good one, for example, Hitler was obviously a bad person, but it Is clear to see that he viewed his actions as morally good and genuinely thought they were Aquinas said A fornicator seeks a pleasure which involves him in moral guilt By this, Aquinas meant that the fornicator will seek apparent goods, but they are not true goods since they diminish the nature of the human being, the apparent good is unnatural For Aquinas, when someone sinned, he is falling short of the purpose intended for them by God, to follow an apparent good rather than a real good is to fall short of out potential It is clear to see now that Aquinas regarded conscience as the perfect moral compass given to us by God, when people commit sins they fail to follow this natural moral guide and so do wrong by following apparent good; Conscience is the dictate of reason.. he who acts against his conscience always sins Aquinas Aquinas believe that through the use of our reason and rational debate, we can see beyond the laws of nature, and see above to the eternal law, however we can never fully understand Gods law since only he can know it

Aquinas believed there were 4 stages to law;

1. Eternal Law This is Gods own moral law and is divinely perfect, only he can fully understand and grasp it, and it is what our all universe it built on 2. Divine Law These are the bits of Eternal Law that we can know, and is revealed to us through the bible and the teachings of the Church, however, we can also know it through; 3. Natural Law This is our conscience and our inbuilt sense of right and wrong, we can use our reason and rational to discover this, from these conclusions we can develop; 4. Human Law These are the secondary precepts and are rules created by our societies that help to follow the Natural Law/primary precepts

Each level of law is dependent on the one above it, contradictions should be settled this way, for example, if there is a contradiction between human law and divine law, you must always follow divine law as this is closer to the real thing than human law

Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made Romans 1:20 Aquinas, in his book, also wrote about the 4 cardinal virtues which he believed where the fundamental qualities to live a morally good life The virtues are required to live a moral life and achieve the final cause of being closer to God, they are:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Prudence Justice Fortitude Temperance

Aquinas wrote about the opposite to these virtues, otherwise known as the seven deadly sins, which, if followed, will lead to a bad life further away from God

Strengths
It provides a clear-cut approach to Ethics and is a simple universal guide to judging the morality of certain actions, conflicts are easily avoided, it also acts as an important historical link between Christians and Muslims It allows us to create and establish common values that can be present in all societies, these come in the form of the primary precepts, these similar values provide dialogue between religious and non-religious societies It is an absolutist code that applies to everyone and so there is little confusion

NML focuses more on human character and peoples ability to flourish in virtuous and good human beings rather than solely on the morality of an action, and so, even though it is absolutist, it allows for a certain degree of flexibility It allows Christians to combine faith with reason, which is uncommon normally with religious ethics, it combines obedience to God with an appreciation of the humans ability to reason It appeals more to our instinctive conscience about the morality of an action rather than focusing on personal opinions, which leads to less confusions It places an intrinsically good emphasis on harmony in the natural world

Weaknesses
Aquinas assumes that God created the world for a purpose and builds the rest of his argument on this, however he fails to prove this vital point NML suggests that people have several purposes to fulfil in the form of the primary precepts, however this may lead to confusion when the purpose conflict each other, for example a pregnant mother may have to choose between reproduction and education It is not the easiest thing in the world to work out what our purpose is, even by using our reason many people still follow apparent goods When applied to the real world, it acts as quite an impractical theory, for example, it argues that sex should solely be done for procreation purposes, does this mean that infertile people should not bang? He could be seen as being too optimistic about his views on human nature and about how we always want to do good, not everyone has the powers of reason necessary for the application of natural law His assumption that people only do bad when they think the action is good is wrong, there are many times when people do bad things knowingly Modern scientific research into evolution and genetics reveal that organisms in nature have very different reasons for living than NML states they do, Darwin argues that human nature is inclined towards self-interest, rather than worshipping and living in an ordered society Aquinas did not take into account the fall and the idea that all of human nature is tainted by this original sin, the church argues that humans need to rely on it rather than our impaired sense of reason Things that have been regarded as natural and traditional for a long time and now being seen as being morally bad, for example keeping the mother at home to look after the kids and cook and clean Sometimes following the primary precepts interferes with the natural order of things, for example, in order to save someones life and follow the first primary precept, we may need to administer very unnatural medication, which route do we follow? Humans do unnatural things all the time, is it natural for us to be unnatural?