NATURAL LAW

NATURAL LAW
◦ The Theory of Natural Law rests upon a certain view of what the
world is like. On this view, the world is a rational order with values
and purposes built into its very nature. This conception derives
from the Greeks, whose way of understanding the world dominated
Western thinking for over 1,700 years. A central feature of this
conception was the idea that everything in nature has a purpose.
ARISTOTLE'S NATURAL LAW
◦ Aristotle incorporated this idea into his system of thought around 350 B.C.
when he said that, in order to understand anything, four questions must be
asked:
◦ What is it?
◦ What is it made of?
◦ How did it come to exist?
◦ And what is it for?
◦ The answers might be: This is a knife, it is made of metal, it was made by a
craftsman, and it is used for cutting.
◦ Aristotle assumed that the last question - what is it for? - could sensibly be
asked of anything whatever. Nature, he said, belongs to the class of causes
which act for the sake of something.
ARISTOTLE'S NATURAL LAW
◦ The world, therefore, is an orderly, rational system, with each
thing having its own proper place and serving its own special
purpose.
◦ There is a neat hierarchy: The rain exists for the sake of the
plants, the plants exist for the sake of the animals, and the
animals exist - of course - for the sake of people, whose well-
being is the point of the whole arrangement.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
◦ 1225-1274
◦ DOMINICAN PRIEST
◦ MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHER
◦ AUTHORED SUMMA
THEOLOGICA AND SUMMA
CONTRA GENTILES
◦ INTRODUCED NATURAL LAW
IN PHILOSOPHY
 as Aq ui nas
St. T h om

There have been various thinkers and

system of thought immerging throughout
history that could be said to present a
natural law. Among them, the one will be
focusing on is the medieval thinker
Thomas Aquinas. It has to be recognized,
however, that this natural law theory is
part of a larger project, which is Aquinas
vision of the Christian faith. Before we
turn to the natural theory.

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THOMAS AQUINAS AND NATURAL LAW
◦ The problem with the Divine Command Theory.
◦ There is a need for clearer basis of ethics, a ground that will more
concretely direct our sense of what is right and wrong. For Aquinas
this would be the natural law.
◦ The Christian life is about developing the capacities given us by
God into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.
◦ Aquinas puts forward that there is within us a conscience that
directs our moral thinking. THAT IS NATURAL LAW
ACTS OF MAN

Is an action that does not proceeds from the will.

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HUMAN ACTS

Expressed proceeds from the will

 Natural law is a system in which actions are seen as morally and ethically correct if t accords with
the end purpose of human nature and human goals. Follows the fundamental maxim, ‘do good
and avoid evil’.

OTHER CREATURES ACT ON INSTINCTS

 Instinct leads creation to what is good for

them

Which is to say that they do not think of the law or

chose to obey it, but are simply, through instinctual
following of their nature, complying with the law
that God has for them.

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THREE HUMAN INCLINATIONS
 IN COMMON WITH
OTHER ANIMALS
We have common instincts with animals as per natural law.
EXAMPLE: a desire that has to do with sexual intercourse and the care of one’s
offspring. As the matter of fact, animals periodically engage in sexual intercourse at a
specific time of “heat”, and this could result an offspring. In human too, that natural
inclination to engage in the sexual act and to reproduce exists.
 IN COMMON IN OTHER
BEINGS
We have consider, how human beings are both unique and at the
same time participating in the community of the rest of creation.
Our presence in the rest of creation does not only mean that we
interact with creatures that are not human, but that there is also in
our nature something that shares in the nature of other beings.

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 UNIQUELY HUMAN
After the first two inclinations, Aquinas presents a
third reason which states that we have an inclination to
good according to the nature or our reason. With this,
we have a natural inclination to know the truth about
God and to live in society.

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 ETERNAL LAW
◦ The idea of a transcendent good prior to all being resurfaces
in Aquinas in the form o the good and loving God, who is
Himself the fullness of being good and of goodness
◦ God is that which essentially is and is essentially good.”
◦ God’s act, like an emanation of light, is the creation of
beings.
◦ Eternal law refers to what God wills for creation. All
things partake in eternal law, all beings are already
created by God in a certain way intended to return to
Him.
◦ However, while beings are good because they are created by
God, the goodness possessed by being remains imperfect.
 T IO N A L
RA ES
CREA T U R
The human being, as rational,
participates more fully and perfectly
in the law given the capacity for
reason. The unique imprint upon us,
upon our human nature by God, is the
capacity to think about what is good
and what is evil, and to choose and
direct ourselves appropriately.
HUMAN LAW
◦ Human Law refers to all instances
wherein human beings construct and
enforce laws in there communities. Given
the larger picture of Aquinas’s view, one
would have basis for assessing the
validity or invalidity of a human law:
whether or not it conforms to the natural
law.
MORAL OBJECT AND THE DOUBLE
EFFECT PRINCIPLE
 L O B J E C T
MO R A
•The intention inherent in the action that
one is actually performing, the moral
object specifies the human act and is
the purpose that the act accomplishes as
a means to the ultimate goal of life.

Although the moral object or finis operis

is the fundamental element of the morality
of the human act, there is also the
circumstance.

CIRCUMSTANCE- Is the part of the human act

that must be considered in order to evaluate the
total moral act. Can be considered in various
moral questions, thus, be might ask, ‘who’,
‘when’, ‘how much’ or ‘in what manner’.
 Double-effect Principle

 Aquinas designed a method known as

‘Principle of Double-Effect’.

 This principle is used in order to judge

the moral acceptability of the human
act that has two effects, one is good
and other is evil.
 Traditional Moral theology,
presents four conditions for the
double effect principle to be
applied:

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1. The action is good in itself or at

least in different
 2. The good effect must
come first before the evil
effect or a least
simultaneously.

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 3. The good effect must
be intended

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 4. There must be a
proportionately
grave reason for the
evil effect to happen
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